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To: UberVernunft
Appealing to expert opinion does not always fit this fallacy, but I suppose you could push the point if you wanted. I was primarily appealing to expert analysis, that even though there is not total agreement among experts, there typically is a congruence of opinion that eschews isolationism. You should also realize that this was *not* part of an argument of mine. I actually poised my reply in the form of a question -- waiting for you to answer the question.

The problem here is that you weren't willing until now to concede that your favorite experts might not be experts at all in anything other than the tool of foreign intervention and have a bias and pre-disposition to using intervention always and claiming it "works."

Switzerland has had peace for hundreds of years and these same experts would claim that they haven't been a success. Switzerland is by no stretch of the imagination isolationist (they trade with virtually everyone) and yet if you bring them up as an example to the meddling variety of foreign policy "experts" they will mock you rather than deal with the obvious FACT that Switzerland has enjoyed both peace and prosperity for half a millineum.

The foreign policy "experts" of which you appeal do not consider that success. They measure success as how one can play one nation against another in an effort to create "regional stability" and "preserve the balance of power."

Switzerland is just Europe's "pussies" who aren't armed with nuclear weapons and don't have a badass carrier group circling the globe "projecting power" and letting everyone know that if they make a wrong move they'll get their asses kicked.

142 posted on 02/27/2002 9:13:21 PM PST by Demidog
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To: Demidog, UberVernunft
Switzerland is just Europe's "pussies" who aren't armed with nuclear weapons and don't have a badass carrier group circling the globe "projecting power" and letting everyone know that if they make a wrong move they'll get their asses kicked.

Note: the fact that the world's private Capitalist entrepreneurs have trusted the Swiss with supervision of one-third of the entire planet's liquid monetary assets is mere coincidence.

The Swiss just got lucky. The idea the Private Capitalists trust and respect the Swiss policy of Non-Interventionism is clearly balderdash.

Besides, the Swiss would've been successful anyway. If they had not earned the Trust of the world's productive entrepreneurs by a 500-year policy of Non-Interventionism, they would have still become a World Financial Powerhouse by exploiting their "natural resources", like rocks and snow and goat-crap and stuff.

Non-Interventionism has not uniquely benefitted the Swiss.
Non-Interventionism cannot have uniquely benefitted the Swiss.

The very idea is Heresy.

147 posted on 02/27/2002 9:49:05 PM PST by OrthodoxPresbyterian
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