Yes, we put the Germans and Japanese back on their feet after the war, but look at their economies since WWII until now ,both have kicked our ass for a very long time . Until we start making stuff and selling it to "them"....we lost. Cheers,Skip
That's a rampant misapprehension. The world economy more-or-less revolves around the USA, and only since about 2010 has China actually exceeded us as a manufacturer, with Japan a very distant 3rd and Germany FAR behind, not even consequential. Germany and Japan were particularly assisted by the fact that they haven't really had to defend themselves (along with most of the developed world), because we prevented them from doing so as a result of the war. Germany, in particularly, is a repeat offender.
Of course, the USA doesn't make most of the consumer goods, process raw materials like steel, or at least not as much had been done previously, but that's because of our fantastically high standard of living and the costs of employment. Even the poor have cell phones, flat-panel TVs, and one of the biggest issues we have with the poor is *obesity*. No one in this country has to go hungry unless they choose to. Compare that to China, where the poorest still starve to death on a regular basis, and outside the cities, people work in conditions and for wages that would be considered slavery here, under a totalitarian government that has intentionally tried to starve people to death within the last 40 years. The ability of US companies to outsource manufacturing is taking advantage of this almost inconceivable disparity in wealth and living conditions.
It is morally justifiable? Hard to say, but winning and having a superior way of conducting ourselves is not intrinsically immoral and no one can say we haven't tried to raise the rest of the world to our standards. Far from it, we have pretty consistently promoted our superior concepts and principles everywhere we went. This has led to severe resentment and hostility in other areas, most vocally in Europe and the Middle East, the western Europeans largely feeling resentful that they couldn't have made it on their own and dismissing us as "imperialists" (while they back up their dump trucks at the IMF/World Bank to get their next load of US Dollars) and cultural imbeciles and simpletons. In the Middle East, of course, with the exception of Israel, the dark ages philosophy of radial Islam is sees western civilization quite correctly as a mortal threat to their "way of life", because Western ideas and standards of living are far superior to their own and would rapidly replace Sharia if it wasn't for violent reprisals.
We won, comprehensively, and continue to set the standard. It's all the rage in pseudo-intellectual circles to blame the US/ourselves for all our failings (which certainly exist) and ignore the overwhelming force for good that the USA represents. We have Donald Trump not because he is a modern-day George Washington, but he was willing to reflect the feelings that we are not intrinsically guilty - unlike Obama, whose primary function appeared to be to go around groveling to other countries for forgiveness, and criticizing the USA (even when he was personally responsible for whatever he was apologizing for...). Many people (enough to get 300+ electoral votes) had heard enough of that crap, and said "enough already".
Brett
Topic: Never forget December 7 1941 (Read 4149 times)