US Isolationism?

Should the US adopt an isolationist foreign policy?

  • Yes

    Votes: 12 57.1%

  • No

    Votes: 9 42.9%
  • Total voters
    21
Damien435

Damien435

Active member
Even though it would have disastrous consequences for the rest of the world, I think it is overdue. We've tried to make the world a better place, obviously we've failed, so let's call it a day, pack it up and go home. What do you say? It's been proven already that isolationism doesn't work, but apparently neither does taking an active role in world affairs. Let's give the world a nice big Christmas present this year, as well as our active duty service members, and bring every soldier home for the holidays and not send them back overseas. Obviously there will be a rather tumultuous period of time where..... tens of millions of people die. Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Kuwait, and Armenia will all cease to exist, but oh well.

What say you?
 
I agree completely. Screw the rest of the world, we can do it ourselves. And when the rest of the world falls, Id like to be the one to kick the dirt in their faces as they come crawling to kiss our feet.
 
not gonna happen. most of the products we buy are imported, not to mention oil that powers our homes, cars and manufacturing. sure we could produce some of this on our own, but tthe price would be very prohibitive.
 
We are well on our way to finding alternative energy sources...We could do without certain products, and the ones we do need/want...Well...Theres some job opportunities there.
 
I hate to mention this and will probably draw fire but isolationism cost us dearly during WWII. When forced to defend our country, the services were lacking in one thing that was vitally important, battle hardened troops. All the training in the world can't replace that kind of experience. We had to start from scratch designing and tooling up for airplanes, ships, tanks and all other kinds of ordinance. In today's small world, isolationism could mean the end of civilization as we know it.
 
Isolationalism ... a loaded gun.

:read: Any American who is in favor of isolationism hasn't learned a thing from history - isolationism has never worked in the past ... and ... it will NEVER work in the future.

We live in a global community and the ONLY thing isolationism can accomplish, is to cut us off from the world at a time when world affairs are at their most relevent to our well being and understanding between nations is at it's most important.

With the advent of world terrorism and nationalism, neither the United States (nor an other country), can afford the disconnect that isolationism causes in our dealings with other nations. Whether it is dealing with global terrorism, oil prices, availibility of other resources or the policing of our borders ... political policies between diverse nations is the grease that lubes the wheels of nationalism and economics. No longer can nations pretend that the world is their personal bread box that can be plundered at will - interaction and cooperation between nations is a must IF constant warfare is to be prevented.

-and-

Unless (or until), the nations of the world unite in their fight against terrorism because of religious bigotry or national hatreds, the imposition of isolationism would be the same thing as putting a loaded gun to your head and pulling the trigger.
 
Last edited:
My whole opening paragraph was tongue in cheek, I'm not really in favor of isolationism because I am not so much of a bastard that I would want so many people to die just to thumb my nose at the rest of the world, but really, what have we gotten out of our attempts to try and help the rest of the world? Nothing but more and more anti-American sentiment. It's bigger than just Iraq too.
 
I have to agree with Chief Bones that the global village will prevent isolationism. But what I hear is that there are only two options: isolationism or active intervention all over the world. What ever happened to diplomacy and aliances? Why is, according to some, an intervening military policy the opposite of isolationism? The rest of the world seem to can without, maybe it is worth a try?
 
I'm not for complete isolationism but I am for limited isolationism. We should pull out of the UN and other such groups. Should we pull out from world politics? Hell no!

We need to have a strong national defense.

1. Close our borders
2. Stop sending jobs overseas
3. Build up our military back to WWII/1980 standards
4. Screw the draft, bring in conscription
5. Rebuild our blue collar work force
6. Stop sending money overseas to Africa, that money never reaches the people only the dictators
7. Let the rest of the world know that we mean business and don't take crap
8. Screw what the liberals think or say. KILL EVERY FREAKING TERRORIST

We need to still be the world police but we need at the same time to police ourselves. We need to correct the dman problems here in our own borders before we send money out to Darfu.
 
Damien435 said:
Even though it would have disastrous consequences for the rest of the world, I think it is overdue. We've tried to make the world a better place, obviously we've failed, so let's call it a day, pack it up and go home. What do you say? It's been proven already that isolationism doesn't work, but apparently neither does taking an active role in world affairs. Let's give the world a nice big Christmas present this year, as well as our active duty service members, and bring every soldier home for the holidays and not send them back overseas. Obviously there will be a rather tumultuous period of time where..... tens of millions of people die. Israel, South Korea, Taiwan, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Kuwait, and Armenia will all cease to exist, but oh well.

What say you?
Click to expand...

Sorry mate, you forgot one little thing. Its called oil.
 
Lord Londonderry said:
Sorry mate, you forgot one little thing. Its called oil.
Click to expand...

This resource is already obsolete, we have the technology to replace it with much cleaner fuels, but oil is still too cheap, it's only a matter of time before the cost of maintaining the old infrastructure and the rising costs of fuel oil will combine to make it cheaper to use renewable resources as opposed to spending billions every day on oil.

BTW, I personally don't think the United States is being as active in world affairs as we should be, we sit around and let too much crap go unpunished and often times that crap can be found on our hands also, but when we actually do something it's viewed with negative opinions around the world. What's the point of trying to do anything at all when it just gets thrown back in our faces? I'm also in favor of a more powerful United Nations, but since that won't happen and half-measures don't work we might as well drastically cut back on our own contributions to the United Nations, which makes of 22% of the UN's total budget, which is actually down from 25% a couple years ago and 33% during the 80's/90's.
 
5.56X45mm said:
I'm not for complete isolationism but I am for limited isolationism. We should pull out of the UN and other such groups. Should we pull out from world politics? Hell no!

We need to have a strong national defense.

1. Close our borders
2. Stop sending jobs overseas
3. Build up our military back to WWII/1980 standards
4. Screw the draft, bring in conscription
5. Rebuild our blue collar work force
6. Stop sending money overseas to Africa, that money never reaches the people only the dictators
7. Let the rest of the world know that we mean business and don't take crap
8. Screw what the liberals think or say. KILL EVERY FREAKING TERRORIST

We need to still be the world police but we need at the same time to police ourselves. We need to correct the dman problems here in our own borders before we send money out to Darfu.
Click to expand...

1. Closing borders will disrupt trade therefore isolating America
2. Outsourcing is a decision made by private firms because they want to lower costs. If you want to impede their decisions, go ahead and lets see what will happen the next day.
3. Its already above what the WWII/1980 standards was. Military Expenditure is already at its top and climbing.
4. Forcefully dragging citizens into war is not the American Way. If you support this, then American has become the next Fascist regime.
5. This is the particular reason why a College Education is important.
6. Halt all aide to Africa? Africa has already favored China over the United States for economic aide.
7. Like.....losing the credibility about Human Rights and lying to the United Nations about the main reasons of entering into Iraq?
8. You support crushing political opposition and executing every terrorist suspects. There is no doubt that innocent people will be killed in this kind of process. It is more effective to prevent people from becoming terrorists than to kill every terrorist.

This list appears to be fascist by supporting strongly for militarism, crushing opposition and dissent (especially against liberials and communists), xenophobic by closing the borders entirely from immigration. If the United States follows this policy, you will never become an American citizen ever in your life.
 
With equality, the idea is to help the poorer and more poorly led third world countries up to the Western standards, not lower your standards to theirs.
 
Free Trade is what is killing this nation.
The US Constitution mandates Tariffs and Duties placed on Imports, as trade starts to hurt the US the Tariffs and Duties need to be jacked up.
There are nations that use slave labor, the USA cannot compete with such nations.

As for Oil for Power Plants, well the US needs more Nuclear Power Plants built, as for Oil in general, the US needs to work more closely with our neighbors in this part of the World, Canada has a whole bunch of Oil.

US companies that export jobs should be charged as if they were a Foreign company doing Business in the USA.

The US Government has an obligation to look out for the needs of this Nation, not to look out for the needs of any other nation on Earth, and if other nations do not wish to import our goods, well then so be it, we already take in more than we export.

As for Illegal Immigration, we are a Nation at War, if someone is in this nation illegally they should be treated as a Spy and or Saboteur, companies knowingly employing Illegals should be charged with Treason against the United States, even if it is proven that the illegals they hire are not Spies and or Saboteurs. Taxes pay for the US Military, if a US Company is going to hire Illegals to avoid paying Tax and or the Illegals they hire do not pay Tax then said Companies are aiding and abetting the enemy.
 
I think it would make sense for this country to be isolationist since we're fairly distant from most areas of the world that we have problems with, like the mideast. I think a policy in which we deal with countries on a regular basis but on normal issues rather than military ones would work out for us. Canada and Brazil basically go along those lines and no one has a problem with them in the eastern hemisphere.

We were isolationist before because it made sense, i think the reason we didn't go back to being isolationist after ww2 was because of the soviets and how we were worried about losing to communism. Talk about exit strategies, now that the cold war is over, how do you exit from the world stage?
 
Note, isolationism (just as it was pre-WWI and WWII) does not mean we stop all foreign trade, we just keep our troops at home and let the rest of the world take care of their own problems to the best of their abilities.

Now having said that, I still think that US isolationism would hurt the rest of the world far more than it would hurt the United States, trade would still continue (there's always a dictator somewhere willing to sell his soul for a couple American firearms and a copy of Rambo) but our troops would not be sent to qlook out for our interests, we would merely write the checks to whomever wins. And aide to Africa, Asia, South America and Eastern Europe? Forget about it, we have a huge problem with poverty here in America, according to some (none of whom are America mind you) members of these forums.
 
Free Trade is what is killing this nation.
The US Constitution mandates Tariffs and Duties placed on Imports, as trade starts to hurt the US the Tariffs and Duties need to be jacked up.
There are nations that use slave labor, the USA cannot compete with such nations.
Click to expand...

This is quite a quote from an American, I must say! Here I was thinking free trade was the answer to everything... The US can´t ignore the current economic blocks like the EU and the rising of China. MNC´s are stateless and have no patriottic feelings. They think in money, spenditure, etc. You can have all the blue collar workers you want, but a Chinese workers is four times as cheap... if not more! That is not slavery, just lack of a strong workers union. Something the US lacked too, some decades ago.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top