The Glade 4.0

Ok, so let's switch up the hypothetical a bit:

If your country became an authoritarian dictatorship (not talking Nazis here; more on the order of Syria, Iran or the old Lat Am dictatorships (either left-wing or right-wing) of the 70s), and it was invaded by another country that, if victorious, would establish a political/economic system that is much more aligned with your preferences, would you support or oppose that other country in its efforts?

And for those wondering if I have an agenda with these questions, don't worry, I don't. I just read a comment in an article that got me thinking. The article and comment are spoilered below for those who are interested, but it'd be great if you could answer the poll before reading them.

George Lucas answered both polls in 6 movies -- 5 of which are bad.

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I would oppose it if everything was done on the invading country's terms. I would have no problem with another country helping to overthrow the government if they were asked by a small rebel force to come help out.

You can draw a bit of a parallel here with France helping out in the US Revolutionary War. If the American rebels were much weaker back then and the French ended up doing most of the work and even insisted on helping set up our new government, I wouldn't really have a problem with it.

Of course I think there are extreme exceptions too, like North Korea. But that isn't really the norm...

Absolutely support. If my government were dicks, and we had a chance to have a not dicky government put in place?

Support.

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Holy shitsnacks!

What are "liberal interventionist tendencies?"

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

The safer option is always to move to another country and wait it out.

Should never trust a government, any government to tell you what they are going to do, cause it will never happen as they say it would...

I don't know. I don't think the overthrow of ones government is to be taken lightly. So if we were to that point, Id certainly want outside help.

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I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"

I think what your questions are missing is a very simple element: who is more likely to win?

Invasions are very bad for the physical infrastructure and economy of a country. No matter how you cut it, an invasion of the United States would result in widespread death and destruction. If this victorious country would establish a system more to my liking AND the present system here were a lot lessto my liking, I'd go with that system, but the invade would also have to appear quite likely to win. I have no desire to be shot or thrown in a prison camp for being on the losing side, or worse, to see my wife and kids shot or thrown in a prison camp. Those things are fairly likely to happen to those fighting on the wrong side, with "wrong" being the side that loses.

Furthermore, most posters here are American and either the current, or any hypothetical far more dictatorial American government, is likely to use America's nuclear arsenal if America is in serious likelyhood of losing to an invader. So would be the leaders of Britain, of which we have at least 2 posters, as well as every other nation with nuclear weapons on earth.

Therefore, any likely invader is most likely to be one that feels it has at least nuclear parity with the United States as well as conventional parity or superiority. That means it's either Russia, with a hypothetical USSR-style military and the ability to project it to North America, or a fictious China with vastly expanded naval power and nuclear armaments, or maybe even a fictitious India with the same capabilities. A country that lacked nuclear parity with the U.S. would be engaging in national suicide to invade the U.S. no matter its conventional superiority.

If the U.S. is losing and unleashes its nuclear arsenal, then it is overwhelmingly likely that the attacking nation retaliates. At this point, the result depends on how effective the U.S. first strike was in wiping out their strategic weapons and how effective any defenses against the retaliation are, but the result probably ranges anywhere between "horrible death and destruction in several major urban centers" and "complete national catastrophe on a continental scale". Remaining U.S. weapons are likely to inflict the same on the enemy, but at this point that's pretty academic to me as a citizen of the United States.

Therefore, even if the United States sucks major goat balls in comparison to the promises of the invader, I have a strong interest in defeating him in order to avoid the U.S. getting nuked into the 17th Century which will make this promised economic and political system a lot less likely to materialize anyhow. The only way around this is if the U.S. suffered a disarming first strike against it. In that case, the invaders are almost certain to win so who I'd support is moot in terms of the actual outcome once again.

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"Hysterical children shrieking about right-wing anything need to go sit in the corner and be quiet while the adults are talking."

So fine phrase it as "The current leaders of Iran must not have nuclear weapons".

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“Strong people are harder to kill than weak people, and more useful in general”. - Mark Rippetoe

The tendencies of liberals to want to intervene in other people's business. In all the screaming over Bush and Iraq, we have forgotten that historically it has been liberals that have started the majority of foreign military engagements.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

We have declared war under a Republican President only once, to expound on Coro's observation. And it was upon ourselves.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

That doesn't count for much. Our presidents have had a rather casual disregard for Constitutional restrictions on going to war since the end of WWII.

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Buckle your pants or they might fall down.

Since WWI fo sho.

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"...the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?" -Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Well, who can blane them, when Congress lets them get away with it?

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

More accurately, Congress has ceded control and oversight of the military, except for monetarily, to the President.

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It's weird, right? When you look at the last 50 years, Democrats start/expand more wars than Republicans, and Republicans run bigger deficits than Democrats. Conventional wisdom is crap.

But anyway, to Wwen's question - "liberal interventionism" is basically the idea that we should actively and regularly intervene in other countries for humanitarian reasons as opposed to self-interested realpolitik reasons. I lean strongly that way, though as I've gotten older and watched the difficulties unfold in Iraq and Afghanistan, I'm becoming more skeptical of our ability to nation build, as it were.

Sooner or later liberals will learn the following truth: total submission and pacification of the population is the most humane way to prosecute a war and an occupation. And since we've now made the same mistake in 3 different countries since 1965, I'm fairly certain they're never going to get it.

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What military engagements are you attributing to Democrats and which ones are you attributing to Republicans?

Just off the top of my head:
*Grenada- Reagan
*Panama - Bush Sr.
Iraq 2001 - Bush Jr.
Iraq 1992 - Bush Sr.
Vietnam - Kennedy/Johnson
*Cuba - Kennedy
*Iran - Carter
Afghanistan 2001 -Bush Jr.
*Libya - Clinton, Bush Jr, Bush Sr.
*Somalia - Clinton

I know I'm missing a bunch, and probably have a couple of mistakes, what are they?
I starred the ones that I would consider fairly minor military engagements.

Korea - Truman (D)
World War II = Roosevelt (D)
World War I = Wilson (D)
Spanish American War = McKinley (R)
Abraham Lincoln = Civil War (R)

Not really sure how you're going to spin the Republicans as the interventionist bad guy.

The Korean War isn't over.
Iraq and Afghanistan are part Jr's fault; part Obama's fault.
And Grenada, Panama, and the Spanish American War all span less than 6 months; the first two being under 100 total deaths for all parties involved last I checked.

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Sorry, though we were talking about the last 50 years.
In fairness, both WWII and WWI, the US was attacked first. (as it was with Afghanistan)

The political positions of the parties pre-1900 are hardly indicative of the current parties, and I don't think it makes sense to try to compare the parties of 150 years ago to the ones of today.

The death toll in Grenada was just over 100 total. The death toll in Panama was somewhere between 300 and 4000 depending on who's numbers you believe.

And for the record: I'm not trying to spin anything. I sought clarification.

If we're considering undeclared military actions, let's not forget our forays into Africa and Eastern Europe.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Are we talking unilateral (or US Led) actions? or are we including any action in which the US played a role? (Such as sending peacekeeping troops to Lebanon) at the request of the UN?

I dunno. The Gulf War wasn't unilateral, it was in enforcement of the UN Condemnation of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.

I saw it mentioned, and figured we should mention other violent UN actions in which we participated.

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"Aaaah! Emotions are weird!" - Amdee
"... Mirrorshades prevent the forces of normalcy from realizing that one is crazed and possibly dangerous. They are the symbol of the sun-staring visionary, the biker, the rocker, the policeman, and similar outlaws." - Bruce Sterling, preface to Mirrorshades

Well, we should probably also add ...

Bosnia-Herzegovina - Clinton
Iraq - Clinton
Libya - Obama

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Also:

Kosovo - Clinton

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Sail forth! steer for the deep waters only!
Reckless, O soul, exploring, I with thee, and thou with me;
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all.