Mass shootings on a nearly daily basis, imprisoning journalists, highest incarceration rate in the world and extrajudicial executions don't happen in a sustainable society.
Life at the End of American Empire
51–60 of 88 posts
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
Because America has some of the best healthcare outcomes in the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_quality_o...
Being in the top 10-15 is great. But that ranking comes with a price tag roughly double the other highest ranking nations. Not to mention the financial ruin and bankruptcies experienced by some survivors, and the financial pressure experienced by virtually everyone that has to engage heavily with our healthcare system. And there are other metrics to consider. The US is 35th in life expectancy and falling farther behi…
I've heard before that it's a split distribution. The quality of healthcare & outcomes in the US is some of the worst in the world, if you are poor. It's some of the best in the world, if you are rich. Or so I've been told.
For example I was taught that a big part of why our maternal mortality is high, is because new mothers who are poor do not or cannot follow up with their doctor in the days after release from the hospital if something isn't right, e.g. when bleeding fresh blood instead of clotting. Visits to the doctor are expensive, and various barriers (such as language) may have prevented them from being educated on when to come back for help.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#53"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for mi…
I'd say the US's first total loss was the Civil War. The North didn't really win. 100 years of Klan terror should be enough proof, not to mention the continuing rule of the South by landowning oligarchs who keep the place a festering corrupt shithole.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#54Good read. America today looks like the crumpling world described by Ayn Rand in `Atlass Shrugged`. Ironically the reason of this downfall is the adoption of naive form of capitalism that Ayn Rand popularized.
america doesn’t have Laissez-faire capitalism.
In America, it's amazing if you're rich and a nightmare if you're poor. Decades of trickle-down Reaganomics and hyperindividualism lead to a dog-eat-dog society where nearly everyone is atomized, disconnected and unconcerned with anyone else... it's not so much a civilization as it is an insane asylum of people locked in together who don't want to know anyone else. It's as close to libertarianism without privatizing fire departments, but basically everything else is privatized (including numerous "private-public partnerships") to deleterious fallout (healthcare, prisons, education, military, roads, infrastructure and many more areas that allow perverse incentives and corruption to takeover public resources and commonwealth and monetize them). Lacking enforced legal protections is a disaster from a lack of government... less government isn't always a Good Thing, especially when political appointees are wolves guarding the henhouse.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#55American pride won't save this country from long-term trends. Before any meaningful change can be made, the "we're the best" attitude has to go. Sometime in the next 2 decades China is gonna put a man on Mars before the US, I can't wait to see the shocked faces
the Soviet Union got to space first and then what good did that do? I’ll be shocked when the American president sends her daughter to study in China, or when the British monarchy starts exiling to China.
America got great by sending the children of the elite to Holland for college.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#56A long list of poor arguments. "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Not even close. "The US war in Korea had an ambiguous result" 50M relatively prosperous South Koreans would beg to differ. "Vietnam was a clear defeat" Also not. 'Life expectancy' is a very poor measure of the healthcare system etc.. It goes on…
You're not presenting rebuttals for any of the arguments. You're just disagreeing. Could you offer explanations of how the war in Vietnam was not a clear defeat, or how a healthcare system could be measured in a better way than citizen life expectancy?
Though it isn't popular to notice, the US left South Vietnam in a decent military and political position analogous to South Korea. Congress later cut them off from aid guaranteeing they would fall, because ... I dunno Watergate or something. I guess you could argue that was a failure, but the military did its job as well as could be expected at the time.
I ain't gonna touch the health care thing.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#57A long list of poor arguments. "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades." Not even close. "The US war in Korea had an ambiguous result" 50M relatively prosperous South Koreans would beg to differ. "Vietnam was a clear defeat" Also not. 'Life expectancy' is a very poor measure of the healthcare system etc.. It goes on…
You're not presenting rebuttals for any of the arguments. You're just disagreeing. Could you offer explanations of how the war in Vietnam was not a clear defeat, or how a healthcare system could be measured in a better way than citizen life expectancy?
Why would it behove me to validate a position when the author clearly could not bother himself?
He offered no evidence for many of his claims, certainly nothing to support his line of reasoning that 'life expectancy is short ergo health care is bad'.
Every verse a canard.
These kinds of articles pop up every year or so in the New Yorker, NYT, The Atlantic, Foreign Policy - I have (we have) been reading them since I was a teenager.
But for your convenience:
1) 'life expectancy' is a function of violence (young people dying in violence pulls averages a lot), general health and lifestyle choices, and finally healthcare.
Americans are violent, and they have very poor diets, and are sedentary - this is the 'big differentiator' in health outcomes.
But the lie is worse, because the quality of healthcare in the United States (for those who have it) is actually very high - it's the best in the world. I've received mid-level healthcare services in four modern nations including the US, and it's clear the US is by far 'the best' system in most ways, obviously, except for cost, and coverage.
Whatever problem it is that you have, chances are almost 100% that you're better off in America than anywhere else - with the presumption you can afford it, of course, but most people can, just not all.
2) The author also misrepresented the nature of 'cost' in American healthcare. When healthcare is socialised, costs are limited and regulated, of course the government is going to ultimately 'spend less' per capita. In Canada, it's literally illegal to pay a doctor to provide you almost any service. If it were legal for citizens to buy health services, spending would increase dramatically.
And then of course is the completely dysfunctional insurance system - but it's been that way for quite a long time: 'expensive healthcare' is not a sign of 'American decline'. It's a perrenial sign of 'screwed up capitalism'.
3) This one is basically ridiculous: "America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades."
Literally the opposite is true: the English, French, Spaniards, Hapbsbourgs, Swedish, Russians, Chinese etc. - everyone of them had material military setbacks among their successes.
More specifically: North Korea invaded the South, and from 5000 miles away, the Americans were able to ultimately re-establish - and hold - the integrity of the South. South Korea, along with Japan, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong (all Anglo-American protectorates to one degree or another) are shinning examples of prosperity in Asia.
4) Vietnam is very poorly misunderstood no thanks to a lot of bad movies and misleading documentaries. The Americans, with some effort, were able to hold South Vietnam free from Communist overthrow. They pummelled the North into submission at great cost to human life. This was in the early 1970's long after the US withdrew the majority of its forces, and casualties had been reduced to a trickle compared to the 10's of thousands of dead in 1968. The war was essentially over.
Domestic policy, and a 'war wary' US public demanded withdrawal , even after establishing a fairly hard-won peace. After the US fully withdrew from Vietnam, the North regrouped, and then trounced the South. If America were to have left the relatively small number of troops in Vietnam - again with almost all conflict having ceased i.e. very few casualties - S. Vietnam might resemble, at least somewhat, the S. Korea of today.
This was not a 'failure' - it was 'folly'. Though it was probably a bad choice to invade, it was also a bad choice to fully withdraw.
Just as Americans were far too willing to invade Iraq (a mistake), Barack Obama's decision to withdraw when he did was also a mistake, driven at least to some extent by populism. Literally the day after US troops withdrew, Iraqi PM Malaki purged his government of Sunni rivals, causing a 'political civil war' which started to get violent, leaving the Sunni areas more afraid of Iraqi Government Troops (i.e. Shia) - and so the Sunni tribes allowed ... guess who (!?) to move in: ISIS! They literally felt they would be safer under the Iraqi branch of ISIS. Of course, with US troops gone, Iran was free to meddle directly in Iraqi affairs, which leads to 'Sulimani in Iraq'.
Were Obama to have left only 15K soldiers, sitting safely 'behind the wire', not doing much, he could have maintained leverage over the Iraqi government and required them to compromise. Instead - it fell apart.
ISIS would have remained a Syrian phenom, and not entered Iraq. Iran would have had a much harder time in Iraq than the free hand they have today.
But this 'debacle in Iraq' is not remotely a sign of 'waning American power'. The opposite! America in 2003 rolled through Iraq in three weeks. It was one of the most astonishing and spectacular victories in world history. Never has a 'world power' been able to walk across the planet, steamroll over a major nation and obliterate a large military force so quickly. That the Americans were not able to quell subsequent local violence and insurgencies isn't a failure, I don't think anyone could have done this.
American actions in Iraq demonstrated folly, not American incapacity.
With drone capabilities, a global presence, it's pretty incredible (for better or worse) what American power can do in 2020.
5) 'Education'. Again, very misrepresentative.
The US is ahead of most of the world in terms of the % of it's population it sends to College. [1] Germany has 'free Uni' but only about 25% get to go. In the US, it's a lot more. The US still has most of the best Universities, that's not changing.
There is ample data to demonstrate that most test scores in the US are generally going up over time, with some bumps here and there [2].
The gap between White and Latino/African American has also been shrinking over time.
6) Inequality. Though inequality is an increasing problem in some ways, it's not an American phenom. Europe generally has the same problem, and it's all offset by the fact that overall, people's lives are improving and certain kinds of toxic inequality - like racial divisions, are narrowing. The gap between White/Black/Latino incomes is also narrowing, as it is in education.
...
If the author would bother to look at some data, he might be able to characterises the issue of 'American decline' a little better by putting it in context: even as the American economy grows at a reasonable pace, 'the rest of the world' is coming along quickly.
America is not 'losing', rather, the rest of the world is just starting to 'win'.
This is the 'big picture' chart that sets the tone for what is happening [3].
And more generally [4]
There are vast quantities of 'new economic citizens' in this world, and a couple billion coming out of deep poverty.
This, and in particular the rise of China obviously that is really the dynamic that changes America's context vis-a-vis the rest of the world.
America has many problems, but it's not 'in decline', far from it.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_tertiary_...
[2] https://www.brookings.edu/research/2018-brown-center-report-...
[3] https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikepatton/2016/02/29/u-s-role-...
[4]https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPSH@WEO/OEMDC/ADVE...
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#58American pride won't save this country from long-term trends. Before any meaningful change can be made, the "we're the best" attitude has to go. Sometime in the next 2 decades China is gonna put a man on Mars before the US, I can't wait to see the shocked faces
Would you be disappointed if there are no shocked faces? Anti-intellectualism is a disturbing modern trend.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#59I share frustration with many of the issues that the author discusses. But I disagree completely with his thesis. I am profoundly optimistic about our future.
The individual liberties provided by the Constitution empower each of us to speak our minds, share ideas, and start/join movements. We have the power to elect our representatives, and have an independent judiciary to push back against corruption. The average quality of life here is higher than in almost any other place on Earth, and no other country can compare to ours in terms of diversity of thought, culture, and ethnicity.
Look, I understand that there are real, serious problems with our institutions and our economy. The beautiful thing about the United States though is that our political system allows for solutions to be discussed, proposed, and adopted. The biggest threats I see to the United States are not unique to us: climate change, nuclear nonproliferation, and global unrest/poverty.
Re: Life at the End of American Empire
#60"Any single defeat can be attributed to particular and ad hoc circumstances, but America is unique among the world’s dominant powers of the past 500 years in its repeated failure to achieve military objectives over decades. Those failures are even more extraordinary because they occurred in the absence of a rising military rival and as America’s ability and willingness to produce and pay for the weapons needed for mi…
> After WWII, the US had confidence in its own system of government, and imposed it on Germany and Japan with a sizable occupation force.
Neither Germany or Japan's governments are modeled after the US system of government.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parliamentary_system#/media/Fi...
We helped impose a system of government in both nations after ww2, but neither is our system of government. They have a lot of similar parts, but it isn't our system of government.
> It worked.
The marshall plan worked in germany. As for japan, they didn't receive any marshall plan. It wasn't until the korean war that "it worked" for japan. But both germany and japan were major modern powers before ww2 so they would have reverted back to it if left to their devises. The US didn't create the success in germany or japan, the germans and japanese did that themselves.
> The US underfunded the post-war period of round one in Afghanistan, after kicking the Soviets out. In Iraq, the occupation was botched. Paul Bremer is generally blamed for this.[1]
No amount of funding was going to save afghanistan. The same goes for iraq. You need a nationalistic centralized power to stabilize and grow a nation - especially a war torn one. Something Germany and Japan had and aghanistan and iraq don't.
> Blowing the aftermath of a war leads to big trouble. See: WWI.
Aghanistan and Iraq wars are nothing like WW1. Nearly 40 million people died in WW1 and it involved all the great powers at the time. WW1 and WW2 are fairly unique went it comes to wars. Maybe vietnam or algeria are better comparisons, but even then, aghanistan and iraq are not even vietnam or algeria.
For the US, the iraq and afghan wars were more skirmishes than wars. The military casualties are 4,497 and 2,216 respectively.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_military_casualt...
To put this into perspective, quite a few cities in the US experienced more gun related homicides than the US military did in iraq or afghanistan. So nothing like ww1.