Why Do People Hate America?

[Stefan]

Why do so many fucking people come this damned country?

 

Hell, my sales tax dollars pay for education of the illegal aliens' kids in this state.

 

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

[Greg_W]

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

[JGowans]

JayB said:It's called the electoral college. Look into it. Seriously. Didn't they make you learn this stuff before given you that Green Card? Congrats on getting the card - seriously. Glad to have your kilt wearing, haggis eating, ungrateful Scottish Mofo ass in this country.

 

Seriously though various private groups sponsored recounts and Bush came out ahead in virtually every one of the. I think the Miami Herald still has the stuff up on their site if you'd care to look into the matter further.

Isn't it troubling that all felons and those with the same name or DOB as felons were removed from the voters list? Isn't it troubling that the Supreme Court halted the official recount?

 

Again, from "Stupid White Men"...

 

Regarding the oversease votes (which ultimately tipped the scales in GW's favor)

- 344 ballots had no evidence that they were cast on or before election day.

- 183 ballots were post-marked in the U.S.

- 96 ballots lacked appropriate witness info

- 169 ballots came from unregistered voters

- 5 ballots came after Nov. 17 deadline

- 19 overseas voters voted on two ballots.

 

All of these ballots violated Florida law, yet they were all counted.

[RuMR]

Greg_W said:

Word up, Jay. And on the war front, how many of those countries would hate us if we DID NOT intervene? You, Mr. Gowans, would have been a citizen of the Greater German Reich if we hadn't stepped in in 1942.

 

Yeah...can you imagine a scottish accented german? Or is it a german accented scott?

[RuMR]

Greg_W said:

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

 

Hey...gotta disagree w/ you here...More education all around will never be wrong, ever!

[Greg_W]

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

 

Hey...gotta disagree w/ you here...More education all around will never be wrong, ever!

 

Technically, each illegal alien is a criminal and here illegally. Why should our country bear this burden of supporting criminal activity? You want Washington to balance a budget or cut spending? Get them to stop stupid handouts like this. I agree, RumR, that education is a good thing, but the U.S. has been a charity ward for too long. It can't go on forever, it's not a sustainable system.

[JGowans]

RuMR said:

Yeah...can you imagine a scottish accented german? Or is it a german accented scott?

LOL

[RobBob]

I don't hire illegals, but I wish I could, because it's hard to keep our company fully staffed. Yet in our little town, I drive past at least two dozen able-bodied males who choose to drink 40s and deal rather than work. I say that's a criminal mistake we've made in this country, building a system that keeps them out of the workforce and on the edge of incarceration.

[Greg_W]

Werd, Robbob. Let's burn it all and start over.

[Sloth_Man]

Political discussion always seem to diverge in this way.

 

You've got the 'left leaning types' talking about their issues, then the right leaning types bring up their own set of issues. Few of these issues are mutually exclusive, and it's possible that both sides could agree on much of it. I know I do.

 

Yet the sides remain distinct, each re-itterating their own pet issues. But all the while the people that really run the world continue un-affected by world public opinion. This whole 'debate' between the right and left is perfect cover for them.

 

To listen to people you'd actually think they had a choice in what kind of world they live in. You'd think that when they went down to choose candidate X because of issue X they were making a decision that would affect the nation and the world.

 

But is that really true? Sure there's some substantive differences between the Shrub and Clinton on the speed at which the wealthy are handed the keys to the kingdom, and there's differences about how the remaining 1% should be shared amoung the public. But the end result is the same and the people that truly have power over us are the same. The wealthy and the corporations will get what they want. The environment, the working man, and the poor will suffer. Of that there's no doubt.

 

But in the mean time we argue over things like health care reform or wellfare reform. And it's all a ruse to make us believe we have choices that we really don't have; while in the background the media keeps pumping us full of the myths that benefit the worlds leaders. Myths like: the imperative of the growth economy, the pursuit of material as happiness, the differences between 'us and them', baby worship as life fullfilment, beauty as value, conformity as success...... And we buy it all. Both sides right and left accept these myths as truths and carry on with the discussion from that point.

 

Much of this thinking was solidified from reading Noam Chomsky, but it rings true with me. We really can't discuss socio-political issues because the way in which we see them has been so colored by our surroundings that the basic assumptions that build our world views cannot be questioned.

 

In short we cannot really have a political discussion, because we cannot question the basic truths/myths that govern our thinking. We can only argue the predictable position that we must argue based upon our world view,which is formed at an early age, and therefore we cannot ever have converts to our cause.

 

 

[allthumbs]

RobBob said:

I don't hire illegals, but I wish I could, because it's hard to keep our company fully staffed. Yet in our little town, I drive past at least two dozen able-bodied males who choose to drink 40s and deal rather than work. I say that's a criminal mistake we've made in this country, building a system that keeps them out of the workforce and on the edge of incarceration.

you'll find these guys in any society

[Alpinfox]

Sloth_Man said:

Political discussion always seem to diverge in this way.

 

You've got the 'left leaning types' talking about their issues, then the right leaning types bring up their own set of issues. Few of these issues are mutually exclusive, and it's possible that both sides could agree on much of it. I know I do.

 

Yet the sides remain distinct, each re-itterating their own pet issues. But all the while the people that really run the world continue un-affected by world public opinion. This whole 'debate' between the right and left is perfect cover for them.

 

To listen to people you'd actually think they had a choice in what kind of world they live in. You'd think that when they went down to choose candidate X because of issue X they were making a decision that would affect the nation and the world.

 

But is that really true? Sure there's some substantive differences between the Shrub and Clinton on the speed at which the wealthy are handed the keys to the kingdom, and there's differences about how the remaining 1% should be shared amoung the public. But the end result is the same and the people that truly have power over us are the same. The wealthy and the corporations will get what they want. The environment, the working man, and the poor will suffer. Of that there's no doubt.

 

But in the mean time we argue over things like health care reform or wellfare reform. And it's all a ruse to make us believe we have choices that we really don't have; while in the background the media keeps pumping us full of the myths that benefit the worlds leaders. Myths like: the imperative of the growth economy, the pursuit of material as happiness, the differences between 'us and them', baby worship as life fullfilment, beauty as value, conformity as success...... And we buy it all. Both sides right and left accept these myths as truths and carry on with the discussion from that point.

 

Much of this thinking was solidified from reading Noam Chomsky, but it rings true with me. We really can't discuss socio-political issues because the way in which we see them has been so colored by our surroundings that the basic assumptions that build our world views cannot be questioned.

 

In short we cannot really have a political discussion, because we cannot question the basic truths/myths that govern our thinking. We can only argue the predictable position that we must argue based upon our world view,which is formed at an early age, and therefore we cannot ever have converts to our cause.

 

 

Well done SM. It's a bit pessimistic, but I agree. I have also read quite a bit of Chomsky and agree that the real power structures in this country operate behind a curtain of "democratic" government and whether the curtain has a donkey or an elephant on it is pretty irrelevant. It just gives the rabble (and I include myself here) something to argue about and think they have control over while those behind the scenes proceed with their plans to make themselves even richer and more powerful then they already are.

 

It seems that those behind the scenes folks do better with a Republican cover though....

 

Sometimes I even start indulging in conspiracy theory fantasies such as... Al Gore was a decoy to sneak GW in.

 

 

[Peter_Puget]

JGowans said:

Peter_Puget said:

JG -

 

Just want to point out that amongst your anti-thinking spew there are some serious factual errors. Now I would suggest that a person quoting from Stupid White Men might not care but I thought I'd point out some facts:

 

US Link

 

Canadian Link

 

Spew on!

 

PP

 

PP, I'm not intending to spew, merely to promote debate. As to the factuality of the numbers I presented, you and I both know that there's a multitude of ways to present the same numbers yet reach different conclusions. Michael Moore gets his data from a number of sources which he cites but I'm not about to repeat since it's fairly exhaustive.

 

JG - Please don't repeat them! But I again say at least some of yoru fact are complete BS. I also get the sense (from your response) that utlimately you don't care if they are true or not. That is why I call your posting spew. Merely listing a series of bogus and perhaps trueful ratios and statistic is not an arguement it is at best sloganeering. And as such appeals not to rational discourse but to preconceived notions.

 

 

PP

[Peter_Puget]

I'll admit I think very littl eof his analysis but if you like that kinda stuff from an american perspective I would suggest reading Veblen (as always for any reason) but also a book Corporate Liberalism by Jeffrey Lustig. The book is an ok read but has a wealth of info and references that will probably provide you with hours of good reading.

 

link

 

PP

[JoshK]

Greg_W said:

Technically, each illegal alien is a criminal and here illegally. Why should our country bear this burden of supporting criminal activity? You want Washington to balance a budget or cut spending? Get them to stop stupid handouts like this. I agree, RumR, that education is a good thing, but the U.S. has been a charity ward for too long. It can't go on forever, it's not a sustainable system.

 

It isn't us again them Greg, jeezus. Fuck, I'd much rather have illegal mexican workers here (who get completely mistreated by good ol' boy american bosses) working an honest day's work to feed their families than fucked up drunk homeless americans begging me for change. The line isn't as defined as you hard liners always make it seem to be. You got lucky in your life, face it. You think you worked hard for eveyrthing. bullshit. wake up. you were born in this country, and compared to the poor bastards born in niger, chad, somalia, central america, and so on, you were born with a silver spoon in your mouth. so were all of us here. Some of these people will work 10x as hard as you for their entire lives and earn barely enough to feed themselves.

 

Until the world as a whole (yes, the U.S. too) works to address the problems of all the people in the world, it'll remain everybody's problem. If we continue to take the "well, things are good here, so deal with your own shit" attitude, it'll come crashing down some day. maybe not in our lifetimes, but it will.

[JoshK]

JG - you started a very interesting arguement. good points from a lot of people here, and surprisngly little spray (give it time, I know), so far. The comment I would like to add is that things are never as cut and dry as people like to make them seem.

 

Examples:

 

1.) Us giving aid to israel is wrong. we do it simply to confront and limit power of the muslim countries. bullshit. if it wasn't for israel and U.S. help, the muslim countries would get their way; which is eliminating the jewish religion. those guys aren't the poor helpless victims of the U.S. that some make them out to be.

 

2.)The U.S. is horrible to islam, europe stands on the side. wrong, europe (in the name of christianity) did more harm to that group of people over the last 1000 years than the U.S. ever has

 

3.)sweeden is great. well, yeah, I'm sure it's nice to live there but neutrality is bullshit. if the rest of us had taken that approach in WWII there would be no sweeden today.

 

Overall, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I hardly think it's a case of the U.S. being big bad and evil and not understanding everybody else. Stereotyping a country of 300 million people is silly. Idiots abound everywhere you look, in the U.S., Europe, China, whatever. I think we have lots of problems to fix here, the first of which is getting rid of GWB. That isn't to say, however, that it makes everybody else problem-less and innocent.

[scrotum]

blahblahblahblah

why do people hate joshk?

[Greg_W]

Sloth_Man said:

Political discussion always seem to diverge in this way.

 

You've got the 'left leaning types' talking about their issues, then the right leaning types bring up their own set of issues. Few of these issues are mutually exclusive, and it's possible that both sides could agree on much of it. I know I do.

 

Yet the sides remain distinct, each re-itterating their own pet issues. But all the while the people that really run the world continue un-affected by world public opinion. This whole 'debate' between the right and left is perfect cover for them.

 

To listen to people you'd actually think they had a choice in what kind of world they live in. You'd think that when they went down to choose candidate X because of issue X they were making a decision that would affect the nation and the world.

 

But is that really true? Sure there's some substantive differences between the Shrub and Clinton on the speed at which the wealthy are handed the keys to the kingdom, and there's differences about how the remaining 1% should be shared amoung the public. But the end result is the same and the people that truly have power over us are the same. The wealthy and the corporations will get what they want. The environment, the working man, and the poor will suffer. Of that there's no doubt.

 

But in the mean time we argue over things like health care reform or wellfare reform. And it's all a ruse to make us believe we have choices that we really don't have; while in the background the media keeps pumping us full of the myths that benefit the worlds leaders. Myths like: the imperative of the growth economy, the pursuit of material as happiness, the differences between 'us and them', baby worship as life fullfilment, beauty as value, conformity as success...... And we buy it all. Both sides right and left accept these myths as truths and carry on with the discussion from that point.

 

Much of this thinking was solidified from reading Noam Chomsky, but it rings true with me. We really can't discuss socio-political issues because the way in which we see them has been so colored by our surroundings that the basic assumptions that build our world views cannot be questioned.

 

In short we cannot really have a political discussion, because we cannot question the basic truths/myths that govern our thinking. We can only argue the predictable position that we must argue based upon our world view,which is formed at an early age, and therefore we cannot ever have converts to our cause.

 

 

I agree, Sloth. I am a political cynic; well, all-around cynic actually. Anyway, the two parties we have are too close together and married to one thing: power. We need to return to a pure constitutional ideal that the Founding Fathers had envisioned: no Department of Education, no government landownership, weak federal and strong state governments.

 

I haven't read Chomsky, and don't know much abou him. Maybe I should look into it. Sounds like some fodder for good political discussion tonight - I'll be there to represent the far right and the libertarians.

 

Greg

[JoshK]

scrotum said:

blahblahblahblah

why do people hate joshk?

 

What the hell are you talking about, avatar?

[RuMR]

Greg_W said:

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

 

Hey...gotta disagree w/ you here...More education all around will never be wrong, ever!

 

Technically, each illegal alien is a criminal and here illegally. Why should our country bear this burden of supporting criminal activity? You want Washington to balance a budget or cut spending? Get them to stop stupid handouts like this. I agree, RumR, that education is a good thing, but the U.S. has been a charity ward for too long. It can't go on forever, it's not a sustainable system.

Trust me...educated kids of illegal aliens is better than uneducated ones...they can and will become donating citizens...think of it this way, the illegals showed some serious gumption to get over here and to improve their lives...its narrowminded to shut our doors...and wrong...

[JoshK]

RuMR said:

 

Trust me...educated kids of illegal aliens is better than uneducated ones...they can and will become donating citizens...think of it this way, the illegals showed some serious gumption to get over here and to improve their lives...its narrowminded to shut our doors...and wrong...

 

Well said, man.

 

But who are we to allow somebody to improve their lives? THey are taking $14 of my tax money!

[Greg_W]

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

 

Hey...gotta disagree w/ you here...More education all around will never be wrong, ever!

 

Technically, each illegal alien is a criminal and here illegally. Why should our country bear this burden of supporting criminal activity? You want Washington to balance a budget or cut spending? Get them to stop stupid handouts like this. I agree, RumR, that education is a good thing, but the U.S. has been a charity ward for too long. It can't go on forever, it's not a sustainable system.

Trust me...educated kids of illegal aliens is better than uneducated ones...they can and will become donating citizens...think of it this way, the illegals showed some serious gumption to get over here and to improve their lives...its narrowminded to shut our doors...and wrong...

 

Good reason to ignore the law, dude. Come on. "Wrong"? Please, we have LEGAL immigration channels.

[JGowans]

JoshK said:

JG - you started a very interesting arguement. good points from a lot of people here, and surprisngly little spray (give it time, I know), so far. The comment I would like to add is that things are never as cut and dry as people like to make them seem.

 

Examples:

 

1.) Us giving aid to israel is wrong. we do it simply to confront and limit power of the muslim countries. bullshit. if it wasn't for israel and U.S. help, the muslim countries would get their way; which is eliminating the jewish religion. those guys aren't the poor helpless victims of the U.S. that some make them out to be.

 

2.)The U.S. is horrible to islam, europe stands on the side. wrong, europe (in the name of christianity) did more harm to that group of people over the last 1000 years than the U.S. ever has

 

3.)sweeden is great. well, yeah, I'm sure it's nice to live there but neutrality is bullshit. if the rest of us had taken that approach in WWII there would be no sweeden today.

 

Overall, I agree with a lot of what you say, but I hardly think it's a case of the U.S. being big bad and evil and not understanding everybody else. Stereotyping a country of 300 million people is silly. Idiots abound everywhere you look, in the U.S., Europe, China, whatever. I think we have lots of problems to fix here, the first of which is getting rid of GWB. That isn't to say, however, that it makes everybody else problem-less and innocent.

I totally agree. Things are never cut and dry. I was just putting forth a book that I'd read that I thought was worth of discussion. I do believe however, that while the US has done much good, it has also done much harm in bringing us to the current state of affairs where we're a nation culturally marginalized and only interacted with because we are the last remaining superpower and exert huge influence on the global stage with an unbeatable military to back up our brand of diplomacy.

[JoshK]

Greg_W said:

Good reason to ignore the law, dude. Come on. "Wrong"? Please, we have LEGAL immigration channels.

 

You bitch about us providing aid to attempt to improve the lives of to people who don't want to help themselves and bitch about those who *do* want themselves illegally doing what they need to do to improve their own lives. Whadda ya want?

[RuMR]

Greg_W said:

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

RuMR said:

Greg_W said:

Stefan said:

I guess this country is number one in educating people.

 

Yeah, people who don't belong here. That is SO fucked.

 

Hey...gotta disagree w/ you here...More education all around will never be wrong, ever!

 

Technically, each illegal alien is a criminal and here illegally. Why should our country bear this burden of supporting criminal activity? You want Washington to balance a budget or cut spending? Get them to stop stupid handouts like this. I agree, RumR, that education is a good thing, but the U.S. has been a charity ward for too long. It can't go on forever, it's not a sustainable system.

Trust me...educated kids of illegal aliens is better than uneducated ones...they can and will become donating citizens...think of it this way, the illegals showed some serious gumption to get over here and to improve their lives...its narrowminded to shut our doors...and wrong...

 

Good reason to ignore the law, dude. Come on. "Wrong"? Please, we have LEGAL immigration channels.

 

Fuck the LAW! JUST SCREW IT...

 

You know, its against muslim law to have sex outside marriage? and that they'll stone a women to death?

 

And it was cool under nazi law to exterminate people?

 

JUST FUCK THE LAW...the laws have nothing to do w/ it...fuck, it was legal to have slaves at one time...