On 6/13/2025 at 9:07 AM, human_murda said:
You cannot have redistributive policies without government spending. There’s no contradiction.
That’s not what I mean and now it seems like you’re being obtuse.
On 5/30/2025 at 7:26 AM, stansfield123 said:
Pax Americana is, first and foremost, peace through US alliances. It’s not a military strategy, it’s a diplomatic strategy. It encourages peace by projecting non-military strength, and by proving military might but also showing restraint when it comes to its use. Makes no difference how powerful a superpower is: if it is a warmongering empire, it will never achieve peace. There will always be someone to fight. It’s through restraint that the US achieved peace. By choosing not to go to war in 99% of situations where that would’ve been an option.
So how have you been lied to? Trump is negotiating from strength, and is in talks with almost every country on Earth to build or reshape alliances that work in America’s favor. Very involved with India, hardening the US attitude towards China in a manner that’s clearly causing them to re-evaluate their standing and their geo-political goals (presumably helped them realize that war with any US aligned neighbor would be disastrous even if the US doesn’t join that war directly), encouraging NATO countries to beef up their military spending, punishing European allies for undermining US strategy (by issuing arrest warrants against the elected leaders of Israel, for instance), etc.
Most notably, he strengthened the relationship with US friendly Arab nations, after Obama and Biden jeopardized them by encouraging revolution, issuing threats against their rule and sovereignty, and generally hijacking US diplomatic and economic power to push thier naive and altruistic ideology (or cheap populism, hard to tell why Biden declared that MBS should no longer be in charge of Saudi Arabia, for example) rather than following the strategy called Pax Americana.
He also gave Israel a free hand in dealing with Gaza. Which is all the US can or should do. Israel is fully capable of ensuring its own security, they don’t need (or want) the US to get involved.
That leaves Iran. We’ll see how Trump handles Iran for the next 4 years, but the prevailing belief, among Iran experts, is that the Ayatollah just needs a little push to fall. Full blown war is likely not needed. In fact, direct US military action might not be needed at all, sanctions and diplomacy (encouraging regional allies to act, sponsoring opposition forces) is likely to get the job done.
Also: the US has learned, the hard way, that starting big wars tends to end up costing way too much. Way more than it’s worth. So it’s very unlikely that Trump will start such a war in Iran. Hopefully he doesn’t. As for the notion of the mass destruction of Iranian cities, or, worse, the use of nukes: that’s not worth discussing at all, because those are not options available to the US government. The United States is a democratic nation. Its options are limited by the will of its people. Clearly, those two ideas are off the table.
https://forum.objectivismonline.com/index.php?/topic/47431-an-end-to-iran/