Sunday, May 10, 2009

Going Dutch: Learning to love the European Welfare State

Should be required reading for all Americans

My sister's boyfriend posted something on facebook this morning, a video from saturday Night Live basically blaming the depression on people living beyond their means. I don't buy that one bit. The video said "don't buy anything if you don't have any money." Oh yeah, don't buy anything if you have no money. Unless you need health care...or food...or diapers. Easy for Steve Martin to say.

73 comments:

  1. More economic news...about China:
     
    In the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, a new world order is emerging -- with its center gravitating towards China. The statistics speak for themselves. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) predicts the world's gross domestic product (GDP) will shrink by an alarming 1.3% this year. Yet, defying this global trend, China expects an annual economic growth rate of 6.5% to 8.5%. During the first quarter of 2009, the world's leading stock markets combined fell by 4.5%. In contrast, the Shanghai stock exchange index leapt by a whopping 38%. In March, car sales in China hit a record 1.1 million, surpassing the U.S. for the third month in a row.

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  2. I doubt this, but it will occur eventually; perhaps sooner than later:
     
    It would appear, quietly and with deference and politeness, that China has canceled America's credit card," Kirk told the Committee of 100, a Chinese-American group.  "I'm not sure too many people on Capitol Hill realize that this is now happening," he said.

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  3. Mara., I am afraid you are going to havee to plumb the economic depths more than the above.  There is a massive difference on who gets the money in China, there is a dying and almost dead middle class (not that the USA is not now rapidly descending into the same position). The managerial class did not last long, and that 1.1 million cars is just about right on the small percentage that can afford them.

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  4. Jing Ulrich, Hong Kong-based head of China equities at JPMorgan Chase & Co., predicts that China, now the world’s third-largest economy, will overtake the U.S. as No. 1 in 30 years. For now, investors say, China is helping propel a worldwide recovery with a 4 trillion-yuan stimulus program.
     
    “In Beijing, it’s all about control, but China’s leaders have got to learn that they have no control over what people spend in Wal-Mart on Chinese-made goods,” Straszheim says. “There’s a buyers strike in America, and the Chinese have built an economy that’s heavily dependent on exports. Now it’s coming back to haunt them.”
     
    China’s security concerns are reflected in the manpower of its armed forces. In addition to the People’s Liberation Army’s 2.3 million members, China also has an 800,000-strong paramilitary force named the People’s Armed Police, which is in charge of internal security. In March, China announced a 33 percent rise in security spending this year to the equivalent of $17 billion.

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  5. china may have their 15 min of fame but the institutional boundaries of market systems will hollow them out just as it doing us, and just like us they will implode too.
     
    market systems whether allocated by private enterprise or centrally planned systems play the same rat race game. the end is always the same.

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  6.     Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes … known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.… No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.  — James Madison, Political Observations, 1795

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  7. With the release of its report on China's military capabilities at the end of March, the Pentagon is doing its part to keep alive the threat of the red menace.  China's official military budget jumped to $60 billion, an 18 percent increase over last year, but US officials warned that the actual figure is somewhere between $105 and $150 billion annually.  Without a hint of irony, the report expresses concern about, "the purposes to which China's current and future military power will be applied," and suggests that Beijing could even use its armed forces "to ensure access to resources or enforce claims to disputed territories."  Sound familiar? Well, Washington apparently needs to relearn the basic moral principle of universality: What is wrong for others to do, must also be wrong for us.  In February, the Obama administration requested a mind-boggling $664 billion for the US military over the next fiscal year - more than 10 times China's official budget. In fact, the US spends roughly the same amount on "defense" each year as every other country in the world combined, according to the authoritative data of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute.

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  8. And wouldnt you know it marcatu!  The USA invented war.  In the pre-USA world, there was no war.  Only peace, harmony, love and mutual respect.  Then the nasty USA came along and boom!  War, war, all the time.  Oh dearest me!!!
     
    Please do tell us about those periods in world history where war was not a constant, where peoples did not fight each other over either religion, treasure, land, resources, whatever.  Inm truly fascinated to know about a time when conflict was not a part of the human experience. 

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  9. Or perhaps you are just angry that the USA/west is just so darn good at waging war?  Sucks to be on the other side, when we really put our mind to it, huh? 
     
    <h1 class="parseasinTitle"><span>Carnage and Culture: Landmark Battles in the Rise of Western Power (Hardcover)</span></h1>

    <span>by <span style="color: #003399;">Victor Hanson</span> </span>Many theories have been offered regarding why Western culture has spread so successfully across the world, with arguments ranging from genetics to superior technology to the creation of enlightened economic, moral, and political systems. In Carnage and Culture, military historian Victor Hanson takes all of these factors into account in making a bold, and sure to be controversial, argument: Westerners are more effective killers. Focusing specifically on military power rather than the nature of Western civilization in general, Hanson views war as the ultimate reflection of a society's character: "There is…a cultural crystallization in battle, in which the insidious and more subtle institutions that heretofore are murky and undefined became stark and unforgiving in the finality of organized killing."
    Though technological advances and superior weapons have certainly played a role in Western military dominance, Hanson posits that cultural distinctions are the most significant factors. By bringing personal freedom, discipline, and organization to the battlefield, powerful "marching democracies" were more apt to defeat non-Western nations hampered by unstable governments, limited funding, and intolerance of open discussion. These crucial differences often ensured victory even against long odds. Greek armies, for instance, who elected their own generals and freely debated strategy were able to win wars even when far outnumbered and deep within enemy territory. Hanson further argues that granting warriors control of their own destinies results in the kind of glorification of horrific hand-to-hand combat necessary for true domination.

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  10. thankgodimatheistMay 11, 2009 at 6:34 PM

    Calm down fleming. No one is saying the US invented war. They only perfected it. That's all.

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  11. No one is saying the US invented war. They only perfected it. That's all.
     
    Sure, what's wrong with that.  See my other (long) post.

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  12. thankgodimatheistMay 11, 2009 at 6:40 PM

    You're right fleming!
    "We like war because we're good at it" George Carlin.
     
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDkhzHQO7jY
     
    Very funny and TRUE!
    .

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  13. I dont know about "liking it" so much but we are pretty darn good at it, that is true. 
     
    Of course war can also be considered a reflection of society at large.  See Mr Hanson's theory.....

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  14. thankgodimatheistMay 11, 2009 at 6:43 PM

    We don't stand for the same things in life, fleming. I like what we stand for. Not sure about yours though!

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  15. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">I dont know about "liking it" so much but we are pretty darn good at it, that is true.  
      
    Of course war can also be considered a reflection of society at large.  See Mr Hanson's theory.....
    </span><span style=""> </span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="">“By bringing personal freedom, discipline, and organization to the battlefield, powerful "marching democracies" were more apt to defeat non-Western nations hampered by unstable governments, limited funding, and intolerance of open discussion.”</span>

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  16. thankgodimatheistMay 11, 2009 at 6:45 PM

    And please don't tell me that 99.999% of Americans agree with you. That's BS. Just listen to the clip above.

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  17. If "war" is an inevitable and inescapable aspect of the human condition, as history shows, then why not be good at it? 

    Which is better:  Have one or two entity(ies) be asymetrically stronger that it discourages conflict, or there be many entities with more symetric capabilities who are not fearful of taking on one another because victory is more achievable?

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  18. Ive never said that 99.9% of americans agree with anything I say.  However, there are always MILLIONS that do.
     
    Would you like to provide me an email address so that I can send on to you the numerous fowards I receieve each and every day?

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  19. I think Carlin is a hoot, and would have laughed and applauded if I had ever gone to a concert.  Doesnt mean I agree with him.
     
    So what tgia, you believe an old Carlin video gives you a better picture of what americans really think than what I know from my living in current day among actual americans?

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  20. thankgodimatheistMay 11, 2009 at 8:18 PM

    Fleming
    Carlin is saying exactly what you're saying. You LIKE war. You like it because you're good at it. You're good at it because you had a lot of practice. YOU LIKE WAR!!!!
    .

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  21. "If "war" is an inevitable and inescapable aspect of the human condition, as history shows, then why not be good at it?" 
      
    War is never the inescapable aspect of the human condition, it is the intrest of the enrichment of the few. Those who believe that it is the inevitable human condition are the dumb shits that swallow elite ideas to their own detriment and destruction of their progeny. Which makes you what fleming...?

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  22. "War is just a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.
    I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.
    I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.
    There isn't a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to. It has its "finger men" to point out enemies, its "muscle men" to destroy enemies, its "brain men" to plan war preparations, and a "Big Boss" Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.
    It may seem odd for me, a military man to adopt such a comparison. Truthfulness compels me to. I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.
    I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.
    I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.
     
    During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents."
     
    Excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

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  23. Ergo, what does this tell you? Never let the wealth of the people devolve into the hands of a few, hence the power and the consequent influence.  What I propose is the best way of divesting this elite group of their ill gotten gain, hence their power and influence, and delivering it back into the hands of the people. Lest you think I am given to the mistakes and passions of those who previously attempted to do this, or even their methodology - think again.

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  24. I would make one amendment to what I said above regarding people who swallow elite ideas (rather than just being "dumb shits," that is reserved for those who know better and turn away from the obvious truth), there are some who are definitely deceived. Especially since it is bolstered by religious trappings and vociferously taught in both academia and general media.

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  25. If the Yanks are good at war the VietCong must have been shit hot.

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  26. If America is so good at war, how come we almost never win? The last real war we won without allies was with dying Imperial Spain in the 19th Century. Since then, every time we tried to do it alone, we got bogged down in a stalemate. Don't get me wrong, we can bully small countries or bomb them from the air, but there is more to war than that.

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  27. Of course nobody, no country, no culture, goes undefeated for all time.  But the record shows western civilization, and the USA, are superior at waging war.  Look at history.  Is any country on the planet capable of doing what we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan - transporting thousands of men and equipment thousands of miles, maintaining those extensive supply lines, and ultimately defeating an entrenched, motivated and localized force?
     
    Never win?  Are you crazed?  
     
    We allowed the VietCong to win because we werent willing to fully commit the full force of our capabilities.  Besides Ive been to Vietnam.  If that is victory, Ill take defeat every day :)  
     
    What nation, or country, or culture is capable of brining their armed forces to our shores and defeating indigenous US forces on their home turf, as we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Do tell.

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  28. If war is inevitable, might as well be good at it, seems to me.  What possible advantage would come from "being bad" at war?
     
    Like I said, anyone who can show me a time in history when some conflict and strife didnt exist, and everyone lived happily with everyone else. 
     
    Im sure Moy will submit his favorite tribal folks still living deep in the SA jungle.  Sorrry moy, even indians had warriors.

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  29. Jeeezz, fleming. 
     
    Why do you have to get so defensive. 
    It really shows you up.
    I guess it is your country right or wrong all the time.

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  30. Lost in Viet Nam.
    Korea?  We still have the North causing havoc today.
    Installed an Iranian friendly regime in Bagdhad.
    Keep it up, mr. 'expert at war"
    I guess you'll say you won World War II?
    Yep, sure.  Russsian casualties were inconsequential.

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  31. Maybe fleming is talking about this war.

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  32. "What nation, or country, or culture is capable of brining their armed forces to our shores and defeating indigenous US forces on their home turf, as we have done in Iraq and Afghanistan?  Do tell." fleming
     
    Abbey says -
     
    "A modern, highly mechanized army travels 9,000 miles to commit genocide against a small nation of great vision and then accuses its people of aggression." 
    A form of collective insanity
     
     

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  33. Awww, Anon crawls out from under his dark, slimy rock yet again.
     
    Well Anon, lets hear you attack YOUR own country.  Oh that's right, you dont claim one. 
     
    There are plenty of USA haters right here in the US.  I see no need to join their crowded ranks.
     
    So yea, pretty much, it is my country, right or wrong.  Its like  a family.  People often criticize their own family members, but outsiders better not.

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  34. thankgodimatheistMay 12, 2009 at 7:12 AM

    So yea, pretty much, it is my country, right or wrong.
    ----------------
    Sounds very much Germany in the 30s, don't you think?
    Scary!!

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  35. Russians lost 25 million people.  They "won" the war by taking half of all WWII casualties.
     
    Oh, and BTW, they were fighting on the HOME territory until they got into Germany.  We had to ship everything across the Altantic ocean, and then travel thousands of miles across Europe.  The logisitcs alone would have defeated just about any other country.

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  36. Hey Flemming,
     
    From one of your own:
     
    "<span style="color: #0060bf;">* The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion, but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact, non-Westerners never do —— The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order, p.51."</span>

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  37. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Absolutely ehhhh. More from the same guy (Huntington)....</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">“Islam's borders are bloody and so are its innards.” (p. 258) </span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style=""><span style="font-family: Calibri;">(No single statement in my Foreign Affairs article attracted more critical comment than: "Islam has bloody borders." I made that judgment on the basis of a casual survey of intercivilizational conflicts. Quantitative evidence from every disinterested source conclusively demonstrates its validity.)</span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">The American multiculturalists wish to create a country of many civilizations, which is to say a country not belonging to any civilization and lacking a cultural core. A multicivilizational United States will not be the United States; it will be the United Nations. (p. 306) </span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 10pt;"><span style="font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;">The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.</span>
     

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  38. HAHAHA, Victor Davis Hansen? I love these Keyboard Kommandos.
     
    Being good at killing--glorifying hand to hand combat--wow, what a thing to brag about. Given that belief system, you must think Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy were moral exemplars who should serve as role models for all American children. They were really good at killing people and even used hand to hand combat!
     
    What about the American soldiers who raped and murdered that 14 year old Iraqi girl? Hand to hand buddy! Glorious warriors! Oh and let's not forget the guy who opened fire on his own fellow soldiers outside a counseling center yesterday...Yes, they are true shining lights of glorious manhood aren't they?
     
    One thing I do know, nobody who's ever actually been in combat glorifies it in the way these not-fit-for-service Keyboard Kommandos do.

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  39. Hand to hand combat?  Gosh, I mean who bothers with such outdated and inefficient tactics when technological superiority is a so much more effective way of killing.  Predators and Raptors are controlled by virtual pilots from thousands of miles away and can strike the opposition with deadly accuracy without the enemy even being aware "the end is nigh".  What could be more beautiful than that??? LOL 

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  40. Rome became an awsome military power in its latter days. There was no other nation, empire or force capable of challenging its might. When Rome reached the peak of its military supremacy, the end its hegemony was near. The decline of the last Ming dynasties in China followed pretty much the same pattern. The same had taken place before with Persia and Greece. In the New World, one can corroborate an equally similar cycle of rising military power and concomitantly declining civilizational strength, when examining the rise and fall of the Toltec and Aztec empires. Those who brag today about US unchallenged imperial military power, ought to be concerned. It's a clear sign that the end of the empire is near. I personally don{t thik it will be replaced by a new center of global power, such as China, for example. We are just entering the Modern Middle Ages in which centrifugal and anti-systemic forces prevail over centralized global domination. Both the decadent US empire and dismal capitalist China are going down the toilet. Actually, they are both already swirling on their way down.

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  41. What you're arguing, Patrick Bateman, is not that Americans are good at war, but that they are good at war crimes.

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  42. No such thing as war crimes tribunals for the winners, Jemmy Whemmy. When the US offers the unconditional surrender of its armed forces, territory, people and sovereignty, you can start the tribunals.  Until then, the USA must, should and will do whatever it takes to win.  Let me repeat, for clarity: Whatever it takes.
     
    War crimes charges are so easy to level, much harder to make stick.  So good luck with that! :O)

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  43. It took Rome a thousands years to fall, Moy.  Seems awfully unfair for you to give the US only 50 years or so of real power... :)

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  44. Yeah, we have been over this before Fleming. History flows twenty times faster today. Empires rise higher than ever before, but decline quickly. Look at the ex-Soviet Union. It expanded at lightning historical speed, and at one point it seemed indestructible. What's left today? My personal impression is that when the US empire extinguishes, there will be no other empire to replace it. I think we are entering a decentered civilization marked by an increasingly borderless world and the emergence of several big regional blocks. Right now we are in the first stage of an epochal transition towards post-capitalist and post-imperialist civilization. We still have zombie-capitalism and zombie-imperialism dominating the global scene, but we all know they are just warmed-up corpses, sustained by massive monetization ending in hyperinflation and stagnation. It's unsustainable non-development, as one great thinker has recently described it.

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  45. <blockquote>

    Ventura said he was waterboarded as part of his Navy SEAL training. He was (typically) not shy about his views. "It's a good thing I'm not president," Ventura said. "I would prosecute every person involved in that torture. I would prosecute the people that did it. I would prosecute the people that ordered it. Because torture is against the law."
    He went on: "I'll put it to you this way: you give me a waterboard, Dick Cheney and one hour, and I'll have him confess to the Sharon Tate murders."
    http://www.youtube.com/v/m9yfMdNC6cQ&feature</blockquote>

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  46. Dulce bellum inexpertis

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  47. I have always liked Ventura. He's an honest and real person, in the full extent of the concept. Thanks for the reference Maracatú.

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  48. I lived in MN when Ventura was Gov.  I liked him, but lets be real, the guy is a bit off the wall.  I remember when the press slammed him because his son was having parties in the governor's mansion and destroying property.
     
    Maybe what we should do is ask all our enemies why they hate us.  Whatever they respond, we can say OK, if we do exactly what you say, then will you like us?  For instance, OBL has already offered his friendship if the USA declares itself a muslim country and mandates islam.  I think this is a swell idea.  Above all, its important to be loved by your enemies - right? :)
     
     

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  49. Why do you fellows even bother having a "conversation" (lol) with this challenged party fleming :)   waste of time, but I am sure someone will read it and benefit

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  50. thankgodimatheistMay 12, 2009 at 5:08 PM

    I think fleming would have enjoyed Germany in the thirties. All that "blood, soil and Fatherland" shit which gave the world nothing but war, destruction and death!

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  51. But TGIA, how could that be, with my mind under zionist control???  Wouldnt I be a bad nazi, given I am powerless against the mighty jewish lobby!!!!

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  52. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">“The deterioration of every government begins with the decay of the principles on which it was founded.” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span>
    <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style=""></span><span style="">Charles-Louis De Secondat</span>

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  53. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">“No war by any nation in any age has ever been declared by the people.” - Eugene Debs</span>

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  54. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">"Our "neoconservatives" are neither new nor conservative, but old as Babylon and evil as Hell." - Edward Abbey</span>

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  55. thankgodimatheistMay 12, 2009 at 6:36 PM

    Yes that's exactly fleming! 
    "war is sweet to those who have never experienced it".

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  56. <span style="">“Since the end of the World War II, the United States has fought three "small" wars...we lost all three of them and for the same reason--hubris.” - Andrew Greely</span>

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  57. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">“Force always attracts men of low morality.” - Albert Einstein</span>

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  58. <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">The fundamental problem for the West is not Islamic fundamentalism. It is Islam, a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.</span></span>  

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  59. <p style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt; line-height: normal;"><span style="">“Our enemies are innovative and resourceful...They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.” - George W. Bush</span>

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  60. Your dudes will eventually try and kill GWB, for sure.  You folks will never get over it.  But you will never get him either, so best move on.

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  61. Fleming 
    You strike me as quite insular. I hope you realise that ultranationalism and patriotism a la papa is so 20th century. Nowadays we have better aspirations and expectations for our children than to march behing a fucking flag! I insist, you'd have been happier in Nazi Germany or Mussoloni's Italy. I knew many right wing dudes. None have pushed it that far. Only far right wingnuts do! It's your right to chose whatever sick ideology you chose for yourself and for your children but why not keep it for your circle of friends? Why polluting this site? 
    .

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  62. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 2:03 AM

     Wouldnt I be a bad nazi, given I am powerless against the mighty jewish lobby!!!!
    ----------
    What makes you think there's a difference? Zionists and Nazis share the same ultranationalistic racist project! Nah you'll be in good company!
    .

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  63. Are countries like Sweden, or Switzerland, or New Zealand - ones that do not have military forces intervening in the affairs of sovereign nations - prey to terrorist attack or threat? No, they are not.  

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  64. I wonder what the US could have done with $5 trillion if it were spent on life instead of death.

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  65. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 3:03 AM

    Gee r.s! What else do you want? sending the army to help cyclones' victims instead of invading countries?

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  66. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 3:53 AM

    <span style="color: #000080;"><span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">Patriotism: The Other Opiate of the Masses</span></span>  
    "<span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">It is the essence of patriotism to elude thinking and every aspect of critical analysis.  Every aspect of patriotism involves an inherent witness that is bound to evade our examination of it."</span>  
    <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">The notion of patriotism belongs to the rigidity of the mind, and cannot continue when the human intellect begins to frame a systematic analysis of it.  Patriotism is a malady and like all maladies is best dealt with as something to</span>
    <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">remedy"</span>
    <span style="font-family: Arial; font-size: small;">http://www.metaphoria.org/ac4t0801.html.</span>

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  67. Sure rs. Just imagine if we had spent all the money that went to our space program on food and clothing for the ppor?  Or instead of large sports stadiums for "the wealth" we built homes in India?  Why not?  Indeed, why not????
     
    It doesnt work that way, is why.  Countries that cant take of themselves and their people do have responsibiity for that, regardless of how much they like to claim "victim" status. 

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  68. OK TGIA, when you abandon your patriotism toward palestine, Ill do the same for USA.

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  69. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 6:29 AM

    Oh! Dear!! Is this how you understand the conflict and my support to the Palestinian cause? Are you serious?!! Patritiosim???!! And not standing up against injustice and abuse of human rights???? I'm not even Palestinian my friend!! Neither are most people on this site!When Palestine is in a position to be powerful and dominant and unjust the way your country is I would gladly criticise or withdraw my support to it.
    .

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  70. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 6:34 AM

    <span style="font-size: small; font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">a different civilization whose people are convinced of the superiority of their culture and are obsessed with the inferiority of their power.</span></span>
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    Did you say convinced of the superiority of their culture??? Gee I wonder who could that be! The only one over here to proclaim ad nauseum such a thing is YOU!! He he!

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  71. I am quite serious.  You are rabid in your patriotism.   RABID.  Jeez, the Angry Herr Professor supports flags for Palestians but no one else. 
     
    Typically, its the old double standard.  Only the "white man" can be racist.  Only americans are guilty of "patriotism".  Because we are "powerful and dominant" we are inherently unjust and criminal.  Because we are wealthy we must be thieves and exploiters.  Because we are strong we must behave weakly or be considered bullies.  Because we are accomplished we must be cheaters.  Because we...

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  72. thankgodimatheistMay 13, 2009 at 8:20 AM

    Are you that thick!!? The Palestinians have lost most of their land ans are still losing what remains of it and I support them to recover it. How does this quest for justice compare to your blind patriotism and support for a country which you care not if it's right or wrong? How? HOW?!!!HOW?!!! Gee! What a waste of time!! I'm out of here!
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  73. Sorry TGIA, this was a quote from somebody else!  I just copy and pasted.

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