Not really seeing it from Republicans with Obama, either. Just saying.HA! Good one.
PS: " Not really seeing it " is really mild. The thought conjured up the image of people with frothing mouths fingering white hoodies impatiently.;)
That is really offensive. I'm flagging your comment.
Had more to say, but it's better to get out before this thread is locked…
Well, thanks for the warning. I apologize for offending you. It wasn´t meant personally, much less insulting. Thats why i wrote " the thought conjured up images" and put a ;) behind it, in the PS.
A tad tasteless perhaps, but i thought the image funny.
Sorry for the bother, PMG.
Had more to say, but it's better to get out before this thread is locked…
Soory, man. I really wanted to leave the discussion getting back on topic, the school system, but the " Not really seeing this" got such a good laugh out of me, i had to comment, the afterthought was a bit much.
My sincere apologies, should this thread actually get locked because of me.PS: I thought the point was to get IN before ?
last black person in the country lynched 48 years ago? Never heard of jasper Texas, huh? Crimes against whites by minorities going unreported? Where do you live, friend? Whites are far more likely to call the fuzz than any other group along ethnic lines unless they are living here illegally. As for wanting to keep race as a factor out of schools and workplaces,, that's all well and good, but it has always been historically hard to account for bigotry. If you want to roll the dice on that, fine, but you're still going to have a leg up on me as I'm still a minority and you still are (probably) not.Ok, so the last Black man was lynched 48 years ago. Thats terrible.
Equally terrible is the unreported acts of violence against Whites by minorities.We live now, not in the past. Everyone in this country is hurting to get by and succeed. Everyone has an equal opportunity for advancement. Nobobdy is holding anyone down. Its my opinion that race should not be a factor in college admission and it should not be a factor in the work place.
This might not go well with some but its the truth. Qualified and/or over qualified Whites are being passed over in college admissions and the work place to minorities.
As a son of immigrant parents who came to the US with nothing I would scrap affirmative action.
Yes I am White and I disagree that I have a leg up on you. I live in Chicago friend. Have you ever heard of the Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom? How about the racially motivated mob attack on Whites at the Milwaukee state fair last year?
I'm not sure where you live friend, Whites have more to fear from Blacks not the other way around. Is it true that Blacks are more likely than Whites to commit violent crimes. That aside, I heard a good quote from a 70's band that went like this.
"Don't hate the Black, don't hate the White, just hate the Bite".
You're going to have a leg up on me with respect to facing bigotry simply because there are more white people in this country than black people. I'm sorry I wasn't more clear about that, I should have finished the statement more clearly.
The names of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom sound familiar, but I don't know their stories per se. I do know the Milwaukee state fair incident, and I've heard conflicting stories- one source says it was a dozen black people who attacked a white couple, another source says it was a mixture of hispanic and black youth insulting staff. The stories are varied, and it's always brought up whenever people mention racially based violence in this country from black(or another minority) to white. I would like to hear more from you on this actually- what does your version sound like?
Whites have more to fear than blacks? Blacks commit more violent crime than whites? What do you do when you see black people approaching you on the street? These statements make it sound like you use your rocket pack to take to the skies to avoid them out of sheer fright, which I don't think you do. Still, I'd rather not go in this direction because we've been warned by the moderator to avoid painting with broad brushes- I think you should take that advice to heart as this type of thinking is highly rhetorical and rather closed off to any sort of debate.
On Bush.
1)Bush didn't "steal" the election. Dems in the state of Florida wanted to subjectively pick and choose which ballots to keep and to toss, instead of coming up with an impartial standard to go by. The courts said that this was not a valid way of approaching the way to tally up votes.
2)Most Dems agreed with Bush that Sadaam was a threat and had weapons of mass destruction including President Clinton when he was in office. Let's keep in mind that there is a difference between lying and just being wrong. e.g.: A small child that says 5+8=12 isn't necessarily lying, they might just be wrong.
3)Weapons of mass destruction (mostly chemical weapons) were actually found in Iraq. They were old and the effectiveness of them is certainly questionable, but the claim that there weren't any found is actually false. Now there certainly were no nukes found and that was the biggest threat and the main reason for the invasion (if I remember right).
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The flag was unwarranted by you TriOmega. You knew that I did not mean it that way.
That was not the post I flagged, only the one I responded to.
For the record, conservatism is as much a mental disorder as liberalism.
As in, not at all.
An ideology is an ordering of the mind. It only seems a disorder to those whose ideology is arrayed against the other.
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There's an uncle in your family. He's a pretty cool dude most of your life. He took kids to ball games, hosted awesome family barbecues and was generally nice to people.
I think this is part of the problem. The thing is that your uncle has a reputation for being cool(within the family at least), and has been really cool to you as long as you've known him, but was pretty hard on your parents, and even worse on the neighbors.
-The American revolution: was a war fought over economic policy. The elites in America didn't like being a cog in the wheel of the British empire. Western farmies didn't like being kept on this side of the Appalachians: they wanted to go west and kill more Indians for more land.
No taxation without representation was a canard, as Americans were about as represented in England as anyone else that wasn't a lord was, and Americans rejected seats in parliament anyway.
No taxation without representation meant NO TAXES. England had just gotten through a war with the french, some of which took place in America, and needed to repay its debts it had occured (in part) defending America.
As soon as the revolutionaries took over, they started using many of the same taxes and tarrifs that they had lamented, because government is *(*$$& expensive. The whiskey rebellion for example, was about underrepresented farmers who couldn't turn their surplus corn into whiskey without getting taxed. Now that washington was the government he was all for taxation.
So this isn't any more evil than most wars, and its at least partially justified, but its still a whole lot of people being killed over money, not some glorious quest for freeeedoooom!
-Treatment of the native americans: The maltreatment goes back as far as colonization and goes right to the 1900's. While there were some bright spots, it was largely a matter of kill them, take their stuff, agree to stop killing them if they give you their stuff, and then start killing them again if you want more stuff. This wasn't a one time moral slip: it was standard operating procedure.
-Slavery. the civil war: "Stop oppressing our rights... to oppress other people"
-Labor relations: The government outlawed labor unions and sent in the army to shoot people that striked because they were tired of dying on the job for wages that left them starving. (the important lesson here is that the elite have, can, and will act against americansif they can)
Some more modern examples
Civil rights: Huh. they're marching for civil rights. Set the police on them.
Intervention in south america: We supported dictatorships for united fruit and overthrew democratically elected governments because major people in the CIA were on the board of directors of the company.
The Philippines: The US brutally slaughtered people of the philipines in order to hold onto the island. It got so bad that some of our soldiers switched sides.
Vietnam: Villiages that were even suspected of having any vietcong were brutally whiped out. We dropped napalm on civilians, and agent orange on entire swaths of the countryside and our own troops.
Laos: Carpet bombing civilian targets.
The war in iraq: Saudi arabian terrorists operating out of afghanistan attacked us.. lets bomb iraq! US and british companies carved up iraq like a thanksgiving turkey and said "ok, you control here, you control there..."
____
So this is less a case of a nice guy getting drunk once and killing some people rather than a pretty mean SOB that happened to get some of the right people a few times.
1)Bush didn't "steal" the election. Dems in the state of Florida wanted to subjectively pick and choose which ballots to keep and to toss, instead of coming up with an impartial standard to go by. The courts said that this was not a valid way of approaching the way to tally up votes.
He unequivocally lost the popular vote, which means at BEST he was the president because of a system based around the idea of how long it took a horse to get from south carolina to new york city.
1)Bush didn't "steal" the election. Dems in the state of Florida wanted to subjectively pick and choose which ballots to keep and to toss, instead of coming up with an impartial standard to go by. The courts said that this was not a valid way of approaching the way to tally up votes.He unequivocally lost the popular vote, which means at BEST he was the president because of a system based around the idea of how long it took a horse to get from south carolina to new york city.
Well, whether you agree with the system or not, it is the one that is in place. It is irrelevant if you win or lose the popular vote, only the electoral college is important. People who blame Bush for "stealing" the election when he won based on the system in place are silly. You don't like the system start working on a Constitutional assembly and get the constitution changed.
By the way, it is not like this never happened before. I believe it happened with two other presidents as well.
EDIT: Let me give an analogy here. Let's say there is a basketball game. One team makes more baskets (gets the popular vote) but the other team wins because they scored more points (won the electoral college) by making more 3 pointers. Did the winning team cheat by making more points but less baskets?
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1)Bush didn't "steal" the election. Dems in the state of Florida wanted to subjectively pick and choose which ballots to keep and to toss, instead of coming up with an impartial standard to go by. The courts said that this was not a valid way of approaching the way to tally up votes.He unequivocally lost the popular vote, which means at BEST he was the president because of a system based around the idea of how long it took a horse to get from south carolina to new york city.Well, whether you agree with the system or not, it is the one that is in place. It is irrelevant if you win or lose the popular vote, only the electoral college is important. People who blame Bush for "stealing" the election when he won based on the system in place are silly. You don't like the system start working on a Constitutional assembly and get the constitution changed.
By the way, it is not like this never happened before. I believe it happened with two other presidents as well.
EDIT: Let me give an analogy here. Let's say there is a basketball game. One team makes more baskets (gets the popular vote) but the other team wins because they scored more points (won the electoral college) by making more 3 pointers. Did the winning team cheat by making more points but less baskets?
Err, when the entire point of the method is to give the win to however had more baskets (or rather, whoever is actually *chosen* by more people to be their leader) than yeah, I'd say something is off with the system for allowing this to happen. Imagine if you were playing a fighter, and when you gained a level you somehow became weaker. that's not how things should go. Just as leveling up signifies gaining power in PFRPG, getting votes should directly translate into being elected.
I blame the Community Reinvestment Act for the housing bubble not a failure of capitalism. Loans were given on marginal properties and to people with questionable credit history. I know so many people who didn't even show income or citizenship to get a loan.
Fannie and Freddie acted in response to pressure by the government to boost home ownership rates among the poor.
Banks were screwed even harder when Fannie and Freddie began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on the world market.
I would have voted for less government intervention, no bail outs and strict free market capitalism.Regards to Europe, only time will tell on who is right. Downgrades & bail outs are not a good sign of things to come.
This is an incorrect assessment of what caused the housing bubble. It is a correct assessment of what made it worse though. Fannie and Freddie didn't start going into subprime loans until around 2002. Prior to that they only bought loans that adhered to standards that had been in place prior to the 1980's, when loans were traditionally owned by savings and loans banks.
During the 70's, Fannie Mae had a pretty good business of buying and selling mortgages, they turned a nice profit and dominated the market. This was largely due to their stricter rules on what kind of mortgages they would buy, ie. attempts to make sure the borrowers could actually pay it back. These were sold as securities, but tranching didn't exist yet. The mortgages were guaranteed (FHA and VA loans), but they could be paid down early and so carried some risk.
In the 80's Wall Street invented tranching. This is taking the bundle of loans and turning them into sections. For example, there's a bundle of 100 loans and you could buy the section that was interest only. If interest rates went up, you made money, if they went down, you lost it. This was the kind of 'predictable' income that Wall Street likes. Plus, now that the bundles were divided into sections that meant more transaction fees, more trading, etc.
A better law to blame would actually be the Alternative Mortgage Transition Parity Act, 1982. This is the law that allowed lenders to create more 'creative' loans. This allowed ARM's and balloon payments, while preempting state laws. It allowed banks to start lending to people they previously wouldn't have dreamed of, because they could extract higher fees upfront or squeeze more money out of people before they defaulted. This also opened the door for the S&L scandals of the 80's.
The Secondary Mortgage Market Enhancement Act (1984) also played a big role. Direct loans are the primary market. The secondary market is the buying and selling of these loans between third parties. This law also preempted state laws. It also enshrined the ratings agencies as being the only authority to determine what securities were safe enough for pension funds to invest in.
Private business were into subprime mortgages 18 years before Fannie and Freddie. It was a billion dollar industry before they jumped in.
If you want to read more, I highly recommend All the Devils are Here. It is an extremely well sourced book and has highly detailed accounts of every step of the financial crisis. Greed was the driving force behind it.
Err, when the entire point of the method is to give the win to however had more baskets (or rather, whoever is actually *chosen* by more people to be their leader) than yeah, I'd say something is off with the system for allowing this to happen.
But would the other team have "cheated" if they won. Yes the system may be not ideal, but is winning using the rules in place considered cheating?
Imagine if you were playing a fighter, and when you gained a level you somehow became weaker. that's not how things should go. Just as leveling up signifies gaining power in PFRPG, getting votes should directly translate into being elected.
If the US was a democracy, perhaps, but many people forget that it is actually a republic.
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If you really think there is no other way between USA and Uganda, you are sadly narrow-minded. Just look beyond your north border, or across the Atlantic for various first world examples.Sadly narrow minded? I'm looking at your 1st world examples and those economies are in total failure. The European experiment of Democratic Socialism is a failure, simple as that.
For real? If you say so...
Don't you think that that USA has somewhat "lost its soul" by allowing torture and detainment without due process ? It seems that everyone in the world, except your former government, knows that waterboarding IS torture. Historically, to come back to the thread topic, it was a favorite of the Gestapo.No I do not believe America has lost its soul. I believe that those who have declared war on America are subject to detainment, interogation and torture, especially if they have valuable information that they are withholding that would save lives. Those scum use our laws, and freedoms against us.
The fact you said "Your government" is so chilling. The only explanation is that liberalism is a mental disorder.
For real, again? And who is to decide which ones have "declared war", and which ones just got denounced by rivals, or had been caught in a dragnet just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I suppose that if you had lived some centuries ago, you could have made yours this motto :" just kill them all. God will know his own". <indiscriminate slaughter of all heathens ensues>.
You can't brag of being an advanced nation and a beacon of human rights while using torture at your whim. A choice is needed. The USA aren't above international law, or just plain decency : they have no divine mandate allowing them to ignore the dubious morality of some of their acts, or exonerating them from the consequences. They are just a nation among others, vastly more powerful but not qualitatively different.
I can't see why using "your government" to talk about the US government is so chilling. Did you miss the point that I'm a foreigner ? (my french handle is a BIG hint).
For the record, german scholars DO learn about WW2 and shoah: french ones do learn about colonization and the bloody quenching of various uprisings... You can love your country without amputing yourself of a part of its history. As someone wiser than me once said, those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
You're going to have a leg up on me with...last black person in the country lynched 48 years ago? Never heard of jasper Texas, huh? Crimes against whites by minorities going unreported? Where do you live, friend? Whites are far more likely to call the fuzz than any other group along ethnic lines unless they are living here illegally. As for wanting to keep race as a factor out of schools and workplaces,, that's all well and good, but it has always been historically hard to account for bigotry. If you want to roll the dice on that, fine, but you're still going to have a leg up on me as I'm still a minority and you still are (probably) not.Ok, so the last Black man was lynched 48 years ago. Thats terrible.
Equally terrible is the unreported acts of violence against Whites by minorities.We live now, not in the past. Everyone in this country is hurting to get by and succeed. Everyone has an equal opportunity for advancement. Nobobdy is holding anyone down. Its my opinion that race should not be a factor in college admission and it should not be a factor in the work place.
This might not go well with some but its the truth. Qualified and/or over qualified Whites are being passed over in college admissions and the work place to minorities.
As a son of immigrant parents who came to the US with nothing I would scrap affirmative action.
Yes I am White and I disagree that I have a leg up on you. I live in Chicago friend. Have you ever heard of the Murders of Channon Christian and Christopher Newsom? How about the racially motivated mob attack on Whites at the Milwaukee state fair last year?
I'm not sure where you live friend, Whites have more to fear from Blacks not the other way around. Is it true that Blacks are more likely than Whites to commit violent crimes. That aside, I heard a good quote from a 70's band that went like this.
"Don't hate the Black, don't hate the White, just hate the Bite".
You have a point about the leg up in a weird way. Because there are more Whites than Blacks its more likely to have more bigots on the White side just from sheer numbers. LOL. I get it, in a twisted way but I get it, if that is what your saying.
I'm sure your point is exaggerated though, Obama did get elected President by half Whites (don't have the stats) but overwhelmingly by Blacks. Would the reverse scenario be seen as racist? Food for thought.
I don't fly off in a rocket pack! (I cast expedition retreat) LOL. J/K
I'm just saying that Dept of Justice stats don't lie. Not painting with a broad brush & I hope you don't think I am. I've seen racism from both Blacks and Whites. Knuckleheads that commit crimes even violent, heinous crimes against another person for racist reasons are not representatives of their race or Humanity for that matter. Just want to make myself clear.
The flag was unwarranted by you TriOmega. You knew that I did not mean it that way.That was not the post I flagged, only the one I responded to.
For the record, conservatism is as much a mental disorder as liberalism.
As in, not at all.
An ideology is an ordering of the mind. It only seems a disorder to those whose ideology is arrayed against the other.
I see, thanks for clearing that up. I was using that phrase from an author of a book with the same phrase as its title. His premise is how well intentioned liberal programs, plans and ideas often lead to terrible results. While the impulse for helping others is well intentioned, the results often border on insanity. As such you get the flagged phrase I posted.
I blame the Community Reinvestment Act for the housing bubble not a failure of capitalism. Loans were given on marginal properties and to people with questionable credit history. I know so many people who didn't even show income or citizenship to get a loan.
Fannie and Freddie acted in response to pressure by the government to boost home ownership rates among the poor.
Banks were screwed even harder when Fannie and Freddie began buying up their bad loans and offering them for sale on the world market.
I would have voted for less government intervention, no bail outs and strict free market capitalism.Regards to Europe, only time will tell on who is right. Downgrades & bail outs are not a good sign of things to come.
This is an incorrect assessment of what caused the housing bubble. It is a correct assessment of what made it worse though. Fannie and Freddie didn't start going into subprime loans until around 2002. Prior to that they only bought loans that adhered to standards that had been in place prior to the 1980's, when loans were traditionally owned by savings and loans banks.
During the 70's, Fannie Mae had a pretty good business of buying and selling mortgages, they turned a nice profit and dominated the market. This was largely due to their stricter rules on what kind of mortgages they would buy, ie. attempts to make sure the borrowers could actually pay it back. These were sold as securities, but tranching didn't exist yet. The mortgages were guaranteed (FHA and VA loans), but they could be paid down early and so carried some risk.
In the 80's Wall Street invented tranching. This is taking the bundle of loans and turning them into sections. For example, there's a bundle of 100 loans and you could buy the section that was interest only. If interest rates went up, you made money, if they went down, you lost it. This was the kind of 'predictable' income that Wall Street likes. Plus, now that the bundles were divided into sections that meant...
Hey that sounds familiar. I think I read a bunch of reviews on that book from the Amazon site. I'll check it out, I'm always up for a good read on greed & government corruption!
Hey that sounds familiar. I think I read a bunch of reviews on that book from the Amazon site. I'll check it out, I'm always up for a good read on greed & government corruption!
I highly recommend it. It is extremely well sourced and very thorough. They also do a good job of untangling terms and concepts so that the layperson can understand it. They also do an exceptional job of representing the human element.
For example they do spend a chapter on a biography of Angelo Mozillo, the CEO of Countrywide. They show his roots as a very traditional mortgage lender, but also his desire to be the biggest in the country. When the subprime mortgage market first started, he hated the idea and thought it was corrupt and wrong. When it began to eat into his market share though, he started to turn a blind eye to the practices and his company eventually followed in the footsteps of Ameriquest (the company that came up with the idea of the "stated income loan").
It was a similar story for Fannie and Freddie. Pressure from stockholders and ambition from specific individuals inside the companies lead them to tread down riskier paths than traditional for the companies. To make it worse, Fannie and Freddie had been exceptionally good at playing politics and making sure that the government regulators who were supposed to oversee them were in their pockets. So once things started to go bad, there was no one who could look over their shoulder and correct them.
I'm not opposed to free markets, but strict regulation and publicly disclosed information are keys to reducing the impact of bubbles like this.
If you really think there is no other way between USA and Uganda, you are sadly narrow-minded. Just look beyond your north border, or across the Atlantic for various first world examples.Sadly narrow minded? I'm looking at your 1st world examples and those economies are in total failure. The European experiment of Democratic Socialism is a failure, simple as that.For real? If you say so...
Don't you think that that USA has somewhat "lost its soul" by allowing torture and detainment without due process ? It seems that everyone in the world, except your former government, knows that waterboarding IS torture. Historically, to come back to the thread topic, it was a favorite of the Gestapo.No I do not believe America has lost its soul. I believe that those who have declared war on America are subject to detainment, interogation and torture, especially if they have valuable information that they are withholding that would save lives. Those scum use our laws, and freedoms against us.
The fact you said "Your government" is so chilling. The only explanation is that liberalism is a mental disorder.
For real, again? And who is to decide which ones have "declared war", and which ones just got denounced by rivals, or had been caught in a dragnet just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I suppose that if you had lived some centuries ago, you could have made yours this motto :" just kill them all. God will know his own". <indiscriminate slaughter of all heathens ensues>.
You can't brag of being an advanced nation and a beacon of human rights while using torture at your whim. A choice is needed. The USA aren't above international law, or just plain decency : they have no divine mandate allowing them to ignore the dubious morality of some of their acts, or exonerating them from the consequences. They are just a nation among others, vastly more powerful but...
I'll put it to you now, for real? You believe that the combatants we captured are by in large innocent bystanders given up by rivals, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are dreaming.
I do not advocate the motto you put to me "Just kill them all blah blah blah" The United States are not the ones cutting peoples heads off and posting it on Al Jazeera.
I do brag about American because I believe in American exceptionalism. We are not inherently or genetically exceptional, our way of life is. People from other parts of the world hate us for many reasons. Our system of government, our Christian values, b/c we are a super power, the list goes on and on.
I remember having a couple friends from France and we would talk about this topic all the time. They were both French citizens, one was from Algeria and the other hailed from Tunisia. They hated Sarkozy, but then again they hated mostly everyone with a different opinion. By the way, have you ever seen Killing Zoe? Its a twisted movie set in Paris.
By the way, have you ever seen Killing Zoe?
Blame America First, Pt. 2 @ 2:00
EDIT: This film was executive produced by Tarantino, which is one way to say NSFW, especially if your workplace is francophonically-inclined.
And, IF (and i do not saying taht is actually happening) for example the families of the 30000 deads (and many more tortured) in the pinochet dictadure hate US, would you say that is because of your system of goverment...?
Without a doubt.
And, IF (and i do not saying taht is actually happening) for example the families of the 30000 deads (and many more tortured) in the pinochet dictadure hate US, would you say that is because of your system of goverment...?Without a doubt.
I remember reading in my Latin and South American history class that the Church report concluded that the US did not have any direct involvement.
Then again it was the Cold War and I suppose the "west" didn't want another communist Cuba and they took out Allende. What do I know anyway.
30,000 dead? Seems a bit exaggerated. I didn't remember that figure being taught by my liberal Latin American studies professor.
I really don't want to look at Wiki so if you have something on the topic I would really like to read it.
Thank you!
In regards to the OP's initial post- you might not like the decision to cancel certain classes, but it is NOT Fascism. Fascism is a specific ideology, created in Italy after the Great War (of course it had its admirers and imitators elsewhere, and the intellectual trends that contributed to its development existed in other parts of Europe as well). It is not a word for 'things progressives have decided they dislike this week.'
We're on page 9, we're well past discussing the title of the thread.
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We're on page 9, we're well past discussing the title of the thread.In regards to the OP's initial post- you might not like the decision to cancel certain classes, but it is NOT Fascism. Fascism is a specific ideology, created in Italy after the Great War (of course it had its admirers and imitators elsewhere, and the intellectual trends that contributed to its development existed in other parts of Europe as well). It is not a word for 'things progressives have decided they dislike this week.'
yea but it's not to late to try and steer it back on topic is it?
I think the removal of Mexican American studies was a good thing and the return to a broader U.S. History class will server the students better in the long run.
From other sources I have read the "studies" were dubious at best filled with anti-American sentiment saying that ILLEGAL immigrants had every right to be here because it's really their land to begin with because it was stolen from their ancestors or some such rhetoric.
A broad over view of U.S. History is the best thing for the students rather than narrowly focusing on the accomplishments or the crimes/mistakes of any other group. In other words teach it all good AND bad.
As an aside I had a great game this weekend. If any of you haven't played Shackled City OMG it's awesome.
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I do brag about American because I believe in American exceptionalism. We are not inherently or genetically exceptional, our way of life is. People from other parts of the world hate us for many reasons. Our system of government, our Christian values, b/c we are a super power, the list goes on and on.
Yes, the list goes on: your free medical system that guarantee everyone will receive appropriate cares wathever their revenur, your choice to work with other countries before taking unilateral actions on the international scene, your value of privacy mening the government can't spy on it's own citizen, your war on crime (leading to megaprisons run by private corporation and disregard to rehabilitation and therapy, but hey!), your equitarian education system and free access to university, the lack of death penalty, the strict gun control following the realisation there is a signifiant correlation between violent crime and the lack of one, etc.
Sorry, I really don't envy you. If you think every people that don't like the USA is caused by envy, you are wrong.
There are things I'm not proud about in my country, but this "we are better and that is why people hate us" is really refusing to aknowledge being different is not always being better. There is a word for that, and it's chauvinism.
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I'll put it to you now, for real? You believe that the combatants we captured are by in large innocent bystanders given up by rivals, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are dreaming.For real, again? And who is to decide which ones have "declared war", and which ones just got denounced by rivals, or had been caught in a dragnet just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I suppose that if you had lived some centuries ago, you could have made yours this motto :" just kill them all. God will know his own". <indiscriminate slaughter of all heathens ensues>.
Except facts aren't on your side. Just look at Red Cross or Amnesty International about Guantanamo : it WAS full of innocent guys caught at the wrong place or wrong time, kept for years under wraps because, eh, it's so embarrassing to recognize one's mistakes. Here is a link
Just one name, picked on their site and easy for you to cross check : Lakhdar BOUMEDIENE, a french guy arrested in Bosnia in 2001 while working for the Red Crescent (muslim equivalent of the Red Cross). He was accused of fomenting a bombing of the US embassy, but quickly innocented by the bosnian justice. CIA saw it otherwise and sent him illegally to Gitmo for seven years without any process or trial. He was tortured, went on hunger strike and was force feeded for two years before being located by the french embassy. Innocented of all charges by american justice in november 2008. Just Google "Boumediene vs Bush" for full report.
That the sort of thing that can quite easily sully one country's image.
QUOTE="Aretas"]
You can't brag of being an advanced nation and a beacon of human rights while using torture at your whim. A choice is needed. The USA aren't above international law, or just plain decency : they have no divine mandate allowing them to ignore the dubious morality of some of their acts, or exonerating them from the consequences. They are just a nation among others...I do brag about American because I believe in American exceptionalism. We are not inherently or genetically exceptional, our way of life is. People from other parts of the world hate us for many reasons. Our system of government, our Christian values, b/c we are a super power, the list goes on and on.
Oh my. My first reaction was to joke about it, but it wouldn't have been very constructive, nor very respectful of Mr Teter's nerves...
What is so exceptional about your "way of life" that makes the USA rise above laws, morals and decency? Is torture a christian value ?
More seriously, I concede that the USA can be a nice place to live in (especially if you are rich and/or healthy). But what do you think you have than others don't ? Democracy? It's all over the place, check. Free market? Same thing, check. Apple pie? Apfelstrudel, tarte tatin, check. Ploutocrats? Alas, check. Could you explain this feeling of superiority ? Is it grounded in material evidence, or is it just the way you feel?
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A broad over view of U.S. History is the best thing for the students rather than narrowly focusing on the accomplishments or the crimes/mistakes of any other group. In other words teach it all good AND bad.
I agree.
History viewed through rosy tinted glasses is better called mythology.
Teaching straight facts about what your country has done, for good or for bad, isn't antithesis to the education of civic minded citizens.
I won't talk about my country to avoid accusations of chauvinism, and take instead Germany's example. German students get a full review of WW2, nazism and of the various atrocities committed. They know it happened in their grandparents' time, how it happened, and so how it could have been avoided. They are (and can, and should) nevertheless proud of the current achievements of Germany, a working, rich and peaceful democracy.
Knowledge of the past is the key to future improvement : people, or groups, or nations who believe that they do right whatever mistake they do or wrong they commit have no incentive to improve themselves.
I remember reading in my Latin and South American history class that the Church report concluded that the US did not have any direct involvement.
Then again it was the Cold War and I suppose the "west" didn't want another communist Cuba and they took out Allende. What do I know anyway.
30,000 dead? Seems a bit exaggerated. I didn't remember that figure being taught by my liberal Latin American studies professor.
I really don't want to look at Wiki so if you have something on the topic I would really like to read it.Thank you!
Colin Powell, 2003 : "With respect to your earlier comment about Chile in the 1970s and what happened with Mr. Allende, it is not a part of American history that we're proud of."
The problem is, Allende wasn't a communist. He wasn't supported by the USSR, as he was too "weak" and democraticaly inclined for their tastes.
On the other hand, he did announce plans to nationalize american copper mining assets, because he felt the mining concessions granted by his predecessors were one-sided.
The numbers are closer to 3.000 killed, 30.000 tortured (oops, forcefully interrogated) and 150.000 jailed, not counting political refugees (fleeing to Europe or Canada for the most part).
For comparison sake, Chile had 10 million inhabitants at the time : it's like 90.000 americans on 300 millions were killed, 900.000 tortured and 4.500.000 jailed. Not a negligible fluke of maintaining law and order.
I am unaware of any denials that the Pinochet coup, or as I like to call it "the First 9/11" was a) engineered by the CIA; b) at the behest of American copper interests (Anaconda? I don't recall); and c) the first government to fully implement Milton Friedman and the Chicago Boys shock and awe austerity measures.
For good measure, the USA banned internationally-renowned author and Salvador's niece, Isabel Allende, from visiting American shores for something like 20 years.
Fidel Castro visited Santiago shortly before the coup and criminally advised the Chilean workers and peasants to put their faith in the "Constitutionalist" officer corps and Allende. Which goes to show how shiznitty a revolutionary Castro always was.
EDIT: Link
Fidel Castro visited Santiago shortly before the coup and criminally advised the Chilean workers and peasants to put their faith in the "Constitutionalist" officer corps and Allende. Which goes to show how shiznitty a revolutionary Castro always was.
That´s rich.
Edit: He DID ask the U.S. for support first, but they were so comfy with Batista...
I'll put it to you now, for real? You believe that the combatants we captured are by in large innocent bystanders given up by rivals, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are dreaming.For real, again? And who is to decide which ones have "declared war", and which ones just got denounced by rivals, or had been caught in a dragnet just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I suppose that if you had lived some centuries ago, you could have made yours this motto :" just kill them all. God will know his own". <indiscriminate slaughter of all heathens ensues>.
Except facts aren't on your side. Just look at Red Cross or Amnesty International about Guantanamo : it WAS full of innocent guys caught at the wrong place or wrong time, kept for years under wraps because, eh, it's so embarrassing to recognize one's mistakes. Here is a link
Just one name, picked on their site and easy for you to cross check : Lakhdar BOUMEDIENE, a french guy arrested in Bosnia in 2001 while working for the Red Crescent (muslim equivalent of the Red Cross). He was accused of fomenting a bombing of the US embassy, but quickly innocented by the bosnian justice. CIA saw it otherwise and sent him illegally to Gitmo for seven years without any process or trial. He was tortured, went on hunger strike and was force feeded for two years before being located by the french embassy. Innocented of all charges by american justice in november 2008. Just Google "Boumediene vs Bush" for full report.
That the sort of thing that can quite easily sully one country's image.
QUOTE="Aretas"]
You can't brag of being an advanced nation and a beacon of human rights while using torture at your whim. A choice is needed. The USA aren't above international law, or just plain decency : they have no divine mandate allowing them to ignore the dubious morality of some of their acts,...
Im all about clarity, this guy is not the boyscout you say he is.
I really want an unbiased discussion instead of anti American propaganda or biased assertions. Read this for the whole story.http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/stories-ex-gitmo-detainees-tell_616629. html?page=3
I dont like body counts passed 1 but if you put numbers up as fact then you should be honest about it. CHIILE rant.
yea but it's not to late to try and steer it back on topic is it?I think the removal of Mexican American studies was a good thing and the return to a broader U.S. History class will server the students better in the long run.
From other sources I have read the "studies" were dubious at best filled with anti-American sentiment saying that ILLEGAL immigrants had every right to be here because it's really their land to begin with because it was stolen from their ancestors or some such rhetoric.A broad over view of U.S. History is the best thing for the students rather than narrowly focusing on the accomplishments or the crimes/mistakes of any other group. In other words teach it all good AND bad.
As an aside I had a great game this weekend. If any of you haven't played Shackled City OMG it's awesome.
Not opposed to being on topic, I just think the semantics of word selection of the thread title is a bit late.
I stand by my earlier analysis.
The program had a higher success of producing high school kids that made it into college. That is a good thing.
The program was initiated by the local community. It was closed by Arizona State legislators for passing a bill that would strip the school district of it's state funding if it didn't end the program.
It was a local program that gave poor students a better chance at pulling themselves out of poverty. How is it good that non-local politicians can come in and remove a program that is having measurably good results?
As an aside, I ran a playtest of a friends game, Mythender, a game about killing gods, and it went awesome. I am also willing to schedule a session for anyone in the Minneapolis/St. Paul area if they are interest.
Loki narrowly avoided being killed by Forgiveness, only to be exploded from the inside out a round later by chaos.
Don't you think that that USA has somewhat "lost its soul" by allowing torture and detainment without due process ? It seems that everyone in the world, except your former government, knows that waterboarding IS torture. Historically, to come back to the thread topic, it was a favorite of the Gestapo.No I do not believe America has lost its soul. I believe that those who have declared war on America are subject to detainment, interogation and torture, especially if they have valuable information that they are withholding that would save lives. Those scum use our laws, and freedoms against us.
The fact you said "Your government" is so chilling. The only explanation is that liberalism is a mental disorder.
I would suggest watching: Taxi to the dark side. It is very enlightening viewing on who is collected, the value of the individuals collected and how they are handled.
Except facts aren't on your side. Just look at Red Cross or Amnesty International about Guantanamo : it WAS full of innocent guys caught at the wrong place or wrong time, kept for years under wraps because, eh, it's so embarrassing to recognize one's mistakes. Here is a link
Just one name, picked on their site and easy for you to cross check : Lakhdar BOUMEDIENE, a french guy arrested in Bosnia in 2001 while working for the Red Crescent (muslim equivalent of the Red Cross). He was accused of fomenting a bombing of the US embassy, but quickly innocented by the bosnian justice. CIA saw it otherwise and sent him illegally to Gitmo for seven years without any process or trial. He was tortured, went on hunger strike and was force feeded for two years before being located by the french embassy. Innocented of all charges by american justice in november 2008. Just Google "Boumediene vs Bush" for full report.
That the sort of thing that can quite easily sully one country's image.
Im all about clarity, this guy is not the boyscout you say he is.
I really want an unbiased discussion instead of anti American propaganda or biased assertions. Read this for the whole story.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/stories-ex-gitmo-detainees-tell_616629. html?page=3
I dont like body counts passed 1 but if you put numbers up as fact then you should be honest about it. CHIILE rant
Your link is broken...
Anyway, do you really think I (or anybody not sharing your views on american god given right to domination) would take seriously one post on the blog of a neocon news magazine, over 1 ) a well documented report by a notorious NGO ; 2) your very own justice system, who innocented the guy ?
Did you even bother to check the link I gave you ? If not, you aren't discussing seriously this matter, just spouting your views without bothering to confront them to evidence, and I'm not interested.
I wasn't the one to give a false number, remember ? (could have been a typo, a zero added) If you can't scroll up this page to check who said what, I don't know what to say to you.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/keyword/Lakhdar-Boumediene
(Anyone interested in a detailed account on what happened should read)
Why do you put words in my mouth "American God given right to domination" You obviously have an agenda.
Let me ask you a question in regards to the United States and its so called goals of imperialism.
Do you believe the US should have bombed the Serbs in Kosovo?
Do you believe the US should have bombed the Serbs in Bosnia?
I'm trying to figure out your angle. If you answer those questions honestly I'll get a good idea.
Not really seeing it from Republicans with Obama, either. Just saying.HA! Good one.
PS: " Not really seeing it " is really mild. The thought conjured up the image of people with frothing mouths fingering white hoodies impatiently.;)
Real classy to portray Republicans/conservatives as members of the KKK.
I'm not sure why that comment continues to exist considering the boards tough stand against such bigoted and hateful behavior.
I'll put it to you now, for real? You believe that the combatants we captured are by in large innocent bystanders given up by rivals, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time? You are dreaming.For real, again? And who is to decide which ones have "declared war", and which ones just got denounced by rivals, or had been caught in a dragnet just by being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
I suppose that if you had lived some centuries ago, you could have made yours this motto :" just kill them all. God will know his own". <indiscriminate slaughter of all heathens ensues>.
Except facts aren't on your side. Just look at Red Cross or Amnesty International about Guantanamo : it WAS full of innocent guys caught at the wrong place or wrong time, kept for years under wraps because, eh, it's so embarrassing to recognize one's mistakes. Here is a link
Just one name, picked on their site and easy for you to cross check : Lakhdar BOUMEDIENE, a french guy arrested in Bosnia in 2001 while working for the Red Crescent (muslim equivalent of the Red Cross). He was accused of fomenting a bombing of the US embassy, but quickly innocented by the bosnian justice. CIA saw it otherwise and sent him illegally to Gitmo for seven years without any process or trial. He was tortured, went on hunger strike and was force feeded for two years before being located by the french embassy. Innocented of all charges by american justice in november 2008. Just Google "Boumediene vs Bush" for full report.
That the sort of thing that can quite easily sully one country's image.
QUOTE="Aretas"]
You can't brag of being an advanced nation and a beacon of human rights while using torture at your whim. A choice is needed. The USA aren't above international law, or just plain decency : they have no divine mandate allowing them to ignore the dubious morality of some of their acts,...
You should not use such highly inflammatory rhetoric. You asked if torture is a Christian value? I would not say suicide bombing, recruiting children for such missions, video taping beheadings and blowing up market places or religious gatherings a hallmark of Islam.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt regarding the remarks you made about my belief that American is superior. Exceptional does not equate to superior.
Yes it is a nice place to live FOR EVERYONE. Not just the rich and healthy.
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians. Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.
Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries. Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease. By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.
Fact No. 4: Americans have better access to preventive cancer screening than Canadians. Take the proportion of the appropriate-age population groups who have received recommended tests for breast, cervical, prostate and colon cancer:
•Nine of 10 middle-aged American women (89 percent) have had a mammogram, compared to less than three-fourths of Canadians (72 percent).
•Nearly all American women (96 percent) have had a pap smear, compared to less than 90 percent of Canadians.
•More than half of American men (54 percent) have had a PSA test, compared to less than 1 in 6 Canadians (16 percent).
•Nearly one-third of Americans (30 percent) have had a colonoscopy, compared with less than 1 in 20 Canadians (5 percent).
Fact No. 5: Lower income Americans are in better health than comparable Canadians. Twice as many American seniors with below-median incomes self-report "excellent" health compared to Canadian seniors (11.7 percent versus 5.8 percent). Conversely, white Canadian young adults with below-median incomes are 20 percent more likely than lower income Americans to describe their health as "fair or poor.
Fact No. 6: Americans spend less time waiting for care than patients in Canada and the U.K. Canadian and British patients wait about twice as long - sometimes more than a year - to see a specialist, to have elective surgery like hip replacements or to get radiation treatment for cancer. All told, 827,429 people are waiting for some type of procedure in Canada. In England, nearly 1.8 million people are waiting for a hospital admission or outpatient treatment.
Fact No. 7: People in countries with more government control of health care are highly dissatisfied and believe reform is needed. More than 70 percent of German, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand and British adults say their health system needs either "fundamental change" or "complete rebuilding."
Fact No. 8: Americans are more satisfied with the care they receive than Canadians. When asked about their own health care instead of the "health care system," more than half of Americans (51.3 percent) are very satisfied with their health care services, compared to only 41.5 percent of Canadians; a lower proportion of Americans are dissatisfied (6.8 percent) than Canadians (8.5 percent).
Fact No. 9: Americans have much better access to important new technologies like medical imaging than patients in Canada or the U.K. Maligned as a waste by economists and policymakers naïve to actual medical practice, an overwhelming majority of leading American physicians identified computerized tomography (CT) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) as the most important medical innovations for improving patient care during the previous decade. The United States has 34 CT scanners per million Americans, compared to 12 in Canada and eight in Britain. The United States has nearly 27 MRI machines per million compared to about 6 per million in Canada and Britain.
Fact No. 10: Americans are responsible for the vast majority of all health care innovations. The top five U.S. hospitals conduct more clinical trials than all the hospitals in any other single developed country. Since the mid-1970s, the Nobel Prize in medicine or physiology has gone to American residents more often than recipients from all other countries combined. In only five of the past 34 years did a scientist living in America not win or share in the prize. Most important recent medical innovations were developed in the United States.
Real classy to portray Republicans/conservatives as members of the KKK.
Gosh, i wasn´t. And i defintely never pretended it to be classy. Rather i admitted to being a bit tasteless. And a joke. I explained and apologized.
I have to say though, that i think it´s somewhat bigoted to scream now, after quoting someone who apparently thinks that liberalism is a mental disorder, without marking it as a quote. You accuse others of using anti-american propaganda, revisionist history and rail against left wing socialist hacks, european goverments and political culture. Then you complain about others using " highly inflammatory rhetoric" ? And start presenting facts that are largely unrelated to whats being discussed. Which is history and politics. i thought.
First off: I´d guess that none of the people arguing with/against you are muslims, have ties to the Hamas, Hisbollah, communist/ socialist underground, whatever. No propaganda.
Second: Not all europeans are socialists, communists, progressives or liberals. ( Not that we are insulted, to be called thus.) Nor are we anti-american. Not really. No revisionist history there.
Third: Maybe we ARE unbiased ?
Or not. Totally. To explain where i´m coming from: I am german. Contrary to what Smarnil wrote, we get our noses rubbed in our historical pooh two or three times during school. Much more impressive are the stories of my family. This isn´t fun, but neccessary.
It makes us one of the few, if not the only nation, that acknowledges our historical guilt and horrible mistakes on a broad front.
So, i´m somewhat annoyed be people of other nations who don´t. For example, i´d argue as hotly with a french, who really believes that ALL of France was in the Resistance from the beginning or doesn´t acknowledge that most or many of the Resistance were protestants, who knew by exspirience, what it means to be hunted, prosecuted and slaughtered by the thousands. By the french.
The bottom-line is the thing about history repeated. If the U.S. does not learn for example, that installing allied dictators does not work, it will continue breeding it´s own enemies. And loosing avoidable wars. We europeans had our fill of those.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/keyword/Lakhdar-Boumediene
(Anyone interested in a detailed account on what happened should read)
Why do you put words in my mouth "American God given right to domination" You obviously have an agenda.
Let me ask you a question in regards to the United States and its so called goals of imperialism.
Do you believe the US should have bombed the Serbs in Kosovo?
Do you believe the US should have bombed the Serbs in Bosnia?I'm trying to figure out your angle. If you answer those questions honestly I'll get a good idea.
Hidden agenda? Please...
May I observe that you failed to answer my questions about what facts let you think that the USA are exceptional / above laws and morals / superior (take your pick) ?
Given this lack of answers, and the fact that you pointed me to a neocon blog, let me assume that you are a neocon and thus believe in the divine mandate of the USA. It's not so wild an assumption : feel free to contradict me, but THEN explain why you believe in the USA's exceptionalism.
As I'm in a joyous mood, I will be more cooperative than you and answer your questions : in former Yugoslavia, as far as I know, the USA hadn't any hidden agenda and acted only to stop the indiscriminate slaughter of civilians within a mandate given by the United Nations. So yes, it was both globally warranted and legally right.
You know, imperialism isn't a dirty word. It's quite ridiculous to deny that the USA don't try to promote its interests all around the world, by force if necessary. Just listen to the political discourse : nothing is covert in that.
Fact No. 1 ... Fact No. 10
Source?
You should not use such highly inflammatory rhetoric. You asked if torture is a Christian value? I would not say suicide bombing, recruiting children for such missions, video taping beheadings and blowing up market places or religious gatherings a hallmark of Islam.
I'll give you the benefit of the doubt regarding the remarks you made about my belief that American is superior. Exceptional does not equate to superior.
Yes it is a nice place to live FOR EVERYONE. Not just the rich and healthy.
Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers. Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom. Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway. The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.
<long list of examples snipped>
Well, who is being inflammatory? Weren't you the one to imply that I was probably suffering from a mental disorder ?
You are also the one to claim that the USA is both upholding christian values and entitled to use torture. How do you reconcile both ?
Last time I checked, jihadist terrorists (not islamist, there is a difference) weren't claiming to respect democratic values. That they use terrorist attacks is be expected ; USA should hold themselves to an higher standard.
As to your "facts", they won't be such until you give away your sources (and no, another blog from Weekly Standard won't do the trick). I don't have time at the moment for cross checking your very surprising claims, but will grab my WHO 2011 report at first opportunity.
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Re: "Facts"
The list of nobel laureates is pretty easy to verify. And, yes, it's overwhelmingly favoring American scientists.
What of it?
Well, the implication is that a rationed/socialized medical establishment doesn't generate the progress that the US system has. Because if they did, there'd be a lot more recognition to non-US developed breakthroughs, right?
If you don't believe that, then there's little to no reason to cite sources about effectiveness or access to preventative care. Dismissing 'facts' that don't fit one's preconceptions is as natural as breathing, and equally hard not to do.