*Lifesonite wrote:He meant it more as a metaphor for something we didn't need to do, a path we didn't need to go down.
By not going down the path we're on now we would have ended up with Iraq turning into another North Korea, except with money and even stronger expansionist desires.
And you know this as a fact?
Because we've gone down the path we're on we haven't had another terrorist attack on our soil in two and a half years.
Because we've gone down the path we're on millions of people who were living each day in fear of whether today was the day that their dictator would kill them now have freedoms such as have not been known in that part of the world in generations... maybe ever.
And you know this as a fact?
Not for lack of trying and do you think they are just going to throw up their hands and go home?
This is a great country we live in and it bothers me the way the rest of the world percieves us...and may I add at what price. It's one thing to go bomb the hell out of a country rich in oil and quite another to let genocide happen and do nothing about it, why is that Elfie? And don't tell me because Mr. Clinton was in office at the time.
Someone save me, I've been caught in the whirlpool of political visatude.
Mr. Potatoe Head wrote:This is a great country we live in and it bothers me the way the rest of the world percieves us...and may I add at what price.
Personally, I don't care how other countries percieve us, because no matter how much they bitch about us, burn our flags, scream about how evil we are, etc., 9 times out of ten, they come running to us when their neck's in a noose.
Mr. Potatoe Head wrote:It's one thing to go bomb the hell out of a country rich in oil and quite another to let genocide happen and do nothing about it, why is that Elfie? And don't tell me because Mr. Clinton was in office at the time.
While the US is a great country, it isn't a perfect country. No matter who's in office, we usually only take on the fights where we have something to gain.
Don't tell me about rock and roll I'm out there in the clubs and on the streets and I'm living it! I am rock and roll!
Yep, I know it as a fact. Anyone does who's willing to take an honest look at recent history.
As to how others perceive us, Thomas Sowell (one of the most brilliant minds in the nation as far as I'm concerned) recently wrote a column entitled, "Why do they hate us?" It is SO worth reading that I'm posting it here.
The idea that what goes around comes around applies not only to individuals but to nations and whole civilizations. It was just a few centuries ago -- not long, as history is measured -- that China had the highest standard of living in the world and the Dutch were the world's largest exporters, while North Africans were enslaving a million Europeans.
Nowhere have whole peoples seen their situation reversed more visibly or more painfully than the peoples of the Islamic world. In medieval times, Europe lagged far behind the Islamic world in science, mathematics, scholarship, and military power.
Even such ancient European thinkers as Plato and Aristotle became known to Europeans of the Middle Ages only after their writings, which had been translated into Arabic, were translated back into European languages.
Today that is all reversed. The number of books per person in Europe is more than ten times that in Africa and the Middle East. The number of books translated into Arabic over the past thousand years is about the same as the number translated into Spanish in one year.
There are only 18 computers per thousand persons in the Arab world, compared to 78 per thousand persons worldwide. Fewer than 400 industrial patents were issued to people in the Arab countries during the last two decades of the 20th century, while 15,000 industrial patents were issued to South Koreans alone.
Human beings do not always take reversals of fortune gracefully. Still less can those who were once on top quietly accept seeing others leaving them far behind economically, intellectually, and militarily.
Those in the Islamic world have for centuries been taught to regard themselves as far superior to the "infidels" of the West, while everything they see with their own eyes now tells them otherwise. Worse yet, what the whole world sees with their own eyes tells them that the Middle East has made few contributions to human advancement in our times.
Even Middle Eastern oil was largely discovered and processed by people from the West. After oil, the Middle East's most prominent export has been terrorism.
Those who look at the world in rationalistic terms may say that the Middle East can use some of its vast oil wealth to expand its own educated classes and move back to the forefront of human achievement. They did it once, why not do it again?
All sorts of things can be done in the long run, but you have to live through the short run to get there. Moreover, even the short run, as history is measured, can be pretty long in terms of the human lifespan.
Even if the Islamic world set such goals and committed the material resources and individual efforts required, they could not expect to pull abreast of the West for generations, even if the West stood still. More realistically, it would take centuries, as it took the West centuries to catch up to them.
What will happen in the meantime? Are millions of proud human beings supposed to quietly accept inferiority for themselves and their children, and perhaps their children's children?
Or are they more likely to listen to demagogues, whether political or religious, who tell them that their lowly place in the world is due to the evils of others -- the West, the Americans, the Jews?
If the peoples of the Islamic world disregarded such demagogues, they would be the exceptions, rather than the rule, among people who lag painfully far behind others. Even in the West, there have been powerful political movements based on the notion that the rich have gotten rich by keeping others poor -- and that things need to be set right "by all means necessary."
These means seldom include concentration on self-improvement, with 19th-century Japan being one of the rare exceptions. Lashing out at others is far more immediately satisfying -- and modern communications, transportation, and weaponry make it far easier to lash out destructively across great distances.
Against this background, we may want to consider the question asked by hand-wringers in the West: Why do they hate us? Maybe it is because the alternative to hating us is to hate themselves.
Last edited by ElfDude on Fri Apr 16, 2004 10:57 am, edited 1 time in total.
I haven't read Thomas Sowell artical but I will sometime today.
I said to my granfather one time that I didn't care what people think of me. His reply was that's what wrong with you! I thought about it over the years and still think about it and you know what, I still don't care what people think about me. Yet I do care what other nations think about us as a whole. Pretty fucked up, eh? Mother do you think they'll drop the bomb? NO, it will be a suitcase!
Last edited by Mr. Potatoe Head on Fri Apr 16, 2004 11:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
About the political banter on this or the other thread, if I was wrong I apologize. It seemed to me you were trying to swing votes for Mr. Bush I don't care I'm not voting, inless Xanadu runs. First thing on her agenda would be to drop millions of hits of acid, to make the world laugh and go mad And everybody would have socks too
That's alright Elfdude about the picture that is why I'm here at By-Tor, I can be myself. And when I do something wrong people let me know about it, and that's the way it should be. Not that you did anything wrong mind you, just trying to make a point. I can be funny about it too, perhaps she was thinking of giving him a weggie or with his hand extended he was going to let one go and she wanted the first sniff.
EndlesslyRocking wrote:
And, John Kerry was slogging through the jungles of Vietnam while GW was...
Just saw something interesting in the New York post...
April 15, 2004 -- Presumptive Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry has never been forthcoming about how he earned three Purple Heart medals in Vietnam - and the reason for his reticence appears now to be coming clear.
At least the first of the decorations - awarded for wounds suffered in combat - was received in circumstances that can best be described as dubious.
Kerry's commanding officer at the time, retired Lt. Cmdr. Grant Hibbard, told The Boston Globe that Kerry basically awarded himself a Purple Heart after receiving a superficial scratch in what Hibbard said was not even a firefight.
Kerry had volunteered for river patrol duty late in 1968.
He and his crew saw some Vietnamese running from a boat onto the beach, opened fire on them and then pulled out - apparently without taking return fire.
When the boat was safely back at base, Kerry "had a little scratch on his forearm, and he was holding a piece of shrapnel," Hibbard said Tuesday.
Though Hibbard says he did not want to give in to Kerry's insistence that he be considered for a Purple Heart - "I don't think he deserved one," Hibbard told The Post yesterday - he eventually did so.
And the future commander-in-chief-wannabe certainly would have known that - under Pentagon rules then in effect - three Purple Hearts guaranteed him an early exit from the war.
One down, two to go? Seems so.
Kerry did leave Vietnam six months ahead of schedule - thanks to those Purple Hearts.
And he refuses to make public the detailed medical-treatment records relating to his wound - none of which, significantly, took him out of service for more than a day or two.
As noted, they did get him out of Vietnam - he won a cushy billet as an aide to an admiral.
And Hibbard told a reporter that the supposed wound resembled a scrape from a fingernail: "I've had thorns from a rose that were worse," he said.
Kerry wouldn't be the first to fabricate a combat decoration - if, in fact, that's what happened a long time ago.
But Kerry has forged a war-hero persona of particular relevance as he seeks to become a war-time president - in the here and now.
Something else I'd like explained to me... in the early 70's Kerry threw his purple hearts over the fence of the white house while yelling angrily during a protest. Now he has them on the wall in his office. How did he get them back?
This is exactly why I like to stay out of the whirl pool of political visatude because the truth is yet to be told just a bunch of hogwash to me. Maybe he got his balls shot off and don't want to talk about it! I just don't know he sure sounds like someone that has peace on his mind throwing his medals over the white house fence though. Is Kerrys ideoligical thinking any better than Bush? What is his exact agenda and the the answer is? Instead of sprouting off all the mud why don't we all just come up with a solution?
Infendels and sorry for my spelling being misunderstood for so many cultures that surround us all. I put all that garbage behind me and try and look at the big picture.
Well, what do you know? Denmark is full of lies too! According to the BBC: Denmark has declassified intelligence reports compiled before the Iraq war which show officials thought Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
In one report, Iraq was thought to have both chemical and biological weapons, as well as an active nuclear programme.
Since John Kerry is so fond of citing his purported popularity in foreign lands, perhaps he should consider running for Prime Minister of Denmark instead. At least then, his wife Teresa "I can't believe I live in America" Heinz Kerry might be happy.
Public Relations between countries is good and having a President other countries approve of is also good. While it shouldn't be a top priority it's not a reason to rag on him, unless he's putting us last
I remember watching in amazement as Geddy sang, played bass, and played the keyboards with his feet. I thought, "Who is this guy???"
-- IFALT
Well, the funny part was, he didn't actually say it at first; the Boston Globe misquoted him. But he enjoyed hearing it so he ran with it for awhile. Then when it started to backfire and people started suggesting that terrorist nations were the ones supporting him he tried to go quiet on it. Then at a town meeting a private citizen asked him which nations supported him and he answered, "None of your business!"
Finally after several days of basking in the alleged glow of the support of other nations, when the glow was completely gone he started to deny he'd ever said it. Then after a few days of Kerry's denial the Boston Globe reporter re-listened to his tape of the Kerry speech and admitted that he'd made a mistake.
The quote from his wife about her disbelieval that she lives here was accurate.
Mr. Potatoe Head wrote: The lower & middle class are taking the brunt of paying taxes now.
That is factually incorrect. Last year, the top 5% of earners in the country paid 40% of the taxes. This rich do indeed pay the lion's share of the taxes.
I just got an updated figure from the IRS that I find even more interesting.
The top 50% of wage earners pay over 96% of all income taxes. That means that the lower half of wage earners pay less than 4% of all income taxes.
And everybody would have socks too 
