Thread by @magi_jay

I listened to this full segment & what's ultimately most frustrating is that Bruenig is taking an isolationist stance & couching it in terms of moral reasoning. "The US shouldn't be the world's police therefore intervention is bad" is not a thoughtful analysis of human welfare

https://twitter.com/Mulboyne/status/1469668307192381449

I should say that I agree w/ Bruenig that military action should be avoided at all costs. I also agree we have other tools at our disposal. And I agree we shouldn't be the world's police.

What's frustrating about Bruenig's analysis is the rather facile way she approaches the humanitarian question. She says the only justification for intervention would be 3rd Reich Level actions. When asked to clarify this point, she only says we shouldn't be the world's police.

That's Rand Paul style isolationism, not an examination of human welfare. Perhaps one could arrive at total isolationism using human welfare as a justification (I haven't been able to), but "we shouldn't be the world's police" is not an actual consideration of human welfare

Using "3rd Reich-scale genocide" as the metric is just morally easy & rather vacuous. It also serves to minimize other atrocities, such as when Bruenig is asked about the Uyghurs & she says, "That doesn't appear to be a 3rd Reich Scale genocide. . .There are conflicting reports"

Now, to be clear, I don't think we should engage militarily w/ China over their cultural genocide & torture of the Uyghur people either. But that doesn't mean we should hand wave what's happening away w/ "Eh, not the Holocaust. And we have conflicting reports."

You have to actually morally engage with this material. You can't just set up a maximally exclusive criteria (Holocaust) & then be like, "Doesn't meet that metric! Maybe isn't true. . ." You have to look at the hard facts about human welfare & then justify the hard moral choices.

What frustrates me is that the humanitarian conditions of the world are tough. Intervening is a choice w/ consequences. So is non-intervening. It's easy to be Rand Paul & to say, "not our job." It's not easy when you actually consider human welfare & try to make a moral argument.

And, no, again, I am not a hardcore interventionist. But I also think that we have to morally grapple with cases like Rwanda & Syria & ask ourselves whether we could have done better. We have to put ourselves in that moral hell hole, otherwise we don't really care.

Notice how I am clear about the stakes here: I acknowledge the horrors that are being perpetrated on the Uyghurs. I will not minimize it. I will not sugar coat it. I still don't think we should go to war. That's the moral hell hole.

https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1469768239806877703

"It's not the 3rd Reich and also who knows what's really happening because there are conflicting reports" is the *avoidance* of tough moral reasoning, not an actual moral argument. You don't get to do that & claim to be morally clear-headed or concerned w/ human welfare.