Whatever happened to “Question authority. Learn to think for yourself”?
Hey, but keep thumping your chest, mate, you must be getting something out of it.
Get back to me when the victims number in the hundreds of thousands. It’s a good thing that Saddam is gone.
Yes, it really increased peace in the Middle-East. :dubious:
Hey, some people got a better deal from it, but in general I am afraid the people were better off (at least a significant part of the people) then than they are now.
Soooo, you argue that we are the good guys because we haven’t killed hundreds of thousands yet ? That’s a low hurdle. By that logic, Bush is a great President because he hasn’t executed millions of his own citizens, and a hero because he hasn’t killed and eaten anybody. Hey, by that standard I’m a great hero myself !
Seriously, the fact that women are worse off means that we’ve screwed over half the population right there. Add in our killing by the military, the slaughter of gays in Iraq while we stand by, the general ruin of the infrastructure and the economy, the general massive amounts of crime and internal fighting, and everything else, and we make Saddam look like a Great Statesman by comparison.
I do question authority and I do think for myself.
Somewhere down the line you appear to have formed the opinion that I’m an idiot, I most certainly am not, moreover I’m definitely not YOUR mate.
Der Trihs
Why bring Blair into it, what the fuck has he got to do with my post?. 
Why should I be proud of my country? are you simple?
I’m proud because I’m an Englishman and that should be answer enough for you or anyone else.
This thread I now leave to the Americans who for some strange reason no longer love the country of their birth, or if they do they have a piss poor way of showing it. :mad:
I was pointing out another Englishman who “brown noses” America for no logical reason; you impled such a reason was necessary when you denied doing it yourself.
Why ? It’s not like it’s some sort of accomplishment, nor is England all that admirable; no nation is. Being proud of being a particular nationality is foolish at best.
Just a quick historical note. Arthur Harris masterminded the fire bombing in Dresden. Draw your own conclusions.
I do wonder when it will become socially acceptable to consider the September 11th attacks analytically. As far as I can tell, in the capitalism ‘n’ conquest game, it was a fair move. I abhor killing, civilian or not. But I didn’t make up these rules-- it’s the US and other governments that abide by them, not me. If you’re going to play war, other people are going to insist on taking their turn too.
I detest murder.
Why yes, as a matter of fact, I do know. To bury the one’s killed due to the murderous occupation.
“Iraq under Bush, slightly better than Iraq under Saddam”
Quite the slogan, dontcha think?
Oh, and here’s a little article for chowder so he puff his chest out some more. Only this time about his own country’s role in this massacre. After all, we ARE here to fight ignorance:
Tony Blair and Iraq: blithe ignorance
Much more at source.
Yanno I should have known better than to post my originally message because as sure as eggs is eggs it was bound to turn into a Bush/Blair hatefest.
There are other threads in which certain people can vent their collective spleens so would a Mod please close this one.
Well, thank God for that!
I like to surround myself with people who aren’t nationalists.
But then again, maybe I just paid too much attention in history class.
Well, yes that is real critical thinking. :rolleyes:
I wish I could say what I really want, but this isn’t the Pit, so…
Listen sunshine, take it to the pit if you want and say whatever thoughts filter into your miniscule brain.
Don’t expect any posts from me in it 'cos I really couldn’t give a shit
Ahhh jaysus, poor you.
Wahhhhh, wahhhhh, my thread didn’t go the way I wanted wahhhh wahhhhh.
Doesn’t look like you don’t give a shit.
You mean England is freely taking Americans as political asylum seekers? Is that only England, or can I go to Wales as well?
That went to hell when the first allied troops kicked open the gates of the German concentration camps. The problem is that the lesson about saying “no” to patriotic evil still hasn’t sunk in with everybody.
Get a grip. U.S. foriegn policy is far from enlightened, and it was we who created the militant-Islamic-fundie system that’s got us so up in arms today. We supported Saddam when it was convenient. Look at the former Soviet Union. Suppose Americans had listened to themselves: communism is a broken system that cannot sustain itself, therefore the best option would have been to wait for it to break down rather than break its back. If we had treated the Soviet Union the way we treated China, there may not have been a complete collapse, with proliferation of who-knows-what to who-knows-whom, and we wouldn’t have created the militant Islamists we’re dealing with today. We ran from Somolia, we ignored Rwanda, and we gave outrageous tax cuts to those least in need in the whole history of the planet earth instead of using that money to make the world a better place.
This ain’t WWII we’re in. 9/11 wasn’t Pearl Harbor. If you recall, in response to Pearl Harbor we had women’s baseball because all the men were fighting a fucking war. In response to 9/11, the President told us to go out and go shopping. If this were analogous to the Battle of Britian, we wouldn’t have had a commemorative Monday-Night-Football game two days ago, because all those meatheads would have drafted into the army.
So, just have a Coke and a smile, and relax a little bit.
Not unexpected, but yes, creepy.
I guess it’s no surprise to me that my pride in the United States as a diverse country of people from countless different backgrounds is not something the pro-war crowd shares.
I think I do actually have a little Anglo-Saxon blood in me, though.
Meanwhile, I find it ridiculous and offensive when people proclaim that our country won’t fall apart because of a terrorist attack, because by its nature the statement implies that the alternative is possible. Of course the U.S. is going to survive. A few thousand people died. It was a terrible tragedy and a great crime, but that’s not the kind of thing that could possibly destroy a country. That people even consider the possibility is appalling to me.
Further, if anything the United States’ response has been an utter disappointment. We are currently, in case people have forgotten, in a war against a country that had nothing to do with 9/11, creating new terrorists constantly, and we haven’t come close to apprehending the people responsible. I expected better from this country. At very least, I didn’t think the people who committed this atrocity would be permitted to get away with it.
I don’t know much about the Australian political system, but it’s one of the basic principles of our American system that criticism of our government is always appropriate. We’re five years out. The attacks happened a long time ago. It’s certainly been long enough to criticize the United States. And there’s plenty of reason to do so. I don’t expect you to necessarily adhere to our tradition of open criticism of our government, but it’s awfully presumptuous for you to tell someone else not to do so. (Though I am a bit startled to see that the Australian people are apparently so servile towards their leaders - that strikes me as a great break from this “Anglo-Saxon tradition” we’ve been hearing so much about.)
Something you don’t understand is that criticizing our government’s current policies is not “denigrating our country.” Again, this is something very traditional and very much fundamental to American politics. (The surprise, and the sad one, is how much this tradition has eroded even in the United States. The American people did not respond with the attitudes of a free people, and that’s deeply troubling to me.) You may not relate to this. We rebelled and fought off your countrymen in order to have a government that we could criticize, in order to speak our minds and practice our religion in peace, in order to escape the fundamental servility of the British monarchical system. I don’t expect a British person necessarily to share those values - after all, you still retain the monarchy that we Americans fought and died to be rid of - but again, this is a very presumptuous thing for you to say.
It’s not your country. You have absolutely no business saying such a thing. You should be utterly ashamed of yourself.
Apparently you don’t know the classic response: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.” Senator Carl Schurz, 1872. This is perhaps the pithiest statement I can think of to explain American government to a foreigner. I’m sorry to see that so much of the world - including a country that I had believed shared our basic democratic principles - apparently doesn’t understand this idea.
What you don’t understand is that your attitude of enforced servility to the government is exactly why we’re no longer a part of the British Empire. We don’t hold by that nonsense here. It’s not showing any lack of love for one’s country to criticize what it is doing.
Pretty much the same here. If anything, slightly moreso. We started as a penal colony as opposed to a puritan one, so if anything, distrust of government is even more ingrained here. And dissing the government is pretty much a national sport.
I just think that, regardless of your political opinion, a bunch of people died on 9/11, and it might be nice to give the politics a break for a day or two around the anniversary, even if it doesn’t mean a whole lot to you. That’s all.
Thank you ** Loaded your final para, summed it up nicely
Too bad our Idiot President didn’t give politics a break on 9/11/2006. He solemnly laid a few wreaths, but then speechifyed about his “War On Terror” ™. (Midterm elections come up in November.) Once again, he tied the stupid & illegal invasion of Iraq in with the horrible crime of 9/11.
Too bad he wasn’t that concerned about terrorism before 9/11/2001.
Then, that in mind, it would have been nice for chowder et al. to do the same. It’s a bit hypocritical to scold people for being “political” about the matter when doing so yourself; chowder explicitly stated support for the current war in his OP. It’s a very dirty thing to use people’s deaths to advance your political agenda, and chowder ought to be ashamed of himself for doing so, as many of the United States’ political leaders should be. If you don’t think anyone should talk about politics around every anniversary of this event (until when, precisely?) then don’t be a hypocrite - be evenhanded about it. Don’t pretend that support for this ridiculous war and our incompetent leadership is somehow apolitical, while opposition to them is an unseemly political matter.
Must say, you and I have had our differences in the past and it’s quite likely we’ll never come to terms on many a topic.
Having said that, I’d like to commend you for the above post, for you’ve succintly put into words what angers me mightily about this thread – the double standards are simply too much for me to bear.
Well said and thank you.
If I may, I’d also like to bring up a few quotes on the whole stupid rational of “my country right or wrong” that’s been brought up in this thread more than once:
My Country, Right or Wrong
And finally, the Great Man Himself also had this to say:
Hopefully, there’s a lesson in there. For some of you appear to have lost track of what the phrase really stood for.