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Originally Posted by joshbaumgartner
I don't necessarily follow. I mean self-dependence is obviously an important component of isolationism, but you can be self-dependent and yet also involve yourself liberally in foreign affairs to the point where it would be impossible to call yourself isolationsist.
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What do you mean by "involve yourself liberally in foreign affairs"? That usually implies interdependance on some level, which is something we have too much of right now.
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Originally Posted by joshbaumgartner
All else equal, I would agree, self-dependence would be great. However, the question is that given the current situation, could we become self-dependent without a significant degradation of our quality of life, and would that degradation be worth the benefits of self-dependence.
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Well, we'd have to make a 180 to be self dependant. We'd need a self sustaining economy that sees regular growth without any foriegn interference. We'd need to be able to compensate for inports such as oil or food. We'd need to be sure that our relationships with outside countries showed that we really weren't on anyones bad side. But, if by some mericle we could do this, the US or any other world power would be better off.