Comment by low_tech_love

But not anywhere near what we have in terms of military power and spending.

Also, economic decline is a much greater threat to the US than military decline. China is eager to dethrone us economically; an invasion of the US would be extremely costly and highly unlikely even if the US' military were significantly smaller.

How much? 1 trillion a year?

Printing?

btw, you got my upvote

I don't normally get into this type of political debate but ...

>Should Israel be allowed to attack terrorist organizations in Palestine?

yes. I think actual terrorists should be eligible for being attacked anywhere. The real question you didn't ask is who gets to label what is and is not a terrorist? Black Panthers were considered terrorists in the US in the 60s and 70s but heros to the Black community now. In the US, again, our founding fathers were all considered terrorists by Britain.

>If so, is there an "acceptable" level of civilian casualties (collateral damage)?

The "acceptable" level of civilian casualties or collateral damage is zero. With the understanding that accidents happen, but all plans should be for zero.

>Does that level change if the terrorists intentionally use civilians as human shields

No. This routinely happens in the US over the years where criminals or even terrorists take hostages on a plane, bank, school, hospital, or other place with innocent people. We do not drop bombs on the building killing all the innocents to get at the evil-doers. Have you noticed that no country in the Western civilized world would even consider that? Modern military should be able to go in and do surgical strikes or a surrender. Hell, in the US, we have small towns with volunteer SWAT teams that do this routinely with basically 100% success rate.

I think the biggest problem, which is covered in most war-time conventions, is that you should treat civilians and innocent people the same as you would treat your own innocent civilians. This is somehow being argued that it does not apply in the middle East or Ukraine or Russia where people just remotely drop bombs and blame "human shields".

Not too long ago the US would be ashamed to admit it even did something like this, because it seems like incompetence or cowardice, but now we support it somehow?

> Strongly agree. The problem is that Hamas represents them (illegitimately IMHO)

Thats a dangerous line of argument to make. Zionists work VERY hard to promote the idea that they represent all jews. I for one would take great offense to the idea that all jews are land stealing colonialist savages. Its just as dangerous to normalize the idea that hammas represents palestinians

> why should US citizens pay taxes to educate people who are apparently hostile to our fundamental values?

Because that's where Americans come from - the educated and acculturated sons and daughters of immigrants who came bearing all manner of prejudice.

Are “freedom of speech” and “due process” not American fundamental values? It seems to me that the people hostile to fundamental values are the masked ICE officers kidnapping random, harmless people from the street and moving them to a different state before the judge had the chance to order them to not do that.

Or did Trump add “disregard for human decency” and “imposing widespread fear through arbitrary state violence” to the list of fundamental values with one of his executive decisions?

the whole "not your jam" thing seems to be you retreating to meaninglessness. this isn't a debate about how a person should feel, it's a debate about how a government should act.

When you're talking about due process, "what about these other people who got due process?" is a reasonable response.

Whataboutism would be something like, "what about Nazi Germany, where even more people got sent to foreign prison camps without due process: look, the US isn't so bad!".

I don't think it ever crosses these people's minds that some other country PAID FOR these people's education and they are now USING that education elsewhere for the profit of a foreign nation.

All my high school and college education was at free schools/colleges in my home country, paid for by taxpayer money. All incredibly competitive places, with very high maintenance costs compared to the other colleges around, not a single US dollar was invested in me and here I am paying taxes and improving this place.

The bargain the US gets from this is one of the biggest reasons it can do what it does, the investments it makes are compounded by the work of the people that it never put a dime for.

But, I bet many have thanked their boss for the opportunity given to them. This statement of gratitude is a tacit acknowledgement of salary.

I don't think anyone feels taken advantage of. I think most people involved in academia value the complexities and jagged edges that come with an international student body. And the outcome - the preeminent education system in the world that keeps the US at the cutting edge of science and technology and has for nearly a hundred years - is indisputable.

A government is not a person who “feels” anything. Anyone who is in the USA for work/study has agreed to a contract, and there is nothing in that contract that requires intelectual subservience. If the USA government finds that the person is not doing their part according to the contract, which would mean being taken advantage of, they are more than welcome to act on that. This has nothing to do with what’s happening.

You’re applying social norms that exist between humans, based on feelings, to a completely different relationship that includes no feelings at all. Would you like another government, with another political direction opposed to yours, to start asking you for appreciation?

One of the problems with trying to apply the Objectivist view to a situation like this is that often experts need to tell their patrons true things they don't want to hear. I'll leave any sociological or economic examples aside and say, to pick a couple that Ayn Rand herself didn't believe, that smoking causes cancer and air pollution is bad for the human body. If the patron doesn't want to believe this new fact they have been told, they might feel taken advantage of. They might feel that if a science department got public funding only to come to those conclusions, that the scientists should be fired.