What pisses me off is an OP that doesn’t tell you a thing about the link they want you to blindly click. The least you can do is post a snippet you want to draw attention too. For all I know it’s an effort to drive up the website’s (possibly your own) hit count.
I am. Just as I represent my family, yes, in a somewhat similar way I also represent my country wherever I go. If any member(s) of my family does something that affects your life in any way, you have the right to ask me about it. While I am not directly responsible for the acts of the other members of my family, it is still obligatory on my part to be answerable, at least until I do not dissociate myself from them. Similarly, if my country is engaged in an activity that is unjustified and has implications for the world, I do expect to be questioned about it. And whether I like it or not, I consider it my duty to either have to explain the actions or to apologize for it if they are wrong. I may not have personally voted to elect my government, but the simple fact that I belong to that country makes me responsible in some way for its actions.
I have no intentions of maligning ALL Americans. And neither am I using a broad brush to paint all Americans in anyway. Please note, that’s why I used the term “most”. Since the leader can get get elected only if he has more than 50% of the popular support(whatever political combination may lead to that doesn’t matter), it follows that most Americans support Bush, at least until now. When that is not true, Bush will be automatically out of office.
I did not mean to offend anyone. I have been lurking here for a a long time and have been indeed impressed to see the way a lot of you, in fact a majority of Americans on the board, have been critical of the policies of your current government. Unfortunately, the majority of the membership of this board, especially in this forum, is from the intelligentia class. The percentage of the people belonging to that class countrywide, any country actually, is very low.
No, the article doesn’t piss me off. From what I gather, it looks like it is an article written by an American student that was published in an Egyptian newspaper; probably because the views of the author are roughly in the mainstream of what many, if not most, Arabs are thinking of the US right now.
When so many millions of people hold such a low opinion of my country, my first thought is not “I am so angry at them!” Instead, it is more like: “Whoa. My country is supposed to be the place that millions of people look to as a model for how to be free and prosperous. But now, those same people who should be looking to America for leadership hate and ridicule us. Where the fuck did we go wrong?”
I think I know the answer to that question, so I’m not overly concerned with the article.
You are aware that most Americans did not vote for the government currently in power over here, right? Hell, not even most voting Americans voted for this government.
White American not pissed off.
I am a white American, and I agree with the above, if you substitute “ignorant in that they operate under” for “stupid and operate under.” I also agree with this:
Although I support Affirmative Action, I think this might be a stretch: “The challenges the Bush administration raised against affirmative action could be considered a direct contravening of the international norm on human rights.”
I do think certain policies/actions of the Bush administration directly contravene the international norm on human rights and that the folks who are going to vote for him (I hope it’s not most) either think that this is OK, that it is not true, or buy into the false reasons given by the U.S. government for such contravention, any one of which is disturbing/bewildering to me. Examples of contravention of human rights:
1)treatment/detention of detainees; 2)policy vis-a-vis Iraq; 3) continued strong support of capital punishment, in spite of a) its disproportionate application to poor and minorities; b) findings of innocence and pardons of many on death row; c)US carrying out more child executions than any other country*; and in light of Bush’s stated desire to appoint more justices like Scalia and Rehnquist (both of whom voted in 2002, for instance, to execute mentally retarded people).
*Since January 1990 Amnesty International has documented 38 executions of child offenders in eight countries– the Democratic Republic of Congo, Iran, Nigeria, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, the USA, China and Yemen. The USA carried out 19 executions – more than any other country.
As a followup, it might be noted that executions of teenaged murderers aged 16-17 have been dropping in the U.S. - from fourteen in 1999 to two such cases last year. The Supreme Court is also revisiting the issue of executing teenaged killers.*
*excuse me, “child offenders”.
Actually, The Daily Egyptian is the college newspaper for Southern Illinois University - Carbondale. I work with someone who graduated from that school.
:dubious: Dumbass.
I’m glad execution of “child offenders” is going down, if so. Call them teenage killers. I don’t think that detracts from my point. I think the article cited bolsters it in that Scalia and Rehnquist, in the 1989 opinion, again wrote/joined in the opinion for the death penalty, this time for “teenage killers.”
White Canadian, not pissed off. It’s not worth a second look, IMHO.
The Daily Egyptian is the college newspaper of SIUC.
You’d be Scylla?
Does everything that you see posted on the SDMB with which you disagree anger you?
If not, why does one opinion (from a single student at a college, and not even a well-read pundit from a major news source) anger you?
I think someone has too much reserved anger they need to blow off.
:smack:
Well, NOW I’m pissed off!
Wrong. Al Gore won the popular vote in the last election. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled that George W. Bush won the electoral vote which is different. Most voters voted for Gore.
I am not responsible for the actions of men that I did not help elect to office when I have protested those actions and made my views known to my government leaders and to the public. The part that I do consider myself responsible for is the part of my income tax that is set aside for the Defense Department.
Nonsense!
Why, In America, they haven’t spoken it in years!
[/higgins]
I wonder what the writer of that article would think about Colin Powell. Or maybe he’s just an “uncle Tom,” non-indicative of black social thought. Never mind the thousands of black soldiers in our military fighting in Iraq right now. Or maybe they’re just there because of a racist society which forces black men to enlist in the Army. Never mind all the blacks who have escaped poverty and gotten career skills in the military. Oh wait, they don’t exist. What about the black Republicans supporting the war effort? What about the Asian, Hispanic, Native American, and other ethnicities?
Our writer here thinks there’s a unified political and social thought among “all whites,” or “all blacks,” or all whomever. There isn’t. This country is home to a broad expanse of ideologies crossing many racial and cultural boundaries.
Well, there’s the error in your logic right there. We didn’t elect our current set of leaders.
Of course if they win this time around, any hope we have of being taken seriously in the world is over.
You do know that Bush was elected with less than 50% of the popular vote, right?
Just checking.
:smack: And now I see that two other posters have already mentioned this, sorry.