It is not. US invading Iraq and Afghanistan was not to expand its territories. You can argue that the invasion was based on false information that Iraq had WMDs or Afghanistan harbored Taliban (which in turn sheltered Osama bin Laden) or you could say that the invasion was to topple dictatorial regimes or you could say that US invaded these countries for oil. Whatever explanation you give it doesn't amount to expansion of territories. Expansion is far far worse. Think colonization. Think subjugation. Think apartheid. Think slavery. This is apart from death and destruction that expansion causes. China is expansionist. It wants lands and more lands. It will do anything to get it. Unless the oppressed country resists it.
I am not an American. I am an Indian. Stop assuming stuff.
And who better to know about expansionism than Indians? We have been colonized multiple times in the past. We know the exact difference between expansion and invasion. An invasion can turn into colonization if the oppressing party annexes territory and sets up a Government of its own against the interests of the people. US hasn't annexed Afghanistan and Iraq. No matter how much you try to paint it that way it isn't the case.
Manifest Destiny is a cultural thing in the United States. It is not official State policy. The term was itself coined by a journalist (John L Sullivan).
We have a similar cultural quote in India called "Akhand Bharat" where we wish to go back to the time where Bharat was one territory and not divided into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh. Doesn't mean we go around conquering neighboring Nations. It is not our official State Policy. But we have definitely had multiple Wars with our neighbors. We have even invaded Pakistan multiple times: Once in 1965 when our Army marched all the way to Lahore and in 1971 when we invaded East Pakistan and liberated it from its oppressive dictatorial armed forces creating Bangladesh in the process. In neither of these cases did we annex territories. We had all the opportunities to do so! We did not.
Every big power has something similar to the "Manifest Destiny". China has one too. It is its Silk Road project called the BRI (Belt and Road Initiative). Except that others aren't actually acting on it and expanding their territories. China is!
> And who better to know about expansionism than Indians? We have been colonized multiple times in the past.
Sure, we can agree that USA's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan was not "colonization" technically, in the 1800s sense of the term.
However, what else would you call all out war, military occupation, hanging the president of the country, etc.? BTW, occupation continues until this day, in both of these nations.
> Manifest Destiny is a cultural thing in the United States. It is not official State policy.
Have you read about the history of the U.S in the 1800s? Manifest Destiny may not have been written into the constitution, but it was absolutely the policy of many leaders of the U.S in that era, and calling it "a cultural thing" actually dumbs down what is an extremely powerful idea behind the forming of the U.S as a nation.
> We have a similar cultural quote in India called "Akhand Bharat" where we wish to go back to the time where Bharat was one territory and not divided into Pakistan, India and Bangladesh.
China has a similar idea with the "One China" rule, and how it basically does not consider Taiwan to be it's own nation. Except, unlike India, it's quite clear than China is willing to invade Taiwan at some point in time (unclear when, but the tensions will never cease).
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The 1800's style colonization is certainly no longer present, but a variation of it is certainly present, and usually military invasion is not the main tool to achieve domination (however, in the case of Iraq, Afghanistan, it clearly was).
> China has a similar idea with the "One China" rule, and how it basically does not consider Taiwan to be it's own nation. Except, unlike India, it's quite clear than China is willing to invade Taiwan at some point in time (unclear when, but the tensions will never cease).
I can understand China's fascination with Taiwan under One China principle. But this One China principle doesn't extend to South China Sea or the artificial islands it created. Nor does it extend to China Occupied Ladakh. This is where their principle falls apart and becomes expansionist. They even claim Arunachal Pradesh in India to be theirs when the people of Arunachal Pradesh have since ancient times always had affinity with Indians than with Chinese.
> Have you read about the history of the U.S in the 1800s? Manifest Destiny may not have been written into the constitution, but it was absolutely the policy of many leaders of the U.S in that era, and calling it "a cultural thing" actually dumbs down what is an extremely powerful idea behind the forming of the U.S as a nation.
True. But that was 1800s and this is 2020. Times have changed. People change. Politics change. What was true then is not necessarily true now. USA had slavery in the 1800s too. Doesn't mean it follows the same policies now. We need to understand that Democratic Nations always undergo changes. The Obama era is distinct from the Trump era which in turn is distinct from the Bush era. That is the beauty of Democracy! So what US was in the 1800s isn't going to be the same in 2020s.
> However, what else would you call all out war, military occupation, hanging the president of the country, etc.? BTW, occupation continues until this day, in both of these nations.
Define "occupation". Having an army base in the country is not "occupation" by any means. If that is considered occupation then what would you say when India sent its Army (called the Indian Peace Keeping Force) to Sri Lanka to fight the LTTE terrorists in the Sri Lankan Civil War? We had our Army stationed there for years (1987 to 1990) until it was called back! The LTTE terrorists consider it an invasion. They assassinated our Prime Minister in response. So yeah, this was not occupation neither was when US invaded Iraq and Afghanistan. Was it an invasion? Yes it was! There is no doubt about it. But to call it "occupation" is stretching it to be honest with you.
US has an army base in Japan, South Korea and Australia. So is US occupying Japan, South Korea or Australia?
> US has an army base in Japan, South Korea and Australia. So is US occupying Japan, South Korea or Australia?
Technically it's not military occupation by definition, but if China had a military base in one of its ally's territories, would you try to claim that it is occupation? And is it only not occupation if the US does it?
> Technically it's not military occupation by definition, but if China had a military base in one of its ally's territories, would you try to claim that it is occupation? And is it only not occupation if the US does it?
Exactly! China has 3 military bases. India has 6 military bases. Those don't count as occupation if the country has requested for it or there is a deal between the two Nations. Neither should US military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan count as occupation. When you "occupy" something you actually end up controlling everything within that territory. Okay you can say that US occupies a military base in Iraq/Afghanistan. But that is all that its occupation is restricted to. Never the entire country!
My point is that it's a technicality. On the surface, legally, these countries are not officially occupied by the US. But if any of these countries tried kicking the US out... what do you think would happen?
> But if any of these countries tried kicking the US out... what do you think would happen?
It has already happened. Thailand asked US Air Force to vacate in 1976 after the Vietnam War. USAF closed its base and vacated.
But why would they kick US out without reason? The US has a military base based on either a deal or an agreement. It depends completely on the deal/agreement in place. If the military base was paid for by the US Government then US would definitely not vacate it till the agreement is over. If the base was as a result of an invasion then US won't vacate until it is absolutely sure that the Government in place will not fall into hands of Warlords again. These are perfectly reasonable in my opinion. But if a request is made and US feels that the request is legitimate it will definitely quit the base. It has already demonstrated it in Thailand.
> It has already happened. Thailand asked US Air Force to vacate in 1976 after the Vietnam War. USAF closed its base and vacated.
Right after the US lost a war... I doubt the US was prepared to fight Thailand over it at the time and is why they capitulated. But had US defeated North Vietnamese forces, I doubt the US would have allowed Thailand to kick them out.
> Let us not forget that US vacated Japan too.
Except they didn't. You've heard of Kadena Air Force base in Okinawa, right? What about Misawa, or Yokota?
> But if a request is made and US feels that the request is legitimate it will definitely quit the base.
Except in Japan where the US keeps buying influence with the LDP to subvert Democracy. Only about 25% of Japanese citizens support the existence of the base and multiple referendums have been held by people to remove the base.
Also, Guantanamo in Cuba, where the Cuban government has consistently declared the US occupation there illegal since 2002.
How would you justify the genocide of uighur Muslims in that case? Let's be honest with ourselves. The USA is not the same as China. Let's not lie to each other to prove non issues.
How is this a rational response to what I wrote? You think calling a spade a spade is too much? US is expansionist, that much is clear. Absolutely in no way am I saying that makes the US the same as China in all aspects. Both are unique in their approaches to global domination.
An individual can migrate a forum without any assistance. Not denying that The_Donald was a community, just saying that the migration of content is not evidence of the extent to which something is a community.
> And yet Reddit happily ignores vote brigading and other negative externalities from any subreddit that toes their party line, so it seems bizarre to single T_D out.
Except T_D literally was not singled out. CTH was also banned, along with approximately 2000 subreddits.
> "we're fishing for a made up reason that lets us boot you guys"
Reddit has listed "communities that promote hate" as a reason to ban subreddits for at least 5 years. Not sure how this is "fishing for a made up reason."
It appears that you are advocating for censorship then. If you think all this /r/politics stuff is contemptible, would you agree that banning T_D was good, even if it was, as you assert, a biased measure?
PredPol is headquartered there: "PredPol Inc, the Santa Cruz-headquartered firm that pioneered the technology, said that it supported the city resolution’s requirement that predictive policing “will not perpetuate bias”, among other criteria."
I heard this recently, but I forgot where: policing software is supposed to be used to help inform decisions in addition to established investigative practices, but police are instead using the software as decision-makers which has possibly decreased accuracy in investigating crimes.
Nice. This is very interesting. I suppose it would be hard to make any assumptions about the reasoning here. At least Vox interprets this as black people "view inadequate protection and inadequate service levels as part of the larger pattern of mistreatment." That's entirely reasonable. If someone were to believe that the police institution itself is not racist, and it's just the individual cops who are the problem, then it's fair to come to the conclusion that more policing may solve the very real issue of crime in black communities.
However, just like the author of the article, I agree that we would need to see a similar poll now after the George Floyd protests to see if the opinion still stands, but it's important to note.
A plurality of African Americans (38-31) oppose cutting police budgets. African Americans are split 50-50 in whether we need more or fewer police on the streets. A supermajority (64-33) believe that the current police departments can be reformed.
A majority (51-17) support spending less on police and increasing funding for social programs, but try to reconcile this with the statistic above, where half want more police on the streets. (People might perceive this question as reduced budgets would hit management, etc., rather than beat cops).
Nice. However, since yougov experiences sample bias due to their data collection method being only online participants, and the sample size of black people isn't anywhere near even 5% margin of error (meaning it could be completely wrong) this study is not usable to draw conclusions on its own.
I don't but that's not really my point -- the poll itself isn't a problem, it's the lack of multiple polls that cautions me to draw concrete conclusions from it as rayiner did. 140 people out of 30 million is about 10% margin of error. Add sample bias to that and this poll alone is nowhere near conclusive, although as I indicated it's still useful to reflect on the issue.
> then it's fair to come to the conclusion that more policing may solve the very real issue of crime in black communities.
It depends upon what more policing means. I have been keeping a closer eye on what's happening in Canada, and it seems clear that the police are not trained or do not internalize training to handle certain situations particularly well. In extreme cases, this has resulted in situations being escalated and deadly force being used. Given complaints ranging from excessive force to racial profiling, it sounds like problem routinely plays itself out on a smaller scale. If a community is reluctant to trust the police, I doubt that they will see benefits from more traditional policing.
Some of the de-funding discussion has been about reducing police funding to allocate it to other social services, but I suppose that it could also be reallocated training officers who's primary purpose is community relations, responding to mental health issues, or handling criminal activity that is unlikely to require an armed response. This may make more sense than dumping responsibility onto social service agencies both due to the quality of training and the ability to immediately access police resources if escalation is inescapable.
Agreed. To a lot of people, policing means "solve disruptions in society" but that's an oversimplistic and unrealistic idea of what police are trained to do and what is even possible with an institution that treats violence as a necessary means to do their job.
And for the record, I am squarely in the defund camp, but also open minded to discussion.
Agreed. I find "boring" to be an unreliable metric for decision-making in software. A boring tool could result in damage to the long term development of software if it is inflexible, for example. Migrations between tools are easily some of the most expensive technical debt costs any software organization may face.
I also agree that the better measurement of good software is that which is unsurprising. Code should be easy to follow, and the decisions for the software tools that are used should be given the same treatment. You should be able to explain your code or infra to most developers without any raised eyebrows. That doesn't make it boring. In fact, it's very interesting when a problem that looks complex on the surface can be solved by relatable means.
Universal healthcare does not mean "free healthcare". What it means is that all people have equal access to healthcare, the kind that would otherwise be provided by everyone having private healthcare insurance, such as what would need to happen in the US. The intent is that this would be more affordable for the average person than not having a universal healthcare system.
Of course, affordability is not a guarantee for all treatments, regardless of which healthcare system you agree with. It seems this is the problem for the Kim family. Even in a universal healthcare system, things like chemotherapy and cancer surgery might still cost too much for people who earn below living-wage.
I'm sorry but that's wrong because that's trying to twist the meaning of words. No money, no healthcare isn't universal obviously. With no single-payer, government-funded, healthcare system, only doctors and patients who have to pay for everything themselves, that is in no way "universal healthcare."
The problem with charging poor people for healthcare is that they get sicker and sicker and then need emergency care, and that's more expensive than giving them free healthcare in the beginning.
It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income. Doctors with integrity would be abhorred at being presented with such a decision because it goes against the fundamental values of their profession.
> It's unethical and classist to pick-and-choose who gets life-saving cancer treatment based on their income.
Since we're talking ethics, do you also think universal healthcare should be provided by wealthy nations to all the world? Otherwise we are just picking and choosing based on where someone happens to be born, aren't we?
That question doesn't matter because national sovereignty would prevent other countries from doing that even if they wanted to. It's not a program it's even possible to consider without some really elaborate treaties that many countries would reject.
At the core of it what you're basically arguing is that nations are unethical because what citizenship someone holds influences things like their access to health care, and the solution to that would probably look a lot like the EU but completely borderless world-wide (with no immigrations or customs departments?)
I think you know how people would react to that. It's a pointless 'gotcha' question
The logistics don't seem difficult at all to me if there's a will. People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give them money. At the very least, countries can offer a "medical visa" option to visitors.
As for national borders being unethical by nature, if that logically follows then why not?
I certainly don't consider ethics a source of "gotcha" questions, but of real conundrums.
As far as I'm aware, the NHS provides free healthcare to people visiting the UK.
As regards providing free healthcare to anyone regardless of country, that seems next to impossible without providing the infrastructure necessary within the country they live, which would indeed be very difficult to work out. It seems like a good goal to work towards - everyone regardless of nation having access to reasonable quality healthcare.
> People tend to be pretty accommodating when it comes to letting you give them money.
Not really. A huge amount of charity money supposedly going to the poor in other countries is actually used to bribe officials in those countries to allow the aid to be delivered. Any attempt to give healthcare to people in those countries would also be seen as foreign interference, and suffer the same problems.
Ethics of some cancer treatments are dubious. (lifespan but not health) Depends on the cancer though.
Others are indeed effective - hormone blockers for certain reproductive system cancers, specific treatments for leukemia, surgeries where applicable and screening, toxic chemotherapy for cancers where it is effective or after surgery.
Advanced biologicals are often expensive because they can be and are not very effective there.
But there are some that are effective for autoimmune problems, those are problematic for our general healthcare in Poland with long conservative treatments with side effects while you're waiting to be qualified.
While I agree with you that universal healthcare should be "free", in most cases it's just "universal" healthcare and there is a marked difference between the two. Universal Healthcare only centralizes the insurance industry into a government managed program and determines cost by public committee rather than behind closed doors in boardrooms. That has been determined to reduce costs but not eliminate them. And the purpose is "access."
"Free Universal Healthcare" on the other hand focuses on delivering all healthcare at no cost for all common illnesses. To be clear, South Korea has Universal Healthcare and Bernie Sanders is proposing Free Universal Healthcare. But even Sanders' program would not guarantee that prescription drugs are free, they'll still be at maximum $200 per year per perscription. So, while I agree with you that it's "unethical and classist" to pick and choose who gets to live based on whether or not they can afford it, Universal Healthcare is not an end-all to this and is just part of the whole solution.
Also, to stay on topic, South Korea has the most consistently highest rated access to healthcare, but the issues presented in the movie Parasite still ring true for many Koreans.
How is it universal care if some people can't get care because they can't afford it? By that logic the US has universal care - any legal treatment your doctor wants to give you and you can afford it, anyone can get.
Universal Healthcare does not guarantee affordability, only access. You must be thinking of "Free Universal Healthcare".
And no, the US does not have it. You can be denied insurance and you won't be able to see most doctors because of it. Some ERs won't even treat you without insurance, especially if it's an expensive procedure.
> Universal Healthcare does not guarantee affordability
I think we have a word for that: affordable health care. Universal Healthcare necessarily covers affordability:
"""Universal health care is a system that provides quality medical services to all citizens. The federal government offers it to everyone regardless of their ability to pay.
"""
-- From https://www.thebalance.com/universal-health-care-4156211
Except your quote is exactly what I am saying. And just because universal healthcare is "provided to everyone regardless of their ability to pay", it doesn't mean that they'll always be able to pay it.
Because even if costs are "affordable" over all, it doesn't guarantee that everyone, including the Kim family in 'Parasite' would be able to afford more expensive treatments without selling their home for 30k.
Some may consider the fact that Korean national health insurance only covers around 55 percent of the total healthcare cost to be problematic. This may be true if one takes the idea of guaranteed socialized medicine seriously. But for fiscal conservatives with some measure of compassion for the plight of the uninsured, this could be an attractive balance. While corruption is definitely still a problem with Korean government, the NHIC is surprisingly efficient and well-run. It does a great job squeezing out maximum value out of the tax it receives.
Sometimes it is. For example, if you can ever stomach watching "Vampires vs. Zombies", potentially the worst movie ever made, then you may qualify for hospice care.
> ... [a] more practical, much faster to implement, debug and modify solution of the problem takes only six lines of shell script by reusing standard Unix utilities.
Unlike tr, sort, uniq, awk and tr, perl is not a standard Unix utility. Not only that, but Text::LevenshteinXS is a plugin that must be downloaded.
It's still far more convenient than Knuth's work, and it follows Spinellis' reasoning about the Unix mindset, but Spinellis' Levenshtein example doesn't actually support Mcllroy's original argument.
... wait, what? Since when? You don't think US military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan are about expansionism?
Besides, the concept of expansionism includes economic expansion, not just border expansion.