@The Gnasher

The fact that you are calling these individuals 'stupid' means you are WAY biased. Maybe they are uninformed, emotional, or overly traditional or overly selfish, but you resorting to the word 'stupid' shows a complete lack of understanding and maturity and is HIGHLY counterproductive.

Seriously, address this.

I believe conversations enter a whole new level of degeneration when people start talking dictionary.
The way to go is not be picky about words (no one I ever met or talked to likes to spend fragments of their lives arguing about the differences between "dumb" and "slow-witted", for example), but to try to understand what the other person is saying.

In other words, you got what I said, unless you've never engaged in casual conversations with other human beings before.

And in other other words, I can play your game, too. This is from the dictionary I have downloaded in my computer, which says "Oxford American Dictionaries".

There.

So um... now that that's over. Vote for McCain... strictly because Palin is pretty hot for a 44 year old politician. Plus she doesn't have a goofy ass clap like Michelle Obama. And yes, I understand that Michelle is not going to be VP... but still, my point has been made!

I'm too young for politics.

@The Gnasher,

I am not trying to play any games nor am I trying to be nitpicky.

I am addressing that you do not seem to give enough credit to the average 'stupid' American. For example, many Americans who are traditional but uninformed are acting on what many of them agree is 'common sense' and clear thought.

As a matter of fact, many conservatives argue that progressive or liberal agendas (which may in fact look outward toward people from other countries as fellow brothers and sisters) lack common sense because they are not sufficiently pragmatic or overly idealistic.

My opinion was and still is that you are not seeking to understand why or how they can actually believe this and therefore you call it 'stupid' which like it or not is in my opinion both inaccurate and at least sounds like you are intending to be condescending.

If I misunderstand you then I apologize. Do I?

Be they uninformed or just stupid, the effect is the same. The actions of the government and the action/inaction of so many Americans is affecting the world as a whole. You're arguing over what the proper name to call the problem.

Gnash is asking people to THINK for themselves. To not be sheeple who believe everything the government tells them.

I don't think it gets clearer than that.

People don't WANT to think for themselves, which is the problem. People like being told what to do, they like things being done a certain way because it makes life "easier." Why do something or take action or worry when the government does everything? We don't have to make the decisions, and people have gotten lazy and are used to the lifestyle given them. In the end, you can tell people to think for themselves, but most are just mindless pawns and puppets.

But many of these people believe they ARE thinking for themselves, but they are thinking either with uniformed intelligence, or within a bias, or both.

If you REALLY want people to think for themselves, you don't TELL THEM how to think by ranting, although you might attempt to persuade them by sound argumentation.

I'm only responding to Gnash, cause I've got the gag-reflex of a sword-swallower, but ponces make me messy.

"There is no war without popular support"
Like that line, you dumb f'uck, made me spit up like a two year old.
To begin, who gave you the idea that we have any actual say in this war?
The senatorial and representative system is one based on faith and communication, in which we have faith that the men we elect will represent our views.
Basically, every four and six years it's a gamble, either we get a liar or an upstanding man. Every two, four, and six years.
That's the only say we have at all.

Next topic of absurd pseudo-history to debunk -
That the USA has always 'policed' the world.
f*cking christ Gnash, if you knew your history you'd know we weren't a world power until World War f*cking II.

Manifest Destiny wasn't policing, it was greed.
Hey, we're here, we should have this, eh?
Which is not illusion, it's the way things are done.
You don't have to like greed, but f*ck all if Manifest Destiny was founded on some unique sense of 'policing' the world.

They begged and bombed us into WWII. In World War I we were anything but a major power until several years in when production stabilized and shot through the roof.

Pfft.
You don't get to just throw names around and expect us to register your point.

Big Stick was defensive.
"Walk softly, carry a big stick."

The Monroe Doctrine was policing, yes, but in a very different sense than you would like for it to be, apparently.
Tell me where Monroe saying that anyone who comes in to recolonize these newly independent countries is gonna have us to deal with is anything at all remotely similar to "You all have oi-er-weapons, we're coming in"

Be anti-war, be anti-greed, but be f*cking knowledgeable before you speak. Oh wait, didn't you just say that?
Hypocrite, you fail.


God, most of the countries I've been to the people have half a f*cking clue.

Stop expecting people to be different because we're on your tv screen.

But most of all, chill, relax, it's only war and dead kid's mothers and sh*t.
Yeah, a newly terrorized country supported its president.
It happens.

In any case, I'm drinking and mum told me pops used the F word cause then we'll pay better attention, so just disregard what I wrote and fantasize dancing squirrels.

Heh, and this is why we ended up getting rid of the debate sub-forum. *sigh*

Yes, people do tend to pay attention when someone uses the "f" word... but it's also bypassing the filter and flaming. I think we'll go for a 1.5 strike for now. Though, I'm sure you could care less. ^_^

And I think it would be good if everyone try to get a bit more casual with your points, they can be made clear without having to get agressive.

Any aggressive points (with the exception of the ones that earn strikes by being against the forum rules) are WITHIN the spirit of the topic, the title, and the first post.

Are they not?

You guys are pretty smart, I applaud that.

Be as emotional as you wish, just don't close your eyes to the rest of the world.

I repeat that the only real point I wanted to make was "please read the newspaper and think for yourself".
If you're so offended by what I wrote, disregard everything and take that sentence home.

Hey, like I said, go for the squirrels.

Seriously folks, this all would've gone better if you had read the post with as much tequila in you as I had while penning it.

In any case, since you're all huffy now I suppose I shouldn't be the bigger man. It would be unnatural.
So here, ball back in your court (shoot well young padawin):

Volunteers, true.
You would do well to consider, however, the circumstances entailed by such a statement.

A.
The war begins with men who are in an inactive roster and therefore have already consigned themselves to the government's whims and forsworn any personal agenda.

B.
In America the Military is more often than not less than a personal statement and more along the lines of a means to an end. They'll pay for your college, they'll pay you more money than you can make bussing tables, they'll pay latinos and negroes readily. 'Volunteering' for the military has less and less to do with personal political agendas every day this war drudges on.

C.
A marginal percentage of the American population is enlisted in the military, a number far less than a representative sum, and therefore the idea of basing our control or influence over military proceedings as a collective nation on the words of the man who told you it's a volunteer organization is a farce at best.
Next time I want to grade England I'll dock them points for the society of Flat-Earthers who dispute the Earth's roundness, despite them numbering in the mere hundreds.

And I repeat, we have not long even been in a position to which we could harbor such a notion as policing the world.
We've been the underdogs most of our careers, not to mention tearing ourselves to shreds internally for a good deal of the 19th century.

And what is global influence that we managed before WWII had nothing to do, I repeat, with policing the world, it was simple greed - no more humble or pompous a notion than any country ever fostered.

In short, I remain convinced only of your bias, and not at all of the idea of the United States 'policing' the world as a longstanding philosophy of conduct.

Again, I grant the idea of Monroe policing with his doctrine, but when Quincy drafted it for him the islands had been torn to bits for years in revolution and America picked a side - it was no more an act of policing than picking teams on a dodgeball court is.
"We're on this side. We'll throw balls at you. Stay on that side."
Countries have been doing that for centuries, and to berate a political unit for being political is amusing, at best.

In short, America is not what it once was, and to project the history of America with banal and biased generalities will simply not do.
We have no influence in this war, beyond the election years, and finally: do not expect that my hijacking of your topic with pedantry, slander, and drunken misprisions lends any credence to your vague and nondescript backlash against the only country that is regularly televised in its squalor.

But all in all, I'd probably agree with you anyway.

Well, paying attention to History class was never my strong point. I suppose you know more about it because you live in the damn country we're talking about.
Call me an idiot, but I never pretended to make a 'rational' point anyway.

One way or another, history wrong or right, I still have the same point.
You guys have to deal with the prejudice, around the world, that you are egomaniac alienated bastards. This is, as far as I know, a fact.
And I still ask you to not live up to these expectations.
^^

That's really all I have to say...

....Gosh, thats actually a pretty harsh statement to make. So your warning us about prejudice people like you who say these kinds of things?

Sorry to intrude so late into the thread, but I just wanted to say that this was a mean thing to say. I'm not trying to start anything, but, well.....that just hurts.

P.S. @Gnasher- I don't get to visit this site much, but I respect everyone here to the fullest, including you.

Gnash didn't say that he, himself, thought that. He was saying that Americans have that reputation with a lot of people around the world.

And it's not that far from the truth, either.

When the US government is breaking down doors in Iraq or some other country and shooting people or sending them to Abu Ghraib (sp?), these people are not saying "well, I'm glad 49% of Americans look down on this sort of thing". They say "to hell with America".

If China came here, starting busting down doors, arresting and/or shooting people, there would be few who would echo the former statement about them.

But this is exactly why he should understand that Americans judging people from other countries in an uniformed way is just like people from other countries judging Americans in an uniformed way because it is both natural and reinforced for ALL of us to do so.

I understand that he is saying our uniformed judgement can lead to more damage than people from other countries and that is part of why he chooses us to single out in his rant.

But it is almost irrelevant as to who causes the most damage if nothing is going to change. If nothing changes in the mind of the people around the world (because it is natural and reinforced) why would he think it would in ours (being equally natural and relatively equally reinforced). Furthermore there is an argument to be made that there is greater danger with people building up anti-american sentiment that unlike something like a war doesn't get any scrutiny or criticism to the validity of its merit, but rather is relied on like a crutch as an acceptable cultural prejudice internationally.

His rant was not at people in general, including himself. His rant was not at ALL of us. It was at 'you guys' and he was ranting about how people looking at others as 'you guys' is very dangerous and damaging.

So he himself is hypocritically and prejudicially singling out people from the United States in my opinion.

Which might have been my point, but who can say these days.

I feel like those poor writers who write something and then find their work being recklessly analyzed by students all over the world, and suddenly they don't even know what they wrote anymore.


Of course. So what? Just because all the cool kids are doing it, it doesn't mean it's good.
Everyone who judges like that is being stupid (or something else, depends on what you call it).


Why? Because look at where we are right now. American forum. Who are these people here? American.
Geez, guys. I chose to 'single you out' because you're right here right now. Wouldn't be a point in going in here and ranting at how the German see the people from Turkey, would it?


It was at you guys and it was about how much sh*t a government can throw at the fan while managing to trick people into thinking the sh*t's justified.
You are my friends, and I see nothing wrong in asking you to really look at the sh*t before you believe it's justified.
I never said you didn't.
I only asked you to.

Someone please lock this thread or something, because otherwise soon they'll find neo-nazi connotations in my rant or something, and this has gotten tiring.