More fallout from disappointing King Arthur opening

The United Kingdom is considering eliminating knighthoods and adopting a French-style system of national honors. Also on the table: eliminating the "embarrassing" word empire from the various remaining titles. This American applauds the UK's recognition that empire always ends in embarrassment, and hopes they might really do the world a mitzvah by no longer sending their windbags across the sea to persuade us we should be picking up that booby prize.

Comments

[joe]

Warren,

Nice Cheney picture. Narf!

[grylliade]

If America no longer expends the effort to police the world some one else will take the job (and that taking in itself can be very expensive).

Yeah, I'd forgotten the "nations need police" rule. Because Russia is really going to have the resources to do anything outside her borders any time in the next thirty or forty years. And China is sooooooo interested in projecting its power, which is why they have that huge navy. And Islam actually has world influence outside of controlling the supply of oil. Yes, all those are fantastic candidates. And God knows that if the US doesn't do it, someone will, because countries just crave that "policing" job. Give me a break.

[seeker]

America should not be policing the world. We should crush those who oppose us directly, but we should not stick our nose into places it really doesn't belong. The result would be far more mayhem in the world, but a lot less strife here at home. Less strife at home...national defense. Too simplistic...

China doesn't have a navy but they would need a large one to move any part of their army around. They know this. Their stated goal is to take over the world. At what point is it our business? When they annex Siberia? Moscow? Germany? France? Great Britain? Egypt? When the whole world but North America is Yellow (or would it be red) on the map? What about if they took over the Panama Canal?...oh, yeah...Are they going to move north into Mexico? At some point we care. Nations evolve. At what point did it become a static thing to have the nations on earth and the borders as they are and if anyone steps outside of the line, the U.S. will trounce them royally? Is it really about how the governments treat their people? Why have we never done anything in Sudan or why didn't we do anything in Rwanda? National interests, my ass.

I love these lively discussions 🙂

[seeker]

...and why did I get talking about China? *sheesh*...talk about topic creep..

[joe]

"If America no longer expends the effort to police the world some one else will take the job (and that taking in itself can be very expensive).

So given China, The Islamic World, or possibly Russia as alternatives who would you prefer?"

My hope, Simon, is the the government and society in Senegal become stable enough that the Senegalese police Senegal, that Laos become stable and strong enough for the Laotians to police Laos, etc. I agree that we need to look out for power vacuums. But I reject your assumption that only outsiders can fill a vacuum.

[SM]

He doesn't. If you read "Empire," you'll see that he deals with the less-than-liberal side of empire & its legacy by changing the subject or by pointing sternly to the spectacle of "Natives Behaving Veddy Veddy Badly" (TM). In one typical instance, he expends a few paragraphs on how General Dwyer had a bad week immediatly prior to ordering the army to fire on unarmed civilians, so that explains that & no worries.

Given that he asserts fantastic stuff like the following, its a miracle he's taken seriously by anyone at all.

"And India by the 1920s was in fact on the path to regional representative government. The objective was always to dissolve British rule when the time was ripe."

Yeah, right, case closed.
He's lucky in that most of his "emasculated anti-imperialist" opponents (at least the ones i've seen) blubber in moral outrage instead of taking his theories head-on.

[kevrob]

seeker, apparently the Great Helmsman needs boats:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/china/plan.htm

People's Liberation Army Navy is one of the goofiest names for a sea-going force I have ever heard of, though.

Kevin

[seeker]

Kevin,

Thanks for the link. Interesting looking over their known inventory. Made me reminisce about my old Axis & Allies days! This troop ship can carry 4 guys or two tanks! Wow! 🙂

I guess my point was that I do not see it as a huge threat for China to head east. If I was playing Russia, though, I wouldn't be selling them arms. I would be nervous. There's 250 million more men and than women in China. That's almost the population of the U.S. That's 250 million guys that will never have a woman. That's an occupying army that doesn't need to come home.

Long live King Arthur! Got keep on topic...

[Warren]

Remember when plans to take over the world were funny?

[M. Simon]

If America no longer expends the effort to police the world some one else will take the job (and that taking in itself can be very expensive).

So given China, The Islamic World, or possibly Russia as alternatives who would you prefer?

By the way no utopian choices (no one, the UN) allowed.

[jay lewis]

I tend to agree with this. I understand the desire to get paid for blogging, but as someone else mentioned, if I had to write my weblog, I doubt I would enjoy it as much. Not to mention that, in my opinion, part of the appeal of weblogs is the personal voice -- corporate-sponsored/endorsed weblogs would, except in rare instances and circumstances, lose this, I suspect.