Fortress America: When Gaming and Politics Collide

Dire Bare · Dec 21, 2011

Squire James said:
What exactly is wrong with a certain amount of self-righteousness? What's wrong with playing the paladin?

Nothing wrong with playing the paladin, which can, but does not require, playing the paladin as a self-righteous character.

However, there is a reason why the adjective "self-righteous" is rarely, if ever, used as a positive one. Don't confuse "self-righteous" with "righteous".

Aberzanzorax · Dec 21, 2011

S'mon said:
The US attacked Iraq in 2003. This was not popular in certain quarters. Talking about the US attacking other countries in a future scenario is too close to home to avoid controversy.

This.

America is not allowed to attack, only defend. That's the tale we've been told by the politicians in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. We're only defending/responding to attacks that have already been launched against us.

(See Bush Doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

The phrase was first used by Charles Krauthammer in June 2001[1] to describe the Bush Administration's unilateral withdrawals from the ABM treaty and the Kyoto Protocol. The phrase initially described the policy that the United States had the right to secure itself against countries that harbor or give aid to terrorist groups, which was used to justify the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.[2]
Different pundits would attribute different meanings to "the Bush Doctrine", as it came to describe other elements, including the controversial policy of preventive war, which held that the United States should depose foreign regimes that represented a potential or perceived threat to the security of the United States, even if that threat was not immediate; a policy of spreading democracy around the world, especially in the Middle East, as a strategy for combating terrorism; and a willingness to unilaterally pursue U.S. military interests.[3][4][5]

Now, I don't think that the U.S. was the "bad guy" in Iraq or Afghanistan, but I also don't think we were the "good guy".

Personally, I think a game wherein the us is officialy the bad guy would be very compelling.

It's an interesting thought excercise in a culture where being against the war in Iraq when it first started was "unpatriotic" and meant "we were against the troops".

I'm actually more uncomfortable with the unilateral nationalism present in our culture (speaking as an American, no offense to those from other lands) than I would be with a more critical view of our own actions and policies.

Generally, I think the US is a pretty great country, but it ain't perfect, and it can do bad things, even on the global scale. I fear that even saying that would offend and inflame some people in this country/culture.

saskganesh · Dec 21, 2011

Aberzanzorax said:
This.

America is not allowed to attack, only defend. That's the tale we've been told by the politicians in regard to Iraq and Afghanistan. We're only defending/responding to attacks that have already been launched against us.

(See Bush Doctrine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia )

Which is bizarre, as America, like other successful imperial ventures, has a history of aggression. It's been largely a successful history, with only a few failures.

For many people the very idea -- "a history of aggression" -- is controversial let alone the subject of imperialism.

Remus Lupin · Dec 21, 2011

Well, these last two posts are an example of what I found compelling about the original text: It takes that history of aggression and expands it to absurd lengths. And I think the Afghanistan example is apt here. The original text noted that the U.S. was attacking, not gratuitously, but as a response to terrorism. The issue is not really whether the U.S. was justified in invading Afghanistan. I'm of at least two minds on that myself. The issue is whether that real-life situation -- country lashes out in response to terrorism -- can be given the science fictional gloss of "with a new super weapon, creating threat to world stability."

Controversial? Yes. But not beyond the pale in my judgement as the setup for a science fiction game.

1Mac · Dec 21, 2011

Umbran was struggling upthread to come up with a better way of explaining the problems with the first blurb. I agree that "plausible" is a bad way of thinking about it, because it's clearly satire. But satire needs to be rooted in facts to be effective; that's what satire is for. It takes real-world people and circumstances and jukes up the absurdity to highlight some truth.

So what we're really discussing is whether blurb 1 is effective satire. Which means that what we're discussing is whether the notion of a capricious, paranoid United States lashing out at any country they suspect of hiding terrorists has any connecting thread to modern reality. And what you think of that notion is largely shaped by personal politics.

Squire James · Dec 22, 2011

Dire Bare said:
Nothing wrong with playing the paladin, which can, but does not require, playing the paladin as a self-righteous character.

However, there is a reason why the adjective "self-righteous" is rarely, if ever, used as a positive one. Don't confuse "self-righteous" with "righteous".

I'm not confused about it, though I haven't taken many ranks in Internet Post Crafting so I can't always get my point across correctly. I happen to think that much of what is perceived as self-righteousness by critics of the U.S. is actually righteousness. Other Opinions Exist, of course... I'm not saying they're any good, though!

prosfilaes · Dec 22, 2011

1Mac said:
So what we're really discussing is whether blurb 1 is effective satire. Which means that what we're discussing is whether the notion of a capricious, paranoid United States lashing out at any country they suspect of hiding terrorists has any connecting thread to modern reality. And what you think of that notion is largely shaped by personal politics.

It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.

The point is that the US has struck out at a lot of nations. But this concept that the US in doing so would offend all its allies is not effective satire.

S'mon · Dec 22, 2011

prosfilaes said:
It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.

The point is that the US has struck out at a lot of nations. But this concept that the US in doing so would offend all its allies is not effective satire.

I've argued with UK Conservative party politicians about the wisdom of the UK supporting the US invasion & occupation of Iraq (I was against it). Their argument basically came down to: it didn't matter whether US policy was right or wrong, the UK needed to support it, whatever it was. So yes, I agree with your point.

1Mac · Dec 22, 2011

prosfilaes said:
It was not the US in Iraq. It was the US, the UK, Australia, Ukraine, South Korea, Georgia, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland and Spain, and that's just the countries with more than 1,000 men on the ground at some point. A couple dozen other countries also joined in the invasion.

Yep, good point. The same is essentially true for the Afghanistan and Libya invasions as well. Remembering that does make the idea of a unilateral United States opposed by the entire world that much more of a stretch.

Also, for me, the idea that the United States would just start attacking any country suspected of harboring terrorists has a very flimsy thread to how our real-world anti-terror campaigns were deliberated. No matter what you think of those wars, they weren't knee-jerk, paranoid impulses.

Nemesis Destiny · Dec 22, 2011

S'mon said:
I've argued with UK Conservative party politicians about the wisdom of the UK supporting the US invasion & occupation of Iraq (I was against it). Their argument basically came down to: it didn't matter whether US policy was right or wrong, the UK needed to support it, whatever it was. So yes, I agree with your point.

There was considerable debate here in Canada about that issue, but fortunately, at the time we had a politician with enough of a spine to say, "no."

Of course the same can't be said now.