Comments by "Stephen Jenkins" (@stephenjenkins7971) on "The Barbary States - The Final Yarrs" video.

@davidedbrooke9324 Idk why our friends, who are not really our friends but are contractually obligated to fight in Afghanistan due to a military treaty btw, need the US to deploy in and out. The only screwed up thing the US did in Afghanistan was not include everyone in the negotiations. Everyone is ultimately responsible for their own troops. The US is not everyone's dad, you know? And I like how you mention that the Americans couldn't have won in the Revolutionary War without France. Like, yeah, allies in a war doesn't change that the Americans beat you. Kinda like how the Americans fighting with the Brits in both WW's doesn't change that the Brits beat the Germans in WW1 and WW2. There are almost no wars in early modern history that doesn't have other powers being involved.
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@stanleyrogouski A "revolutionary" United States would probably collapse in on itself thoroughly. The divisions between the revolutionaries from Paris and the general French population were infinitely vast that constant military suppression became the norm and crushed any semblance of democratic adherence. It became a dictatorship which proclaimed to have freedom. And the early US did NOT have that kind of military power to begin with. Also, tying the early US with Revolutionary France would have been disastrous for it, what with it being too weak to ever consider stopping any major European offensive on its shores. Mind you, sometimes going all in is best, but using the French Revolution as an example is pretty much the absolute worst idea that the US could have gone for. Conservative Republican-Democratism along with consistent compromise helped the nascent US built ties between the States, create a democratic culture for future generations and adherence to it, allowed for the people to build up their wealth over time, etc, etc.
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@stanleyrogouski That's BS. If anything, the CC was the first massive pushback against British rule in the Colonies and was the first to openly advocate for actual independence. The idea that they co-opted the Revolution when they're the ones that dragged the Colonies kicking and screaming into conflict is absurd. And again, a "radically democratic" US is one which collapses entirely in on itself. So even if you were correct, I'd sooner laugh at such an attempt than actually want it. Nothing good comes from such massive divisions in society that literally REQUIRES military dictatorship. A "radical democracy" would have created the Civil War 100 years earlier while destroying the concept of democracy in creating a military junta where the strongest decide what constitutes "liberty" much like in the French Revolution, except that no one would probably be strong enough. So really, you'd just create the conditions for every Colony to go at it by themselves instead as a united force. "We still don't have democracy" By every metric via international studies we do; it's an imperfect one. And your version of "radical democracy" is literally just authoritarianism. So your "democracy" is about as wanted as Fascism.
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@davidedbrooke9324 The Russians would have lost without US and UK support in the form of rations, supplies, and mechanized infantry vehicles for quick deployments for encircling movements. This isn't up for debate when even Stalin and Marshal Zhukov admitted as such. You are involved in NATO which states "an attack on one is an attack on all", and 9/11 was considered an attack endorsed by the Taliban. The UK didn't have a choice in the matter; it was either join in, or leave NATO. Every NATO member had to contribute. Iraq was the one that NATO members could opt out on, and any other conflict really. NATO was only activated in Afghanistan.
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@stevenmajor9513 It's not as weird as it sounds; the Americans were still tightly wound in the UK's trade at the time period, and any Americans still considered themselves tied to the British even if independent. To say that the early Americans were "split" is a vast understatement. It really isn't a wonder most European powers thought that the US would collapse in a generation or so.
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@andrewgause6971 Yeah, let's be real. It wouldn't be until the 19th century at the earliest that the US would have such a capability. And the true industrial might we know today emerged in the 20th century, so even the 19th is seriously pushing it.
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@stanleyrogouski Goldman Sachs backed Hillary over Trump, and Trump still won. In fact, most of the political and financial establishment was against him and he won. This line of reasoning only functions when you ignore how elections work. I'm fully aware the Framers of the Constitution disliked the concept of pure democracy; as do I. The idea of populist democracy has almost always fallen to dictatorship and madness barring few exceptions. Their ideas of democracy are outdated, but it was an era of monarchies and absolutism; so obviously expecting them to create a government which had all of the democratic frameworks of the modern US is baffling. Things get built up over time, not creating instantly; that's how you create stability for future generations that doesn't come at the cost of throwing everything away. Seeing as you used Marxist language, you should learn from them as a success story instead of the myriad failures of self-proclaimed Marxist groups. Ultimately it's the purview of the State to support or oppose whatever is outside the country; while there were plenty of hiccups that went against the idea of democracy -the idea ultimately lived on to its modern incarnation and is universally accepted as such...barring extremists, obviously. Fact is that your claim of "using the military to keep Americans from supporting the French" is false; that's simply state policy. You act as if they sent military grunts to intimidate and jail supporters of the French "Republic", which they did not. They simply enacted policy, which was their right as a sovereign government elected by its electorate. Even if that electorate was severely limited by modern standards; it was VERY radical for its time.
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@stanleyrogouski Eh, I think I'm done with the convo since it got a little too long, but I saw your last reply to another guy and I have a big issue with this bit: "You just typed that on a Chinese made computer and yet you also say we shouldn't read the foundational literature of the country's government or even try to understand the ideas under which it operates? OK" China is many things, but claiming they follow any semblance of Marx's ideologies is seriously flawed. If anything, China after Deng suppressed and tamped down on Marxist ideas, especially Maoism. The only thing "Marxist" about China is the name they use to denote their elites; "Chinese Communist Party". The fact that they use an uber captialist system that makes the US blush isn't somehow a point that Marxist ideology can work. It's a rejection of it, after so many have failed across the planet. Say what you want about capitalism; but it sustains itself rather well in sharp contrast to their Marxist counterparts. And no matter how you argue it, the idea that we live in a "dictator of capital" just because we aren't butchering millionaires in the streets doesn't actually mean we live in a dictatorship. It means it follows mainstream policies for liberals. A dictatorship would be sending people to get rid of you for speaking out. So I find the "we all live in dictatorships anyway lol" argument really weak. If we really wanted to be a moral equal to Marxists, we'd just do what they'd do to us; oppress them. But we don't, and that makes us morally superior by default. This isn't a boast, it's just a blunt observation. And did you really just use Charles Beard as a source? The disgraced joke of a historian which nobody uses because he was so unironically full of it? You realize that adhering to one specific ideology to explain everything is about the most arrogant thing you could do, right? People aren't just one thing, they're multiple things. No matter how you try and argue it, the Founders did not create a Revolution to forestall a bigger one. And tbh, even if they did, which they didn't, it was by far for the best. I loathe the idea of a "more radical" revolution in any shape or form like the French Revolution. It was a horrendous ordeal.
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@davidedbrooke9324 Lost, yes. What killed the German effort was overextension, not some miraculous second wind on the part of the Soviets; the Soviets would dodge that issue entirely with their crappy infrastructure by relying on Western Allied supply chains to feed and supply their forces in their push westward. It's very possible the Soviet Front would've just collapsed without it. They did defeat Germany, but so did the UK and US. And I never claimed it was done out of generosity; that was your assumption. Nobody does anything out of generosity, generally. And why the heck do you suppose that the US must support the British colonial efforts? It goes against US geopolitical thought as well as morality to do so. And idk if you know this, but NATO only applies to attacks on NATO members in the Northern Hemisphere; this provision was made specifically to make sure colonial empires couldn't drag in NATO members in their colonial conflicts. "There was no attack on NATO" NATO itself would beg to differ. The decision was not yours to make; NATO was called and everyone was obligated to answer. Period. End of story. Other terrorist attacks since then were from nebulous non-state actors. Al Qaeda was specifically said to be supported by Afghanistan's Taliban. There was nothing to target. Because of that, none of the NATO members called on NATO. Who exactly would they be fighting and where? They were mostly homegrown terrorists too.
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@stanleyrogouski No, Goldman Sachs did not, actually. I just checked. Mind you, Trump the populist spoke out of his butt and did another thing like hire Goldman Sachs employees into government; but the point is that the "power of companies" are seriously lacking. They can provide support, but that support is mostly in financial matters and in advertisements. And it's not like politicians in power haven't cut back on corporate control multiple times; the US is more lax than Western Europe to be sure, but not exactly by much. I remember when a Mexican tycoon tried to do some shady stuff in the US and promptly got the book thrown at him back in the day. Or at least I read about it, since I wasn't born yet. I agree that more should be in place, specifically in terms of political contribution limitations; but that's about it. "I don't exactly know why" And that's the problem. You look at corporations as entities that would love nothing more than entities that suppress and oppress for financial gain. While that isn't entirely wrong (their focus is on the bottom line), it removes the human element. A OT of the uber progressives today happen to be wealthy people, both in the general ideological sense (George Soros) and also maybe in the cynical sense (raise workers' rights which then weakens smaller corporations that can't handle that as easily as larger ones). For pete's sakes, Bernie Sanders had a lot of the big companies on his side too. Biden is centrist, not right-wing. But then again, you unironically use Marxist language, so your perception is seriously beyond skewed. A President pardoning Assange or Snowden is asking for their political career to crash into the ocean floor. I am fully opposed for either traitors to get any semblance of a pardon; let them rot. The only thing I wanted was more sane public policy, leaving Afghanistan, and efforts to create public healthcare. Everything else is side show stuff. I think it's the idea that killing a Monarch is one thing, but killing all French whites in something that could very well be called a "genocide" says that something similar could happen in the US. No one likes the idea of being genocided. Was that fair? Hell no. Was that the customary logic for the era? Yes. You still haven't proved how either the Right or the Left of the US are being manipulated by elites. At least no more so than literally every other country on Earth. Even the totally-different Socialist countries were essentially just dominated by Elites via their Communist Party. "Elites" is just a word we use to describe the power base that needs to be catered to; it will always exist no matter what kind of government. The US still consistently limits powers of corporations and passes new legislation to that effect every so often. At worst you can say that the US has an issue with limiting corporate power, but that doesn't indicate control.
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@daviddrezner4331 India already chose the USSR as an ally before the US ever got into the picture; aligned as it was against the UK. In the Cold War, the US didn't really have a choice but to support Pakistan. The same logic applies to the Arabs btw, as they associated the US as a country that would always side with the UK, forcing the US to side with Israel. I mean, to be clear, if the US supported India, then that might also have been a "poor choice" too. As maybe India would have still continued to support the USSR. Hard to say.
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@stanleyrogouski I don't think it was bad, it was just thoroughly outmatched by an empire that had their heart and power in the ocean. It also doesn't help that Bonaparte's tactics were for land combat, not sea. Bonaparte needed a navy to at least land his troops in the Isles to knock out his rival; not necessarily match them in open combat.
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