I should mention in closing that this same friend was once driving to visit someone in DC. His car got a flat along the way and he called a tow truck. When the tow truck arrives, it gets a flat! God, that kid has the worst fucking luck… lol
I’ll clarify my problem with the posting and my owns stance on the actions of the INS agent(s) involved.
I have a problem with the implication that the US a facist state in any way shape or form. We are one of the few nations (the only I can actually think of) that is constantly ripping on itself. It’s as if the concept of national pride is an anethma to our people. As a whole the popular media here usually promotes a nagative opinion of the nation as a whole. Am I saying we are perfect? No fucking way! But no one is and at least we have the decency to have recriminations about some of our shitty actions, plus a system for compensating (albiet belatedly in many cases) the victims of our misbehavior both internally and abroad.
But to have it implied that facist jackbooted behavior is a matter of national policy by someone residing in and presumed to be a citizen of Canada just irks the hell out of me and caused me to do some shitty generalizing of my own. In the past month while talking to a friend who is IMHO left of liberal about Canada’s treatment of it’s aboriginal populace this is an exact quote “Well fuck them, they don’t even pay taxes and they all hunt out of season anyway.”. WTF? The removal of children from their parent’s care, the eugenics programs, re-education, disenfranchisement, etc these are not ancient history. Hell it’s like 35 years since they allowed the natives to vote. So how about a little self reflecting before you toss some shit on our nation? It’s not like there is any lack of people living here to say how fucked up we are. You live in your own glass house too.
matt_mcl: It wasnt a hijack as I wasnt trying to change the topic, I was just pointing out the above. Canada is every bit as fucked up as we are, but for some reason the US seems to promotte itself a lot more negatively than any other nation I can think of. It was not an argument that the actions of the INS were okay, just that your countryman isnt coming from on-high with the finger pointing.
I’m not sure if you are being obstinate in your inability to see that the “jackboots” reference carries with it an implication of a state sponsored behavior or if you really think it’s just a casual comment. Either way my point as valid enough to me that I’ll not expend any further effort defending it.
"We are one of the few nations (the only I can actually think of) that is constantly ripping on itself. "
Read a Canadian newspaper some time. I’ll let people from other free and educated countries further change this unthought-out thinking.
“We are one of the few nations (the only I can actually think of) that is constantly ripping on itself.”
This indicates to me that you need to read more news from outside the US. Most other westernized nations have the same “Poor, pitiful us, we’re the only ones in the world who have keep apologizing for everything” attitude.
It’s OK zen, nazi references always gets people’s dander up. This is the pit. If you read the link I posted, it’s a November 18 San Francisco newspaper column talking about “homeland security” and “brownshirts, blackshirts, and Gestapo”, coincidental to my O.P. I’m chuffed. If a newspaper’ll print it I can post it here.
As for the Canadian Indians, the federal budget is over eight billion for less than one million treaty Indians. They have free schooling including university, tax breaks, free dental and medical care, some rights to natural resources, preferential hiring and contracts in their regions. As much as possible is being done for them. History is full of horror stories.
Excuse me, what??!!
“The concept of national pride is anathema to our people”??
We’re talking about the US here, right?
(mind twists inside out)
Sure . It’s not like American people were waving flags or planting them on their lawns, or had their children reciting pledges or such things… :rolleyes:
Of fer chrissakes…
Let me break this down for y’all:
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The INS agent in question was an overzealous dumbass, a human condition which is unfortunately not limited to the USA.
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The entire population of the US of A aren’t overzealous dumbasses and, quite honestly, find these zero’s as annoying as y’all do.
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Tarring an entire country by the actions of one, lower (least?) level bureaucratic putz in a uniform is an action only overzealous dumbasses do.
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So why don’t we all just agree the guy is an idiot and present a united front against all those overzealous dumbasses out there who make life a living hell for the rest of us, regardless of what country we live in? Hell, we can even sing camp songs and all that other happy horseshit if you want…
clair go put butter on something or surrender to someone facist. It took an act of terror for that to happen and we still have major dissent within our nation over policy, including weekly riots and demonstrations over weather we should invade/attack/feed/not feed/and every other thing you can imagine. There are more people within our borders burning our flag than in nations that call us an enemy.
So fuck you you French cochon. I’ll reply to your trite observation with an inquiry as to how you like your saurkraut?
One unified symbol of defiance in the face of adversity is not nationalism, nor is it all that unified. Frankly as I did not have a flag up prior to Sept 11 I felt it would be silly to put one up afterward.
Coz we’d all be speaking German if it wasn’t for the US? Blah blah blah blah. :rolleyes: We
I’ll listen to your opinions on other nations when you show you have any clue about anything outside your borders.
Yeah right.
Oh a to give you a hand JIC you want to attack Ireland now.
Terrorism
Alcoholism
Potatoes
Corruption
Sorry to jump on the bandwagon, yojimbo, but these assertions really need re-highlighting:
[quoteUS seems to promotte itself a lot more negatively than any other nation I can think of[/quote]
WTF??!? You are having a laugh, aren’t you? Have you been outside the US?
Good, God, you really don’t know much, do you?
Europe has been a battlefield for centuries, a laboratory for the military adventures and experiments of its political leaders. France’s armies roamed all over the continent, even down into Egypt, under Napoleon. The Germans steamrollered the French in the 1870 Franco-Prussian war, how? By being the first country to use massive troop mobilization by railway to push forward a massive attacking force in record time. By the end of the 19th century France was one of the most militarisitic countries in the world and its military was the elite of society. I can look up how many French soldiers died from 1914 to 1918 holding back another aggressive German army but I’ll just say the numbers are mind-boggling. World War I devastated France, entire age groups of young men were eradicated. Two decades later another German blitzkrieg rolled on them and people joke about how quickly France surrendered. It takes more than twenty years for a society to recover from losing millions of a generation in a war. Calling the French surrender monkeys and jokes about saurkraut are amusing but if it is tossed out in even a half-serious manner it only displays the ignorance of history of the person doing so.
I am also not amused by the efforts to say that the subject of the O.P. was just one person exceeding their authority. An office full of people and nobody noticed or participated in the arrest and incarceration except for one little individual officer? Come on, I’m sure at least two and probably more where present at the arrest and hand-cuffing, with some sort of supervisory involvement.
I am also not amused that the San Francisco Chronicle can publish a column discussing “homeland security” and “blackshirts, brownshirts, and Gestapo” on November 18 and yet the use of the word “gestapo” here on the SDMB is called slanderous and libel and moronic and stupid. You certainly have a contingent of censorous prissy little prigs here don’t you?
You reprehensible, racist, ignorant cunt. You display an ignorance that would be laughable if it weren’t so desperately sad.
I dunno, Gary. Calling that opinion cuntish seems awfully insulting to vulvas. I thought you liked vulvas.
Nah mate, I’m a Porsche fan myself.
Yea Fyodor, it was one man who made a bad decision to put another man into ‘The System’. And you and your compatriots are here acting like a bunch of chuckleheads saying that this proves how fucked up the US is, like you don’t have large, impersonal bureaucracies in whatever country you’re from. So I find it pretty freakin’ ironic that y’all are busting on zen (who is also acting like a chucklehead) for being a nationalistic putz when you’re doing the exact same thing.
I guess hypocrisy isn’t constrained by political boundaries either–what a shocker.
But sweetie, just because zen101 said we were doesn’t mean we were. Find me where Fyodor said this. I challenged zen101 to do so and he declined, merely stating what it had pleased him to infer. I don’t think that washes.
So they used their resources more efficently to pummel the French. This helps your case for french military might how?
6 million.
See, the problem with this argument is that Germany also lost 6 million men in WWI, and they seemed to “recover” alright.
Actually…no. The entire 20th century was a disaster for the idea of French military acumen. WWI was a slaughterhouse caused by technology overwealming tactics. The French did nothing more than butcher an attack from their trenches and follow that up by throwing their young men intot the teeth of the same meatgrinder. ( to be fair this was not a uniquely French tactical “solution”, but French generals lead the military alliance on their side) Remember, France would most likely have lost WWI without U.S. intervention to counterbalance the fresh German troops arriving from the Eastern Front in 1918. France and Britain were played out, no way they could have withstood the extra troops.
Between the wars they built the mightiest line of fortifications the world has ever seen, a line that failed because they assumed that Germany wouldn’t attack through the woods and didn’t bother to fortify that part of the border. :smack:
After WWII they attempted to reclaim their far easten colonies and were roundly trounced by the Viet Cong.
After all of this, jokes about French military ineptitude are not only accurate, they are richly deserved.
Well … actually I won’t but you could guess
Couldn’t agree more, but this doesn’t read like a joke to me
The US = fascist state was stupid no question and people came in and called the OP on it. Some of us are just calling zen101 on his bullshit.
Yeah sure, it was just a random fluke, an individual aberration that can be blamed on one cop. Tell it to the Palestinian engineer I work with, or his brother the doctor in charge of a Canadian cancer clinic, or his other brother and sister who are Canadian university professors, all Canadian citizens, progressive modern muslims, who are afraid to travel to the USA right now. Tell it to the Canadian award-winning author who cancelled his USA book tour because he’s brown-skinned and bearded.