Tojo and Hirohito share one thing in common with you, Buchanan and
Hitler.
They were all delusional.


Tojo & Hirohito were not delusional at all. Hitler wasn't
either in the beginning of his career.

Unlike Hitler, I was never elected to political office in a Democracy or
legitimately appointed Chancellor of a Democracy.


John Cairns wrote:
http://carpebonum.net/archives/2005/...not_demo_1.php

Ah, neither was Hitler. Lost every election he ever participated it

It's a common misconception that Hitler was elected to rule
Germany. His party did fairly well in elections but it was
ruthlessness & mendacity (a very cleverly directed publicity
campaign) that put him in the drivers seat.



The Japanese militarists felt that war with the US
over domination of the Pacific rim was inevitable and welcomed it,
thinking
that Japan would prevail.


Don't think so.
At that time the US was one of Japans best trading partners.
We were selling them oil among other things.

Militarists politicians, right? What made them think they would win? Blind
patriotism? A belief that they were superior as a people? If they were
isolationists, there would be no war, am I correct?


Yeah, and if yer aunt had balls she'd be your uncle. What made them think
they would win is:

A. They did consider themselves superior "as a people". They still have this
attitude today to a very large degree.

Don't want to say that's not true, but the main reason they
thought they could win was that they determined to strike
powerfully at the US and convince us that we'd be better off
taking terms & going back to doing profitable business with
them.

B. They-the militarists-were blissfully ignorant of the industrial might of
the US, as was Hitler.


I don't think that's true at all, at least not for the ones
with the intelligence (in the human sense) to run their
armies & fleets & squadrons with any effectiveness. It was
obvious to anybody who even casually scanned the business
section of the newspaper that the US was the world's leading
industrial power from the 1890s onward. Military strategists
pay attention to these things.

The Japanese were not stupid. Arrogant & ruthless, yes.
Dumb... no.



History has proven over and over again
that the type of reflexive isolationism espoused by Buchanan and the
America
First Committee in the 30's is a serious mistake that leads to events
like
WWII.

Oddly enough, people who scream nowadays about how we can't
win by "appeasement" of the terrorists are of the same
political stripe that *hated* Roosevelt and did not want the
US to get involved in WW2.


Actually, all of my primary and secondary education was in private schools.

You mean the books that talk about the Neutrality Act?

Exactly.

DSK