Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes to give President Obama the power to launch

[aowen]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

You seem upset.

I'm going to take a moment here to laugh at the names you just dropped. Thanks for running me through the biggest names in political philosophy. Yeah man, I should totally read Machiavelli, Hagel [sic], Marx, and Morgenthau. Where'd you hear about them!? I'm still working on The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Great Gatsby, but they're up next! I just heard of this new guy you should totally check out -- Faulkner, I think it was? That guy's a genius! He's going places.

And yeah, unfortunately, my stupid point is true. It's clearly the guiding policy of US foreign policy, and US foreign policy has pretty much shaped the world for the past 65 years. Dang.

And that last statement there, oh paragon of political knowledge, is literally the most famous quote from Thucydides' Melian dialogue. Seeing as how Thucydides is generally regarded as the father of political realism, maybe you should give him a spin.

And for the 6th or 7th time, this isn't a moral opinion. I'm not endorsing the morality of it; I'm commenting on its veracity.

Well first, if you had read any of them, I assume you wouldn't sound so ignorant of the theory. If your only goal is to reconcile US FP with realism, that's not too hard. I think it's a pretty pointless thing to do, because everyone agrees US FP is realist. If that's your argument, you've just vomited all over what could be a good debate. The point that carries more salience is whether it is the right choice for foreign policy, and if it allows for a full understanding of the dynamics of the international sphere. Answer: No, it doesn't.

I have given all realists a spin, Thucydides included, that's how I know I disagree with what they posit. However, while Thucydides is good foundational reading, it is also severely dated and unable to address many of the contemporary issues. I like how you completely ignored all of the people I mentioned that are contemporary IR theorists and chose to defer to ones everyone should have read to engage in a debate about IR, but you clearly didn't. On top of that, you clearly haven't read other theories, otherwise you'd know how they differ, and incorporate realism into new theories attempting to better explain and understand IR. Read Ethics in International Relations by Mervyn Frost, or pretty much any essay by Habermas, and you'd realize how far the scope goes outside of realism and shut the fuck up, but I somehow don't think you will.

[aowen]

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

That's because Marxism can't be implemented in its pure form.

Yes, because people like you exist that don't understand cooperation or the value of other's contributions, you just understand rational self-interest. Das Kapital is one of the best books I have ever read, and after reading it I realized how little people know about what he actually said and wrote. It stands a lot of shit on its head, and it's nearly 100% accurate. Man's a genius hands down. The way in which he describes how labor creates value (capital), workers are exploited, and capital then creates itself are all striking.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by aowen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Well first, if you had read any of them, I assume you wouldn't sound so ignorant of the theory. If your only goal is to reconcile US FP with realism, that's not too hard. I think it's a pretty pointless thing to do, because everyone agrees US FP is realist. If that's your argument, you've just vomited all over what could be a good debate. The point that carries more salience is whether it is the right choice for foreign policy, and if it allows for a full understanding of the dynamics of the international sphere. Answer: No, it doesn't.

I have given all realists a spin, Thucydides included, that's how I know I disagree with what they posit. However, while Thucydides is good foundational reading, it is also severely dated and unable to address many of the contemporary issues. I like how you completely ignored all of the people I mentioned that are contemporary IR theorists and chose to defer to ones everyone should have read to engage in a debate about IR, but you clearly didn't. On top of that, you clearly haven't read other theories, otherwise you'd know how they differ, and incorporate realism into new theories attempting to better explain and understand IR. Read Ethics in International Relations by Mervyn Frost, or pretty much any essay by Habermas, and you'd realize how far the scope goes outside of realism and shut the fuck up, but I somehow don't think you will.

Dude, how do you get off telling me to read more IR theory when a) you just agreed with the entirety of my argument in this conversation, b) you didn't recognize probably the most well-known quote in all of IR theory (and in fact called me a "dolt" when you thought it was my personal opinion), and c) you're continuing to call for an inspection of more modern interpretations of realism when it's wholly irrelevant to the entire point in question (which we apparently agree on).

This discussion was about US policy, not what US policy should be. You are admitting that US policy is realist then lambasting me for saying that US policy is realist. Homeboy, I'm not authoring US foreign policy. The fact that the US operates with a realist view of IR wasn't my call. I'm taking it as it stands and evaluating it based on the rules of the game they're playing. If you want to judge US FP through a constructivist lens, that's phenomenal. More power to you. There are a lot of things the US could learn from constructivism. But that's not the lay of the land right now, and so long as you're criticizing US FP on the basis of constructivist views, you're criticizing it based on goals they're not trying to achieve. You might think reconciliation with Iran would be a better idea, and you might even be right. But that's not what the US is doing right now, so theory yields to practice pretty damn quickly.

So long as the US takes a realist approach to their international relations, I'm going to go ahead and continue to evaluate their FP with that understanding. When they're working toward zero-sum power grabs in the Middle East, I'm not going to bother talking about whether that's a justified goal. I'm just going to evaluate whether or not their policy is going to be effective in bringing about their desired ends, and whether or not their decisions fit in line with their overarching goals.

If you want to talk about how the US should operate, good. Go for it. That's a way more theoretical discussion than I was having. If you think it's more interesting, have it. I don't. US FP has been essentially realist for 60 years now. I'll talk about a shift when there's even the slightest indication that FP is shifting.

[Daldolma]

Originally Posted by aowen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Yes, because people like you exist that don't understand cooperation or the value of other's contributions, you just understand rational self-interest. Das Kapital is one of the best books I have ever read, and after reading it I realized how little people know about what he actually said and wrote. It stands a lot of shit on its head, and it's nearly 100% accurate. Man's a genius hands down. The way in which he describes how labor creates value (capital), workers are exploited, and capital then creates itself are all striking.

Correct on all counts.

And you can complain about the notion of rational self-interest all you want, but at some point, you should stop to acknowledge that it's the driving motivation for, say, 99% of the planet.

Marx was a genius, though.

[aowen]

Most discussions are about what ought to be done, such as should we bomb Syria. I think you were the one flying solo on simply affirming that the U.S. realist. That's not even something to talk about, unless you problematize the realist policies, whether or not practice actually fits realist understandings, the efficacy of policies, and by implication realism itself, which is what I have been doing. Once again you have obfuscated the important elements of the argument with bullshit, and fail to realize that theory is not yielding to practice, practice is actually disproving the ability of the US to even implement realist policies. Our policies are not zero-sum power grabs which is why we justify it as mutually beneficial. In fact, you could say the US believes its policies to be realist, but they in fact conform more closely to other models. Launching an investigation with different lenses yields far more interesting and accurate results.

Your entire argument has not been about realism though, the realism discussion emerged from your advocacy of US support for Israel. You were justifying US support for Israel; what the US OUGHT to do, so clearly your goal was not limited to simply demonstrating that the support is realist. In fact, you could say that our support for Israel, our war in Iraq, etc are not realist policies at all, and are not in our self interest and are wrought with moral imperatives. For instance, human rights and foreign aid are not within the framework of realism unless they are in our interest to do so, which is often not the case as our economic and military power are not derived from feeding starving Africans, or aiding Syria, a worthless economy and unimportant enemy/ally (as you stated earlier). This would mean US foreign policy is not realist at all times, which is why it is important to discuss what practices actually fit the frameworks of what theories. Without doing that, you will not understand why and how things happen, so if you want to stick with realist interpretations, you will lack a fundamental understanding of why things happen and what the policies actually reflect, the entire point of reading other theories.

Originally Posted by Daldolma [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Dude, how do you get off telling me to read more IR theory when a) you just agreed with the entirety of my argument in this conversation, b) you didn't recognize probably the most well-known quote in all of IR theory (and in fact called me a "dolt" when you thought it was my personal opinion), and c) you're continuing to call for an inspection of more modern interpretations of realism when it's wholly irrelevant to the entire point in question (which we apparently agree on).

This discussion was about US policy, not what US policy should be. You are admitting that US policy is realist then lambasting me for saying that US policy is realist. Homeboy, I'm not authoring US foreign policy. The fact that the US operates with a realist view of IR wasn't my call. I'm taking it as it stands and evaluating it based on the rules of the game they're playing. If you want to judge US FP through a constructivist lens, that's phenomenal. More power to you. There are a lot of things the US could learn from constructivism. But that's not the lay of the land right now, and so long as you're criticizing US FP on the basis of constructivist views, you're criticizing it based on goals they're not trying to achieve. You might think reconciliation with Iran would be a better idea, and you might even be right. But that's not what the US is doing right now, so theory yields to practice pretty damn quickly.

So long as the US takes a realist approach to their international relations, I'm going to go ahead and continue to evaluate their FP with that understanding. When they're working toward zero-sum power grabs in the Middle East, I'm not going to bother talking about whether that's a justified goal. I'm just going to evaluate whether or not their policy is going to be effective in bringing about their desired ends, and whether or not their decisions fit in line with their overarching goals.

If you want to talk about how the US should operate, good. Go for it. That's a way more theoretical discussion than I was having. If you think it's more interesting, have it. I don't. US FP has been essentially realist for 60 years now. I'll talk about a shift when there's even the slightest indication that FP is shifting.

[Kagatob]

^ just suck each other's dicks already.

[aowen]

Originally Posted by Kagatob [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

^ just suck each other's dicks already.

Did you take a break from anime just to say that?

[Barkingturtle]

Originally Posted by aowen [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Did you take a break from anime just to say that?

Pretty sure he has two monitors.

[aowen]

Originally Posted by Barkingturtle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pretty sure he has two monitors.

But of course!

[Kagatob]

Originally Posted by Barkingturtle [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]

Pretty sure he has two monitors.

5 at work but I'm posting from my smartphone.