I haven't the foggiest idea of what Bluesman is talking about, so I'm staying out of this.

Ken V.

Cthulhu is an elder god of HP Lovecraft's grim pantheon, Ken. A tentacled monstrosity asleep in his city of Ryl'yeh (spelling might be wrong there.) Cthulhu and his brethren want the Earth =back=! Knowing that, I sleep with the light on. With my Winchester and a bottle of holy water beside me, I can catch a few z's now and again. Not that it helps...

Cthulhu is an elder god of HP Lovecraft's grim pantheon, Ken. A tentacled monstrosity asleep in his city of Ryl'yeh (spelling might be wrong there.) Cthulhu and his brethren want the Earth =back=! Knowing that, I sleep with the light on. With my Winchester and a bottle of holy water beside me, I can catch a few z's now and again. Not that it helps...

That's not what I was talking about.

You first lost me when you said the perfect is the enemy of the good. And it went down hill from there.

Ken V.

That's not what I was talking about.

You first lost me when you said the perfect is the enemy of the good. And it went down hill from there.

Ken V.

Oh. Gotcha. What I meant is, if we strive for the perfect, we can lose sight of what we were trying to achieve--something workable, something functional. Give you a music metaphor--in 1966, Brian Wilson vowed to make a =perfect= rock album. He wrote wonderful music for the album, but he wasn't satisfied. No sir, he was not. He tinkered and obsessed and tinkered some more. Until he lost the thread. And the album (SMILE) never came out. He lost track. The perfect became the enemy of the good.

I think we usually are the good guys, although we have made some mistakes getting involved in some wars (Mexican, War of Secession, Spanish-American, WWI, Vietnam). In those first four, we definitely weren't the "good guys". In Vietnam, we were the good guys, but we shouldn't have gone in after the French bugged out.

Lemme ask you, Biggles, would it have been a better world if the British and French democracies had gone down? If Kaiserism triumphed in Europe? (I am out of time, will get back to you on Sunday.)

Lemme ask you, Biggles, would it have been a better world if the British and French democracies had gone down? If Kaiserism triumphed in Europe? (I am out of time, will get back to you on Sunday.)

You think Germany would have won if the U.S. had stayed out of the Great War? :confused:

Ken V.

Lemme ask you, Biggles, would it have been a better world if the British and French democracies had gone down? If Kaiserism triumphed in Europe? (I am out of time, will get back to you on Sunday.)

That isn't precisely the issue, or the alternative outcome. What makes you think the British and French systems were more "democratic" than the German and Austro-Hungarian? For that matter, how was the Czar (part of the same alliance) preferable to the Kaiser? Who divvied up the Middle East after the Ottoman Empire was defeated (creating many of the problems we have there now)? It wasn't one of the Central Powers.

But getting to the point, I think the best outcome would have been a negotiated peace, a real possibility if we had not tipped the scale in favor of one side over the other. Then there would not have reparations, a Weimar Republic, hyper-inflation, Adolf Hitler, etc. Then, we certainly could have been a better world. The Germans would never have defeated the Brits even without our intervention (they proved that in 1940, didn't they?). So, to turn the question around: "Would Kaiser Wilhelm II have been preferable to Hitler?" Because, indeed, THAT was the choice that we helped make.

I agree a peace of exhaustion was a possibility. But not a likely one. The home fronts on both sides were too fired-up to accept anything but "victory." The sad story of 1918 shows that. As to your speculations about a post-"negotiated peace" world, they are, well, speculations. If you'll lend me your time machine, I'll go back and check things out myself. C'mon, Biggles--it's my turn!

You think Germany would have won if the U.S. had stayed out of the Great War? :confused:

Ken V.

Yes. I think the German offensive of Spring 1918 would have forced the French certainly, and maybe the British ,to sue for peace. Mind you, the Allies, even without American troops, would have won the Great War eventually. The British blockade was strangling Imperial Germany. But disasters on the battlefield have a wonderful way of giving the faint-of-heart an easy way out.

You think Germany would have won if the U.S. had stayed out of the Great War? :confused:

Ken V.

Yes. Without the AEF, I think the German offensive of Spring 1918 would have forced the French certainly, and maybe the British ,to sue for peace. Mind you, the Allies, even without American troops, would have won the Great War eventually. The British blockade was strangling Imperial Germany. But disasters on the battlefield have a wonderful way of giving the faint-of-heart an easy way out. To my reading, Ken, the dual effects of the blockade and the certain knowledge that the Allies had a new, inexhaustable supply of manpower completed the corrosion of morale in Imperial Germany. It didn't hearten the Kaiser's exhausted warriors to meet fresh American troops who, in the beginning, didn't fight skillfully, but who fought hell-for-leather. "Berlin's that way, boys!" Fighting spirit means =a lot.=

I agree a peace of exhaustion was a possibility. But not a likely one. The home fronts on both sides were too fired-up to accept anything but "victory." The sad story of 1918 shows that. As to your speculations about a post-"negotiated peace" world, they are, well, speculations. If you'll lend me your time machine, I'll go back and check things out myself. C'mon, Biggles--it's my turn!

Hey! Who told you about my time machine?