Wars that were taking place under the Articles, the later two of which started during the time of the Articles:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee%E2%80%93American_wars

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwest_Indian_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shays'_Rebellion - Note that this last one was a Civil War.

The US is currently in 24th place on the corruptions index: https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022/index/usa

And it seems that corruption was not unknown in the states during the Confederacy period, and is claimed to have increased during the Confederacy: https://www2.byui.edu/i-learn/examples/AF_beforetext.pdf

> Between 1776 and 1787 corruption in state governments increased. States where debtors gained control of the legislatures issued large quantities of paper money which depreciated rapidly in value. In Rhode Island the small farmers in the assembly adopted a Force Act requiring creditors to accept the money at original value. Creditors in other states were also discriminated against by mortgage stay laws which prevented mortgage foreclosures for indefinite periods. The problem of factions within a republic, that was supposed to be solved by keeping republics small like the states, seemed became acute as legislatures became controlled by one faction or another and those factions passed discriminatory legislation.

> There were many disputes and tensions between the states that arose over foreign and interstate commerce. The states began using their power to levy tariffs after the war when England dumped such quantities of cheap goods in America that domestic producers were threatened with ruin. As the tariffs were not uniform among the states, commerce gravitated toward such low-tariff states as Rhode Island. Other states, jealous of this trade, began levying retaliatory tariffs against the goods of those favored states. Merchants and manufacturers wanted an end to destructive interstate tariffs and commercial rivalry, as well as aid in their dealing with foreign governments. States also began to argue with each other over the control of rivers and ports so essential to foreign and interstate trade; causing more bitter disputes between the states.

I got the bookends, you can address "global economic whipsaw manipulation, climate crisis, mass incarceration, widespread poverty" if you want.

A farmers’ tax protest in Worcester was not exactly what I meant by “endless war” but I certainly appreciate how good you are at copying, and then pasting.

Just be happy he's not one of those types that cites links that don't back up his claims as a debate tactic.

On your cue, I read the links. They don’t say anything. One of them is a BYU publication that talks about how the founding fathers were divinely inspired. Some of the Wikipedia articles represented as evidence of endless war refer explicitly to low intensity regional conflicts, or conflicts which lasted about ten months from their inception until the became the responsibility of the federal government in 1787.

“USA is 24th on this list!” Great, what were they in 2016? 18. Etc., etc.

Seems like in this new LLM oriented world there’s eventually going to be a way for a post like that to never even appear on my screen.

Over 2000 dead in the Northwest Indian War.

I normally wouldn't have copy and pasted that much text, but I thought I'd save anyone the time of having to scroll through a 63 page PDF.

Ok, so 4000 dead soldiers makes a one-year war "endless." I understand completely.

No, the fact that conflicts never ceased under the articles makes the war "endless". By the way, it was a 10 year war, not a 1 year war.

And would it have been preferable if any colony could, itself, decide to start a confrontation? "in 1786 the Kentucky militia launched the first major frontier military action since the end of the Revolutionary War."

Holy cow, are you still copying and pasting stuff into this thread?

To save you the effort: I am familiar with US history.

> are you still copying and pasting stuff into this thread?

You bet. And I will keep on keeping on into the future. Though I've probably reached my limit for this back-and-forth.

Calling a 10 year war a 1 year war is "familiar with US history"?

Let's go to another confederated country as an example of what might have happened had the US stayed under the Articles of Confederation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Switzer...

It looks like, after the founding and expansion of Switzerland, they had to deal with a number of civil wars (at least one involving no conflict, though others had deaths), as well as periodic wars with surrounding great powers.

Lovely.

Lol. You’ve won something.

I’ve read some interesting opinions on the internet. But I have never heard anyone advocating a pro articles of confederation position.

Had that stuck around, the US would be a dominated an expansionist New York, surrounded by some expanded British colonial entity in the west. The south would be a backwater set of post-colonial agricultural colonies.

That would be fantastic compared to what we've got. You should look up what are today called "The Anti-Federalist Papers"; I'm quite sure they are on the internet and they argue this better than I possibly could, albeit from the a priori position.

Don't forget to read the Federalist papers as well! Get a full rendering of where the Founders were coming from.

I'd recommend hitting up the Library of Congress. I've found a lot of fraudulent versions of Founder writings online, but the Library of Congress should have digital scans of the originals.

Could you imagine growing up in America and not reading the Federalist Papers in high school. Every day I am happier that my parents moved to a town with a quality school system when I was young.

And to be very specific on one point that is particularly salient today:

Imagine a world where a judge in a post-colonial agricultural colonies tried to tell someone in the modern western world that because the Lord of the universe was very upset about abortion drugs, they were henceforth banned. That judge would be laughed at and life in the civilized world would go on.

> As it turns out, compared to endless war, global economic whipsaw manipulation, climate crisis, mass incarceration, widespread poverty, and heavily entrenched political corruption, the Articles of Confederation actually were pretty viable.

I’m not seeing how the AoC would have prevented any of those things. (In respect to some of the global effects, they might have made it more likely the US was part of the global peripheries rather than great power in respect to them, but that doesn’t really change the global situation, just the local experience, and if you think the periphery experience of those things is better…I don’t know how to help you.)