American Isolation is a Good Thing

Hey, sorry for getting back to you so late on this. "For instance, look at our actions in Haiti." "First, I think it's questionable at best to say that things got better for the Cubans after America lost there." Truth is, Haiti has not benefited from US meddling. In 1915-1934, the US occupied Haiti due to revolutionaries rising up against the government there. This of course went against the American Isolationistic Monroe Doctrine, which was made so Latin American countries like Haiti would be protected against European slave owners (I believe Haiti was French before they revolted I'm not sure though). Ironically enough Germany stood up for Haiti and there were constant fighting and repression by the US government, including emigration to Germany, until FDR finally ended the madness. When the US left however, they did not really leave Haiti in a good place and Haiti had to basically come up with a new everything from government to education on the spot, with dire consequences. According to the Human Development Index, Haiti is 161st out of 187 while Cuba is actually ranking high on the HDI tied for 59th (http://en.wikipedia.org...). While it may look nice to see the US helping Haiti out, in reality it just means Haiti has even more debt to deal with, kind of a situation where "you break it you buy it." The relief effort was poor and did not get to the people due to Haiti's terrible communications system and infrastructure. Looters got a large portion of the aid and another large portion of it just rotted in the ports. Rice farmers, due to rice being handed out for free, are going out of business because why would you buy something when you could just get something for free? Marc Cohen, a senior researcher for Oxfam (non profit), says "you might say it is a perfect metaphor for what is wrong with aid to Haiti, instead of bringing subsidized rice in on ships from Miami, we could be helping Haiti grow rice in its own fields" (http://www.huffingtonpost.com...). P2 "However, if we think about this logically, we can see that this would still be hurting people, even if their jobs sucked." My job last summer at an arcade by the beach picking up after snotty little kids and getting yelled at by their maniac parents because they lost a quarter to a machine for a mere $8 an hour sucked. 10 year old girls working in carpet factories in Nepal (http://www.cnn.com...) is not only repugnant, sexist but also illegal in the US. Corporations that use child labor around the world should be held just as accountable as if they were working kids to death here. As a corporation, you should either be American or not. I may be seen as narrow-minded by saying this, but America can and has survived on its own. P3 "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." Not as far fetched as you think, we already have sent in 275 new troops and "Obama also said the troops are equipped for combat and will remain in Iraq until the security situation becomes such that they are no longer needed" (http://www.usatoday.com...). Due to the fact that the rebels are more popular than the US backed government and their military are getting pummeled into dust, "combat" inside Iraq will not end anytime soon, at least with anybody but the Al-Queda rebels winning. P4 "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." We produce so much because the average American worker produced more than the average worker elsewhere in the world. According to The Conference Board, the US produced 67.32 GDP (PPP) per hour which was only behind Norway and Luxembourg (http://en.wikipedia.org...(PPP)_per_hour_worked). The middle east or wherever else we get our oil from is much less efficient, which gives the "New Middle East" even more potential. We are already the biggest oil producer in the world without even coming close to the "New Middle East" potential. "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." Right, I think I must of read that wrong. I was interpreting it as saying imports plus exports, so to use your example 4 (import)+ 5 (export)= 9, a much bigger number than 1. "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." *Before I begin, I must say that I have a negative bias towards MSNBC While I admit, short term it would be worse if America were to stop getting the cheap goods from other places, in the long term it would actually help America. First off, there is the obvious middle man. It costs money to send products across the world, which adds to the price for the American. Second, that worker that makes the good is of lower quality than an American worker and will produce less, meaning that even though he gets paid less money the product he produces is also considerably less making him less efficient. Third, America has the best innovation, as shown by its superior universities. I have gotten to meet college students from across the world being a student at University of Delaware, Delaware has students from 89 different countries (http://www.udel.edu... ). Countries like Japan, China or Germany may have good public schools, but when I talked to my friend from China she basically told me that University of Delaware is better than any university in China. Because higher education is better here, we can think up better and more efficient products than around the world. Fourth, America is FREAKIN HUGE. We are the size of China almost, but we actually have far less people. That means that we have more room to grow than China or any other country not named Russia (whose climate though is far worse than Americas). But fifth and most importantly,