boo hoo

Gee Cargo what does that say about the Chinese or for that matter the Hindu?

Cargo has now taken a poll of stupid people all over the world and found we have more here than anywhere else.

Wow, for a bunch of stupid people, we've done ok for ourselves.

By the way, just in case some brilliant mind such as the one that takes polls and determines we are stupid, allow me to make something perfectly clear; I do not condone the use of cocaine or anyderivitive thereof, nor do I suggest the usage of heroine, LSD, PCP or any other illicit chemical. I think it is a stupid thing to do. I am not, however, so utterly stupid as to think that if someone does something that stupid, they are forever more incapable of doing anything other than stupid things. To always bring up the shrub's use of cocaine and excessive drinking even though it no longer plays a part in his life is, well, STUPID.

I wouldn't call the average american stupid, just uninformed and unkowledgable. Not their fault that their media is so horribly one-sided though, or that their education system treats world history as American History. In the same way that the American Football Finals are the World Finals. Same with baseball, the World Series. To the average american the world stops on the East at the Atlantic, on the West at the Pacific.

but dom i thought we were the only one who actually PLAY american football, OR baseball.....

in other contries, football (or 'futbol' ) is like our soccer. So if we ARE the only ones playing it in the WORLD, why not call it WORLD..?

I do agree about American school text books though. Totally one-sided and full of lies, LIES I TELL YOU!!!

Especially those HIS-story books. Why not make it OUR-story? B/c we dont want our fellow americans thinking we're as evil as history really was, running the Native Americans out of their land. America is STOLEN , and we had STOLEN people (slaves) working the stolen land too. I wonder what they did with all that cotton money...

The Native American tribes were here for thousands of years before the white man ever landed ashore. they lived off the earth, they didnt pollute. now that us Americans live in an eniterly different time and different America, it is so much easier for us to say 'i dont have any slaves' or 'i didnt kill anyone to live here'.

but what about our founding 'fathers'..? They killed, Stole, and enslaved just for us to be here now. And THAT is the root of the whole problem Americans face today.

[Edited on 5-12-2003 by Isis Fibonacci]

This is true, but other countries don't have the audacity to call their national sports "world sports", which baseball and American "rugby-for-pufters" football clearly aren't.

It's just indicative of a generally egocentric approach to the world.

As far as native americans go... there are so few left that I don't think it's a major issue for the US. Besides, does anyone think that truth and freedom extend that far?

"I don't like Robin Williams funny point of view on immigrants"

What part of that referred to immigrants? There was nothing in there about immigrants. Visitors (i.e. those coming here to "visit" not "live") and illegal aliens were mentioned, as well as "older" students....but no mention of legal immigrants. If you're referring to the last phrase...um, it's what we call a "joke".

While I find the view (whether it truly is Williams' or not) idealistic, we are part of a Global economy, and were we to just lock ourselves up tight, we'd soon find the economy going down the crapper.... Still, there are some good ideas in there, especially in regards to illegals and "students"...and pulling our troops out of where they aren't wanted...

Absolutely, Gaz. There is no way to become an isolationist country; hasn't been for several decades.

As far as immigration is concerned, that should be strictly controlled to allow only the number we need in, and possibly only those with the skills we need. That is how other nations do it and it works much better. There is no right to become a U.S. citizen anymore than there is a right to become any other citizen, and every nation has the responsibility to regulate that.

Hold on Thomas, just a day or so ago you said this...

"I suppose we are to tirelessly work to solve other people's problems, allow their nations to drain us and use us, and then, whenever they have a problem they don't want to face, they can blame us for being mean ol' villians and throw rocks at us."

And then you said this.

"Absolutely, Gaz. There is no way to become an isolationist country; hasn't been for several decades. "

So what do you think the US should do then? Ignore everyone elses problems, start wars when it serves the US interest, and generally try and make as much money from the rest of the world without ever taking any responsibility for the consequences of previous US policies? How is that not isolationist? I'm confused.

Context means everything, dom, and the point being made at the time is important.

Obviously in one I was being highly sarcastic about how the world expects the U.S. to use its resources to solve all their woes so that they can then turn around and spit on us, and in this one I am agreeing with Gaz that we can not be an isolationist nation as we have to interact with other nations as we are becoming one big economic morass. That doesn't mean, though, the next time Europe wants to destroy Bosnia or somewhere like that, we have to lend our bombs and planes to them, just for the same people to thumb theirnoses at us when we need backing dealing with someone who made yours look like a boyscout.

There are degrees, As I'm sure Robin doesn't agree with any extreme degree in his humor, I do not agree with an extreme degree when dealing with this.

Still sounds a bit strange to me. You're basically saying that if the US get involved in any peacekeeping duties, then the entire world should help the US in starting wars against countries that the US don't like, regardless of the reasons for starting that war.

So for example, if you were to say "We should attack Iran because they're developing nuclear weapons and they're planning to attack us hocked look>", then the whole world should just believe you, and attack Iran forthwith? So how many peace-keeping missions do we get in return for helping you to attack Iran? Are there any numbers for this or is it up to the US to decide the trading amounts?

In fact, what you basically want is a world in which the US says "do this" and everyone says "sir, yes sir". Ridiculous.

Oh, and Bosnia was peacekeeping Thomas, Iraq was not.

I disagree. It was taking sides in a domestic war, and I'm not so sure we took the right side. T ogo into the reasons would be to highjack the thread, so I'll not.

Peacekeeping, hmm? As far as I'm concerned, you could spin the scene into a peacekeeping situation just as easily as you call us dropping 500-pounders at the Europeans' request "peacekeeping".

I can see why the major players of the old continent, France and Germany, were so adamantly against us, seeing how they and their economic buddy Russia wanted to make more money keeping the Iraqi suffering at a status quo. It seems the old continent is more the villian than what we are to be painted as by some. These are the people for which we are to waste time, money and lives? No, I don't believe in isolationism, but I do believe we should be a lot more discerning about when we go beyond our borders for others. Our main concern must be our own safety.

In a world of sovereign states, it is hard to see why the USA should have real policy objective other than America first.
The issue is surely: is policy X effective as "America first"? The answers to such questions are, presumably, what divides Dem's from Rep's.

Estragon - That's a good point. The US are obviously going to serve their own interests, so we shouldn't trust them to be the ultimate judge of good/evil, because their self-interest will effect their decision. That's why the war against Iraq is so significant. The US basically said "trust us, we're doing this for the world". Which doesn't seem likely to me.

And that's the overall issue with US policy. Either the US wants to be involved sensibly, in which case it must go through the UN, otherwise it shouldn't be surprised if it ends up getting abused by everyone else in the world.

TC - Definitely you get the rough side of the international debate. The most powerful country often does. But I do think the way Iraq was handled indicates a powerful country which is beginning to decide that it's too powerful to be told what to do by anyone. Which seems very dangerous to me.

The US must be involved in the world to ensure future peace and stability. But part of that means working through international bodies for the good of everyone. The current policy looks more like the US doing whatever it feels is necessary, because noone can stop it. It's just not healthy.

Oh, and Bosnia was peacekeeping, Kosovo was a war, but a war with the aim of stopping a humanitarian disaster (lessons were learned from Rwanda). I'd like to see the UN charter updated to allow this type of conflict within international law, Kosovo was a just war to fight.