Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

Americans Aren't Interested in the World's Problems
realclearworld.com ^ | February 18, 2014 | George Friedman, chairman of Stratfor

Posted on 02/18/2014 5:11:03 AM PST by Second Amendment First

Edited on 02/18/2014 5:14:38 AM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]

Last week, several events took place that were important to their respective regions and potentially to the world. Russian government officials suggested turning Ukraine into a federation, following weeks of renewed demonstrations in Kiev. The Venezuelan government was confronted with violent and deadly protests. Kazakhstan experienced a financial crisis that could have destabilized the economies of Central Asia. Russia and Egypt inked a significant arms deal. Right-wing groups in Europe continued their political gains.


(Excerpt) Read more at realclearworld.com ...


TOPICS: Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last
To: allendale

No kidding, A little Reaganesque restraint would go a long way.


21 posted on 02/18/2014 5:41:51 AM PST by cripplecreek (REMEMBER THE RIVER RAISIN!)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: Cowgirl of Justice
Americans are just tired.

I think the low information Americans are disinterested. Conservatives are spending a lot of energy working to rebuild and reclaim what has been destroyed and stolen by the decades of Progressive rule.

22 posted on 02/18/2014 5:42:14 AM PST by FatherofFive (Islam is evil and must be eradicated)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 11 | View Replies]

To: bert
Knowledge of customers is important

Interfering in anything and everything is not.

23 posted on 02/18/2014 5:45:59 AM PST by DoodleDawg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 18 | View Replies]

To: alloysteel
What price will Americans pay in the long term? Probably no more than the most isolated of all regimes in the world, that of North Korea.

We are the third most populous nation in the world. We have global interests including economic, trade, and national security. We can't isolate ourselves from the rest of the world. If we fail to lead, then we can expect things to happen that will threaten our interests. For example, if the Middle East were to descend into chaos and war, the flow of oil would be affected and that would have a disastrous impact on the global economy, of which we are a part. What happens in Europe, Japan, India, and China affects us. Not to mention Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.

This self enforced isolation adopted by the governance now in place in the territory once known as “the United States of America”, if it remains for more than a very few more years, shall be forced to turn to much the same means of compliance that has been so warmly embraced by the inhabitants of North Korea.

We are not in self-enforced isolation. We are just not leading and shaping events to protect our national interests. We are just reacting to events and only acting when there is no other choice. We are reactive rather than being proactive.

24 posted on 02/18/2014 5:46:14 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 13 | View Replies]

To: DoodleDawg

The topic is knowledge. Deliberate ignorance is a poor way to live.

Isolationism is a piss poor outlook


25 posted on 02/18/2014 5:48:26 AM PST by bert ((K.E. N.P. N.C. +12 ..... History is a process, not an event)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 23 | View Replies]

To: kabar
If the US moves away from its global leadership role, a vacuum is formed that will be filled eventually.

Maybe people are just sick and tire of paying trillions of dollars for the dubious honor of having a global leadership role?

26 posted on 02/18/2014 5:49:03 AM PST by DoodleDawg
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: kabar

The dumbing down of America continues.
*****************
Indeed. Unfortunately you could do interviews like this almost anywhere in the country and witness similar levels of ignorance:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpWMulE7IPU&list=UUa6vGFO9ty8v5KZJXQxdhaw


27 posted on 02/18/2014 5:53:35 AM PST by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 3 | View Replies]

To: allendale
There is an appropriate reassessment of the role the United States should have in world affairs. Recent intrusions into the internal affairs of foreign countries have been disastrous.

Afghanistan? Iraq? So what should have been our response to 9/11 or the takeover of Kuwait by Iraq or the bombing of our embassies in East Africa or the attack on the USS Cole? How do we deal with Iran, the world's biggest state sponsor of terrorism and on the verge of becoming a nuclear power? How do we respond to China's expanding military and economic power? Or the rise of militant Islamic fundamentalism?

Specifically, what foreign intrusions are you talking about?

28 posted on 02/18/2014 5:57:10 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 19 | View Replies]

To: TexasFreeper2009

Germany has its own Muslim problem: tens of millions of `guest worker’ Turks that have been there for decades & never assimilated, plus the usual infusion of North Africans, Palis & Pakis.

You have to travel to Eastern Europe to find anything like a Wall of Resistance against the muzzie invasions.


29 posted on 02/18/2014 5:58:47 AM PST by elcid1970 ("In the modern world, Muslims are living fossils.")
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 7 | View Replies]

To: kabar

This is nothng short of a seismic shift in our demographics. The cultural consequences of this uncontrolled immigration will prove to be profound and very disruptive IMO.


30 posted on 02/18/2014 6:03:14 AM PST by Starboard
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: kabar
I honestly don't care what color that immigrants are, that fact is...

WE DON”T HAVE ROOM OR ANY MORE PEOPLE!

There are water shortages in California this year... did you know that the average person uses 100 gallons of water a DAY! that means that the 20 million illegals alone here consume 2 billion gallons a day or 7.3 trillion a year or... enough water in 5 years to drain Lake Tahoe completely!

And that's just WATER! Think of all the extra power that must be generated to provide to them! That means extra power plants and more pollution!

Our resources are not infinite! We can either save what we have left for ourselves and OUR children, or we can swing the doors wide for every legal or illegal foreigner or ANY color and watch our children shiver in the cold wishing for water.

THAT is our destiny if we don't stop this insanity now!

Environmentalists should be on OUR side!

31 posted on 02/18/2014 6:08:39 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 14 | View Replies]

To: TexasFreeper2009

Someone needs to put up a

NO VACANCY

sign at all our borders.


32 posted on 02/18/2014 6:13:43 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: bert

There are more people turning to fox. The young have never been news watchers unless they were in a 1 tv house. Not gonna happen today.


33 posted on 02/18/2014 6:16:58 AM PST by huldah1776
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 4 | View Replies]

To: huldah1776

Many Americans aren’t interested in anything of substance or anything that requires critical thinking or anything that requires them to act responsibly.


34 posted on 02/18/2014 6:18:40 AM PST by hal ogen (First Amendment or Reeducation Camp?)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 33 | View Replies]

To: kabar

Oh there are just a few futilities that come to mind. What was the purpose of the prolonged nation building commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan and the huge material and human sacrifices that went with it? Ever consider that the attempt to introduce or impose Western values to these places in itself gives rise to “Islamic fundamentalism”? What is the purpose of the United States aiding and abetting political Islamists in in Syria? Can or should the United States attempt to influence evolving Asian affairs far from our shores. Should not the Asians themselves work out a consensus and balance? If wealthy South Korea cannot stand on its own, then more American treasure and sacrifice is not the answer. If nations choose downward spiraling economic socialist or quasi socialist debt producing systems, why should the American worker be expected to provide rescue capital? Finally just where to you recommend sending brave young Americans to die and just how is the security of the United States enhanced?


35 posted on 02/18/2014 6:20:29 AM PST by allendale
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 28 | View Replies]

To: Second Amendment First

[95-98% summary of the news we hear, sung to one of his catchiest tunes]

I was siting home alone one night
In LA, watching old Cronkite
On the seven o’clock news.
It seems there was an earthquake that
Left nothing but a Panama hat
And a pair of old Greek shoes.
Didn’t seem like much was happening
So I turned it off and went and got another beer.
Seems like every time you turn around
There’s another hard-luck story that you’re gonna hear.
And there’s really nothing anyone can say.
And I never did plan to go anyway
To Black Diamond Bay.

Dylan


36 posted on 02/18/2014 6:20:56 AM PST by dagogo redux (A whiff of primitive spirits in the air, harbingers of an impending descent into the feral.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: DoodleDawg
Maybe people are just sick and tire of paying trillions of dollars for the dubious honor of having a global leadership role?

First and foremost we are doing this out of our own self-interest. We have the world's largest economy thus a vested interest in the global economy. We are the indispensable country when it comes to maintaining global order and the protection of freedom and liberty.

I was in Berlin in June 1987 when Ronald Regan stood at the Berlin Wall and said, "General Secretary Gorbachev, if you seek peace, if you seek prosperity for the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe, if you seek liberalization: Come here to this gate. Mr. Gorbachev, open this gate. Mr. Gorbachev -- Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall! "

"But in the West today, we see a free world that has achieved a level of prosperity and well-being unprecedented in all human history. In the Communist world, we see failure, technological backwardness, declining standards of health, even want of the most basic kind -- too little food. Even today, the Soviet Union still cannot feed itself. After these four decades, then, there stands before the entire world one great and inescapable conclusion: Freedom leads to prosperity. Freedom replaces the ancient hatreds among the nations with comity and peace. Freedom is the victor."

I also lived in Poland during the rise of Solidarnosc'. What America says and does is of immense impact to the oppressed people of the world. Our trillions of dollars and blood have liberated tens of millions and created a better world, including for us. There is a square in Warsaw named after President Reagan and there are countless other streets and squares honoring our sacrifices.

My greatest fear is that the US will retreat from its global leadership role partially due to the weariness you mentioned, but also because the welfare state is forcing us to reduce our ability to project power around the globe. It is the same guns versus butter that forced the UK to step down from its global role and hand us the torch to maintain global order and defend freedom and liberty. In guns versus butter, butter wins every time.

A US in decline will embolden China to assert its influence and world view on the Far East and eventually the world. It will help the radical Islamists to achieve their objectives. It will bring fear and dispair to our allies like Japan and Taiwan who see the rise of China; to Israel and Saudi Arabia who fear a nuclear Iran; and to oppressed people everywhere.

And the steady decline of America will affect us directly. Our standard of living, personal liberties, and national security are at risk. A global leadership role is not a "dubious honor," but rather a necessity if we want to maintain our national security and way of life. The world is a far better place today because of our leadership.

Obama is undermining all we have achieved with his leading from behind and his apology tour that diminished this country in the eyes of many and helped our enemies.

37 posted on 02/18/2014 6:52:26 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 26 | View Replies]

To: TexasFreeper2009
I honestly don't care what color that immigrants are, that fact is...

That's the politically correct answer, but multiculturalism and diversity are destroying the country. It also affects electoral politics as minorities and immigrants vote more than two to one Democrat.

WE DON”T HAVE ROOM OR ANY MORE PEOPLE!

So why did you just focus on illegal aliens rather than immigration period? We take in more than twice as many immigrants annually as the number of illegals who come here. Immigration drives 75% of our population growth.

38 posted on 02/18/2014 6:59:06 AM PST by kabar
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 31 | View Replies]

To: kabar
Because I honestly did not know that we accept more legal immigrants each year than those who come here illegally.
39 posted on 02/18/2014 7:02:02 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]

To: kabar
My views have also been shifting a bit recently on immigration. I used to be solely against illegal immigration, but now I am starting to move in the direction of advocating for the stoppage of all immigration both legal and illegal.
40 posted on 02/18/2014 7:03:59 AM PST by TexasFreeper2009 (Obama lied .. the economy died.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 38 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-56 next last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson