I didnt say it was not disturbing. I just noticed he had the presense of mind to qualify his remarks. He made an effort to present himself in the proper light even with his pants down. :dubious:
I am not posting all of this to ask some repudiation from the anti-war side. Im not saying one side is better than the other. I just think that life would be better if both sides conducted themselves with as much civility as people on this forum do.
I’ve italicized your comments that I think are leading to disconnect. I disagree that he was a bit disturbing or overzealous. I also disagree that he was not altogether unreasonable. When you say such things, it makes me think that your bias toward his side of the fence is probably making you overlook the true nastiness in favor of finding the tiny speck of un-nastiness.
As for that other picture – yeah, I saw that. It’s pretty disgusting, isn’t it? Those people obviously have no connect with reality.
Altogether, I agree with your last post. I disgree with you about the relative numbers of idiots on each side, though. I have seen a bunch of disgusting, violent pro-war activities and comments, and the sign above and stories of people obstructing traffic and throwing rocks on the other side (also disgusting & violent). My bias tells me the pro-war people are nastier; my common sense tells me I’ve seen more of that because I’m more sensitive to it. So it rounds out.
The only reason I pointed out the jerks in the above thread is because I suspect that you aren’t as sensitive to that stuff going around – but believe me, that was just one example.
Anyway, I think we are in agreement about the refreshingly high level of this message board.
I now tend to generally tune out all of the media coverage of demonstrations both pro and con. Ive done it so well that I dont really know whether it has actually died down or I just pay that much attention to it, other than when I need to google thru them for this board.
In defense of my perceived bias, I tend to find some anti-war nuts amusing while regarding pro-war nuts as dangerously nutso. I try to find evidience to the contrary to be fair to both sides but like I said, an idiot is an idiot. I just hope they dont hurt each other or get someone else hurt.
What is refutable is the claim that the inspections have not worked. They worked quite well while they were not abused. And sorry, what you are talking about is NOT patriotism. Patriotism is aimed at the country, not at its leader. The leader is nothing but an employee of the people. Supporting the government because it is a time of crisis is misguided obedience, not patriotism. And ‘down with Saddam’ is simply a testimony of naivete, since ‘down with Saddam’ is only a good thing to say when the situation will get better afterwards. Currently, the US is on the best way to make the situation worse.
They HAVE a common goal: To stop the administration from rendering the situation in the Middle East worse, rather than better, and to stop it from isolating the US.
Um, what was that “You’re either with us or against us?” But as for paranoia, if you consider them unreliable and consider it justifiable to tune out to them, why is it that you listen to a government which was able to raise claims of a threat solely by misrepresentation and forgery?
Well, the reason why you ask that is you never witnessed such trends before firsthand. Saying ‘It would never happen here’ is the first step of making it happen. A lot of the things I experienced directly or indirectly during my last couple of months in the US until I left in late February have roused dark memories, and a lot of the comments you can see both by members of the administration and by your so-called patriots were almost one-to-one translations out of my high school days history books.
So you deny that the Bush administration basically commented ‘Shit happens’ on the death of a large number of civilians due to US activity?
You made an argument, and I refuted it. I took nothing out of context; you provided no context that might change the nature of what you were saying. And yes, considering that you did not specifically tie it to another argument, I think it’s acceptable to shoot it down without tackling everything you’ve ever written.
You said it, not me!