If the US goes to war with China over Taiwan.

@DeWayfarer

And don't forget the Soviet Union's support for North Korea during the Korean War.

@beckyromero The Soviet Union withdrew from North Korea in 1954 and vanished 30 years ago. Why is the US still in Korea with 30,000 troops? Why do we want war?

@sree251 I let Becky answer this, but it's oh so obvious! 😞

@DeWayfarer Why don't you spit it out, De? The main reason why the US is in Korea is to maintain a base for containing China. We already have bases in Japan for that not to mention Guam. Japan has no quarrel with China its largest trading partner. If there is war, we will have to fight China on our own. Japan would not want any part of it.

@sree251 [quote]The Soviet Union withdrew from North Korea in 1954 and vanished 30 years ago. Why is the US still in Korea with 30,000 troops? Why do we want war?[/quote]

Well, first off, the mention of the Korean War was an answer to your comment about nukes. The Soviets had nukes the whole time during the Korean War and it was DIRECTLY involved in it, sending not only armaments and MiGs to North Korea but also pilots flying those MiGs against U.N. forces. (Russia is regarded as the successor state to the Soviet Union and took its place on the UN Security Council.)

Secondly, we are still technically at war with North Korea. There was only an [u]armistice[/u] signed on July 1953 - NOT a peace treaty. The armistice was signed by the military commanders involved. No nation signed it and no peace treaty has been negotiated.

It was United Nations Security Council resolutions that designated the United States as the leader of the unified command known as the United Nations Command (established on July 24, 1950).

United Nations Command's priorities are:

1. Enforce the Armistice Agreement and maintain its integrity
2. Maintain UN Sending State and Participating Nation cohesion and international
support for ROK-US Alliance activities
3. Maintain access to UNC-Rear Bases
4. Establish efficient procedures to coordinate Sending State force flow and force
generation in coordination with ROK JCS to support and sustain those forces in theater

@beckyromero Thank you for the details of the Korean War situation. Do you have any vested interest in a peaceful world? As a human being, how do you contribute to a safe existence for yourself? Can you lead when others are unable to?

What is your idea of a world that is free of wars? Do you feel this is not a good thing?

@sree251

My idea of a world that is free of wars?

That can be accomplished one of two ways. Defeat totalitarianism or succumb to it.

I favor the former. You are willing to surrender to the latter.

@beckyromero [quote] My idea of a world that is free of wars?

That can be accomplished one of two ways. [b]Defeat totalitarianism or succumb to it.[/b]

I favor the former. You are willing to surrender to the latter. [/quote]


I wish I can erase this bug in your consciousness from the human mind. This malware is the cause of all our conflicts.

@sree251 what you are calling a bug, is in truth just a different perspective.

Becky and I don't always agree. Our perspectives are slightly different. Yet I must say that her perspective is a world closer to my own, than is your perspective to either of ours.

@DeWayfarer [quote] what you are calling a bug, is in truth just a different perspective. [/quote]

What you call a perspective is an awareness of clear and present danger. Is Becky a person with a life in a community or is she a nation facing existential threat?

Put this question to yourself also. Are you a 69 year old guy living life somewhere with a family. Are you doing ok getting by everyday without gang violence in the neighborhood? What is the perspective of your reality? Do you have a real problem?

@sree251 read my about me. For some of it. Yet my world perspective is constantly changing. Things change. Life is change. So I haven't had a easy life.

That's not saying that it was all bad or all good. Even as soon as a year ago I had life altering changes. Some of that is in my own posts. So go back a year and a half on posts.

Far too much to say in one little reply.

Becky can answer for herself, not my place to say anything about her life perspectives. 😊

@DeWayfarer [quote] read my about me. [/quote]

I don't read about anybody here. I am here to talk to myself through other people. For example, when Becky says she has to destroy totalitarianism before she can find peace in her life, I wonder why I don't have that perspective and feel that way? My perspective of my situation extends as far as my horizon living as a person in my town. Most days it doesn't extend beyond the fence around my property. I live a quiet life alone. I don't bother my neighbors and they don't bother me.

What bothers me is the news on TV about another $60 billion of taxpayers money going to foreign aid, this time to Ukraine, Israel, and Taiwan. Don't we have a debt clock now ticking at the rate of $1 trillion every 100 days? Does it cost this much to fight totalitarianism? What the hell is it?

@sree251 I can not change your perspective. Only you can do so now.

There is a vast world beyond your neighborhood. I can attest to some of that. And links to that is in my about me.

If you don't wish to read others profiles, I can't change that either. Only you can.

There's simply too much to say. In fact one of those links goes to the maximum number of characters this site allows.

And that's not close to all of it. I have links even within that post.

If you really want to know another person, you're going to have to walk in their shoes. Not just read about it.

@sree251 [quote]Does it cost this much to fight totalitarianism? What the hell is it?[/quote]

The United States spent about $4 trillion (in today's dollars) to defeat the Axis Powers in World War II. That was about 40% of our GDP.

I think that was a damn good investment for freedom. Not only to protect our own freedoms but to free others and eliminate the threat the Axis Powers posed.

You and I weren't alive during that time, but if you want a taste of what it would be like in YOUR world and NOT fight totalitarianism, I suppose you can emigrate to North Korea. That's probably the nation today closest to what it was like living under Nazi rule. If you tow the line, you may - may - survive. But even that doesn't compare to what it would be like living in an OCCUPIED nation under totalitarianism rule.

(I don't see why one can't have peace in their own life and want the world to be free of totalitarianism. Those are not two mutual exclusive ideals.)

@DeWayfarer [quote] I can not change your perspective. Only you can do so now. [/quote]

What is wrong with my perspective? There are only two things that can destroy the peace in my world: losing the health of my body, and running out of money.

Am I wrong? Totalitarianism has nothing to do with me. Could there be something wrong with Becky?

@sree251 [quote]Could there be something wrong with Becky?[/quote]

I have not questioned your sanity.

I'd ask that you not question mine.

If you can only carry on a conversation by resorting to personal insults, then you can talk to yourself.

@sree251 [quote]What is wrong with my perspective?[/quote]
[quote]Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

George Santayana 1905.

those who do not learn from the experience of history are doomed to repeat it

Walter Lippmann 1948

men who will not learn from the past are condemned to repeat their mistakes

Barry Goldwater 1962

It is truly said that those who cannot learn from the mistakes of the past are destined to repeat them.

Frank Church 1972[/quote]

Your perspective excludes even reading! 🤷🏻‍♂️

@beckyromero [quote] If you can only carry on a conversation by resorting to personal insults, then you can talk to yourself. [/quote]

I am not questioning your sanity. I am questioning mine. I need to know why I am not afraid of totalitarianism in my daily life. I do admit that I am acutely averse to losing financial security and somewhat overly concerned about the health of my body.

@sree251 EVERYTHING that you are asking about from totalitarianism to our personal lives you refuse to read!

Your questions already have answers if you only would read about them.

Your perspective excludes reading.

That is just one of Becky's and my own perspectives we share.

@DeWayfarer [quote] Your perspective excludes even reading! [/quote]

Quite right. I don't read, and never liked it. My first book was "The Little Prince" given to me by my mother, an avid reader. I read two pages and chucked it aside. She would take me to the public library every week, and I would help her carry bags of books back to the car. I couldn't believe anyone could read that many books every week. The only books I read were the ones I had to: text books for schoolwork. I had to pass my exams. I hated it. I forced myself to study, did it with a vengeance to stay at the top of the class (top 5; at least). I earned two degrees in engineering and can still remember burning all my notes and text books after the finals. I never read any technical journals to keep at the cutting edge of my profession. Even on the job, I would speed read and glance thru paperwork. The amazing thing is that I was able to do my job supervising projects without even looking thru blueprints and technical drawings.

I am averse to reading. All those guys (Santayana, Lippmann, Goldwater, Church) lived thru the world wars. Their perspective of life is from another era. They have baggage that is not mine. I don't want to hate the Russians because they did. The healthy way to live is to have no baggage; especially, trauma suffered by others.

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it" is a hurt that Santayana carried all his life. What past does he want me to remember for my own good? No one has hurt me. A willingness to forgive is a better way to go than being vengeful.

@sree251 and there is the problem that all four have warned of!

[quote]Ignorance is bliss.

Thomas Gray. 1742 poem "Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton College"
[/quote]

I despise giving bible quotes, yet perhaps this will shake your world.

[quote]"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things.

Corinthians 13:11
[/quote]

@DeWayfarer [quote] EVERYTHING that you are asking about from totalitarianism to our personal lives you refuse to read!

Your questions already have answers if you only would read about them.

Your perspective excludes reading.

That is just one of Becky's and my own perspectives we share. [/quote]

I don't think totalitarianism is a political system at all. It is a description of human nature, our need to be in control of others and the world we live in. Let's say the world comprises just three of us: me, you, and Becky. This world is us three in conversation. I am not a totalitarian because I am the one asking the questions. I don't have the answers. I am not in control. Do you feel you are in control? Do you feel that you have a sense of where we are going in this inquiry into totalitarianism? Is Becky in charge here? She seems sure of herself.

@DeWayfarer [quote] and there is the problem that all four have warned of! [/quote]

How about this warning below (in bold) from Church? Chased by the US Government, Snowdon ran for his life in 2013. I was in Singapore en route to Hong Kong at the time and followed the news that tracked Snowdon's escape to Hong Kong. He ended up in "totalitarian" Russia where he is today. Safe and protected from the USA. Can you, or Becky, explain that?


[b]More specifically on August 17, 1975, Senator Frank Church stated on NBC's "Meet the Press" without mentioning the name of the NSA about this agency:

In the need to develop a capacity to know what potential enemies are doing, the United States government has perfected a technological capability that enables us to monitor the messages that go through the air. These messages are between ships at sea, they could be between units, military units in the field. We have a very extensive capability of intercepting messages wherever they may be in the airwaves. Now, that is necessary and important to the United States as we look abroad at enemies or potential enemies. We must know, at the same time, that capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left such is the capability to monitor everything—telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide.

If this government ever became a tyranny, if a dictator ever took charge in this country, the technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny, and there would be no way to fight back because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately it was done, is within the reach of the government to know. Such is the capability of this technology.

Now why is this investigation important? I'll tell you why: because I don't want to see this country ever go across the bridge. I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America, and we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross over that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.
[/b]

@sree251 the tree that fell around the world did exist. That you can not hear tree fall doesn't mean that it didn't affect the whole world by not seeding a world size forest. Which produces the very air you breathe.

So you're going to say microorganisms in the ocean produce your air. I say irrelevant. Because the something similar has already happened to them.

Totalitarianism exists no matter how you describe it. Yes control is control yet it still exists. Some call it dictatorships as well. The method or what it's called is still irrelevant.

You either read about them and use the distinctions or remain ignorant. To remain in a fantasy world and say that there is only three in the world is worse than remaining ignorant. It's not about Becky, you or me. We are not the only perspectives.

You think microcosm, I think macrocosm. The perspectives are different. We can never reach agreement yet you want to add a third yet ignoring the whole world.

The whole world IS the macrocosm! And macrocosm absolutely does represent the whole world. Yet we still disagree! That is because of your refusal to READ!