Isolationism : Choose One: Trade or War

The three relations of one nation to another:

1. Trade of goods, and also likely intermarrying, in mutually advantagous transactions.
2. One weaker nation paying tribute to the stronger nation. There is trade of goods and forced sex, entirely by strongarm coercion.
3. No trade or transfer of any kind. Exterminate the weaker nation/city/village.

As the USA steadily transforms into a North American fortress, and leaves it's role as global policeman, I am both enthusiastic about the end of very stupid nation building and other interventions...and also mindful of my numbered list above. That numbered list is based on every scenario I've studied on history. They only fall into those three slots.

We may have religions or secular humanist views that all humans and cultures are intelligent, complex and valid. The United Nations and hundreds of religious faiths may claim to honor and respect all of humanity. You as a voter may vote for the preservation of all life.

None of that matters. Here is what matters. A nation is sitting somewhere out there that we do not have any trade with, any material ties to. We make zero dollars on their existence. If we bombed them, we could divert tax dollars to the purchase of those bombs, and suddenly someone is making money. We go from not making any money to making some money.

That is a greater force of nature than any amount of valuing life for no reason other than being good. One has weight, the other is pure vacuum.

Restorative Justice and Equity

I first heard the phrase restorative justice in 2003 while working at a county dispute resolution center. (I was in charge of everything computer+network for the organization).

The phrase has a lot to do with legal thought, social thought, and moral thought (moral thought should be categorized as religious thought and theological thought, because it is).

In a legal context here is a simple example of restorative justice, and there is nothing wrong with this kind. Let's say someone moves into an apartment that is 1200 dollars a month rent. A month after moving in, the shower stops working. The renter notifies the property manager. The property manager promises to fix it but never does. Eventually the renter takes this to a dispute resolution center, asks the property manager to agree to attend a meeting to resolve the issue, or be taken to actual civil court for a lawsuit. The dispute resolution people take the side of the renter, and tell the property manager to compensate the renter for wrongdoing by paying the renter 40 percent of the rent the renter has already paid. The renter gets a few thousand dollars for not having a shower fixed.

Any talk about applying the above to social issues is basically working on the assumption that a wrong in the past was committed, and the wronged party should be compensated in some way.

This gets complicated very fast when it comes to several hundred and several thousands of years of history.

Also, laws in all countries change over time, often changing incrementally every year or few years. Example, it was legal for children of any age to work in factories and dangerous jobs in 1900 and before. Then it became illegal and certainly no companies have done this in the last 80 years.

We've changed laws and made them fairer and fairer over time, to women and minorities.

Where this gets into deep theological thought, and religious thought, is if people are claiming a moral absolute for all of history. For instance, we do not have slavery now because we discovered a (religious) moral absolute for all of time and all of the universe.

That is not the case at all. Slavery was outlawed because of people's values and preferences changing over time. The people most against it were the early adopters of the industrial age. They had factory machines that did labor, the era of needing slaves was over. People in industrial Northeastern US and Britain tried to end slavery in Africa, the southern US, and the Arab world.

It is perfectly fine to say one is against slavery and want to end it. But to claim the discovery of a moral absolute (which is sort of like discovering a scientific absolute such as water freezes at 32 degrees) should never be respected in rational civic discourse. ( ...a rational civic discussion between people of various religious faiths and degrees of secularism trying to come to a functional legal framework most in the nation/state/city/institution can abide by).

Slavery is wrong is not a fact of the Universe, it is a preference. A perfectly fine and good preference.

By looking back on history, and mistaking our contemporary standards of behavior as forever standards that those people of the past should have been doing ...is...silly. Doing this silly thought and demanding less jail time, or higher pay, or more jobs for today's descendants of the so called wronged...is...a form of inequality in the realm of justice and economics.

It is just an agenda of unfairness and deliberately giving more liberty and money to certain classes of people.

One can be for progress, fairness, a better life offered for all without allowing today's equity unfairness agenda to succeed. Equity and restorative justice is an attempt to end fairness and rule of law, and already has.

Slavery is but one of dozens of issues within the agenda of restorative justice. Any outrage regarding slavery should contain mostly references to Islam, as all the slaves in the US were made into slaves and sold in African markets by Islamic operators. African slavery went big in 800AD with the rise of Islamic seafarers connecting Asia to African ports. All talk of restorative justice on slavery must contain reference to the Islamic Slave Trade for the discussion to have any academic, factual merit.

Another restorative justice tactic is to give greater social acceptance to the LGBTQ community, and less to thoroughly heterosexuals. The higher status is considered compensation for their lower status in the past. Heterosexuals should never treat LGBTQ with a higher form of praise or acceptance, and should never acknowledge messages degrading heterosexuality or shaming sexuality centered around having children.

Yet another tactic is to claim misandry is perfectly deserved and fine based on history and culture [ respond to this with I AM ENDING MISANDRY and MISANDRISTS DON'T GET TO SPEAK.].