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Wow - that was a dumb statement even for you! SilverWarder Send a noteboard - 05/02/2010 04:22:59 PM
It was the actions of the government that gave Japan a reason to attack us. Classical liberal or libertarians would not have incited Japan by freezing their assets or interfering with their commerce.


Classical liberal or libertarians would never have had a navy at Pearl to be attacked.

However you are missing or more likely ignoring, the entire Japanese culture of the time, which was a resurgence of militarism and was being exercised through conquest.

All that asset freezing etc. was an attempt to slow down the Japanese war machine which had already invaded a whole stack of their neighbours (successfully) without going to actual war.

Of course it didn't work.

Hawaii was going to get attacked eventually - it is part of the Pacific and the Japanese plan was to make the Pacific their own personal lake.

I'm sorry - you think Japan was provoked? Maybe, but that provoking happened many many years before in the 1800s when America used gunboat diplomacy to forcibly open the island nation to trade. The militaristic resurgence was in many ways, like the one that happened in Germany as a response to the Treaty of Versailles. "See, we were screwed, let's go get back some of our own now!" The return of a militaristic society was in the offing for a long long time.

Now - if the colonialism of the 1600s to the 1800s hadn't taken place? Well, maybe, but who knows. That's changing an awful lot of history. Probably wouldn't have changed much since Japan always hated the Chinese for repeatedly invading them. Eventually they were going to want some payback for that had they stayed an insular, militaristic society. As in all things eventually contact would have happened.

When was the US supposed to become this classic liberal or libertarian society? At the beginning? During the Depression? When?

Sorry - reality is this. The US REALLY didn't want to get involved in another World War. They tried pretty darned hard to stay out of it militarily - probably longer than they should have.

As long as Japan wanted what they wanted, all the political efforts in the world weren't going to keep Hawaii and the Aleutians from being attacked. Maybe even the West Coast, hard to say. A few sanctions and the like weren't what caused that, they were in response to that. You're putting the cart in front of the horse.
May God stand between you and harm in all the empty places you must walk.

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