O-Trap;1856608 wrote:Certainly, but they aren't necessarily defined by them.

Do you hold the current nation of France as being prone to delusions of grandeur regarding world domination because of Napoleon Bonaparte? Should we be afraid that the French are going to try to rule the world?

Stop judging current Germans by the actions of their ancestors. That's racist, and it has no place in this discussion.

Finally, again, what is the defense for believing that self-reliance naturally begets military aggression?

Seriously, give me a time frame and a body count. I'll take the bet.

isadore;1856620 wrote:Now Trump is telling France, along with Germany and other nations be prepared to go it on your own.

isadore;1856452 wrote:social history+economic history + political history = results.
For example Russia returning again and again to authoritarian state
under the Czars, under the Communists and under Putin.

CenterBHSFan;1856468 wrote:I would argue that the EU was doomed to fail anyway. People that were not elected ran the show there, it shouldn't be surprising in the least.

BoatShoes;1856646 wrote:Funny enough - this sort of reasoning is the same that the Trump-Right (and perhaps much of the conventional conservative movement) believes with regard to the Muslim world.

iclfan2;1856642 wrote:Good. They should be doing on their own. Being scared of Germany because of their history is stupid.

isadore;1856620 wrote:Gosh a ruddies, nations have histories.
That France has suffered from delusions of grandeur through its modern history is a given from Louis XIV, Napoleon, Napoleon III to Charles DeGaulle. And in most of those cases it has led to wars that have effected Europe and in some cases the World as France established a colonial empire. When the United States established NATO. We began to put a rein on those delusions. Now Trump is telling France, along with Germany and other nations be prepared to go it on your own.
German has a history. It was established as an independent unfettered state in 1871 based on a series of wars lead by Bismarck against Denmark, Austria and France, stacking the bodies. That free unfettered state then twice plunged Europe in massive bloodbaths twice. But Europe has been at peace since NATO was founded and Germany became a US client state.
Russia throughout its modern existence has been an expansionary, authoritarian state. It was so under the Czars, under the Communists and after a very brief period a failed democracy under Putin. NATO put limits on that expansionism. Now our idiot President undermines it and ideologues like you support him.

isadore;1856660 wrote:gosh a ruddies, yeh right they have such a history of bringing peace and stability on their own.

O-Trap;1856715 wrote:I'll say it again:

1910-1945 Germany != 2017 Germany

Same with other nations.

Stop using historical villains to justify your racism.

O-Trap;1856713 wrote:Your expressed notion here is that it is the job of the US, by way of its involvement with NATO, to police other nations and keep them in check.

And people wonder why I say that Republicans and Democrats are more similar than they'd like their constituency to believe.

In a sense, however, what you suggest is even more extreme than Republicans in terms of policing the world and a requirement for more and more funds to be spent on the military. At least the Republicans are happy to leave some nations alone.

And again, your suggestion that I support him is an example of your failure in reading comprehension. I would say to go take a class on it, but I'm not sure they teach that in the educational system anymore.

isadore;1856718 wrote:gosh a ruddies, its an old chestnut but applicable: "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it." George Santayana
Not about villain but history and geography.

O-Trap;1856722 wrote:It would be about the geography if the mountains or lakes were the perceived threat.

You're shrouding your racism by trying to make it about geography, but it's not. It's the people and leaders ... identities that transcend geography ... of the respective countries that you're insisting should not be allowed to act as sovereign.

The old chestnut is a means of learning from your own past mistakes. It's not license to police others from their own, and it's certainly not license to do so along racial lines.

Seriously, you've devolved into textbook racism. It would behoove you to stop digging.

isadore;1856727 wrote:Gosh a ruddies geography obviously plays a role. Germany’s central location in Europe plays a role. The extensive size of the Russian nation plays a role. Of course Santana aphorism is about learning from past mistakes. And we learned from our past mistakes in dealing with both Imperial and Nazi Germany, Imperial and Communist Russia and all of Europe. And to prevent a recurrance we wisely established the NATO alliance. And that alliance system prevented German and Russian expansionism. And gave western Europe and the North Atlantic 70 plus years of peace and growth. And now you and Donald want to destroy that system.

O-Trap;1856728 wrote:Being central in Europe doesn't bear any sociologically verifiable or scientitically verifiable connection to authoritarianism or propensity to military expansion. You're using geography to support your racism.

The fact that you use the Santayana quote to try to argue that the mistake was that we weren't already policing sovereign states simply because they're German/Russian/etc. doesn't make it any less racist.

No people group needs policed just because they're that people group. That's textbook racism.

If you're going to support racism, at least own it.

isadore;1856732 wrote:Red herring in hopes of justifying racism

O-Trap;1856739 wrote:The history of a region doesn't define the people of that region without any influence of time. As such, while my knowledge of European history is fine, it doesn't necessarily matter, because a nation's history isn't necessarily predictive if the Sitz im Leben (how's that for German) isn't also the same. Since we have no reason to believe that there is a power-hungry leader intent on world domination coming out of Germany, any suggestion that Germany is poised to repeat its spread from the '30s and '40s is absurd.

However, it makes sense that a racist would use so many logical leaps to try to justify his own racism.

While we're at it, "withdrawing" isn't "overthrowing." Just another attempt at justifying racism.

isadore;1856741 wrote:Gosh a ruddies, really, a power hungry leader could not come out of nowhere. in the 1928 German election Nazi Party got 2.6% of the vote. In 1930 18.3%. By 1932 they had 38% of the vote and by far the largest party in the Reichstag. And the situation was set up for Hitler to become Chancellor at the beginning of 1933. I thought you said you know European History?
Now you have a situation where our President with your support is threatening to withdraw the one necessary member from the NATO alliance. And at urging a trade war with Germany.
Donald Trump-
“The Germans are bad, very bad. See the millions of cars they are selling in the US. Terrible.”

O-Trap;1856742 wrote:So, I guess your policy is to treat those countries like they already have a power-hungry leader just in case one actually comes about. All because they're German/Russian (I assume you'd lump Italians in here, too, since we can point to both the Roman Empire and Mussolini's Italy as their "history").

And we're the bad guys if we don't treat sovereign countries as if they should be subject to the US.

It's ironic, I think, that you support the US involvement in an entity that is designed to rule the world, and you use nations that might some day have leaders who want to rule the world as your justification.

The hypocrisy would be surprising, but given how clearly you've shown your racist tendencies, I'm not surprised.

isadore;1856745 wrote:Gosh a ruddies, my policy is to be aware of history and geography of other nations, you should try it. Donald is a bad guy for infinite number of reasons. And you join him in badness in his effort to undermine an alliance that has kept the western world at peace for over 7 decades. And gosh right now Germany wants to stay in the alliance, but you and Donald want to pull it down and start a trade war with them.
NATO does not rule the world and was never meant to. I don’t notice it having a lot of say over what India and China do. Nor attempting to. It has done an excellent job of giving Europe peace and prosperity. But you and Donald want to kill it.

CenterBHSFan;1856743 wrote:shitlord
A lord of shitposting. An internet troll who identifies as a person who posts allegedly nonsensical, meaningless, random, time-wasting and sometimes sexually explicit words, pictures and gifs/videos (i.e., "shitposts") on social media.

Often these posts are not "nonsensical," "meaningless" or "random," but rather are abusive, racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQA and bigoted in other ways. The shitlord hides behind a mask of gleeful anarchy and random neutrality, when in fact he (and a shitlord, as the name implies, is usually -- though not always -- a "he") engages in the usual hate-spewing, bigotry, harassment and abuse of other kinds of trolls.

A lot of shitposts focus on the dodgier aspects of video-games and anime. There's a large overlap between self-described shitlords and Gamergaters.

The shitlord identity is a defensive posture, adopted after someone has accused the troll of being a troll. The troll's response is, "I'm not a troll! I'm just a shitlord -- the lord of random, anarchic, offensive, gonzo and therefore mildly amusing posts! It's all harmless. Just a bit of fun."

Since they're looking for attention via "getting a rise" out of their mark, when encountering a shitlord, it's best to use the time-honored method of dealing with trolls: DNFTT.

CenterBHSFan;1856743 wrote:shitlord
A lord of shitposting. An internet troll who identifies as a person who posts allegedly nonsensical, meaningless, random, time-wasting and sometimes sexually explicit words, pictures and gifs/videos (i.e., "shitposts") on social media.

Often these posts are not "nonsensical," "meaningless" or "random," but rather are abusive, racist, misogynist, anti-LGBTQA and bigoted in other ways. The shitlord hides behind a mask of gleeful anarchy and random neutrality, when in fact he (and a shitlord, as the name implies, is usually -- though not always -- a "he") engages in the usual hate-spewing, bigotry, harassment and abuse of other kinds of trolls.

A lot of shitposts focus on the dodgier aspects of video-games and anime. There's a large overlap between self-described shitlords and Gamergaters.

The shitlord identity is a defensive posture, adopted after someone has accused the troll of being a troll. The troll's response is, "I'm not a troll! I'm just a shitlord -- the lord of random, anarchic, offensive, gonzo and therefore mildly amusing posts! It's all harmless. Just a bit of fun."

Since they're looking for attention via "getting a rise" out of their mark, when encountering a shitlord, it's best to use the time-honored method of dealing with trolls: DNFTT.

O-Trap;1856751 wrote:Being aware of history isn't the same thing as policing people today who had no part in it because of it. I know you hate this, but there's no good reason for treating someone as less than autonomous because of something that someone else did in a different era, just because the two were from the same country.

NATO does attempt to rule the world much in the same way that the Persian Empire, the Greek Empire, and the early Roman Empire did. The three were largely hands-off, and much of your life as a subservient country was unchanged. However, if you actually crossed them, they did flex their authoritarian muscles and ensured that they always behaved as though they had the authority to do so. As such, they're not going to do a lot to India or China. The two are pretty much playing by their rules. A parent doesn't scold or discipline a child if the child is obedient.

The problem is that this isn't a parent-child relationship.

I've not said anything about wanting a trade war. You've assumed that yourself. Most of my point has been that you're showing yourself to be an overt racist by claiming that a nations history is grounds for treating its current citizenry as though that citizenry is rightly judged by its ancestors' history on the sole basis of nationality.

That is racism, pure and simple.

The least you can do is own your blatant racism.

isadore;1856763 wrote:Gosh a ruddies individuals have histories and if you don’t consider those histories when dealing with them, you can have major problems. Nations have histories in part effected by their geography. Each country in the world has its own history. Not considering that history is a formula for disaster.
NATO does not attempt to rule the world. Its function is to protect the nations in the alliance. And that is what it has done successfully. Are you kidding China is playing by our rules, China’s actions in the South China sea make a joke of your claim. Or India and Pakistan in Kashmir. All based on their histories which you choose to ignore.
You have allied yourself with Trump’s efforts to undermine our alliances. Attacking Germany is part of it to drive them out.