So, a lot of content creators I follow were doing some stream for some anti war cause, but listening to some of them, I kind of found them to be a bit insufferable, so I want to offer some friendly advice. One person framed it as "youre anti war, I'm anti war, we're all anti war" which is true, but dont confuse this for support for the leftist anti war position.
Foreign policy is a weird political spectrum and hard to nail down. I guess in the grand scheme of things, I'll break things down into three camps, and all three of these camps DO have anti war factions, but some of them do have pro war factions. The pro/anti war thing tends to cross conventional ideological boundaries.
The conservative foreign policy position is often called "realpolitik" in political science circles. It can be described as being for a country's rational self interests. Basically, a defining feature is that it does tend to support selfishness. It also tends to support might makes right. It recognizes that foreign policy is a bit hobbesian and that ultimately that who gets to make the rules is the one with the biggest stick.
Now, America First as demonstrated by Trump is a form of this. He believes that raw power is all that matters and because the US has the most strength, they can do what they want. But, this isn't the only realpolitik position out there. Neocons have similar views and often want to spread their values by force, while the America first guys are more isolationist and in theory, wanna be left alone. Although under trump he's kinda gone hyper imperialist instead.
Still, there is an anti war faction that generally opposes war because it isnt in our self interest to wage it. A lot of trump supporters, at least in theory, were opposed to the iraq and afghanistan wars, and should, by rights, be opposed to the Iran war. Now are they? Well, as we know, MAGA is a cult where a lot of them just follow dear leader and seemingly reject principles in the face of said leader violating them. But in theory, like half of these guys should be opposed to this Iran war.
Liberals. Liberals tend to support multilateralism, rules based international orders and using soft power instead of hard power. They're not anti war in all cases, it kind of depends, and as someone in this camp, I would say it depends on the reasoning. I mostly support defensive wars, like Ukraine vs Russia. Big evil empire country decides to mess with a liberal democracy that wants to be left alone? Yeah we should support the underdog. If a NATO country is attacked a war on one is a war on all. But would I support like Iran? HELL NO. And my reasoning is simple. What justification exists to wage it? Some of it is humanitarian, mind you, war is a horrible thing, but there's also the matter of what's our strategic goals? What do we get out of this? How many people will we lose? Is it worth it? Whats our exit strategy? ya know? Being a liberal who grew up in the Bush era and whose adult life has been spent cleaning up after his wars, I have little stomach for more unless we gotta.
Now, I will say some liberals can support wars for humanitarian reasons. In the 1990s, Bill Clinton wanted to use the US like a world police to invade other countries who were committing crimes against humanity and keep the peace. Ya know, like we should go into somalia, rwanda, yugoslavia, and clean up their messes. This got unpopular real fast. After somalia, most americans were just no to boots on the ground. But then suddenly post 9/11, we were interventionist again. Again, it's because for a lot of people it comes down to self interest.
Which brings me to the left. The left tends to be more anti war out of principle, and can, in some instances, be rather extreme with this. I believe the left is their own camp, and I came across a term that seems to describe them, campist. Like being so anti interventionism that you end up becoming stupid and making arguments for your enemies. I dont like these guys. They're self righteous, lose the plot, and think they're oh so moral and that everyone else isn't.
And that's my warning here, because watching this live stream, I'm just thinking, gee these guys are totally those types. They get so hyped up over say, gaza, or iran, and they see it mostly in bleeding heart humanitarian terms. And they get super self righteous and moral about it...and yeah. I just wanna offer a warning. Yes. Most of the country is anti war right now. I dont think Iran is popular. But...you gotta understand. We have a COALITION of different groups here, ranging from right to left. Some of us are lefties, some of us are libs, and some of us might even be disaffected conservatives. We do all want the same thing, but we gotta be aware of the fact that we dont necessarily want it for different reasons. While some are motivated by the human cost of the war, others dont care, they are anti war for more selfish reasons, and we're gonna have to make nice with these people. Hell, as someone from the more liberal camp, I am one of these guys to an extent. My own anti war stance comes first and foremost from self interest. I look at the reasons why we're engaging in this war, I dont find them justifiable. I look at the logistics of how we're supposed to win this war, what victory looks like, if it's even possible. I wonder about casualty numbers, costs to our budget and tax payers. I look at long term exit strategy and what victory even looks like. And ultimately, Im against it because I saw this all before in the 2000s and we're repeating the mistakes we made with Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, does that mean i dont care about the human cost? Well, I do. And what we're doing right now is horrible. We're committing war crimes and basically ruining peoples' lives and killing them for no good reason. BUT....I'm also not gonna be super self righteous about it. Because being the self interested creature that I am with only so many craps to give, I cant really expend the emotional energy consistently being worked up and outraged over something happening on the other side of the world. Sorry, it's just my nature. And these leftie types seem to thrive on perpetual outrage over issues that dont even affect them. So...yeah.
And honestly, if we polled the country, i think more are like me than like them. Most people are only interested in what's in front of them. They cant afford to care about the problems of the other side of the world, even if we're causing them. Hell, some of these people are so morally undeveloped in the right circumstances they'd cheer this war on. I mean, I lived through the 2000s, I saw it happen. We lost interest in the war on terror when it was clear it was going on for longer than we wanted it to, it was costing us money, our troops were dying, and we just wanted to get out and be done with it. It wasnt because people got suddenly super humanitarian over what was happening over in iraq and afghanistan.
So yeah. Again, wanna offer that warning. Not everyone is a leftist, not everyone thinks like a leftist, not everyone is anti war for leftist reasons. We got a diverse coalition here that doesnt all see eye to eye and ironically, we need to approach this more moderately to keep it. Letting the most extreme leftists talk is just gonna alienate the normies. Just saying. I know people are gonna hate me for saying it, but that's how I see it. We're with you, but we're also with you for our own reasons, which might not align with yours. Fair warning.
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