This attitude is repugnant and abhorrent beyond all things to a free nation.
It betrays all that our Founding Fathers and subsequent heroes in uniform have fought and died for.
It is the definition of un American.
It’s an attitude similar to the ones that condoned some of the very worst epics in human history.
It certainly fits the colloquial definition of fascist, if not a more technical one.
I’m overcome with genuine sadness and heartfelt grief when I consider that MH may mean what MH posted.
I hope he’s not an American. If he is, I hope he doesn’t vote.
I thought that was the whole premise behind our representative system of government. The masses are too stupid and self-centered to make good decisions for the whole of the country, so we elect representatives (and in the Founding Fathers’ days, this was supposed to be wealthy white men - the “elite”) to make our decisions for us.
Such sweeping generalizations about the “stupidity of the electorate” come across as elitist contempt for those who don’t share the views of the anointed, xenophobic ranting, and/or a cover for laziness by those who don’t want to expend energy to change people’s views.
Not necessarily, old stoat-stuffer. While it is entirely clear that the Bushiviks did little, if anything, to counter an impression that favored thier own world-view, they did not need to implant the idea, it was already a-festering.
We are a somewhat simplistic people, unlike our Yurpeen older kinsmen. In our minds, all evil is connected, all bad guys are in conspiracy and collussion. Of course, ObL and Saddam are in cahoots, they both hate America. “For our freedoms”, we are given to understand.
On that dreadful day, I remember the people around me began instantly to talk about Iraq, how it simply had to be Saddam, it was perfectly obvious, everybody knew it. Ten years earlier, of course, it would have been perfectly obvious that it was Qaddaffy Duck and everyone would have known it.
Don’t give them too much credit, mon frereWerewolf of London. We are perfectly capable of misleading ourselves, thank you very much!
:rolleyes: Some of us knew all along there were no links between Saddam and Al Qaeda, and have never heard otherwise from our news outlets in the States (NPR and CNN). We also have sufficient understanding of international politics, imparted by a basic college education and reinforced by the news outlets, to know Saddam would never have been deposed without the tacit acceptance of the nations in the Middle East who hated and feared him.
That in no way implies Martin Hyde’s point is invalid. But nice try, SimonX. I hope you don’t vote, if you’re unaware of the two things I’ve presented above. Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel, you know.
Maybe I’m just old fashioned and trying to conserve old fashioned ideas.
I still believe in the fundamental American principle that government’s just powers are derived from the consent of the governed.
Without this essential principle, there is no “America land of the free.”
The loss of America the Free is among the worst things and would be a grave and terrible loss not only to all Americans living, dead and unborn, but to humanity as a whole.
Failure to honor the sovereignty of the electorate is repugnant to free men. It is something that free men cannot tolerate. When and where this failure occurs, free men alter or abolish such a government, and to institute new government.