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#11
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Recent subjects I brought up
"Eric" wrote in message ... "webster72n" wrote in message ... The Vietnam War was largely considered lost, but I suppose you could consider it a win for both sides, since we got our troops out and they are now at peace. We didn't accomplish what we went there to do, but we shouldn't have tried to do that to begin with. Leaving the rest up for discussion, I must whole heartedly agree with this viewpoint and include Iraq in this equation. Initially we didn't go there to fight terrorism, nor to preserve *our* freedom, but for control of the oil reserves. Time *to wake up*. H. Bush says we initially went there to fight terrorism, that the main if not only reason we removed Saddam from power was because he was allowing terrorists to train in his country and was even funding their efforts. While this may have been our main reason for initially sending in troops, Bush did seem to make a fool of himself by repeating that we were there because Saddam had weapons of mass destruction (which were apparently smuggled out of the country just before we got there). I am a little puzzled by every Bush speech that makes it sound like our entire mission in Iraq is still fighting terrorists, even though we reportedly did kill al-Quaeda's #2 guy among others. It seems most of our missions there have nothing to do with any terrorists that are remotely connected with the destruction of the World Trade Center. Our main mission it appears is keeping the peace, which has a lot to do with religion (Sunnis fighting Shi'ites), and surely has something to do with the flow of oil. So I am in favor of keeping our troops there for as long as the Iraqi people need us and as long as they are committed to taking over the peacekeeping efforts themselves as soon as possible, and even sending more troops temporarily, but it would be nice if a Bush speech would tell the whole story. That's an entirely personal view and you are entitled to it. IMHO our presence in Iraq is no more than a show of force and domination and morally, to say the least, not justified. EOC (end of chapter). H. |
#12
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Recent subjects I brought up
Norman,
Very good post. Viet Vets like your self should hold your heads high with pride. You were treated very shabbily by the same types that you can see are still around and that have answers for everything. I like Isreal's approach, d**k with us and we'll put your lights out. "Norman" wrote in message ... I have to wonder if such off topic is an effort to kill ME, since this is a wME group. That said here goes. Populace has to have guns in the event it is necessary to revolt against mind control of Hitler types. Otherwise you get Sadam and minions overlording the populace. You can find many examples of such around the world like in Africa. Besides, guns won't kill wME. And something else to chew on. (Vietnam Veteran) We didn't lose that Fing war. The war was lost by the same types that today are saying Iraq is another Vietnam. White House tapes prove it was hampered by diplomacy because of nuclear concerns. No one can say that the push at the end if at other time would not have proven concerns correct. Although peace monkeys likely brought that push about, they should weigh their actions against the millions of lives lost after the peace. That sums the many years of the war, except the end when the push occurred. (when I served). From 68 to 72, much control had been handed to RVN, especially in air control, albeit with old antiquated planes and equipment. Major offensive launched by NVA, Easter of '72, moving massive amounts of arms and troops south of border, large numbers of Marines and Marine air wing moved back into Vietnam to stop their advance. Peacenik pressure against Vietnam moved most of us to support areas, within flying distance. With winning or losing forced to foreground, Linebacker I and II were exercised. We finally did what could have been done earlier if not for the diplomacy thing. We took it to Hanoi and forced them to meet in Paris. But because of traitors like John F Kerry who held unauthorized meetings with them, they renigged, resulting in Linebacker II. They signed that time. It is the Kerry types that would rather have you, us, lose wars. Maybe it would put most diplomats out of a job. Lose, no way, we won the peace and that is what going to war is about. We are disgraced by the fact that the peaceniks have not had to wear the scars of what they did, yet we are constantly forced to wear the albatross they created. They and the Capitol monkeys of the same mind. RVN lost in the end because the Capitol monkeys, in a single stroke, cut all money for the promised weapons and support to RVN. If someone takes away your guns, how long can you last against a well armed force that is being resupplied by Russia and China? Vietnam should never be compared to Iraq, just for the reason that it was about Communist dominoes and this one is about a bunch of fanatics indoctrinated in getting to Allah quickly via nuclear, biological, and chemical. You have to know if they were handed a bomb that would vaporize Earth, they'd hold a party and detonate it. KEEP THAT IN MIND! Last thought, and something for the Brits to chew over, Geneva Convention. That Armed Forces Geneva Convention Card troops carry is a bunch of baloney created post the big one. If it had been in place during WWII, England would have lost, US likely would have lost. At the top and bottom of that Geneva document it should have in very large letters, "YOU BREAK THESE RULES, SO DO WE, WITH PAYBACK!" You don't win wars by tying hands behind back. Norman "Shane" wrote in message ... I'll send paragraph by paragraph and see which do and don't get through. Shane wrote: I've sent three posts this morning - a response to Job, an inserted oar to Patc, and the response I promised Figgs (in which I now see I repeat quite a lot and its not quite as incisive as I originally meant). The first two got through, the last hasn't (I've reset the group twice). The last one gives my reasons for no longer believing in a law passed here some years ago now, allusions to which I've made before. The question is: who would censor it? Because these days it wouldn't necessarily be MS and such is precisely why I justified my current position on the emotive subject. If this gets through and *it* hasn't I'll repost it in various forms. |
#13
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Recent subjects I brought up
"webster72n" wrote in message ... That's an entirely personal view and you are entitled to it. IMHO our presence in Iraq is no more than a show of force and domination and morally, to say the least, not justified. EOC (end of chapter). H. What are you saying, you think we should just get all our troops out and hope they're ready to solve their own problems, or hope the sectarian violence that has been around for thousands of years just disappears without our troops there and doesn't escalate to world war? Can we afford to take that risk? What is "morally unjustified" about our troop presence? Do you know anything about the situation over there? There are 3 religious groups in Iraq (Sunni, Shi'ite, Kurd). They have always been at conflict with each other. While Saddam was in charge, doing horrible things to his people, he kept the conflict under control. When we removed Saddam from power, we disbanded his military. Some of his troops were killed. Others were simple not allowed to join the military of the new government due to their loyalties to Saddam. With no military, the religious sects went back to fighting each other, and other terrorist groups from neighboring countries joined in that fight as well as a fight against us. Our troops have attempted to train a new Iraqi army and keep the violence under control at the same time. To accomplish these 2 tasks, we need more troops there at least temporarily. It takes our military at least 15 years to train one military commander. We've only been in Iraq since 2003. You expect us to give up on Iraq in less than 4 years? |
#14
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Recent subjects I brought up
"Eric" wrote in message ... "webster72n" wrote in message ... That's an entirely personal view and you are entitled to it. IMHO our presence in Iraq is no more than a show of force and domination and morally, to say the least, not justified. EOC (end of chapter). H. What are you saying, you think we should just get all our troops out and hope they're ready to solve their own problems, or hope the sectarian violence that has been around for thousands of years just disappears without our troops there and doesn't escalate to world war? Can we afford to take that risk? What is "morally unjustified" about our troop presence? Do you know anything about the situation over there? There are 3 religious groups in Iraq (Sunni, Shi'ite, Kurd). They have always been at conflict with each other. While Saddam was in charge, doing horrible things to his people, he kept the conflict under control. When we removed Saddam from power, we disbanded his military. Some of his troops were killed. Others were simple not allowed to join the military of the new government due to their loyalties to Saddam. With no military, the religious sects went back to fighting each other, and other terrorist groups from neighboring countries joined in that fight as well as a fight against us. Our troops have attempted to train a new Iraqi army and keep the violence under control at the same time. To accomplish these 2 tasks, we need more troops there at least temporarily. It takes our military at least 15 years to train one military commander. We've only been in Iraq since 2003. You expect us to give up on Iraq in less than 4 years? We had no business being there in the first place under the circumstances, never mind Saddam Hussein, the *Bad Man*. All we have to do is, look in the mirror. To top it off, we are in the process of tangling with Iran. What do you expect the consequences to be? On the other hand, the Bible will fullfill itself, no doubt. |
#15
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Recent subjects I brought up
"webster72n" wrote in message ... We had no business being there in the first place under the circumstances, never mind Saddam Hussein, the *Bad Man*. All we have to do is, look in the mirror. To top it off, we are in the process of tangling with Iran. What do you expect the consequences to be? On the other hand, the Bible will fullfill itself, no doubt. Going to Iraq in the first place has been the subject of much debate. The top reasons for going in a - Saddam supposedly had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them, which were apparently smuggled out of the country as we invaded - Saddam was supporting and supplying terrorists and allowing them to train in his country - Saddam was murdering Iraqi civilians like a small scale Stalin, and the people of Iraq needed a liberator - Saddam caused problems for Bush Sr, so Bush II had to take him out as soon as he had the power no matter how strong the case was for war - The world oil market was becoming unstable, so the US had to lead the charge to secure it Whichever reason you believe we went there for, and whether or not you believe we should have been there in the first place, doesn't matter anymore. The fact is we are there and we are searching for the best strategy to finish the job. You didn't bother to explain your statement, "IMHO our presence in Iraq is no more than a show of force and domination and morally, to say the least, not justified.". You just repeated that tired old whine that we shouldn't have gone there. As for Iran, I believe our diplomatic relations with them are better than they were before we sent troops into Iraq. You are either John Kerry, or someone who listened to him too much. Instead of offering insight on what to do about Iraq, you whine that we shouldn't have gone there and shift the subject to Iran. That is why John Kerry lost the election. He agreed with you, and thought we should just get out no matter what happens after we're gone. |
#16
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Recent subjects I brought up
Quite apart from the fact those posts are a different one broken down into
paragraphs in order to try to discover why the original failed to make it to the servers, and Heather's paragraphs were mostly removed for that purpose and so it will obviously be taken out of context...and which, having completed the exercise I 'cancelled', so they weren't supposed to still be there to argue about anyway...and apart from the fact that one does not intend to unblock a particular poster who appears to have a habit of not merely misunderstanding one's words - which is fair enough, I'm not especially eloquent - but embellishing them, which isn't... ....nonetheless I'll say this: it is irresponsible to give a drunk his car keys. Is it not then irresponsible to give the same man (or woman) - who wants to drive, drunk - a handgun? Wanting to drive, drunk, is adopting the position that your pleasure or convenience is more important than, say, a child's life. But it'd be okay to give them their gun back? Or doesn't anyone who owns a handgun drink too much? Do only responsible people own guns? This is what I mean by rights clashing and gun advocates who put theirs first. Actually - reading about Job's Ruger - I read about key locks for the hammer mechanism which, because I've been out of the loop so long, I was unaware of. What a good idea! As a gun advocate, I'm all for those (I don't like the idea of weapons that can only be fired by the owner though). Not that either stop an irresponsible gun owner causing the death of a third party. Democracy - quite apart from the fact I doubt true democracy exists anywhere - has nothing to do with taking legislator's words for what is right or wrong. That's laziness or craven cowardice and probably both. You make your own mind up about ethics - that's what democracy is about. That's (part of) what Consciousness is about. And growing up. Waiting until the next election to change what's morally wrong doesn't work, or nowhere near reliably enough, because doing nothing until then sends the signal that you'll accept what ever it is actually you'd rather not accept (such as, here, the Poll Tax) - so even the opposition will likely adopt the contentious issue, for expediency; but also who is voted in or out will come down to more than just one issue. If society seems to be working otherwise, likely the Government will be re-elected. What do you do now, wait until the *next* election? You already waited for one. What most people would do is just forget about it, and so society evolves unchallenged for the worse. The People decide. It doesn't mean if neither serious contender for office understands ethics then it must be *you* who 'fails to get it'. They're supposed to represent you, not manipulate you. If they say black is white, they're wrong, full stop. The political classes of the Western World today are dominated by professional liars - mostly lawyers. To know that and continue to trust them even to the extent of telling one what to think is that kind of irresponsibility that 'The Right To Bear Arms' precludes. If you let them tell you what to think then of course you will never, ever bear arms against them when they go too far! You'll believe the lies. That's what the lies are for. Stanley Milgram already demonstrated all you need to know, decades ago. But he's far from the only one. Norman. I expect - if I was looking for an argument - I could argue with you until natural causes intervened. The rest of the world disagrees with the US, much of the time. In part that relates to Americans who don't think we have the right to - which is only satisfactorily explained by the 'bully syndrome' by which Might equals Right. At which times your having the bomb is frightening. I have more sympathy with the French independent nuclear deterrence than our own 'at-the-beck-and-call-of-the-US' version (though not doing atmospheric testing until the 90's! That was crass, much as, in some ways, I'd love to see one). Meanwhile, we began what ended up as Trinity and we designed and built our own A- and then H-bombs and the only reason we didn't end up producing them to this day is (likely that) you blackmailed us as part payment for supplying us when we were the only ones standing against Hitler. Like a bank foreclosing on you home. We began almost everything. The jet, of course (though the Germans may have independently come up with that one) which we then gave you and then our government sabotaged our own efforts to break the Sound Barrier by forcing Miles (iirc) to give you our designs in the sort of sharing that only goes one way - then forcing Miles to give up pursuing it. Almost as if strong hints that the US wanted to be first had been given. Our brilliant Lightning interceptor didn't get sold to Germany because our government secretly briefed the Germans against it in favour of the iconic-but-generally-agreed-to-be-otherwise-awful Phantom. The only reasonable explanation for that - because it happened almost everywhere else in Defence and Technology arenas too - is we were blackmailed by the US following WWII. It is extremely tempting to believe that the prevailing view of Americans pre-war was that they'd happily have done business with Nazi Germany if we were destroyed. There are Americans I have tremendous respect for, and Americans I am profoundly grateful for, and FDR is one of them. We may not have started colonialism but we certainly made it ours! And one way or another we gave up or lost the Empire. And that is good, because it was morally wrong. Invading other nations is wrong. Justifying it because they were naive enough to 'sell' us vast tracts of land for beads does not make it alright, it makes it about as honourable as 'stealing candy from a child'. Justifying it because we gave them a lifestyle more like our own is at best questionable. Yet this is what US foreign policy is - Cultural Imperialism - Free Enterprise, a phrase too many Americans hear and stop thinking thereafter, that encompasses blackmail and flim-flam and plying entire nations with temptations that natural greed and laziness makes their voters ripe for - that's why kids everywhere want to be American, not because they love the thought of freedom - they don't even know what it means - but because they do little but watch mindless American TV that tempts them in the name of selling them stuff. Like the way advertisers increasingly target children because they'll nag the parents. If you think 'whatever you can get away with' is therefore justified, you *are* in league with the devil like various people think! I mean, the Middle East has a very, very strong case, which it's unthinking hotheads, just like everyone else's, go and ruin. Just because the gangster (like your old friend Saddam) in charge is happy to 'give' his people's property to the US whether they like it or not, in exchange for expensive toys and status symbols akin to the bigger dick American spammers hope to sell us, because *he* is a megalomaniac, doesn't make it okay, but that would appear to be exactly what supporters of peacetime US Foreign Policy think. It makes it look as if Organised Crime is so successful in the US because the US is run and supported by people without morals; that the way the Mafia runs *is* The American Way. You know what amazes me, increasingly (as I get older)? How recent history is. By which I mean how much was metaphorically 'just yesterday'. Along with the assertion that 'history repeats itself' - which doesn't mean what it is taken to mean, because we are always at somewhere new, because the technology is so advanced on a generation previous and there are subtle differences in what we now want. I'm still only middle-aged. I was born as the Space Age began and the Jet Age took off (pun not intended). Look at where we are today? World War II seemed a lifetime ago when I was a kid, but more time has passed now since I rode a Jota than between the end of hostilities and my coming into the mix! Look where we were a century ago. Less than a century! I've been telling my sister about the Tuskogee Airmen recently. I was actually alive when Americans you'd respect for fighting in Viet Nam, or Eric would allow to have a gun *and* bullets until proven unfit, were pulling coloureds up into the trees by the neck! It's not that long ago, is it. A lot of those Americans are still alive - and voting. You think you deserve to tell the world what to do? You still haven't meaningfully compensated the Native Americans! Or do the whites tell themselves they're happy running their casinos so everything's okay? Almost nobody has an open mind. Not just American, all nationalities. That's part of being human, just like normal perception misses so very much because the point of it is to help us survive rather than to help us have fun. But we're not animals - or if we are, if it's each person for themselves, then I've got a few people to kill before they get me. You know? I'm sure you do; if you were in Viet Nam you must know what people are really like. I mean, unless it traumatised you so much you're in denial now. About Viet Nam, I liked the movie with Eric Roberts - To Heal A Nation - about the Memorial. The attitude that movie advances is the right one, imo. If you didn't like that movie I would consider you just too angry to think straight, but I really hope you liked that movie. Do you think Kent State was justifiable? If you do, you justify the protests, at least from your opponent's pov. It doesn't matter which came first, because what came first was the willingness to shoot unarmed protesters, and *that's* really what the protests were about (just not on the surface where most people's minds remain). But all mass movements are dominated by the unthinking, left or right. There is no actual difference when you come down to it. Like left wing dictatorships and right wing dictatorships are the same thing, people who murder and imprison political opponents and treat the rest of us as valueless beyond as cheap labour or other means to an end. Labelling them 'Left Wing' or 'Right Wing' rather misses the point. People who vote for whoever their parents voted for, never having really thought about switching. People who think that changing your mind is a sign of fickleness. Authoritarians are the ones who just do what they're told, even if its murder; even if its mass murder. It is alarming that mainstream political groups still encourage authoritarianism and do things like 'play the Race card', it implys that those vying for power don't care about 'collateral damage' - such as encouraging genocide elsewhere - but is entirely consistent with the current notion of politics as a career rather than a public service, in other words too often it doesn't seem to be the public that comes first, its the politician - and sometimes only the politician. Short-termism is widely recognised as the problem of the Human Race. I believed what I heard about global warning as a kid, and watched as people discredited, with no justification beyond that doing anything about it would be bad for their particular business, the scientists who warned about it. Ah, but you're an American, you'll be deluding yourself because the American way of life depends on burning all that - our - fossil fuel - so we all choke for you. What I believe in is acting honourably. You do too, don't you, Norman? And, as an example, you don't think villages burnt and farmers machine-gunned was excusable do you? I'd rather you thought the people responsible should have done hard time, that it brought shame upon the US. I found it reassuring that there were prosecutions, though wasn't the soldier convicted then released? True he was probably a scapegoat - like Lindy or whatever her name is. England? - who actually I feel kind of sorry for. Certainly in the UK murder or torture while in uniform (or, indeed, plain clothes) gets tacit approval by virtue of lack of consequences. But if Viet Nam was so Just, how come the North won and yet Viet Nam is a pretty good country now? And why would you expect the Soviet Union to have shrugged it's shoulders and moved on when the US developed the A-bomb and kept it to themselves? I'll grant that there were valid reasons for so doing, but like hawks everywhere you seem to blame your enemy for acting exactly as you would were the positions reversed. In other words you don't appear to step back and look at yourself - which is required except for being a hothead. You probably thought Oliver North was a hero? But how can the US expect respect from the Middle East (or anywhere not already in it's pocket like the UK) when it deals with total hypocrisy? Its like the supporters of such enterprises think no-one else is smart enough to see the inconsistences. You don't deal with terrorists. You don't appease dictatorships. Unless all its really about is business. Do you think supporting death squads in Central America was a good thing? What is Law for? Just something to keep your own people under control - along with that 'opium of the masses' known as television? If that's what it's about, there's no Democracy there, it's just a way to be totalitarian by stealth. But isn't Democracy what you fought for? Maybe you confused 'Democracy' with 'America'. Anyway, this was a series of posts taken out of context and I don't want to spend the rest of my life on the computer. I believe we're going to hell in a handcart because of partisanship, because almost no-one thinks 'one step beyond'. I don't kid myself, or not for long. Ceasing it requires admitting you *can* kid yourself, instead of believing yourself infallible. My contribution to the world, if ever I convince anyone at all, will be to make them really beware of self deception, not think that because they gave the issue five minutes thought as a teenager they've been immune ever since. But as long as people believe what they want to believe, big business - and their politician partners - will kill us for short term profit. Shane Shane wrote: Surprised that one got through. 7th: We do have it pretty good with our National Healthcare System.....so don't complain. And I do believe ours is better than the UK. Had a lot of time to investigate that one. Yes. Probably wasn't until recently, but I almost died because of what ours has become (under Thatcher, Major and Blair. Must figure out some time how to sue the f**ker for it!). Off to bed.....getting as bad as Shane and Mike!! Night.....Figgs Hope you haven't slept all this time, Figgs! Shane Shane wrote: 6th paragraph: However, here we're seeing the consequences of a politician banning handguns. Whether he started out meaning well or was always a megalomaniac is moot, the point is *we* need weapons to protect against tyrannical government! Our freedoms are being removed piece by piece, relentlessly, and a police state being established. Someone wrote a letter (to the Independent?) recently asking (something like) if when Blair is no longer PM, will he continue to work for the Republican Party? That is not really a joke. Shane wrote: Hmm again. Not only has every thing but the first paragraph got through so far, I just e-mailed the post to myself, so it wouldn't have got through if it was, say, the British Government doing the censoring. Next paragraph: Yes, the psychopaths and organised crime have so many guns that it makes sense for anyone who doesn't think there'll always be a policeman to protect you to have one to, but mostly they'll only shoot you if you interfere with business. The crazies are, imo, a better argument for having a gun yourself (if you're in the US. That isn't really an issue here, nor presumably in Canada?). Shane wrote: 4th paragraph: Meanwhile the US of course has the right to bear arms in the constitution, a fact that has frequently been cited as the reason they must be allowed to do so - to defend against tyranny from their own government. Unfortunately the only ones who use that argument I ever saw who would bear arms against the government - as opposed to just letting freedom be encroached on out of existence - are the crazies who do basically want to shoot the weak and anyone who tries to protect them. The rest are just like the British citizens, who can't help defining what is right as whatever the government of the day tells them it is. Shane wrote: Hmm. 3rd paragraph: Anyway, I say yes to gun control. Because we're not living on the frontier - or most of us aren't anyway. Maybe those in the rural mid-west should just lobby to leave the Union - or stop pretending to care about Americans rather than just America. However, handguns are a fact of life. I say better to live with it, responsibly, than to pretend they don't exist. They're like the atomic bomb, it would be nicer if the technology had never been dreamt of, but it was and they're here to stay. Shane wrote: 2nd paragraph: But the world over, people are lazy thinkers and don't look beyond the first conclusion. So its like we're living in a world ruled by children. And the politicians pander to them, of course. There are Pro-gun lobbyists who deny irrefutable fact the way some deny the Holocaust (another parallel!). Now, say they were at a dance - and the polite thing to do was hand your firearm in at the cloakroom. Handing it back at the end of the evening would be akin, responsibility-wise, to giving back a drunk their car keys (I'm drowning in parallels here!). There are certain rights that conflict with other people's rights, aren't there. But those Pro-gun supporters think theirs always comes first. Maybe that comes in growing up in the mid-West, miles from anyone else and they do still think they're on their own on the frontier. Shane wrote: I'll send paragraph by paragraph and see which do and don't get through. Shane wrote: I've sent three posts this morning - a response to Job, an inserted oar to Patc, and the response I promised Figgs (in which I now see I repeat quite a lot and its not quite as incisive as I originally meant). The first two got through, the last hasn't (I've reset the group twice). The last one gives my reasons for no longer believing in a law passed here some years ago now, allusions to which I've made before. The question is: who would censor it? Because these days it wouldn't necessarily be MS and such is precisely why I justified my current position on the emotive subject. If this gets through and *it* hasn't I'll repost it in various forms. |
#17
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Recent subjects I brought up
As I said befo You are entitled to your opinion. The whining I leave up to you and for the rest, time will tell. H. "Eric" wrote in message ... "webster72n" wrote in message ... We had no business being there in the first place under the circumstances, never mind Saddam Hussein, the *Bad Man*. All we have to do is, look in the mirror. To top it off, we are in the process of tangling with Iran. What do you expect the consequences to be? On the other hand, the Bible will fullfill itself, no doubt. Going to Iraq in the first place has been the subject of much debate. The top reasons for going in a - Saddam supposedly had weapons of mass destruction and was prepared to use them, which were apparently smuggled out of the country as we invaded - Saddam was supporting and supplying terrorists and allowing them to train in his country - Saddam was murdering Iraqi civilians like a small scale Stalin, and the people of Iraq needed a liberator - Saddam caused problems for Bush Sr, so Bush II had to take him out as soon as he had the power no matter how strong the case was for war - The world oil market was becoming unstable, so the US had to lead the charge to secure it Whichever reason you believe we went there for, and whether or not you believe we should have been there in the first place, doesn't matter anymore. The fact is we are there and we are searching for the best strategy to finish the job. You didn't bother to explain your statement, "IMHO our presence in Iraq is no more than a show of force and domination and morally, to say the least, not justified.". You just repeated that tired old whine that we shouldn't have gone there. As for Iran, I believe our diplomatic relations with them are better than they were before we sent troops into Iraq. You are either John Kerry, or someone who listened to him too much. Instead of offering insight on what to do about Iraq, you whine that we shouldn't have gone there and shift the subject to Iran. That is why John Kerry lost the election. He agreed with you, and thought we should just get out no matter what happens after we're gone. |
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Recent subjects I brought up
You deserve a medal, Shane, or a doctorate at least, for Philosophy. Your reasoning is totally realistic and it offers workable solutions. Hope Eric gets a glimpse of this. My only wish, your wisdom could spread far beyond the borders of this forum, but there doens't lie much promise in that, does it? Thanks for your *eye-opening* contribution. Harry. "Shane" wrote in message ... Quite apart from the fact those posts are a different one broken down into paragraphs in order to try to discover why the original failed to make it to the servers, and Heather's paragraphs were mostly removed for that purpose and so it will obviously be taken out of context...and which, having completed the exercise I 'cancelled', so they weren't supposed to still be there to argue about anyway...and apart from the fact that one does not intend to unblock a particular poster who appears to have a habit of not merely misunderstanding one's words - which is fair enough, I'm not especially eloquent - but embellishing them, which isn't... ...nonetheless I'll say this: it is irresponsible to give a drunk his car keys. Is it not then irresponsible to give the same man (or woman) - who wants to drive, drunk - a handgun? Wanting to drive, drunk, is adopting the position that your pleasure or convenience is more important than, say, a child's life. But it'd be okay to give them their gun back? Or doesn't anyone who owns a handgun drink too much? Do only responsible people own guns? This is what I mean by rights clashing and gun advocates who put theirs first. Actually - reading about Job's Ruger - I read about key locks for the hammer mechanism which, because I've been out of the loop so long, I was unaware of. What a good idea! As a gun advocate, I'm all for those (I don't like the idea of weapons that can only be fired by the owner though). Not that either stop an irresponsible gun owner causing the death of a third party. Democracy - quite apart from the fact I doubt true democracy exists anywhere - has nothing to do with taking legislator's words for what is right or wrong. That's laziness or craven cowardice and probably both. You make your own mind up about ethics - that's what democracy is about. That's (part of) what Consciousness is about. And growing up. Waiting until the next election to change what's morally wrong doesn't work, or nowhere near reliably enough, because doing nothing until then sends the signal that you'll accept what ever it is actually you'd rather not accept (such as, here, the Poll Tax) - so even the opposition will likely adopt the contentious issue, for expediency; but also who is voted in or out will come down to more than just one issue. If society seems to be working otherwise, likely the Government will be re-elected. What do you do now, wait until the *next* election? You already waited for one. What most people would do is just forget about it, and so society evolves unchallenged for the worse. The People decide. It doesn't mean if neither serious contender for office understands ethics then it must be *you* who 'fails to get it'. They're supposed to represent you, not manipulate you. If they say black is white, they're wrong, full stop. The political classes of the Western World today are dominated by professional liars - mostly lawyers. To know that and continue to trust them even to the extent of telling one what to think is that kind of irresponsibility that 'The Right To Bear Arms' precludes. If you let them tell you what to think then of course you will never, ever bear arms against them when they go too far! You'll believe the lies. That's what the lies are for. Stanley Milgram already demonstrated all you need to know, decades ago. But he's far from the only one. Norman. I expect - if I was looking for an argument - I could argue with you until natural causes intervened. The rest of the world disagrees with the US, much of the time. In part that relates to Americans who don't think we have the right to - which is only satisfactorily explained by the 'bully syndrome' by which Might equals Right. At which times your having the bomb is frightening. I have more sympathy with the French independent nuclear deterrence than our own 'at-the-beck-and-call-of-the-US' version (though not doing atmospheric testing until the 90's! That was crass, much as, in some ways, I'd love to see one). Meanwhile, we began what ended up as Trinity and we designed and built our own A- and then H-bombs and the only reason we didn't end up producing them to this day is (likely that) you blackmailed us as part payment for supplying us when we were the only ones standing against Hitler. Like a bank foreclosing on you home. We began almost everything. The jet, of course (though the Germans may have independently come up with that one) which we then gave you and then our government sabotaged our own efforts to break the Sound Barrier by forcing Miles (iirc) to give you our designs in the sort of sharing that only goes one way - then forcing Miles to give up pursuing it. Almost as if strong hints that the US wanted to be first had been given. Our brilliant Lightning interceptor didn't get sold to Germany because our government secretly briefed the Germans against it in favour of the iconic-but-generally-agreed-to-be-otherwise-awful Phantom. The only reasonable explanation for that - because it happened almost everywhere else in Defence and Technology arenas too - is we were blackmailed by the US following WWII. It is extremely tempting to believe that the prevailing view of Americans pre-war was that they'd happily have done business with Nazi Germany if we were destroyed. There are Americans I have tremendous respect for, and Americans I am profoundly grateful for, and FDR is one of them. We may not have started colonialism but we certainly made it ours! And one way or another we gave up or lost the Empire. And that is good, because it was morally wrong. Invading other nations is wrong. Justifying it because they were naive enough to 'sell' us vast tracts of land for beads does not make it alright, it makes it about as honourable as 'stealing candy from a child'. Justifying it because we gave them a lifestyle more like our own is at best questionable. Yet this is what US foreign policy is - Cultural Imperialism - Free Enterprise, a phrase too many Americans hear and stop thinking thereafter, that encompasses blackmail and flim-flam and plying entire nations with temptations that natural greed and laziness makes their voters ripe for - that's why kids everywhere want to be American, not because they love the thought of freedom - they don't even know what it means - but because they do little but watch mindless American TV that tempts them in the name of selling them stuff. Like the way advertisers increasingly target children because they'll nag the parents. If you think 'whatever you can get away with' is therefore justified, you *are* in league with the devil like various people think! I mean, the Middle East has a very, very strong case, which it's unthinking hotheads, just like everyone else's, go and ruin. Just because the gangster (like your old friend Saddam) in charge is happy to 'give' his people's property to the US whether they like it or not, in exchange for expensive toys and status symbols akin to the bigger dick American spammers hope to sell us, because *he* is a megalomaniac, doesn't make it okay, but that would appear to be exactly what supporters of peacetime US Foreign Policy think. It makes it look as if Organised Crime is so successful in the US because the US is run and supported by people without morals; that the way the Mafia runs *is* The American Way. You know what amazes me, increasingly (as I get older)? How recent history is. By which I mean how much was metaphorically 'just yesterday'. Along with the assertion that 'history repeats itself' - which doesn't mean what it is taken to mean, because we are always at somewhere new, because the technology is so advanced on a generation previous and there are subtle differences in what we now want. I'm still only middle-aged. I was born as the Space Age began and the Jet Age took off (pun not intended). Look at where we are today? World War II seemed a lifetime ago when I was a kid, but more time has passed now since I rode a Jota than between the end of hostilities and my coming into the mix! Look where we were a century ago. Less than a century! I've been telling my sister about the Tuskogee Airmen recently. I was actually alive when Americans you'd respect for fighting in Viet Nam, or Eric would allow to have a gun *and* bullets until proven unfit, were pulling coloureds up into the trees by the neck! It's not that long ago, is it. A lot of those Americans are still alive - and voting. You think you deserve to tell the world what to do? You still haven't meaningfully compensated the Native Americans! Or do the whites tell themselves they're happy running their casinos so everything's okay? Almost nobody has an open mind. Not just American, all nationalities. That's part of being human, just like normal perception misses so very much because the point of it is to help us survive rather than to help us have fun. But we're not animals - or if we are, if it's each person for themselves, then I've got a few people to kill before they get me. You know? I'm sure you do; if you were in Viet Nam you must know what people are really like. I mean, unless it traumatised you so much you're in denial now. About Viet Nam, I liked the movie with Eric Roberts - To Heal A Nation - about the Memorial. The attitude that movie advances is the right one, imo. If you didn't like that movie I would consider you just too angry to think straight, but I really hope you liked that movie. Do you think Kent State was justifiable? If you do, you justify the protests, at least from your opponent's pov. It doesn't matter which came first, because what came first was the willingness to shoot unarmed protesters, and *that's* really what the protests were about (just not on the surface where most people's minds remain). But all mass movements are dominated by the unthinking, left or right. There is no actual difference when you come down to it. Like left wing dictatorships and right wing dictatorships are the same thing, people who murder and imprison political opponents and treat the rest of us as valueless beyond as cheap labour or other means to an end. Labelling them 'Left Wing' or 'Right Wing' rather misses the point. People who vote for whoever their parents voted for, never having really thought about switching. People who think that changing your mind is a sign of fickleness. Authoritarians are the ones who just do what they're told, even if its murder; even if its mass murder. It is alarming that mainstream political groups still encourage authoritarianism and do things like 'play the Race card', it implys that those vying for power don't care about 'collateral damage' - such as encouraging genocide elsewhere - but is entirely consistent with the current notion of politics as a career rather than a public service, in other words too often it doesn't seem to be the public that comes first, its the politician - and sometimes only the politician. Short-termism is widely recognised as the problem of the Human Race. I believed what I heard about global warning as a kid, and watched as people discredited, with no justification beyond that doing anything about it would be bad for their particular business, the scientists who warned about it. Ah, but you're an American, you'll be deluding yourself because the American way of life depends on burning all that - our - fossil fuel - so we all choke for you. What I believe in is acting honourably. You do too, don't you, Norman? And, as an example, you don't think villages burnt and farmers machine-gunned was excusable do you? I'd rather you thought the people responsible should have done hard time, that it brought shame upon the US. I found it reassuring that there were prosecutions, though wasn't the soldier convicted then released? True he was probably a scapegoat - like Lindy or whatever her name is. England? - who actually I feel kind of sorry for. Certainly in the UK murder or torture while in uniform (or, indeed, plain clothes) gets tacit approval by virtue of lack of consequences. But if Viet Nam was so Just, how come the North won and yet Viet Nam is a pretty good country now? And why would you expect the Soviet Union to have shrugged it's shoulders and moved on when the US developed the A-bomb and kept it to themselves? I'll grant that there were valid reasons for so doing, but like hawks everywhere you seem to blame your enemy for acting exactly as you would were the positions reversed. In other words you don't appear to step back and look at yourself - which is required except for being a hothead. You probably thought Oliver North was a hero? But how can the US expect respect from the Middle East (or anywhere not already in it's pocket like the UK) when it deals with total hypocrisy? Its like the supporters of such enterprises think no-one else is smart enough to see the inconsistences. You don't deal with terrorists. You don't appease dictatorships. Unless all its really about is business. Do you think supporting death squads in Central America was a good thing? What is Law for? Just something to keep your own people under control - along with that 'opium of the masses' known as television? If that's what it's about, there's no Democracy there, it's just a way to be totalitarian by stealth. But isn't Democracy what you fought for? Maybe you confused 'Democracy' with 'America'. Anyway, this was a series of posts taken out of context and I don't want to spend the rest of my life on the computer. I believe we're going to hell in a handcart because of partisanship, because almost no-one thinks 'one step beyond'. I don't kid myself, or not for long. Ceasing it requires admitting you *can* kid yourself, instead of believing yourself infallible. My contribution to the world, if ever I convince anyone at all, will be to make them really beware of self deception, not think that because they gave the issue five minutes thought as a teenager they've been immune ever since. But as long as people believe what they want to believe, big business - and their politician partners - will kill us for short term profit. Shane Shane wrote: Surprised that one got through. 7th: We do have it pretty good with our National Healthcare System.....so don't complain. And I do believe ours is better than the UK. Had a lot of time to investigate that one. Yes. Probably wasn't until recently, but I almost died because of what ours has become (under Thatcher, Major and Blair. Must figure out some time how to sue the f**ker for it!). Off to bed.....getting as bad as Shane and Mike!! Night.....Figgs Hope you haven't slept all this time, Figgs! Shane Shane wrote: 6th paragraph: However, here we're seeing the consequences of a politician banning handguns. Whether he started out meaning well or was always a megalomaniac is moot, the point is *we* need weapons to protect against tyrannical government! Our freedoms are being removed piece by piece, relentlessly, and a police state being established. Someone wrote a letter (to the Independent?) recently asking (something like) if when Blair is no longer PM, will he continue to work for the Republican Party? That is not really a joke. Shane wrote: Hmm again. Not only has every thing but the first paragraph got through so far, I just e-mailed the post to myself, so it wouldn't have got through if it was, say, the British Government doing the censoring. Next paragraph: Yes, the psychopaths and organised crime have so many guns that it makes sense for anyone who doesn't think there'll always be a policeman to protect you to have one to, but mostly they'll only shoot you if you interfere with business. The crazies are, imo, a better argument for having a gun yourself (if you're in the US. That isn't really an issue here, nor presumably in Canada?). Shane wrote: 4th paragraph: Meanwhile the US of course has the right to bear arms in the constitution, a fact that has frequently been cited as the reason they must be allowed to do so - to defend against tyranny from their own government. Unfortunately the only ones who use that argument I ever saw who would bear arms against the government - as opposed to just letting freedom be encroached on out of existence - are the crazies who do basically want to shoot the weak and anyone who tries to protect them. The rest are just like the British citizens, who can't help defining what is right as whatever the government of the day tells them it is. Shane wrote: Hmm. 3rd paragraph: Anyway, I say yes to gun control. Because we're not living on the frontier - or most of us aren't anyway. Maybe those in the rural mid-west should just lobby to leave the Union - or stop pretending to care about Americans rather than just America. However, handguns are a fact of life. I say better to live with it, responsibly, than to pretend they don't exist. They're like the atomic bomb, it would be nicer if the technology had never been dreamt of, but it was and they're here to stay. Shane wrote: 2nd paragraph: But the world over, people are lazy thinkers and don't look beyond the first conclusion. So its like we're living in a world ruled by children. And the politicians pander to them, of course. There are Pro-gun lobbyists who deny irrefutable fact the way some deny the Holocaust (another parallel!). Now, say they were at a dance - and the polite thing to do was hand your firearm in at the cloakroom. Handing it back at the end of the evening would be akin, responsibility-wise, to giving back a drunk their car keys (I'm drowning in parallels here!). There are certain rights that conflict with other people's rights, aren't there. But those Pro-gun supporters think theirs always comes first. Maybe that comes in growing up in the mid-West, miles from anyone else and they do still think they're on their own on the frontier. Shane wrote: I'll send paragraph by paragraph and see which do and don't get through. Shane wrote: I've sent three posts this morning - a response to Job, an inserted oar to Patc, and the response I promised Figgs (in which I now see I repeat quite a lot and its not quite as incisive as I originally meant). The first two got through, the last hasn't (I've reset the group twice). The last one gives my reasons for no longer believing in a law passed here some years ago now, allusions to which I've made before. The question is: who would censor it? Because these days it wouldn't necessarily be MS and such is precisely why I justified my current position on the emotive subject. If this gets through and *it* hasn't I'll repost it in various forms. |
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"Shane" wrote in message ... Quite apart from the fact those posts are a different one broken down into paragraphs in order to try to discover why the original failed to make it to the servers, and Heather's paragraphs were mostly removed for that purpose and so it will obviously be taken out of context...and which, having completed the exercise I 'cancelled', so they weren't supposed to still be there to argue about anyway...and apart from the fact that one does not intend to unblock a particular poster who appears to have a habit of not merely misunderstanding one's words - which is fair enough, I'm not especially eloquent - but embellishing them, which isn't... ...nonetheless I'll say this: it is irresponsible to give a drunk his car keys. Is it not then irresponsible to give the same man (or woman) - who wants to drive, drunk - a handgun? Wanting to drive, drunk, is adopting the position that your pleasure or convenience is more important than, say, a child's life. But it'd be okay to give them their gun back? Or doesn't anyone who owns a handgun drink too much? Do only responsible people own guns? This is what I mean by rights clashing and gun advocates who put theirs first. No, drunks should not be allowed to operate vehicles, or to possess loaded weapons. No one should be allowed to endanger a child's life. I've even heard recently of a local lawmaker considering banning smoking in vehicles with children in them. There were many interesting points in the rest of that I would love to respond to but I don't have time for right now. Let me just make a few quick points for anyone who thinks the British have a right to criticize the US. The British sent troops to American soil. Those troops killed many natives. The British sent troops to fight for control over Americans and lost. Need we discuss the British attempts at colonizing Africa and Australia? |
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Thanks Harry. I think self deception is the no. one problem facing the race,
but the amount of people I could convince you can count on one hand. After a grenade goes off while holding it. It's the last thing people want to admit to. It's easy to prove - all you have to do is have been head-over-heels in love with someone you eventually broke up with. It impacts on the survival of the race because it serves a species that hasn't evolved since the savannah and is no more capable of conceiving of destroying life on Earth than it is of picturing 5000 bottles of beer. Which calls for a drink! Shane webster72n wrote: You deserve a medal, Shane, or a doctorate at least, for Philosophy. Your reasoning is totally realistic and it offers workable solutions. Hope Eric gets a glimpse of this. My only wish, your wisdom could spread far beyond the borders of this forum, but there doens't lie much promise in that, does it? Thanks for your *eye-opening* contribution. Harry. "Shane" wrote in message ... Quite apart from the fact those posts are a different one broken down into paragraphs in order to try to discover why the original failed to make it to the servers, and Heather's paragraphs were mostly removed for that purpose and so it will obviously be taken out of context...and which, having completed the exercise I 'cancelled', so they weren't supposed to still be there to argue about anyway...and apart from the fact that one does not intend to unblock a particular poster who appears to have a habit of not merely misunderstanding one's words - which is fair enough, I'm not especially eloquent - but embellishing them, which isn't... ...nonetheless I'll say this: it is irresponsible to give a drunk his car keys. Is it not then irresponsible to give the same man (or woman) - who wants to drive, drunk - a handgun? Wanting to drive, drunk, is adopting the position that your pleasure or convenience is more important than, say, a child's life. But it'd be okay to give them their gun back? Or doesn't anyone who owns a handgun drink too much? Do only responsible people own guns? This is what I mean by rights clashing and gun advocates who put theirs first. Actually - reading about Job's Ruger - I read about key locks for the hammer mechanism which, because I've been out of the loop so long, I was unaware of. What a good idea! As a gun advocate, I'm all for those (I don't like the idea of weapons that can only be fired by the owner though). Not that either stop an irresponsible gun owner causing the death of a third party. Democracy - quite apart from the fact I doubt true democracy exists anywhere - has nothing to do with taking legislator's words for what is right or wrong. That's laziness or craven cowardice and probably both. You make your own mind up about ethics - that's what democracy is about. That's (part of) what Consciousness is about. And growing up. Waiting until the next election to change what's morally wrong doesn't work, or nowhere near reliably enough, because doing nothing until then sends the signal that you'll accept what ever it is actually you'd rather not accept (such as, here, the Poll Tax) - so even the opposition will likely adopt the contentious issue, for expediency; but also who is voted in or out will come down to more than just one issue. If society seems to be working otherwise, likely the Government will be re-elected. What do you do now, wait until the *next* election? You already waited for one. What most people would do is just forget about it, and so society evolves unchallenged for the worse. The People decide. It doesn't mean if neither serious contender for office understands ethics then it must be *you* who 'fails to get it'. They're supposed to represent you, not manipulate you. If they say black is white, they're wrong, full stop. The political classes of the Western World today are dominated by professional liars - mostly lawyers. To know that and continue to trust them even to the extent of telling one what to think is that kind of irresponsibility that 'The Right To Bear Arms' precludes. If you let them tell you what to think then of course you will never, ever bear arms against them when they go too far! You'll believe the lies. That's what the lies are for. Stanley Milgram already demonstrated all you need to know, decades ago. But he's far from the only one. Norman. I expect - if I was looking for an argument - I could argue with you until natural causes intervened. The rest of the world disagrees with the US, much of the time. In part that relates to Americans who don't think we have the right to - which is only satisfactorily explained by the 'bully syndrome' by which Might equals Right. At which times your having the bomb is frightening. I have more sympathy with the French independent nuclear deterrence than our own 'at-the-beck-and-call-of-the-US' version (though not doing atmospheric testing until the 90's! That was crass, much as, in some ways, I'd love to see one). Meanwhile, we began what ended up as Trinity and we designed and built our own A- and then H-bombs and the only reason we didn't end up producing them to this day is (likely that) you blackmailed us as part payment for supplying us when we were the only ones standing against Hitler. Like a bank foreclosing on you home. We began almost everything. The jet, of course (though the Germans may have independently come up with that one) which we then gave you and then our government sabotaged our own efforts to break the Sound Barrier by forcing Miles (iirc) to give you our designs in the sort of sharing that only goes one way - then forcing Miles to give up pursuing it. Almost as if strong hints that the US wanted to be first had been given. Our brilliant Lightning interceptor didn't get sold to Germany because our government secretly briefed the Germans against it in favour of the iconic-but-generally-agreed-to-be-otherwise-awful Phantom. The only reasonable explanation for that - because it happened almost everywhere else in Defence and Technology arenas too - is we were blackmailed by the US following WWII. It is extremely tempting to believe that the prevailing view of Americans pre-war was that they'd happily have done business with Nazi Germany if we were destroyed. There are Americans I have tremendous respect for, and Americans I am profoundly grateful for, and FDR is one of them. We may not have started colonialism but we certainly made it ours! And one way or another we gave up or lost the Empire. And that is good, because it was morally wrong. Invading other nations is wrong. Justifying it because they were naive enough to 'sell' us vast tracts of land for beads does not make it alright, it makes it about as honourable as 'stealing candy from a child'. Justifying it because we gave them a lifestyle more like our own is at best questionable. Yet this is what US foreign policy is - Cultural Imperialism - Free Enterprise, a phrase too many Americans hear and stop thinking thereafter, that encompasses blackmail and flim-flam and plying entire nations with temptations that natural greed and laziness makes their voters ripe for - that's why kids everywhere want to be American, not because they love the thought of freedom - they don't even know what it means - but because they do little but watch mindless American TV that tempts them in the name of selling them stuff. Like the way advertisers increasingly target children because they'll nag the parents. If you think 'whatever you can get away with' is therefore justified, you *are* in league with the devil like various people think! I mean, the Middle East has a very, very strong case, which it's unthinking hotheads, just like everyone else's, go and ruin. Just because the gangster (like your old friend Saddam) in charge is happy to 'give' his people's property to the US whether they like it or not, in exchange for expensive toys and status symbols akin to the bigger dick American spammers hope to sell us, because *he* is a megalomaniac, doesn't make it okay, but that would appear to be exactly what supporters of peacetime US Foreign Policy think. It makes it look as if Organised Crime is so successful in the US because the US is run and supported by people without morals; that the way the Mafia runs *is* The American Way. You know what amazes me, increasingly (as I get older)? How recent history is. By which I mean how much was metaphorically 'just yesterday'. Along with the assertion that 'history repeats itself' - which doesn't mean what it is taken to mean, because we are always at somewhere new, because the technology is so advanced on a generation previous and there are subtle differences in what we now want. I'm still only middle-aged. I was born as the Space Age began and the Jet Age took off (pun not intended). Look at where we are today? World War II seemed a lifetime ago when I was a kid, but more time has passed now since I rode a Jota than between the end of hostilities and my coming into the mix! Look where we were a century ago. Less than a century! I've been telling my sister about the Tuskogee Airmen recently. I was actually alive when Americans you'd respect for fighting in Viet Nam, or Eric would allow to have a gun *and* bullets until proven unfit, were pulling coloureds up into the trees by the neck! It's not that long ago, is it. A lot of those Americans are still alive - and voting. You think you deserve to tell the world what to do? You still haven't meaningfully compensated the Native Americans! Or do the whites tell themselves they're happy running their casinos so everything's okay? Almost nobody has an open mind. Not just American, all nationalities. That's part of being human, just like normal perception misses so very much because the point of it is to help us survive rather than to help us have fun. But we're not animals - or if we are, if it's each person for themselves, then I've got a few people to kill before they get me. You know? I'm sure you do; if you were in Viet Nam you must know what people are really like. I mean, unless it traumatised you so much you're in denial now. About Viet Nam, I liked the movie with Eric Roberts - To Heal A Nation - about the Memorial. The attitude that movie advances is the right one, imo. If you didn't like that movie I would consider you just too angry to think straight, but I really hope you liked that movie. Do you think Kent State was justifiable? If you do, you justify the protests, at least from your opponent's pov. It doesn't matter which came first, because what came first was the willingness to shoot unarmed protesters, and *that's* really what the protests were about (just not on the surface where most people's minds remain). But all mass movements are dominated by the unthinking, left or right. There is no actual difference when you come down to it. Like left wing dictatorships and right wing dictatorships are the same thing, people who murder and imprison political opponents and treat the rest of us as valueless beyond as cheap labour or other means to an end. Labelling them 'Left Wing' or 'Right Wing' rather misses the point. People who vote for whoever their parents voted for, never having really thought about switching. People who think that changing your mind is a sign of fickleness. Authoritarians are the ones who just do what they're told, even if its murder; even if its mass murder. It is alarming that mainstream political groups still encourage authoritarianism and do things like 'play the Race card', it implys that those vying for power don't care about 'collateral damage' - such as encouraging genocide elsewhere - but is entirely consistent with the current notion of politics as a career rather than a public service, in other words too often it doesn't seem to be the public that comes first, its the politician - and sometimes only the politician. Short-termism is widely recognised as the problem of the Human Race. I believed what I heard about global warning as a kid, and watched as people discredited, with no justification beyond that doing anything about it would be bad for their particular business, the scientists who warned about it. Ah, but you're an American, you'll be deluding yourself because the American way of life depends on burning all that - our - fossil fuel - so we all choke for you. What I believe in is acting honourably. You do too, don't you, Norman? And, as an example, you don't think villages burnt and farmers machine-gunned was excusable do you? I'd rather you thought the people responsible should have done hard time, that it brought shame upon the US. I found it reassuring that there were prosecutions, though wasn't the soldier convicted then released? True he was probably a scapegoat - like Lindy or whatever her name is. England? - who actually I feel kind of sorry for. Certainly in the UK murder or torture while in uniform (or, indeed, plain clothes) gets tacit approval by virtue of lack of consequences. But if Viet Nam was so Just, how come the North won and yet Viet Nam is a pretty good country now? And why would you expect the Soviet Union to have shrugged it's shoulders and moved on when the US developed the A-bomb and kept it to themselves? I'll grant that there were valid reasons for so doing, but like hawks everywhere you seem to blame your enemy for acting exactly as you would were the positions reversed. In other words you don't appear to step back and look at yourself - which is required except for being a hothead. You probably thought Oliver North was a hero? But how can the US expect respect from the Middle East (or anywhere not already in it's pocket like the UK) when it deals with total hypocrisy? Its like the supporters of such enterprises think no-one else is smart enough to see the inconsistences. You don't deal with terrorists. You don't appease dictatorships. Unless all its really about is business. Do you think supporting death squads in Central America was a good thing? What is Law for? Just something to keep your own people under control - along with that 'opium of the masses' known as television? If that's what it's about, there's no Democracy there, it's just a way to be totalitarian by stealth. But isn't Democracy what you fought for? Maybe you confused 'Democracy' with 'America'. Anyway, this was a series of posts taken out of context and I don't want to spend the rest of my life on the computer. I believe we're going to hell in a handcart because of partisanship, because almost no-one thinks 'one step beyond'. I don't kid myself, or not for long. Ceasing it requires admitting you *can* kid yourself, instead of believing yourself infallible. My contribution to the world, if ever I convince anyone at all, will be to make them really beware of self deception, not think that because they gave the issue five minutes thought as a teenager they've been immune ever since. But as long as people believe what they want to believe, big business - and their politician partners - will kill us for short term profit. Shane Shane wrote: Surprised that one got through. 7th: We do have it pretty good with our National Healthcare System.....so don't complain. And I do believe ours is better than the UK. Had a lot of time to investigate that one. Yes. Probably wasn't until recently, but I almost died because of what ours has become (under Thatcher, Major and Blair. Must figure out some time how to sue the f**ker for it!). Off to bed.....getting as bad as Shane and Mike!! Night.....Figgs Hope you haven't slept all this time, Figgs! Shane Shane wrote: 6th paragraph: However, here we're seeing the consequences of a politician banning handguns. Whether he started out meaning well or was always a megalomaniac is moot, the point is *we* need weapons to protect against tyrannical government! Our freedoms are being removed piece by piece, relentlessly, and a police state being established. Someone wrote a letter (to the Independent?) recently asking (something like) if when Blair is no longer PM, will he continue to work for the Republican Party? That is not really a joke. Shane wrote: Hmm again. Not only has every thing but the first paragraph got through so far, I just e-mailed the post to myself, so it wouldn't have got through if it was, say, the British Government doing the censoring. Next paragraph: Yes, the psychopaths and organised crime have so many guns that it makes sense for anyone who doesn't think there'll always be a policeman to protect you to have one to, but mostly they'll only shoot you if you interfere with business. The crazies are, imo, a better argument for having a gun yourself (if you're in the US. That isn't really an issue here, nor presumably in Canada?). Shane wrote: 4th paragraph: Meanwhile the US of course has the right to bear arms in the constitution, a fact that has frequently been cited as the reason they must be allowed to do so - to defend against tyranny from their own government. Unfortunately the only ones who use that argument I ever saw who would bear arms against the government - as opposed to just letting freedom be encroached on out of existence - are the crazies who do basically want to shoot the weak and anyone who tries to protect them. The rest are just like the British citizens, who can't help defining what is right as whatever the government of the day tells them it is. Shane wrote: Hmm. 3rd paragraph: Anyway, I say yes to gun control. Because we're not living on the frontier - or most of us aren't anyway. Maybe those in the rural mid-west should just lobby to leave the Union - or stop pretending to care about Americans rather than just America. However, handguns are a fact of life. I say better to live with it, responsibly, than to pretend they don't exist. They're like the atomic bomb, it would be nicer if the technology had never been dreamt of, but it was and they're here to stay. Shane wrote: 2nd paragraph: But the world over, people are lazy thinkers and don't look beyond the first conclusion. So its like we're living in a world ruled by children. And the politicians pander to them, of course. There are Pro-gun lobbyists who deny irrefutable fact the way some deny the Holocaust (another parallel!). Now, say they were at a dance - and the polite thing to do was hand your firearm in at the cloakroom. Handing it back at the end of the evening would be akin, responsibility-wise, to giving back a drunk their car keys (I'm drowning in parallels here!). There are certain rights that conflict with other people's rights, aren't there. But those Pro-gun supporters think theirs always comes first. Maybe that comes in growing up in the mid-West, miles from anyone else and they do still think they're on their own on the frontier. Shane wrote: I'll send paragraph by paragraph and see which do and don't get through. Shane wrote: I've sent three posts this morning - a response to Job, an inserted oar to Patc, and the response I promised Figgs (in which I now see I repeat quite a lot and its not quite as incisive as I originally meant). The first two got through, the last hasn't (I've reset the group twice). The last one gives my reasons for no longer believing in a law passed here some years ago now, allusions to which I've made before. The question is: who would censor it? Because these days it wouldn't necessarily be MS and such is precisely why I justified my current position on the emotive subject. If this gets through and *it* hasn't I'll repost it in various forms. |
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