Boris Johnson wants to give vaccine to 3rd world countries

1- I would rather the UK not have 'influence'. I'm in favour of 'splendid isolationism' .If we had an empire again then things would be different but that is not a path most want to go down esp liberal internationalists. We shouldn't be a world policeman or a world doctor. We need to get out if this white saviour mentality even if we got gratitude (we don't)

2- Then we should close the borders and actually do something about immigration. Excellent.

3- I do not support our government bailing out failed corporations or countries unless it is VITAL in which case it should be nationalised. In short basically colonialism which China is essentially doing in Africa.

Don't get me started on the 'Global Economy'... all I can say is Good!

4- They can holiday in the UK then and do us some good

Well I certainly agree with you that the Clinton's and Bidens have all done very well for themselves out of this liberal racketeering 🤣🤣🤣🤣

As for China and Russia...they're basically imperialists and do not suffer from the same squeamishness that we do. They are also (,China especially) much more United than the west (observe the thousands of troops in Washington) they are also unashamedly nationalistic whereas the west would rather talk about 'inclusivity' and Is embarrassed or ashamed by much of their history. They have the Motherland we have ... Uh the ECHR

In short if we were the British Empire and were a united, proud and self sustaining people it would be one thing to play these sorts of games but as a anchorless, bitterly divided and indebted society ashamed of its past empire it's another thing entirely- As I'm sure Biden will discover.

There are too many muddled ideas all floating around in this post. Its like you've taken a whole load of talking points from right-wing youtube channels and thrown them in at a wall to see what will stick and hopefully form an argument.

'splendid isolation', as with all periods and ideals of isolationism, failed. No where can just shut off to the world.

Should be easy to rebut them then ...🙄 I fail to see what's inconsistent or muddled about them. It's largely influenced by IR scholar Professor Mearsheimer who has been writing since the cold war...


Failed by what standard??? How is what I've suggested 'shutting off to the world'?

I still support global trade just not trade that is reliant upon our government essentially bribing private companies customers, which is possibly the worst form of neoliberal corporatism possible.

1- I would rather the UK not have 'influence'. I'm in favour of 'splendid isolationism' .If we had an empire again then things would be different but that is not a path most want to go down esp liberal internationalists. We shouldn't be a world policeman or a world doctor. We need to get out if this white saviour mentality even if we got gratitude (we don't)

2- Then we should close the borders and actually do something about immigration. Excellent.

3- I do not support our government bailing out failed corporations or countries unless it is VITAL in which case it should be nationalised. In short basically colonialism which China is essentially doing in Africa.

Don't get me started on the 'Global Economy'... all I can say is Good!

4- They can holiday in the UK then and do us some good

Well I certainly agree with you that the Clinton's and Bidens have all done very well for themselves out of this liberal racketeering 🤣🤣🤣🤣

As for China and Russia...they're basically imperialists and do not suffer from the same squeamishness that we do. They are also (,China especially) much more United than the west (observe the thousands of troops in Washington) they are also unashamedly nationalistic whereas the west would rather talk about 'inclusivity' and Is embarrassed or ashamed by much of their history. They have the Motherland we have ... Uh the ECHR

In short if we were the British Empire and were a united, proud and self sustaining people it would be one thing to play these sorts of games but as a anchorless, bitterly divided and indebted society ashamed of its past empire it's another thing entirely- As I'm sure Biden will discover.

That's the problem - its really not easy to rebut them without a lot of effort. If someone gives one consistent argument, you only need one argument to reply, but if someone gives you a convoluted mess, the only way to properly reply is to take the effort to separate all of the individual points and address each.

How is closing your borders, exiting from the global economy, refusing to help others, abandoning the idea of international cooperation, seeking no international influence at all, not shutting off from the world?

Failed as in - no country with a policy of isolationism has ever flourished. China in the 19th century is possibly the best example, but there are countless more - even the British supposed attempt at international neutrality failed within a short time, after they realised it left them more vulnerable than before. And as for American non-interventionist period, its marked ironically by two highly internationality actions that combined propelled the country to the economic super-power it still is.

I'm glad you still support global trade though - in that case helping reduce the virus in other countries should be a shared aim of ours.

The thing is, I really understand the isolationist right-wing view point, because the core feelings of it, are ones that I share as someone generally on the right when it comes to social issues. The gut feeling to protect your own first, to resist globalisation, resist huge social change, mass migration, etc. etc. But I think the key to being a reasonable person on the left and right is to understand which parts of your natural way of thinking are healthy and which aren't. The right's tendency towards isolationist policies generally is one of the unhealthy ramifactions of a conservative mindset, and its something we should be aware of. You can find plenty of mirrors on the left of tendencies to think a certain way that reasonable left-wing people are mindful of - I'm sure I don't need to mention them, as you've already got them in your mind.

This is a terrible take man. "Compassion is the basis of morality" - Arthur Schopenhauer. I suggest you think more about opposing viewpoints and how this kind of nationalistic view has repeatedly been shown throughout history to cause humanitarian disasters. A good example of the recent dangers of this rhetoric is the rising in popularity of the german political party AfD who has similar views of "take care of us first and not care about others", and also wish to expand the borders of Germany to pre WW1 levels.

I think I can dumb my argument down to a single argument- The West is in a period of societal decline and needs to save itself before trying to save the world.

Flourishing is overrated and usually leads to s decline later. Stability is a much better goal- and by stability I mean traditional geopolitical balance of powers and realpolitik not liberal internationalism.

I don't think anything I've said is unreasonable. Now if I was in power I would probably take a more pragmatic approach but thats a different matter.

Your 'dumbed' down argument still approaches things from an isolationist perspective. It presumes that its possible to save yourself in isolation. In reality though we can't - To save our economy we need other's economies to flourish, for us to be stable we need others to be stable; for us to be safe from the virus we need others to be safe from the virus. Even if we talk purely about societal issues, we don't exist in a vacuum and never will, we are heavily influenced by what happens in the rest of the world (just take a look at BLM last year), and as such if we want to fully enact societal change within the UK, we need to have influence over societies outside of the UK, else we are just leaving ourselves to be influenced by them.
In short - we can't save ourselves in isolation.

As for your second point, unless you want to get radically left-wing on me, economic stagnation (stability) is incompatible with our capitalist system. If social stability is what you want, the most stable times we have seen have been when we have been economically flourishing.

The UK has ordered more vaccines than are needed, prudently in case not all were given approval. I think the surplus should go to other countries via the programme which has given some this week to Ghana (cannot remember the name of the scheme).

I agree with the OP in that I think the government should not concern itself with foreign countries healthcare.

Although if we have too many I'm not against giving them away although it begs the question why have we ordered so many?

no trade if they're dead
its like foreign aid - if we give them money their development will be faster and they'll buy our stuff

No we shoukd spend the money at home or just give it back to our people so they've got more money to spend thus boosting our economy

It’s already been spent on vaccines.

As has been pointed out. What are you going to spend it on? Schools? Need to import some of those building materials from somewhere? Difficult if that country’s locked down. Transport infrastructure? Food icky to justify if the service economy is screwed because it can’t export services?

Trade is what makes the world work. Without it, it grinds to a halt. People have tried closed borders. You end up like North Korea though. Not in political mindset, but in grinding poverty. You then need to trade with other countries in order to get cash reserves into your central bank.

I never know if people come out with comments like yours for shock value or if they truly believe it.

I truly believe it.

I think this mentality that people will only trade with you if you pay them to is insane and hysterical, especially coming from a Brexiteer. This is classic Eurocrat mentality.

Give the money to our citizens and we'll pay for what we need. If some country can't survive or trade with us without our help then too bad. At least we'll stay definitely stay on top of them.

There are too many muddled ideas all floating around in this post. Its like you've taken a whole load of talking points from right-wing youtube channels and thrown them in at a wall to see what will stick and hopefully form an argument.

'splendid isolation', as with all periods and ideals of isolationism, failed. No where can just shut off to the world.

We’re not paying them. This is economics 101. The more wealth a country has, the more it can spend.

One of the main driving factors fore unprecedented growth in GDP was the development of the Chinese market. They didn’t do it themselves. Brazil. Another large economic market. Developed.

Good and services traded freely in turn promote wealth.

Splendid Isolation is what festered and gave motion to the first world war, especially in Germany. Being in favour of it is possibly the most ill conceived idea I've read on here.

If you're paying them so that they can buy your stuff (in theory not necessarily in practise) even if you make a profit in the long term you are still paying them.

Ah yes paying China has worked out really great hasn't it?🤣🤣🤣 Now unlike a lot if neocons I don't particularly care that much about China but even I think them overtaking us isn't good.

Sure but not necessarily in our benefit long term as the above China situation demonstrates.

World war one would have been great (for us) if we hadn't gotten involved.

Our isolationism (in Europe) in the late middle ages helped us become strong.