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@DebateArt.com
Can you allow people to edit their debates as long as no one has accepted the debate?
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Sorry for the huge amount of text. I'm not a spammer. I feel through on this topic.
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The military might of the US is great but looking at only three African nations (out of 53,) should immediately illustrate the flaw with the idea that we can take over Africa.Soldiers aren't everything, but I would consider technology a superior indicator of how strong a military is since it barely matters how many soldiers you have if your up against one solider with a bomb and a plane. If one solider has a plane with a bomb and firepower, he can wipe out an entire base all by himself and his technology. Africa has inferior technology and I think it would be safe to say that their allies (like China) have inferior technology as well to the US. The US would win in a war for Africa.Allies are not going to support us taking over an entire continent,especially since they receive no tangible benefit from doing so and would probably face international scrutiny in the form of sanctions.This is a good argument. I don't want sanctions. However, I think that if the US gets the UN's permission to invade, then we can invade without sanctions. Believe it or not, an invasion fits in with some things that the UN wants to do with the world. I'll address that later. There is one point that I want to address first.China is trying to establish their presence within Africa through their aid and would not sit idly while the US erodes their sphere of influence.I don't think China can do much about it in the long term. If China had the ability, they would eliminate South Korea and make it communist. But they don't do that because they are afraid of the US military. They tried that once and failed. They can't win in a battle close to their home. If they can't win a military battle in East Asia, how could they win on another side of the world? China wouldn't win in a conventional war against the US.Now to deal with the UN argument:The UN's goals and how a US invasion of Africa would meet these goals:MAINTAIN INTERNATIONAL PEACE AND SECURITY. An invasion would help keep the African nations at relative peace with another, similar to how the British kept peace when they controlled India.PROTECT HUMAN RIGHTS. As an example, in Africa, many people get killed for being homosexual and real non consensual sexism is prevalent there. People are also prohibited by their families to go to school, thereby keeping them in poverty even more. An invasion would cause human rights to flourish. It would get more people educated. It would deliver human rights to the homosexuals and females, something that the left and increasingly the right wants.DELIVER HUMANITARIAN AID: I would want $527 billion delivered in humanitarian aid to all US colonies on the basis of population annually. This would go towards developing Africa instead of providing things like food, which the locals have been doing well enough for the time being.PROMOTE SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT Once Enough good roads are built in Africa and other developments, like alternative energy for the Africans, this would create jobs from which people can afford to buy better food. They don't have to grow it on their own, but they are nonetheless, developing. This also provides incentive for American companies to go out and get cheap land to start their businesses. It would be great for the American stock market.UPHOLD INTERNATIONAL LAW. Here, they basically want to limit aggression between states. In the short term, this will not be the case. However, as I had mentioned above, in the long term, not only would there be more peace in Africa as history has confirmed with the U.K. and India, but there will also be in the long term, more peace between Africa and the US if the Africans are treated well enough under US rule. No slavery is necessary for the invasion. This way, Africans feel more American and as a result, they would want to stay in the nation that offers them citizenship. In other words, they ideally consent to being a colony because they don't want to lose their newly acquired American citizenship.
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@blamonkey
You bring up the GDP, and while it is a good indicator of economic health, it definitely does not tell the whole story.I think I brought up GDP per capita.Also, the GDP does not take into consideration homelessness or internal violence.It takes into account homelessness, since they tend to be poor. It does not take into violence, that I'll concede. Violence would plummet under American rule in the long term. It happened like that when the British invaded India. There was relative peace and the British helped end the sati practice, which burned widows just for being widows.The initial anger at the US overthrowing their nation, as well as the internal displacement of people because of war, will cause much suffering.In the short term, this would be true, but in the long term, I imagine they would accept US rule as their lives get better.Even if it only took one decade to fix up Africa completely, (which, given bureaucratic deficiencies, the existence of terrorist groups, and the severe lack of infrastructure is seriously unlikely,) we would still pay $5 trillion dollars.Eliminating the terrorist groups in Africa would be easy since the US military spends about 12x more then the African governments do in their military. If we spend 12x more then the governments, eliminating some relatively vigilantic terrorist groups would be easy to do.This is not even counting the cost of keeping thousands of troops to keep the peace,prevent terrorist groups from taking over land, and overthrow Africa.This can be paid for with an increase in military spending, which can help defend economic freedom worldwide.Also, I like how you cite many of your claims. Wanting to put that out there.If we are trying to pay for the entire cost using the precious metal industry in Africa, then we still end up losing more money than we gain. Maketwatch reports that roughly 75% of South Africa's goldmines and 66% of their platinum mines are not earning much profit despite their immense reserves of both metals (4).This is because mining is hard on the continent, I imagine it might be because of government regulation and corruption.Moreover, how do we know that $500 billion for entirety of one continent is enough? The US spends roughly $12,000 dollars for every man, woman, and child within the country, or expressed differently,over $3.8 trillion every single year (5). Suddenly, $500 for every person in Africa doesn't sound like a lot. This is especially true when we consider that 1.2 billion people live in Africa according to the Guardian (6).We can spend more on Africa if necessary. $500 billion was a starter number and would go from the US to Africa in order to develop the region. Considering that Africans would pay tax under American rule, they would get this money back as well. I'm willing to increase this number to $1200 billion annually for now. This is $1200 per African in services. This would cure or significantly reduce many of the contagious diseases like Malaria and West Nile Virus and the money should be used first for roads and second for solar energy.
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@blamonkey
and offered medical supplies, food, lower taxes etc. By doing this, they ended up recruiting a lot of people and garnering support for their cause.
If the US does this as well, then we can get the support of the Africans to rule over them.
Our objectives had nothing to do with humanitarian assistance though, so our presence was mostly destructive.
If we invade Africa and provide some humanitarian aid once we invaded (not enough to bankrupt the US, but way more aid then what is currently delivered to the continent) then the Africans would be fine with it.
Our intervention causes more of these issues when our gunfire destroys schools and homes.
During the invasion, I'm planning on US soldiers marching through African streets and basically invading the capitol building of each of the countries. Gunfire would not be fired unless in genuine self defense. From there, once the capitols are under US sovereignty, treaties are signed under point of gun for the African nations to surrender sovereignty to the US. Once the US owns Africa and the leaders are overthrown, then the US starts imposing it's rule and Africa starts receiving territory subsidies annually.
Out of curiosity, where would the $500 billion go to primarily?
Good question blamonkey. The $500 billion annually would go to various projects.
First, it would go towards vaccinating virtually every last African. This comes before roads because I would prefer the Africans being vaccinated first before they travel so they don't spread the disease. This is done until the disease is virtually eradicated from the territory.
Then, it would lead to better roads(to start off, simple 2 lane roads should work). http://blog.midwestind.com/cost-of-building-road/#comment-8135 states that roads cost around $2.5 million per mile. Therefore, 300,000 kilometers of roads can be built on the territory added on to what's already there, enough to go from Cairo to Cape Town 50x. To put it into perspective, the US has about 6 million kilometers of roads. This may sound insignificant but keep in mind, Africa already has roads so the 300K km of roads is in addition to the current roads on the continent. Still, I imagine this is where 10 years of territory subsidies are going towards so the region can become at least somewhat connected.
After the 10 years, I think the money should be invested on solar panel projects in the Sahara in order to get electricity to the territory. Africa couldn't afford this. But the territory subsidy can help pay for it. Installing 1 solar panel costs $800. $500 billion can pay for about 800 million panels (there will probably be a discount since the US gov would buy so many panels) and this could help give the Africans that don't have it cheap electricity. Who would be installing these panels? Africans. This helps reduce the unemployment rate. $500 billion was a sample number. If necessary, this number can increase in a tax plan I have.
Obviously, mandatory vaccinations would work.
As long as the vaccines don't contain unborn baby parts, I am fine with this.
This operation, even if it is successful, would mean practically all our active troops being reallocated to overthrow 53 countries.
Not all of the troops. Just some of them would be necessary to invade and control Africa until the Africans benefit enough to where they are fine with being a US territory. Most Africans hate their government(http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8215083.stm) so they probably could be open to a US democratic alternative with less corruption.
basically slaughtered plenty of Native Americans to get that land so that people from the US could settle there
The natives I imagine died mainly from disease which was an accident on the west. It's not like the west knew they had deadly diseases. The natives compared to the west also had a very low population so westernizing the area was easy. I imagine some natives got slaughtered. Many nations have committed some genocide at some point and I don't endorse the genocide that the US did in the past. However, the time of genocide is over for the US. I don't support killing off the Africans on the basis of their race.
Also, we made Puerto Rico a territory,but it is far from the utopia that you would think it is. The Borgen Project estimates that over 40% of those that live in Puerto Rico live below the poverty line, and median incomes are only about $19,000 annually (1).
Their median income is still higher then the average GDP per capita in Latin America. The GDP per capita of PR is around $27000 (https://tradingeconomics.com/puerto-rico/gdp-per-capita). This is about double the GDP per capita of the rest of Latin America.
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"They don't like people controlling them." What's wrong with them being a US territory if they can't maintain their economy? It benefits Greece because it solves their debt problem. It benefits the US because it expands our territory and GDP.
"Plus you don't understand the system, Greece would have to be a permanent state of America for them not to be owed money." I don't know what is wrong with making them a territory with the long term goal of making them a state.
"will get EU involved to stop America." The EU might not care because they have paid Greece huge loan amounts and Greece no offense is a economic burden to the EU. Europe might be fine with the US taking over Greece due to the fact that Greece costs the EU a huge amount of money and degrades the value of the Euro.
The only way it would work is if HSI workers swap with Greeces refugees?Also who's to say refugees can't be skilled as them with education opportunities
Some refugees are skilled, some aren't. What would the USA have to gain from trading HSI workers for refugees? That might happen if Greece becomes part of America. If Greece were American, their economy would skyrocket. Look at what it did for Puerto Rico. They have the highest GDP per capita in Latin America. American influence to Greece could make it the richest area in South east Europe and maybe even one of the strongest GDP per capitas in all of Europe. An american ally to Greece would also intimidate Turkey and the Turks would be scared of it.
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"Turning Greece into a territory is more realistic as long as Greece keeps their culture, which I doubt that will happen if it were." If Greece were a territory, I imagine there would be 2 official languages on the peninsula (English and Greek). Since about half of Greeks can engage in an English conversation, I imagine that English would be prominent within Greece. As an American, I would prefer more assimilation in Greece in order to prevent the Greeks from separating on the basis of cultural/language differences. The US already has to deal with a Puerto Rico separatist movement on the basis of language differences. History rhymes.
"The best solution is to feed high skilled workers from America to Greece and ship their refugees to America." Why would America agree to sacrifice good workers for refugees? I might be okay with what you propose if Greece agrees to become a US territory and an eventually a US state.
The US, while currently the world's strongest economy, is predicted to slip to #2 because of China. As a result, the US needs to expand it's territory if it wishes to remain #1.
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"Selling off an entire country means they are under that rule and physically won't have debt at all." Isn't Greece eliminating it's debt a good thing?
"Also your are just saying that Greece is pointless when it is the reason we have so many technological advancements." When you were worried about their culture being lost, I thought you meant the language. I believe that language and culture are very similar and almost interchangeable. I meant to ask how was the Greek language important in modern times and this is what I thought you were defending. I think that Trig, Geometry, the Pythagorean theorem etc is important stuff but how is the language part of their culture worth defending?
"Also they are the lead exporter in Grapes, Wine, fruit, vegetables." They can still export these things under the rule of another country. Under capitalist US rule, they probably would export these things in greater quantity. This may be a crazy idea, but since I am kindof a neo imperialist, what if the US annexed Greece?
"It is idiotic, and will eliminate Greece" My idea could turn Greece into a US state/territory eventually and this could help eliminate the Greek debt due to American businesses improving the economy in the area.
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What if Greece sold their land to a nation other then Turkey? You cited their culture, however how is culture in general even important? If the Greeks lose their culture, what ramifications would exist? I'm curious. What would be wrong with that? The BoP is on you. I knew you wouldn't like my method of solving the Greek debt. You stated that they already paid it off, but I would like a source to confirm this claim because their debt is increasing(http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html)
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Why is it not smart? Some nation gets bigger and Greece loses it's debt.
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Greece could sell the Aegean islands or their entire country to a nation other then Turkey.
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They influence the Aegean Sea. Turkey might be interested in controlling the Aegean islands. Also, controlling Greece would result in a GDP increase of whichever country decides to do it.
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@blamonkey
I think that politicians would prioritize policies that benefit the people on the US mainland.
They would do both improve the African economy and to improve the US economy. Under my proposed rule, Africans would get a territory subsidy to keep them in the US and I'm putting this number at around $500 annually. This can be paid for by the natural resources mined in Africa.
Also, Boko Haram, radicalization on account of our intervention, and international scrutiny are also complicating factors.
The US military can put an end to this.
Consider our activity in Cuba and Puerto Rico, where we initiated regime change simply for the economic benefit of the US. Also, consider the military coup that we sponsored in Iran. We put in charge a leader who, while giving the US lucrative deals as far as oil, still abused their own people.
When the US annexed PR, their GDP per capita has shown to be high compared to other regions in Latin America. When we invade, but don't control the territory as what happened in Cuba and Iran, then might be when things get messed up in the country.
Regardless, an expansion of the land that we control also means that we inherit all of the problems in Africa as well.
These problems can get fixed with their territory subsidy.
Imagine numerous Italian troops parachuting down onto US soil and demanding that they liberate us from what they see to be a corrupt, ineffective government.
Italy's government is about as effective as America's government, so Italy wouldn't be able to fix us that much, if at all. The problems delivered from an Italian invasion of the USA (ignoring that that is impossible) could result in nuclear war since the USA is armed with nukes. Invading Africa would not result in nuclear war and in the short term, Africans would fight to resist the USA. But the USA would win in a war for this since our military is stronger then all of Africa combined.
Moreover, the destruction on account of inevitable war to overthrow the nations in question would worsen medical infrastructure, schools, and homes. " In the short term, there is some truth to this. In the long term, the US would pay for the rebuilding of Africa with the materials and natural resources that are mined from the continent.
"People would turn toward the promise of money and fraternity from terrorist groups out of necessity, worsening the violence in the region." At most, the only amount of violence that would occur in the region would be a united Africa vs the USA. At best, the Africans are being fine with being part of America once their GDP per capita skyrockets.
Terrorist groups have used the destruction of war to boost support in the past.
This only applies when the invading power didn't stick around and make the region part of the invading power's country. What the USA did to Iran, we also did to Hawaii, PR, and much of the territory the USA has annexed from Manifest Destiny. These areas are just fine and 1st world. We replaced what was there with a more American version of that place.
AQAP used this very method to hold their position within Mukalla, a prominent port town in Yemen.
What is AQAP?
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What if Greece sold some or all of their land to a foreign country to pay off their debt?
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@Vader
I thought of a way to solve the Greek economic crisis in a way you probably won't like.
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I really don't like RM. I debated him 2x and his arguments don't make much sense. He moves the goalposts a lot. I told him voting shouldn't be required and he thought that somehow was pro dictatorship. Given that he doesn't vote on every single debate, it kindof makes him a hypocrite.
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2 things I would like to address:
1: RM blocked me for some reason. I don't think he is justified.
2: Please contribute to the form below:
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@oromagi
This is part 2 of the comment.
Their transportation would be paid for by the US gov in the form of what I would call their, “territory subsidy”. This would be about $500 billion annually that would be dedicated to the improvement of the territory, about $500 per African. This can be funded by all of the natural resource extraction the US gov would do to the continent and that recourse extraction can provide extra revenue for the states to reduce taxes.
“Somehow, you don't forsee the scale of the war that might be waged to prevent such an outcome.” A war might be fought, but it won’t go nuclear. If a war is fought, then it is most likely to be initiated by China, since they have a lot of influence in Africa right now. However, the war probably wouldn’t go nuclear because both the west and the east are extremely scared of nuclear war. We survived the cold war, although barely and luckily because of one guy. The technological error that almost caused a nuclear war is significantly less likely to occur since I believe that the nations with nukes have since made their nuclear detecting technology much more accurate.
Since China is too scared as well to start a nuclear war, it probably would be a conventional war that the US would win, especially if we had the Pro-US Africans helping us out. They probably would be pro US because the US would have helped their economy out a lot. I mean, Tibet is fine with being part of China, because the lives of Tibetans are much better under Chinese rule. I imagine a similar situation would exist under American ruled Africa as long as the Africans aren’t oppressed.
This is a side idea, I want to see how it will hold out, but once enough decent roads and highways were built on the continent, I think that immigration from parts of Africa to other parts of Africa could be forced in order to mix up the religions in Africa to make the people there more accepting of other religions and less likely to harbor hatred towards other faiths. As a result, terrorism plummets and the continent is more united. A united continent would cause the economy to skyrocket. The continent, once it unifies as one US territory, is then split up into about or exactly 200 different territories on the basis of population, so each territory has about the same amount of people in it. It also unifies the continent linguistically because it forces the Africans to use common languages to communicate. English probably would become the language of choice for most Africans since a majority of Africans already live in a country where English is an official language and they would be annexed by the US, the largest English speaking country in the world. As a result, in the long term, their children would use that language as a means of communication. French, Arabic, Portuguese, Swahili, and Aramaic would also be existent for a while.
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@oromagi
@oromagi
Thank you for continuing with this idea and happy new year.
I read a little about the Borg. One flaw that the Borgs have is they don't allow their drones to have individual thought unless they are separated from the queen for too long. In American ruled Africa, the Africans could preach for whatever they want. They can even preach for independence if they wanted too, albeit within 10 years of American control, I doubt most of them would want to preach for independence because the US would have made their lives much better. Freedom of speech is the 1st amendment after all.
"Look, if you're serious about such a proposal the first question you've got to answer is whether you intend to give Africans citizenship." This is a legitimate concern and here is how I see the 2 options:
Option 1: You give the Africans open border citizenship.
You stated that if you give Africans citizenship, then they control the entire government. I don't think this would be true since Africa would be a US territory and territories get less representation in the US government then states do. I want territories to get representation on the basis of their population, but that's a tangent. If territories get 1/10 the representatives in house of representatives as they would if they were states and nothing in congress that a US state does in the exact same situations (which already applies for territories like PR), then the African territories (since they will be divided up into territories) would get 382 representatives total. The US would get 435 representatives(https://walberg.house.gov/about/how-congress-works). The Africans under US rule would be less represented then the states. They can apply for statehood, but they would only be allowed to do this under certain conditions, such as how assimilated the locals become under American rule. The requirements for this would be along the lines of:
-Eliminating religious law, as what is prevalent in much of Africa. South Africa would have a relatively easy time becoming multiple states. Other places, like Nigeria, maybe not so much since they are too theocratic (https://allafrica.com/stories/201711140825.html).
-Attaining a high GDP per capita. Since the African politicians would want representation, this encourages the African governments to increase the GDP per capita of the locals probably by a method that worked well for the west. Since they would be under American rule, they might decide to rely on the ideology of /American Capitalism and to increase the GDP per capita enough to meet this requirement. I would consider that $25,000 per person would be enough to become a state.
The capital of the US would still be Washington D.C. When Britain conquered India, the capital of the empire still remained London. Since history rhymes, I predict that the capital of the US and it’s African territory would remain Washington D.C if the US were to invade.
Option 2: You don't give the Africans open border citizenship.
Here, you basically state that it would essentially bring back slavery. However, there are current territories of the US where the inhabitants are not slaves. Just because you live in a US territory does not mean that you will be a slave. For example, Puerto Ricans are not slaves. Many Africans would get jobs in order to reduce the unemployment rate and to bring up the African and American economy, but these jobs would pay well and the locals can quit anytime they want(assuming their contract allows it).
Which option would I want? I basically would pick option 2 because I don’t want the US completely becoming owned by Africa, with the exception of African states that are “American” enough to become states. However, within Africa complete open borders would exist. This would cause the mixing to some extent of people of Christian and Islamic faiths, making mutual hostility towards the other faith plummet and would allow religious freedom to skyrocket on the continent, making the place more American in ideology in the long term.
-Attaining a high GDP per capita. Since the African politicians would want representation, this encourages the African governments to increase the GDP per capita of the locals probably by a method that worked well for the west. Since they would be under American rule, they might decide to rely on the ideology of /American Capitalism and to increase the GDP per capita enough to meet this requirement. I would consider that $25,000 per person would be enough to become a state.
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@IlDiavolo
@oromagi
@oromagi
I don't know what the Borg is but I don't know if the Borg would do the things that the US does. The Borg might want to kill all of humanity (I am not a big Star Trek fan, so I wouldn't know). The US military would aim to kill as few soldiers as necessary to secure the continent. From there, more Africans get saved in the long term because health standards would go up. I don't think the Borg would improve the lives of Africans in the long term.
@IlDiavolo
"Everything the US touch turn to rubbish. Did anybody say Central America?" I imagine Central America was messed up before American influence. After all, many places in South America are messed up and they didn't have too much US influence. PR on the other hand, is a place in Latin America that actually got invaded and is still owned by the US. PR has the highest GDP per capita in Latin America.
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@disgusted
@WisdomofAges
@Wisdom of Ages
How is your comment on topic?
@disgusted
What exactly is "US hegemony"?
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@WisdomofAges
Since China is gaining influence in Africa, the US should do the same.
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@WisdomofAges
Are you backwarsden from DDO?
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@Greyparrot
@disgusted
@disgusted
It's not all about the woman. It's also about the fetus that she in most situations chose to conceive. A fetus's life is more valuable then a woman's convenience.
@Greyparrot
A man carrying a rifle does not result in life or death for an innocent person. Your big boy analogy is inconsistent.
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@DebateArt.com
A lot of them have. However, I imagine most of the people on DDO don't know this site exists. Advertising to them will turn many previously unaware people into members of this site. I would do this, but my DDO account malfunctioned.
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https://www.debateart.com/forum/topics/175 has more posts then us. We need to post more.
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I think I should stop here out of the fear of getting blocked. I apologize but I was aiming to make this forum the one with the most amount of posts on it.
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