American Isolation is a Good Thing

P1, REBUTTAL"The fact of the matter is we have already harmed our place in the world by not minding our own business. The Banana Republics in Latin America are a prime example of how America has ignored every human right imaginable to gain some extra cash."Other examples are given, but this quote exemplifies what my opponent is driving at, which is that American foreign meddling hurts people, and so we should turn to Isolationism. I'm repeating myself here, but I'll provide my rationale again. I agree that this kind of stuff is bad. But, America can do good things too. For instance, look at our actions in Haiti. When their natural disaster struck, we came to their aid with $100 million and 5,000 soldiers to assist in the recovery efforts[1]. So we can see that there is good and bad in our system. However, Isolationism would not be 'good' because while we'd stop pulling sh*t in El Mozote, we'd also stop helping impoverished countries like Haiti. This is why Isolationism is bad, because people get hurt through our inaction. Both our current foreign affairs policies and Isolationism are bad, and therefore we should turn to a third option, which is a reformed foreign affairs policy, where we do what we did in Haiti and avoid doing what we did in El Mozote."It's hard to say that not intervening is good, because not invading a country and then saying what could of happened if we did invade a country is pure speculation."This statement seems to support me. But whatever. After this my opponent goes on to talk about how America's failure in Cuba was good for Cubans. First, I think it's questionable at best to say that things got better for the Cubans after America lost there. Cuban civil rights are virtually non-existent, and civil rights activists and outspoken people are jailed all the time there[2]. It's difficult to imagine that happening to them if they were one of our satellites in this day and age. But overall, this gets back to my third option thing. If we think invading other countries is too shady of a prospect, then we can just reform our current policies to reflect that, and just stick to pulling jobs like we did in Haiti.P2, REBUTTAL"First off, the reason why jobs are getting outsourced is not to create new jobs in foreign lands.."I never said that's why they were getting outsourced, I merely said that's why we should support it."Its because in worse off countries, people are forced to work for less than in the US.."My opponent's contention here is that the jobs we give these people suck, and that's why outsourcing should be stopped. However, if we think about this logically, we can see that this would still be hurting people, even if their jobs sucked. No person intentionally looks for the worst job they can take, and then takes it. That would mean that these outsourced jobs are the best option they have. So if we take these jobs away, what are they left with? An even worse job? Perhaps illegal activities, like thievery, murder, or prostitution? Is that something we want to be responsible for?After this part, my opponent quotes John Kerry who is basically saying that we should stop giving these big companies tax payer dollars. I don't see how this is exclusive to Isolationism. We could include this in a reformed foreign policy.P3, REBUTTAL"You don't really seem to get war, either you are killing people or you are not, there is no in between. You keep on talking about reforms, what exactly are they? You never really challenge my position here, and instead called my position of attempting to stay free of wars a "overreaction", when war is the greatest overreaction of all."My opponent seems to think that our international actions consist only of war. As I have already exemplified, that is not the case. Therefore, there is a middle ground we can take, where we avoid armed conflict but continue trading with other countries and providing aid to countries like Haiti.Next my opponent gets back to the federal budgets, saying that I am using an incomplete year of spending. That is correct, my apologies. Then he says that the spending for the military will probably go up, since we're, according to him, about to go back into Iraq. There is very little credence to this assumption. The American people are tired of war in the middle east, and it is likely that it would be an unpopular decision to go back in. Even if we did, who's to say that we would do so on such a massive scale that would require further military funds?Even if we do go back into Iraq, and the military funding does rise, that does not necessarily mean we should go to Isolationism (due to all the cons associated with Isolationism), but rather a reformed policy (one that would reduce military spending but also doing the good deeds we did in Haiti).P4 (ECONOMICS), REBUTTAL"The America has an economy of $16 trillion and California makes $2 trillion (http://www.aei-ideas.org......) which is as much as Italy!" And why do you think we are able to produce so much? Do you honestly think we could do it all on our own? Remember that we get 60% of our oil from other countries. If we were to suddenly stop getting that, do you think our GDP would remain at $16 trillion? It's estimated that gas prices would double or triple without our oil imports[3]. Losing that oil would make each American poorer, and significantly lower our GDP. "Plus, the chart is what we are importing and exporting so we are not making money off of what we are importing we are paying for it."Example: I buy a candy bar for $4, and then I sell it for $5. I make a $1 profit. Based off this, we can see that we are indeed making money off of what we import. Further, if we were to go Isolationist and limit trade to the 50 states only, the results would be disastrous, according to Mark Perry, economics professor."If we restricted trade to just the 50 states, what would happen immediately -- and would increase over time -- would be a huge reduction in our standard of living, because we wouldn't have access to the cheap goods we get from other countries," Perry said. "We also wouldn't have any export markets, so companies like Caterpillar and Microsoft would have a huge reduction in sales and workforce."[3] CONCLUSIONCutting off all ties with the world would have many negative effects for us and for everyone else. On our end, we'd be talking about a collapse of our economy and a major reduction in standard of living. For the rest of the world, the people who live in Haiti, or the people in other poor countries who take our outsourced jobs as an alternative to something far worse, these people would all be negatively effected by our departure from international affairs. Just because our current foreign policy sucks does not mean Isolationism would help people. There is a better, third option available, and so taking Isolationism would be 'bad'. Thanks for reading.Sources:[1] http://www.nytimes.com...[2] http://www.fhrcuba.org...[3] http://money.msn.com...