On 5/18/2025 at 10:57 AM, human_murda said:
US doesn’t stay away from other countries (with the largest number of foreign interventions: the US has intervened in 81 foreign elections and has done 400 military interventions in the past few decades), lost half the wars it started and as of 2025, isn’t that powerful relatively (especially compared to China).
Wait - lost half the wars we started? Where are you getting that?
People often cite Iraq as a lost war, since we failed to convince the Iraqis that they should embrace Western values. And we did fail to convince them of that, true enough, but that’s not exactly a military operation. Where is Saddam Houssein today?
People often also cite Vietnam as a lost war, and we did retreat from Vietnam. Did we retreat because there were no American soldiers left to fight, or because the enemy had crippled our ability to deliver equipment and munitions to the front lines? We left Vietnam because we got bored of farming Chinese peasants for XP. Mao’s philosophy was that he could throw more Chinese peasants at us than we had bullets to fire at them, which was absolutely dead wrong - he had more Chinese peasants than we had the desire to continue mowing them down.
And that’s basically what the Chinese military still has. Plenty of bodies. Granted, they’re getting pretty close to the point of being able to challenge the American military, but mostly because there are so damn many of the Chinese (and even then they are not there yet; if they were then Taiwan would not still be a country).
Even if we were to count Iraq and Vietnam as losses (which were not military losses) I’m still at a loss for how you get to half the wars we’ve started.
On 5/18/2025 at 11:14 AM, human_murda said:
Is Objectivism a philosophy of American nationalism?
Quote
There is a special reason why you, the future leaders of the United States Army, need to be philosophically armed today. You are the target of a special attack by the Kantian-Hegelian-collectivist establishment that dominates our cultural institutions at present. You are the army of the last semi-free country left on earth, yet you are accused of being a tool of imperialism — and “imperialism” is the name given to the foreign policy of this country, which has never engaged in military conquest and has never profited from the two world wars, which she did not initiate, but entered and won. (It was, incidentally, a foolishly overgenerous policy, which made this country waste her wealth on helping both her allies and her former enemies.) Something called “the military-industrial complex” — which is a myth or worse — is being blamed for all of this country’s troubles. Bloody college hoodlums scream demands that R.O.T.C. units be banned from college campuses. Our defense budget is being attacked, denounced and undercut by people who claim that financial priority should be given to ecological rose gardens and to classes in esthetic self-expression for the residents of the slums.
Some of you may be bewildered by this campaign and may be wondering, in good faith, what errors you committed to bring it about. If so, it is urgently important for you to understand the nature of the enemy. You are attacked, not for any errors or flaws, but for your virtues. You are denounced, not for any weaknesses, but for your strength and your competence. You are penalized for being the protectors of the United States. On a lower level of the same issue, a similar kind of campaign is conducted against the police force. Those who seek to destroy this country, seek to disarm it — intellectually and physically. But it is not a mere political issue; politics is not the cause, but the last consequence of philosophical ideas. It is not a communist conspiracy, though some communists may be involved — as maggots cashing in on a disaster they had no power to originate. The motive of the destroyers is not love for communism, but hatred for America. Why hatred? Because America is the living refutation of a Kantian universe.
…
In conclusion, allow me to speak in personal terms. This evening means a great deal to me. I feel deeply honored by the opportunity to address you. I can say — not as a patriotic bromide, but with full knowledge of the necessary metaphysical, epistemological, ethical, political and esthetic roots — that the United States of America is the greatest, the noblest and, in its original founding principles, the only moral country in the history of the world. There is a kind of quiet radiance associated in my mind with the name West Point — because you have preserved the spirit of those original founding principles and you are their symbol. There were contradictions and omissions in those principles, and there may be in yours — but I am speaking of the essentials. There may be individuals in your history who did not live up to your highest standards — as there are in every institution — since no institutions and no social system can guarantee the automatic perfection of all its members; this depends on an individual’s free will. I am speaking of your standards. You have preserved three qualities of character which were typical at the time of America’s birth, but are virtually nonexistent today: earnestness — dedication — a sense of honor. Honor is self-esteem made visible in action.
-Ayn Rand at West Point, italics and bold are mine
On 5/18/2025 at 8:46 AM, human_murda said:
As I’ve stated previously, the most anti-Western state in India leads on most metrics. So this is categorically untrue.
Oh, yes. And as an American (Ayn Rand’s favorite country, which was founded on some pretty extreme anti-British sentiment) I’m glad to live in the most anti-Western state in the world.
On 5/18/2025 at 11:12 AM, stansfield123 said:
I didn’t realize you’re an Indian nationalist, and anti-American. Had I known, I wouldn’t have started this conversation. It’s a waste of time, obviously.
He also attributes whatever success India has gained in the 20th century to the Communists and every bad thing that has ever happened before to the West. But it is interesting to hear the perspective that’s holding India in the third century.