American Isolation is a Good Thing

Since the resolution is unclear, I will debating the title, which is in resolution form anyway. IMPORTANT TO NOTEThe topic is not that America's current non-Isolationist foreign policy is bad. If that were the topic, I wouldn't have accepted, as I see our current foreign policy as a mixed bag. I do not need to prove that our current foreign policy is good to prove that Isolationism is bad. There are many alternatives to Isolationism, and just because I can't defend the one we're using now does not automatically make Isolationism a good thing. POINT 1, CULTURE DIFFERENCESThis contention does not show why AI is good, rather it shows why some of our international actions have been bad, or at least questionable. This contention shows that we need a new way, and we have two options for a new way. You could go with a reformed and most likely scaled back American Intervention, or withdraw from the world fully, practicing Isolation. As I will show later, reformed Intervention is preferable to Isolationism, which would be very harmful.POINT 2, ECONOMICSBasically my opponent's contention here is that big businesses are outsourcing to other countries, thus losing Americans jobs. I assume he thinks this wouldn't happen if we practiced Isolationist policies. This is a very selfish reason to support Isolationism. You could paraphrase it as this: "Other people in very poor countries are getting jobs and I don't like that. Only we Americans deserve a good economy." If we are rating an act as good or bad, we should look at the implications it has on the 'greater good'. If we take Isolationist policies and refuse to share jobs with poor parts of the world, we are harming the greater good. Some of you may be asking why that is, after all, jobs are jobs, why should it matter where the jobs are?Well look at it this way. Let's say you're rich, and your neighbor is poor. He's so poor he is unable to buy food, and soon he's going to die. If you could give him some of your money, you would both have enough money for food, and then nobody would die. If the rich man is America and the poor man is who we outsource to, the parallels are perfect. Taking an Isolationist stance on the issue of outsourcing is basically the international version of refusing to help a starving man. So, while an Isolationist policy on outsourcing is in the greater interests of America, it is not in the greater interests of the world, and thus, it is harmful, and not, as my opponent argues, a 'good' thing.POINT 3, MILITARY SPENDINGMy opponent says we need to stop being the world's police force, and backs this with how much he says we spend on the military compared to other things. A couple things on this. First, whether or not us being the world's police force is a good thing does not instantly become an argument for or against Isolationism. If we think all the world policing we're doing is bad, we can simply reform our international actions, we don't need to completely shut ourselves out from the world. To shut ourselves out completely for not liking certain aspects of our current international policy would be like never driving your car again if it was having some mechanical issues. That is an overreaction, seeing as you could always get your car repaired. Simply put, we can stop being the world's police force without practicing Isolationism.Second, I'd like to talk about my opponent's statistic. When I follow his link, all I see is the front page of the WP, I don't see whatever article he's referring to. On top of that, I have statistics on this year's spending that contradict his claims. s://chart.googleapis.com... 19%|Health Care 20%|Education 16%|Defense 13%|Welfare 8%|Protection 4%|Transportation 5%|General Government 3%|Other Spending 7%|Interest 5%&chtt=Total Spending for United States - FY 2014" alt="" />[1]As we can see, we're actually spending more on education than we are on our military. Ditto for health. ADDITIONAL REASONSI have shown why my opponent's reasons are either not arguing for Isolationism specifically, or shown that even though they are, the arguments aren't right. But now I would like to give additional reasons to be against Isolationism.If we practiced Isolationism, we couldn't provide aid to countries that had been wrecked by a natural disaster. How can something be considered good when it asks us to stand by while people need our help?If we practiced Isolationism, we couldn't expect any help from other countries if something bad were to happen to us. We could be attacked, and nobody would feel compelled to come to our aid. Our economy could crash, but no country would feel compelled to help it recover, as we weren't a part of the worl market anyhow.If we practiced Isolationism, we would probably see our own economy falter, as a result of lowered trade and imports. I'd like to avoid making you all read a comprehensive study of our economy, so I stop short at providing a few examples of where our economy is at right now, and the implications of an Isolationist America.For starters, check out how much we trade with our top business partners. [2]I did the math, and that amounts to roughly $1,916 billion in trade. I don't think we need to be economists to know that if we took that kind of money out of our system. It would suffer greatly from the loss of business. Next, note the fact that we get 60% of our oil from other countries[3]. Imagine if we had 60% less oil suddenly. That would mean oil getting at least 60% more expensive. With oil being more expensive, how do you think that would affect the average American? Oil already takes a large chunk out of the average man's spending money, we'd only be hurting Americans more by adopting these Isolationist policies. Not only Americans, but also citizens of other countries. Other oil-rich countries would be hurt economically if one of their biggest customers suddenly shut itself off from the world. What we have to realize is that the world economy is interconnected, and we'd be hurting ourselves and others if we cut ourselves off from the world.CLOSINGI would like to end with this:We can avoid the bad parts of Isolationism (economic disparity, leaving refugees to die, raising oil prices, leaving ourselves without allies) and avoid the bad parts of what we do right now ( )[4]by simply reforming our current system, without taking it as far as Isolationism, which, as I have shown that there are better alternatives, would be a bad thing to implement.Sources:[1] http://www.usgovernmentspending.com...[2] http://oilindependents.org... [3] http://www.wisegeek.org...;[4] http://alannahardingmaz.blogspot.com...;