Originally posted by Monketh
Of course, most of you think that US is the most powerful country in the world and that therefor it has to take risks to protect itself from terrosism, but wake up ! why is there so much murders and terrorism threat in US ? because you are seeing the world like a place where america should reign !
Damn straight we do, we do not want to be controlled by outside interests, nobody smaller\'n us is going to tell us what to do. Certainly not terrorists, certainly not Liberal Europe (Liberal Europe here denotes Liberals in Europe, not all of Europe).
And this is
exactly why I despise of you so much. You as America. You as all who have this opinion. You as you, Monketh (sorry, this statement of yours ticked me over. I thought you\'d be more moderate on this subject, but maybe you\'ve changed, or maybe I misinterpreted you on the other thread).
The statement of yours can be rephrased to
\"We don\'t care about anyone except ourselves unless they can bully us into submission.\", which can be rephrased as
\"We\'re utterly selfish.\"
And indeed this is what makes America: selfishness. You are always saying \"it\'s for the good of you all\" but in fact, it\'s only for your own good.
You force treaties upon others by threatening with embargoes, but these treaties further your economy at the expense of the \"partner\"\'s economy. (FTAs, anyone?)
You insist on others to bow to the rules you imposed or agreed upon if it helps your economy, yet you arbitraily violate those same rules if it helps your economy.
You are bigoted in everything you say and do. You go to war with some weak poor country for the unproven and totally made-up reason that they have WMD. Once this has been proven to be wrong, you then claim that it was \"because they had an evil dictator\".
Yet, there are and have been several other countries where WMD can be made or brought just as easily as in said country, who also happen to have evil dictators, but you don\'t care about them. The only difference, as much as it has been repeated, is oil.
You are constantly lying to the world.
Your much-praised \"American way of life\" is, in fact, a parasite\'s way of life.
Your usage of the word \"liberal\" as something stupid or bad or both shows that you\'re using rhetorics to undermine the credibility or reduce the seriousness of the ones you don\'t agree with. You don\'t disprove their point, instead you try to ridicule them to get others to ignore that they actually might have a valid point. \"Liberal tree-huggers\" comes to mind.
Having said this, I of course do not mean to say that America or any other country should bow to anyone else just for the sake of it. No, certainly not. What I request off the self-proclaimed \"greatest nation on earth\" is that it listens to reason and that it binds itself to the same rules as everyone else. I furthermore request that it acts in ways that can, especially in the long run, be regarded as \"responsible\". This doesn\'t mean that you need to stop using cars, but it
does mean that you need to reduce pollution and to accept a slight decrease in quality of life just as anybody else does. All of us (save the 3rd world) have been living off scarce resources way too generously for at least 100 years. We need to stop this. Now. Immediately. We need to switch to regenerative sources (not just energy) now. If we cannot do so (as is obvious since technology isn\'t ready yet) we need to reduce usage of non-regenerative sources. Now. And everyone can help by finding some simple things that don\'t have much impact on life.
Also, I totally know that any other country is also selfish,
but, unlike you, they didn\'t yet have the chance to prove they are not irresponsible, and therefore they, unlike you, have not failed. So therefore, unlike you, they still have the benefit of doubt.
Would
I want ultimate power? Sure. Would
I become corrupted by it? Most likely. Should
I, therefore, have said power? No.
Not that it matters as you already said you don\'t care, but still I want to make it official that I disagree by heart.
Originally posted by Monketh
The big threat is Nuclear Terrorism, it isn\'t a threat right now, but you can imagine what will happen when it happens. Terrorists must be exterminated now to prevent these future mass atrocities. The way to do that is setting up democracy, which checks itself, and backing it against armed takeover by etremists.
You who don\'t even have a democracy, and who even less control your government, are not the ones to install such a system anywhere except at home. If anything, the world has to decide, and for this the best approximation is the UN.
I\'m not saying it\'ll fail, but does the right outcome justify the wrong reasons and approach? I don\'t think it does.
Also, there will always be terrorism because there will always be power-hungry ppl. who don\'t care about anyone else, who are supported by sheep-minded ppl. who follow them to be able to live their warped fantasies of being fighters for a good cause or just to feel powerful or whatever. The only thing that can stop it is everybody questioning everything and always acting responsibly, because this way, you can catch madmen before they can do anything big and there will be no followers to aid them. This includes terrorists as well as presidents.
A democracy surely helps, but the people must be willing to exert their control of it, which takes considerable effort, otherwise it will slowly degenerate into a currupt system just as any other form of government. Evidence AFAICS shows that this is happening to every major democracy as we type. Maybe ppl. are not mature enough for any society. Maybe I\'m just misinterpreting what\'s happening, maybe it has always been the way it currently is, which would be sad but better than a collapse of democracy.
While I believe that a responsible, caring dictator would be way better than a self-centered, bureaucratic, corrupt democracy, I\'d prefer a responsible, caring democracy, but this may just be what I\'m used to, because there actually are benefits in reduced government size.
Unless something really good happens, some day, there
will be a nuke (or equivalent weapon) in the hands of a terrorist who uses it. All we can do is try hard to delay this day.
Originally posted by Monketh
I would have supported an Ultimatum in Najaf that said \"Get out in 24 hours, or we\'ll turn your freakin\' mosque into a Mushroom-cloud!\".
AFAIK, a mushroom cloud is the result of a nuclear explosion. No nuke should be used
ever again. If anything, I\'d like to see a crater or something.
Also, I\'m not sure how the public would react if you actually
did create said crater. It might just give the terrorists a boost in sympathy.
