this is a time of amazing shifts in global power, and the U.S. is accelerating its decline by relying on

all of these coercive mechanisms that are compelling other countries to ban against the U.S.

I mean, this is sort of traditional realist logic about powerful empires and that they will abuse their power will

cause other forces to balance against them you know it's kind of like a geopolitical dialectic

process right but the question of nationalism versus internationalism and such i mean internationalism

really should probably presuppose nationalism. I mean, it's

just it's nationalism, different nationalisms cooperating. And if you follow international law,

I mean, you expect American leaders and politicians you would expect by democratic theory

or whatever. You expect them to be nationalists, meaning just simply by definition,

they identify as Americans, obviously, right? And they are interested in the benefit of,

in the interest of the nation, right? The people that also identify as Americans. That's just the

definition of nationalism. And we could say like, oh, no, nationalism is like Nazis, but

you know, nationalism is Patrice Lumumba. Nationalism is Jacobo Arbenz and so on. Like,

there's not really been a, like, you might be internationally oriented with your philosophy,

but national liberation is as much as it's really gotten. And the national interest of the U.S. is not to be an imperial power.

It's to find a way to get along in the world and to take care of the American people.

So I think that a lawful internationalism is about the most plausible thing we could hope people would grasp.

And to be honest, just if the U.S., I'm not a person who fetishizes

the Constitution in any way, shape, or form, it was an oligarchic document written by

property, imperialists, et cetera, et cetera. But somebody who was saying, you know, the U.S.

is just going to adhere to the Constitution, that would be a huge step forward because we've ratified the U.N. charter, and that's the Supreme Law of the land, according to the Constitution. So we're not allowed to overthrow countries or impose sanctions on them. That's illegal under the, you know, that's economic warfare. We're not allowed to threaten other countries, stage coups to overthrow their governments. I mean, that's a huge chunk of all the bad things that the U.S. is doing.

So if the U.S. just didn't act as a constant gangster violating its own constitution, it would be a very different world.

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