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I just got to the point of the 1919: Six Months That Changed the World where it's talking about the fight in the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and I'm afraid I just don't understand at all. They never ratified it, they never joined the League of Nations, and tidbits of what I picked up from D&D indicates that the US is not party to a LOT of UN resolutions and treaties. What makes the US so dissimilar from the rest of the world in this particular governmental process?
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Mar 18, 2014 16:53
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just got to the point of the 1919: Six Months That Changed the World where it's talking about the fight in the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and I'm afraid I just don't understand at all. They never ratified it, they never joined the League of Nations, and tidbits of what I picked up from D&D indicates that the US is not party to a LOT of UN resolutions and treaties. What makes the US so dissimilar from the rest of the world in this particular governmental process? For the same reasons that the U.S. refuses to switch to the metric system. We'll do things OUR way and nobody else can tell us it's wrong.
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Mar 18, 2014 17:01
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ToxicSlurpee posted:For the same reasons that the U.S. refuses to switch to the metric system. We'll do things OUR way and nobody else can tell us it's wrong. Don't forget that the US was incredibly isolationist and a lot of people were opposed to US involvement in WWI. As for later things like the UN its a mixture of the US recognizing that things like the UN fill an important role but having the military capacity to constantly tell lesser countries to gently caress off*. *Especially when it comes to things like war crimes because have you seen our presidents
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Mar 18, 2014 17:07
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We don't need no effeminate europeans telling us how to live and how to fight our wars.
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Mar 18, 2014 17:15
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just got to the point of the 1919: Six Months That Changed the World where it's talking about the fight in the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and I'm afraid I just don't understand at all. They never ratified it, they never joined the League of Nations, and tidbits of what I picked up from D&D indicates that the US is not party to a LOT of UN resolutions and treaties. What makes the US so dissimilar from the rest of the world in this particular governmental process? Same as any superpower really, we hate to have our hands tied when it comes to military matters. The feel good treaties get killed because the idiots who hate the UN treaty on child rights because they're child beaters or Agenda 21 bullshit.
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Mar 18, 2014 17:21
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Okay, I think I get it. I just thought there was a particular system (the states or something) in the US government that made it more resistant to such arrangements compared to other democracies.
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Mar 18, 2014 19:42
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gradenko_2000 posted:Okay, I think I get it. I just thought there was a particular system (the states or something) in the US government that made it more resistant to such arrangements compared to other democracies. Well in general since the congress has to approve such things you need the states on board and when a lot of the US states elect people who without irony believe Agenda 21 will bring an NWO it becomes very hard to pass anything even outside the whole "nah, we'll just ignore it because we can"
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Mar 18, 2014 19:43
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Barudak posted:Don't forget that the US was incredibly isolationist and a lot of people were opposed to US involvement in WWI. As for later things like the UN its a mixture of the US recognizing that things like the UN fill an important role but having the military capacity to constantly tell lesser countries to gently caress off*. The US was "isolationist" in the sense that it didn't want to get snarled in whatever bullshit was happening in Europe, we had no problem meddling in the Western Hemisphere. Also the people who opposed US involvement in WW1 had entirely the right idea.
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Mar 18, 2014 20:53
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But if the US doesn't intervene, then there's a very real possibility their banks don't get to collect on all the British debt they bought.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:10
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Yes, it's like a lava lamp.
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Am I wrong to believe Teddy Roosevelt was just as big an imperialist and colonialist abroad as McKinley and many other preceding presidents? I joke how Theodore Roosevelt advocated environmentalism and busted trusts at home, but played empire abroad just like many other presidents... which is why he's adored by many American white liberals today. You can argue that it's more of TR's apparent progressive domestic agenda that's the source of veneration by today's liberals, but it's often the same admirers who champion his "carry a big stick" persona. I've seen a lot about how Roosevelt helped enable Japan's military ambitions, partly to challenge Russia in Asia, by throwing Koreans under the bus; creating problems that the later Roosevelt will eventually have to deal with. Is the reading that Roosevelt's diplomacy was flat-out disastrous for the world a commonly accepted interpretation?
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Mar 18, 2014 21:24
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:The US was "isolationist" in the sense that it didn't want to get snarled in whatever bullshit was happening in Europe, we had no problem meddling in the Western Hemisphere. Also the people who opposed US involvement in WW1 had entirely the right idea. Some isolationists didn't even want that meddling and were decidedly anti-empire opposing the Spanish-American war and the staggering idiocy of the Philippine War. You're right, though, there was much less opposition to mucking about from Mexico on down due to strength disparity and the fact that picking sides in Europe mean losing possible trade partners and pissing off large piles of recent immigrants.
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Mar 18, 2014 21:28
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just got to the point of the 1919: Six Months That Changed the World where it's talking about the fight in the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and I'm afraid I just don't understand at all. They never ratified it, they never joined the League of Nations, and tidbits of what I picked up from D&D indicates that the US is not party to a LOT of UN resolutions and treaties. What makes the US so dissimilar from the rest of the world in this particular governmental process? The League of Nations because WWI scared the piss out of France and the UK. The US had no enemies that could reasonably pose a threat and had no reason to risk giving warmongers an excuse to drag us into another war. Roosevelt ended up doing that anyway a couple decades later though so it didn't really work out.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:42
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OctaviusBeaver posted:The League of Nations because WWI scared the piss out of France and the UK. The US had no enemies that could reasonably pose a threat and had no reason to risk giving warmongers an excuse to drag us into another war. Roosevelt ended up doing that anyway a couple decades later though so it didn't really work out. While arguable that Franklin "G.O.A.T." Roosevelt's oil/steel embargo policy locked the United States into an inevitable conflict with the Empire of Japan its not as though the US was actively seeking military conflict. I mean as early as 1937 the Japanese bombed the US Gunboat Panay while invading China because they thought they could get away with it and the US did little in response other than to demand Japan respect their neutrality.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:51
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Barudak posted:While arguable that Franklin "G.O.A.T." Roosevelt's oil/steel embargo policy locked the United States into an inevitable conflict with the Empire of Japan its not as though the US was actively seeking military conflict. My understanding was that American oil wasn't necessary to the Japanese economy, but it was necessary to the Japanese war machine in China.
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Mar 18, 2014 22:57
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gradenko_2000 posted:I just got to the point of the 1919: Six Months That Changed the World where it's talking about the fight in the American Senate to ratify the Treaty of Versailles and I'm afraid I just don't understand at all. They never ratified it, they never joined the League of Nations, and tidbits of what I picked up from D&D indicates that the US is not party to a LOT of UN resolutions and treaties. What makes the US so dissimilar from the rest of the world in this particular governmental process? There have been a lot of good replies to your question but one more thing that bears mentioning that has contributed to US obstruction in UN affairs has been the Negroponte doctrine. I kept googling but sadly couldn't find a list, there's one floating around of every resolution adopted by the General Assembly where the US and Israel have been the sole votes against or for. It's a long list.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:00
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:My understanding was that American oil wasn't necessary to the Japanese economy, but it was necessary to the Japanese war machine in China. 74% of all scrap iron, 93% of all copper, and 80%+ of all oil throughout the Empire of Japan came from the United States. The US as late as 1941 was trying to negotiate with Japanese and it consistently failed mostly over the US demanding China and Japan come to some peace agreement that would involve Japanese withdrawal (Mostly in Manchuoko) in some capacity. Japan's more aggressive actions post 1938 were almost entirely an attempt to secure production facilities for those goods without going to the negotiating table with the Americans.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:00
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:My understanding was that American oil wasn't necessary to the Japanese economy, but it was necessary to the Japanese war machine in China. They were a fascist, belligerent state. The war machine WAS the economy.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:19
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Echo Chamber posted:I joke how Theodore Roosevelt advocated environmentalism and busted trusts at home, but played empire abroad just like many other presidents... which is why he's adored by many American white liberals today. I've always thought it was more out of this strong desire that American liberals have to compliment people who aren't leftist/thought of as being leftist. Like some attempt to let everyone know that they are "reasonable people" and not one of those leftists.
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Mar 18, 2014 23:44
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I got into a disagreement with an acquaintance of mine who is a liberal historian and I asserted that TR was a racist and an imperialist and he just stared at me and said, "that's really embarrassing what you just said."  I have no idea when this hard on came about, I feel the shift occurred sometime when liberals started trying to re brand as "progressives" and TR is sort of a bipartisan figure to appeal to and is like a before New Deal progressive economic figure but man, guy was an obnoxious douce bag and I have no idea why he gets the free pass a lot of people give him these days.
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Mar 19, 2014 00:03
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Berke Negri posted:I got into a disagreement with an acquaintance of mine who is a liberal historian and I asserted that TR was a racist and an imperialist and he just stared at me and said, "that's really embarrassing what you just said." It's hard to discuss and think about historical figures without embracing paradoxes. TR was incredibly, obliviously racist. He was a dick-dangling imperialist who thought it was awesome to sail the navy around the world and scare the poo poo out of everyone. He also hated the assholish side of capitalism and did a lot of work against letting corporate firms run roughshod over people.
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Mar 19, 2014 00:58
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ToxicSlurpee posted:For the same reasons that the U.S. refuses to switch to the metric system. We'll do things OUR way and nobody else can tell us it's wrong. Because it's expensive?
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Mar 19, 2014 01:53
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asdf32 posted:Because it's expensive? Not as expensive as all those wars like Iraq and Afghanistan  But wouldn't there be more long term savings? Current conversion systems make everything inefficient. And the very least, the Mars Orbiter would not be a disaster. If the world was run on a single type of power plug, electrical voltage would have less industrial waste. caberham fucked around with this message at 02:38 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 02:36
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caberham posted:If the world was run on a single type of power plug, electrical voltage would have less industrial waste. Sounds reasonable  .
OctaviusBeaver fucked around with this message at 02:45 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 02:40
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caberham posted:Not as expensive as all those wars like Iraq and Afghanistan Probably but I doubt the ROI is particularly large and old designs would have to be supported for decades anyway. You'd still find 1/4-20 bolts in a hardware store 20 years after an official transition and you'd probably cause 2 more mars orbiter disasters before preventing any. That said I hate the imperial system and would support a transition.
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Mar 19, 2014 02:50
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caberham posted:Not as expensive as all those wars like Iraq and Afghanistan Making conversions for the end user is fairly painless and what 99% of people care about. I mean yeah engineers should stop being babies and not use BTU/lbm*R or whatever but keeping signs in mph or weather in degrees F isn't a gigantic burden.
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Mar 19, 2014 03:12
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computer parts posted:Making conversions for the end user is fairly painless and what 99% of people care about. It is for me! And for the rest of the world supplying goods to USA. Nuts, bolts, printing, labeling, different container sizes, re-calibration, going through customs, etc... Modern life is only viable because of different intricate systems. The smaller the discrepancies, the lower costs can go. That's why you have people arguing over International Standards Organization credit card sizes. Imagine all the ink saved in the world if we didn't have to print out Fahrenheit. Standard containerization cuts down on transportation costs. Too bad shipping containers are based on feet 
caberham fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 04:02
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asdf32 posted:Probably but I doubt the ROI is particularly large and old designs would have to be supported for decades anyway. You'd still find 1/4-20 bolts in a hardware store 20 years after an official transition and you'd probably cause 2 more mars orbiter disasters before preventing any. That said I hate the imperial system and would support a transition. 
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Mar 19, 2014 04:03
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caberham posted:It is for me! And for the rest of the world supplying goods to USA. Nuts, bolts, printing, labeling, different container sizes, re-calibration, going through customs, etc... Modern life is only viable because of different intricate systems. The smaller the discrepancies, the lower costs can go. That's what I mean, anything actually related to serious business should be metricized. Believe me, even the people who grew up with English units do not enjoy working with them for actual scientific work. They have a similar system in the UK iirc where it's sort of a hybrid English-Metric thing anyway. e: cheerfullydrab posted:Yeah, "it's going to be tough and take a while" is the worst argument against positive change. In this example, the only parts I care about are the inch, foot, and maybe yard and mile. And even then, I don't want them to be expressed for scientific poo poo, just on my ruler or on my speed limit sign. computer parts fucked around with this message at 04:07 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 04:04
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computer parts posted:That's what I mean, anything actually related to serious business should be metricized. Believe me, even the people who grew up with English units do not enjoy working with them for actual scientific work. But lots people get serious business over inane things just to make your life work. Using unconventional non metric is just another hurdle. ISO standards are boring but are pretty important. If ATMs in this world use different sizes and systems then life would suck. If I made water bottles and only printed metric, the print savings would go into millions. Heck, I can probably sell the bottles as a standard 1 liter instead of 1 gallon and save myself another production line. Car makers can certainly save money because they don't need to use miles. Lunch boxes, boxes, and all sorts of things would be simplified with metric. They may not seem much but conversion costs can easily add up for the global economy. *edit* Domestic makers still utilize international supply chains. They are reaping the benefits of SI while increasing costs for everyone else. Of course there will be growing pains but the future cost savings would be immense. Even NATO uses standard metric ammunition. caberham fucked around with this message at 05:05 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 04:20
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Domestic companies would make exactly the same argument against switching to metric.
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Mar 19, 2014 04:49
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The only way I can ever remember how many feet are in a mile is by knowing that there's 66 feet to a chain, and 80 chain to a mile. Surveying knowledge never leaves you I guess. computer parts posted:In this example, the only parts I care about are the inch, foot, and maybe yard and mile. And even then, I don't want them to be expressed for scientific poo poo, just on my ruler or on my speed limit sign. Why not just get used to a new ruler and speed limit sign and be done with it? It's not like Imperial isn't just defined in terms of metric units anyway.
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Mar 19, 2014 05:09
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FAUXTON posted:
That's the progressive movement in a nutshell. Reform civil service away from patronage and machine politics, break up big business, beginnings of a social democracy, lookout for the little guy working in the factories. Also crush blacks and sterilize poors and conquer Asians and Latin america, because you know, science. Also we just invented homosexuality, and it's bad. Enjoy. But that is also a big part of the greater European world view of the time, but it weirds me out how Teddy has been really canonized in recent years when he's like, an incredibly problematic figure. I'm pretty against putting an president as that much of a model, but Americans like to really fixate on the executive.
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Mar 19, 2014 06:27
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I've personally always viewed Roosevelt the First as a showman president; his whole career was based on boasting, bravado, and well calculated press releases. I mean he's the guy responsible for the press having a room in the White House and he pushed out as many press photos as they'd publish. His big stupid face wasting space on Mount Rushmore is like the ultimate symbol; he's not even close to being in the presidential league of the other three people but there he is not letting his cousin have a spot and the whole thing is on contested land with bad blood over it.
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Mar 19, 2014 06:53
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How about the President who jailed journalists because he wanted to, on the authority of him saying he could jail anyone he wanted to for no reason.
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Mar 19, 2014 07:03
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Berke Negri posted:I got into a disagreement with an acquaintance of mine who is a liberal historian and I asserted that TR was a racist and an imperialist and he just stared at me and said, "that's really embarrassing what you just said." It's all a big hustle to keep people from getting dreamy about Andrew Jackson just because he hated big banks and literally beat up a would-be assassin, despite being one of the most horrible presidents ever. Half-seriously though I think at least part of it is the "badass" mythos around TR, including "yeah he actually up and volunteered to go fight a war!" and "dude took a bullet and just kept on speaking" and what-not. I guarantee most of the American talking heads on TV that sneer at Putin would loving cheer for him if he had been an American president.
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Mar 19, 2014 07:21
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Is there actually a "decent" US president besides Abraham Lincoln? At least someone who was relatively a decent person? From reading this thread, it really is "Finding new things to be ashamed about"  Granted, the world was not and still is not a nice place 
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Mar 19, 2014 07:27
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Berke Negri posted:But that is also a big part of the greater European world view of the time, but it weirds me out how Teddy has been really canonized in recent years when he's like, an incredibly problematic figure. I'm pretty against putting an president as that much of a model, but Americans like to really fixate on the executive.
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Mar 19, 2014 07:29
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I imagine a big part of it is also that politics is not exactly a game for nice people. I tend to forgive them their personal failures, and see who seriously attempted to improve the lot of the poor and disenfranchised. Which I guess makes it a contest between Lincoln and either FDR or LBJ? Perhaps someone who worked to extend the franchise or fix all the corruption in government? Flip side question; worst President of the United States: James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce?
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Mar 19, 2014 07:35
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PittTheElder posted:Flip side question; worst President of the United States: James Buchanan or Franklin Pierce? quote:In order to justify secession as a constitutional remedy, it must be on the principle that the Federal Government is a mere voluntary association of States, to be dissolved at pleasure by any one of the contracting parties. If this be so, the Confederacy is a rope of sand, to be penetrated and dissolved by the first adverse wave of public opinion in any of the States. In this manner our thirty-three States may resolve themselves into as many petty, jarring, and hostile republics, each one retiring from the Union without responsibility whenever any sudden excitement might impel them to such a course. By this process a Union might be entirely broken into fragments in a few weeks which cost our forefathers many years of toil, privation, and blood to establish. America Inc. fucked around with this message at 08:34 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 08:01
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Although I think people could make arguments for other Presidents as well. John Adams almost aborted the country before it started with the Alien and Sedition Acts, which led to the K&V Resolutions which were the ideological basis for nullification and secession.John Adams posted:Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either aristocracy or monarchy. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide. Link 1 Link 2 America Inc. fucked around with this message at 08:12 on Mar 19, 2014 |
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Mar 19, 2014 08:04
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