Do you *really* want to destroy this country?
I've had a number of arguments with people who are gung-ho fans of Julian Assange and Wikileaks over the objects of their adoration. When I pointed out to them that Assange and his accomplices ultimately aim at destroying this country, the USA, they cheer. Well, think about this:
Because of the tremendous, intense economic and political interdependence of almost all nations today, if a large nation suddenly undergoes catastrophic damage, all others will suffer. For better or worse, the USA's economy is dominant in today's world, as is our political impact on the world. If the USA is destroyed, the entire rest of the world would crash with us. Analogously, if you have a big pile of objects, and you suddenly pull the biggest object out of that pile, or somehow destroy it in situ, even if you damaged none of the other objects in the pile as you did so, the result of suddenly taking away or disappearing that largest object would cause the entire pile to fall over, all its components scattering across the ground. If the pile was big enough and tall enough to start with, especially if the biggest object in it was close to its base (so that it supported most other objects on the pile), the damage to most other objects in the pile would be severe. In the same way, the destruction of the USA would cause enormous destruction across the globe.
There would also be enormous ecological damage from it, as well. Within North America, many agencies and private groups are working constantly to protect and salvage our wild heritage and keep it safe for the future. There are others working to try to keep our ships and aircraft from accidentally transporting creatures native to this continent and its shores to others, and vice-versa, to minimize the likelihood of giving potentially invasive species more opportunities to do harm in the world. American scientists are working on projects aimed at finding or genengineering bacteria or fungi that can rapidly biodegrade plastics and other long-lived artificial materials so that they won't harm the environment. And give us enough time and we may just be able to establish bases on the Moon and many asteroids, and colonies on Mars, and move factory operations and other ecologically damaging and costly operations offworld, so that the areas where they had been can recover from their impact.
Destroy the USA and you damage and destroy all that -- and bring down most of the world with it. Do you really want that? Do you hate this country so much that you're willing to risk catastrophically damaging the whole world to destroy us, including the natural world as well as the works of humanity? I realize groups such as PETA really do want that, but they are demonstrably patently insane. If you aren't, think about what the catastrophic end of this nation could bring about before you wish us destroyed.
Because of the tremendous, intense economic and political interdependence of almost all nations today, if a large nation suddenly undergoes catastrophic damage, all others will suffer. For better or worse, the USA's economy is dominant in today's world, as is our political impact on the world. If the USA is destroyed, the entire rest of the world would crash with us. Analogously, if you have a big pile of objects, and you suddenly pull the biggest object out of that pile, or somehow destroy it in situ, even if you damaged none of the other objects in the pile as you did so, the result of suddenly taking away or disappearing that largest object would cause the entire pile to fall over, all its components scattering across the ground. If the pile was big enough and tall enough to start with, especially if the biggest object in it was close to its base (so that it supported most other objects on the pile), the damage to most other objects in the pile would be severe. In the same way, the destruction of the USA would cause enormous destruction across the globe.
There would also be enormous ecological damage from it, as well. Within North America, many agencies and private groups are working constantly to protect and salvage our wild heritage and keep it safe for the future. There are others working to try to keep our ships and aircraft from accidentally transporting creatures native to this continent and its shores to others, and vice-versa, to minimize the likelihood of giving potentially invasive species more opportunities to do harm in the world. American scientists are working on projects aimed at finding or genengineering bacteria or fungi that can rapidly biodegrade plastics and other long-lived artificial materials so that they won't harm the environment. And give us enough time and we may just be able to establish bases on the Moon and many asteroids, and colonies on Mars, and move factory operations and other ecologically damaging and costly operations offworld, so that the areas where they had been can recover from their impact.
Destroy the USA and you damage and destroy all that -- and bring down most of the world with it. Do you really want that? Do you hate this country so much that you're willing to risk catastrophically damaging the whole world to destroy us, including the natural world as well as the works of humanity? I realize groups such as PETA really do want that, but they are demonstrably patently insane. If you aren't, think about what the catastrophic end of this nation could bring about before you wish us destroyed.