I’m a little confused by the point you’re trying to make. It’s true that Hitler declared war on the United States first. But in December ’41, he wasn’t really in a position to do much to the United States. Are you suggesting that we should have ignored that declaration of war and let the situation in Europe play out without our intervention?

This is going to require some context for when I wrote the article: I originally wrote it around May after getting into some arguments with war-hawks about if World War Two was allowed by non-interventionist principles. I first submitted this as an op-ed for Antiwar.com, who rejected it. The only reason I ever published it was because I found it on an old file.

As to what I’m saying, I believe America handled World War Two the best they could. I’m not a hard-line non-interventionist like Pat Buchanan or Tom Woods who thinks the US should have just let the attack happen and move on. I was simply pointing out that the United States was not engaging in intervention — at least in a modern day context the way people like John Bolton and Lindsey Ghramm support — when they went after Hitler.

Now to answer your questions:

Are you suggesting that we should have ignored that declaration of war and let the situation in Europe play out without our intervention?

No, I was more explaining why them not doing so would have been different than the United States not fighting in Iraq or Afghanistan.

Are you suggesting rather than strike back that we should have made a settlement with them, part of which would have been to sell them the war materials they needed for their China campaign?

Again, no. I was saying that them responding to Japan was not interventionism anymore than self-defense is assault.

Is the fact that these fascists empires were destroyed something you mourn, and you wish more of that kind of totalitarianism for the people of the world [?]

First off, don’t compare me to Pat Buchanan like that. I’ve been so insulted in my life.

But seriously, I believe the destruction of fascism was a good. I have said that even as a non-interventionism I would snap my fingers and make evil go away if I could do such a thing. I was more pointing out how the empires could have saved themselves at basically anytime leading up to the US declaring war on them and refused to do such a thing.

[O]r is it that you consider modern America so evil that we’re really no different from the Nazis and the Japanese Empire?

While I’ve heard this case made by non-interventionist and anti-imperialist types on the left for a long time, I’ve never bought into it. We are not authoritarian enough — even at our worse — to really count as on the level of the Nazi empire. I think the British Empire would be a better comparison, we’ve done some good things but a good amount of the bad stuff we do is really bad.

You clearly despise Sir Winston Churchill. Do you rate him as evil as Hitler?

I don’t despise Winston Churchill, even bought a box set of his World War Two series not that long ago.I believe he was worse than mainstream American History books will tell you but not as bad as the alt-ones will (stuff by Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, for instance).

I tend to fall into the category of him being an imperialist who did some great things and was very solid economically. Those great things make him far better than Hitler, who was pure evil.