No "holier than thou". I wouldn't waste it on a liar.
No one is asserting that America is without flaws. But I am asserting that it's a far better place than Europe, and that responsiblity for the world's misery for the last 150 years -- and millions and millions of deaths -- can be laid squarely at the feet of Europe and Europeans.
We in the U.S. did not cause World War One. You did.
We in the U.S. did not cause World War Two. You did.
We in the U.S. did not create socialism, facism, communism, and the Cold War. You did.
We in the U.S. have not rounded up millions of citizens and shipped them off to camps, gulags and prisons to rot, to die, and to be murdered. You did. And, as Milosevic proved, you're still doing it.
We didn't capture millions of Africans to be sold as slaves in European colonies. You did.
We didn't spend centuries believing that monarchs were appointed by God to rule. You did.
Need I go on?
Neither Europe or the U.S. is free of sin, but Europeans seem arrogantly and hypocritically bent on applying one standard to the U.S. and another standard to themselves and the rest of the world. In pursuit of that, you're quite willing to distort history, believe propaganda, and speak lies.
I can only conclude that you value comfort and a full belly more than you value your freedom. You certainly do not value truth,
Tell me how Americans saved the world for democracy in the 20th century without endangering it first.
Yeah, right. Americans divided Europe into opposing arm camps; Americans killed the arch duke; Americans started World War I; Americans captured Czechoslovakia and those were American tanks in Poland in 1939; those were American bombers over London; those were American troops fighting toward Moscow; those were American fascist leaders hanging from street lamps in Rome; those were Americans who voted for Hitler; those ere Americans Stalin used to occupy and oppress half of Europe; those were Americans running the Soviet Union for 70 years;
Tell me again how Americans weren't colonialists themselves.
We colonized; we stopped. After all, we spent almost 200 years as a colony under the thumb of a distant monarchy. Europeans were/are better at it. (See west Africa today.)
Tell me again how Americans didn't prosper on the looted wealth and resources of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Trade isn't looting. Both Americans and Europeans had every right to do business there. Demanding that we stay out of other parts of the world so they can stay "pristine" and "uncorrupted" by the West is simply racism -- "We wise white Westerners need to create an artificial environment so these poor not-so-wise brown people can remain frozen in their quaint local lifestyles". (As for real looting, just how did all those Greek, Roman and Egyptian artifacts end up in museums in Berlin and London?)
Tell me again how Americans accept all their minorities, rather than segregating and attempting to exterminate several of them.
Our relations with native Americans are nothing to be proud of, but it was inevitable. European culture, as imported to the Americas, was completely at odds with Indian culture. To argue that Europeans should have stayed in Europe and left the Indians alone displays a racist-based ignorance of history and humanity. As for Latin America, I'll let you decide who was less civilized: Indian cultures based on constant war and practicing human sacrifice of their children or brainwashed conquistadors?
Tell me again that Americans didn't write and believe Dianetics, The Manifesto of the Unabomber, and The Turner Diaries.
We have our share of loons, charlatans and criminals, too. We just don't vote them into office, walk away from democracy, and let them start the killing.
SuSE adds value by delivering more than 1000 pages of excellent documentation (beats getting half-baked advice rom the web);a well-tuned configuration; and a working update system.
If people don't think that's worth paying for, that's their decision. I suspect SuSE figurs they havent lost a sale, anyway, since people who expect Linux to cost nothing, as well as being free, aren't much of a market.
I'm a happy SuSE 8.2 user who switched to FreeBSD and cancelled a 9.0 preporder. (The jury is still out, tho.) I'm noticing no subjective performace differences between the two.
I believe the installed kernel isn't replaced until the first online update. Is that update available to people who haven't purchased SuSE?
Agree that SuSE is a great distribution, and the FreeBSD is good enough to spoil me, too.
Remember, tho, that it's a European product. All those binaries are in there because, first, it's a great selling point, and, second, because bandwidth costs more in Europe. Systems like ports or emerge are only viable when bandwidth costs are negligible. That's why all those European Linux magazine stick CD's and DVD's on their covers.
I'll wrap up by saying that I think that many, perhaps most, people in and outside the U.S. have forgotten how radical and revolutionary the principles on which the U.S. is based really are. When an American starts to act in accordance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and in all the other writings of the founders, it can shock others who were nurtured in another kind of culture. Americans really do believe that the only source of a government's legitimacy is the informed consent of the governed expressed in fair elections. We really do believe that any and all governments that are not derived democratically are illegitimate and that the people they oppress must rise up and overthrow them. In the modern world, contrary to the Enlightment world of the American Revolution, the rise of totalitarianism means oppressed people lack the means to revolt and overthrow their governments. That means that other democracies have an obligation to find ways to thwart and eliminate those regimes.
The requirements of the Cold War -- national survival -- meant that the U.S. spent 50 years looking the other way, finding allies against the primary threat where we could, regardless of their legitimacy.
But, that's over. The Cold War ended ten years ago. The political allegiances the U.S. forged during that time still linger on, but they are already changing. For example, the ongoing discussion about NATO, and growing questioning of our relations with the Saudis and other oil-rich Arab plutocracies. (At the street level, Americans don't like what they've seen of the Middle East since 9-11, and that applies to both the Arabs and Israel. In time, this shift in viewpoint will alter U.S. foreign policy.)
It's my impression that much of the world now sees the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR as a struggle between two equally amoral opponents, and now profess fear that U.S. dominance is as dangerous as Soviet dominance. Nothing is farther from the truth. Where America dominates, it dominates because the people accept and want what it offers. E.g.,there are McDonalds all over Europe, but Europeans own them and Europeans eat there. They are free to take their business elsewhere, If enough do, McDonalds will leave their city. Unlike the Soviets, no jack-boot American troops marched in the streets to compel people to accept foreign products.
That said, no American is a saint. We suffer from the same temptations and the same greed as everyone. But that does not obscure the fundamentally revolutionary nature of the American belief system.
Sorry, you're lapsing into something that's incoherent. Try again when you don't want to rant about the "rights of workers" like a good little socialist.
Maybe we Americans would be better off to just stop buying Volkswagens, Mercedes, Chryslers, Posches, and Audis; to stop buying Shell gas, etc., etc.
Don't forget that the U.S. exists thanks to the failures of Europe. We produced democracy while Europe produced monarchies, fascism, socialism, communism, the "diktat" of the state, and other abominations. It's only been in the last 50 years, while Europe prospered thanks to U.S. protection, that they've started to emerge from that swamp of bogus ideology.
My ancestors fled Europe because of persecution after one of them was burned at the stake (in what is now Germany). Things are not perfect in the U.S. but it wasn't Europe that had to send troops and money to North America three times in one century to keep Americans from enslaving the world.
No, you are talking about the missile crisis. I'm not.
Of course, the U.S. hated the communist way of life., Any sane person would.The Soviet people can only be faulted for not rising up and eliminating their oppressors. That they did not is testimony to the bogus lure of nationalism.
Since the Soviet Union had missiles targetted on every city in the country, we had every reason to seek allies (not necessarily friends) where we could. After all, the Soviets were allied with us in WWII. Communism was no less a threat than Naziism and fascism.
Actions by one state against another are justfied if the second nation poses a threat against the first. (That would not be true if a legitimate and democratic international political structure existed that could create legislation binding on all people. But, it does not exist.) You would have me believe that U.S. actions to thwart the Soviets and foster American interests were just as bad as Soviet actions to thwart the U.S. That's ludicrous and contemptable. Motivation and purpose count.
If you believe that the only legitimate way of life is a democratic way, that the only legitimate government is an elected government, you won't condemn deomcracies for not allowing nondemocracies free rein to do as they please.
I don't quite understand what you're saying about the UN, but I will say this: It is a nondemocratic organization. I am not interested in giving nondemocratic states a right to join a "peer group" in New York. I am interested in promoting democracy and defeating those who oppose it. I did not vote for my representative in the UN, and neither did you. Certainly, there is no ethical reason to treat oppressive countries as peers of democracies. Why place the "freedom" of governments above the freedoms of their citizens?
The only reaon for the UN to exist is to spread democracy. It can't do that if it continues to treat criminal states with undeserved dignity. The U.S. and the other legitimate democracies would be better advised to leave the UN and establish their own "League of Democracies".
U.S. support for states like Saudi Arabia and others is a legacy of the Cold War. The American people know little about the Saudis except that they are repressive, especially to women, and would rather they just went away and were replaced by something slightly less medieval. If they weren't sitting on all that oil, they'd still be poor fisherman.
As for Israel and Palestine, Israel's behavior is often equivalent to apartheid. But, after living in the Arab Middle East for some years, I'm convinced that many Arabs are not interested in democracy, but expect to be taken care of by someone else. (Many told me that the Gulf States, rich with oil, were obligated to "send money" to them so they wouldn't have to work so hard.) It's very much still a tribal culture. And, I can't tell you how many Palestinians have told me that " 'Arafat is a corrupt and incompetent leader", but that "we owe him our allegiance". I just don't get that.
What's wrong with businesses trying to advance their own interests? What's wrong with countries trying to enhance and protect the interests of their citizens? Don't German businesses and German citizens expect the German government to protect them no matter where they are on the globe?
If you don't like U.S. dominance, compete and try to surpass us. Otherwise, don't be a hyprocite and hold the U.S. accountable to standards you apply neither to yourself, your own country, or others.
God forbid you expect the rest of the world to accept what goes on in Brussels as a precedent?
Your argument seems to assume that a country like the Soviet Union deserves to be treated as a peer of civilized democracies. It didn't. Systems of individual morals and ethics do not transfer to relations between states. The Soviet Union was an oppresive anti-human totalitarian regime that committed a series of atrocities against both its own citizens and other nations. Because of its nature, its actions to oppose the U.S. were untenable. Because of its own nature, U.S. actions to oppose the USSR were tenable. The USSR did not merit being treated as an acceptable member of the international community. It was a force for evil in the world and the world is better for its disappearance.
(Especially Europe, not that many Europeans seem to have any sense of gratitude for the sacrifices the U.S. made three times in the 20th century to save Europe from the vile leaders and philosophies it spawned. But, now that they're fat and happy, Europeans seems to think that the U.S. was as much of an oppressor as the Soviets. If they doubt what they owe to the U.S., let them go to Buchenwald and Auschwitz.)
Trying to depict the U.S. missiles in Turkey as the moral equivalent of the Soviet missiles in Cuba is tantamount to treating the jailer who locks up a convicted serial killer as the moral equivalent of that murderer.
I do agree that the UN remains a sham, because it accepts nondemocratic governments as members. How can the UN be a force for positive change when it treats countries like Libya, Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe, and other deniers of freedom as the peers of democracies like the U.S., UK, Germany, etc. Nondemocratic regimes are the enemies of humanity, The UN should actively work to eliminate them, rather than give wrap them in respectability in New York.
If you don't threaten us or other democracies, we will leave you alone. In today's world, however, any totalitarian regime is a threat to any democracy anywhere. That's because totalitarian regimes base their survival on conjuring a threat from democracies.
What's "fair" about leaving enemy missiles in Cuba? What's "fair" about not opposing totalitarian regimes? What's fair about not working to spread democracy?
If the rest of the world wants to hate the U.S. because we want them to live free and democractic lives and because we believe that any government that is not freely elected by its people is illegitimate and should be eliminated, then they'll just have to hate the U.S.
Meanwhile, they can all wallow in their racism, their own hatred, and their own glorified tribal politics. Some day they'll pay the price for that.
Don't forget that we're still iving in a world where the racist anti-Semitic ruler of a major country (Malaysia) can get away with declaring that democracy is something Jews invented to protect themselves. Civilized people can't afford to let that kind of nonsense persist.
Governments classify information because they fear it could be used to damage the interests of their country. Why should any government release information that can be used by its enemies?
Having lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, let me say you are wrong. (Getting your history from talk radio these day?)
The missiles installed by the Soviets in Cuba were no sham. They carries nuclear warheads and could reach much of the eastern U.S.
There is no reason why the U.S. should have acquiesced to this threat simply because the U.S. has similar weapons stationed in Turkey. The fovernment of the U.S., and every other country, has a moral obligation to do what is necessary to protect its citizens. Kennedy would have defaulted on his moral responsibilities and merited impeachment if he didn't act to remove those missiles.
Military competitions like the Cold War aren't about "playing fair"; they're about winning.
Any regime that is not elected by the people it governs is illegitimate and has no right to exist. In today's world, totalitarian regimes foster their own survival by threatening democratic governments. In the absence of any apparent international effort to eliminate these totalitarian regimes (after all, the UN lets them all in as members, treating them as peers of civilized nations), democractic governments have a right to eliminate them.
The U.S. is not some benificent society obligated to help the world. It's a country created explicitly to avoid the rest of the world. Americans have every right to be partisan in defense of their nation, to act in their perceived self-interest, and no obligation to "play fair" when choosing between people like Batista and Castro. Both were/are scum, but Batista was scum whose behavior benefited the U.S., and Castro is scum whose behavior benefited America's enemy. Why would any sensible society choose to support the ally of an enemy?
But there's one problem with this cynical approach. It's pointless to classify something that's already been released. I.e., retroactive classification doesn't hide anything.
>> There is no other good reason for the government to hide information from its people.
It's classified to keep it away from the bad guys, not the American public. Suppose someone declassified every document created during the Manhattan Project. How long would it be before some publisher (or web geek) published detailed plans for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? By my calendar, those files are almost 60 years old, but I sure don't want them in the public domain.
>>...the funding by President Kennedy of the longest-running terrorist campaign against any nation (Operation Mongoose, against Cuba...
Nice twist of logic. Regime's like Castro's have no right to exist. Kennedy was justifed to go after him. Especially because he turned his island into a Soviet launch pad.
There's no guarantee that the officials with the authority to declassify whatever files SC-Fi thinks exist actually work in NASA. It seems much more likey to me that any files, if they exist, were classified by another agency.
Slashdot Mirror
No "holier than thou". I wouldn't waste it on a liar.
No one is asserting that America is without flaws. But I am asserting that it's a far better place than Europe, and that responsiblity for the world's misery for the last 150 years -- and millions and millions of deaths -- can be laid squarely at the feet of Europe and Europeans.
We in the U.S. did not cause World War One. You did.
We in the U.S. did not cause World War Two. You did.
We in the U.S. did not create socialism, facism, communism, and the Cold War. You did.
We in the U.S. have not rounded up millions of citizens and shipped them off to camps, gulags and prisons to rot, to die, and to be murdered. You did. And, as Milosevic proved, you're still doing it.
We didn't capture millions of Africans to be sold as slaves in European colonies. You did.
We didn't spend centuries believing that monarchs were appointed by God to rule. You did.
Need I go on?
Neither Europe or the U.S. is free of sin, but Europeans seem arrogantly and hypocritically bent on applying one standard to the U.S. and another standard to themselves and the rest of the world. In pursuit of that, you're quite willing to distort history, believe propaganda, and speak lies.
I can only conclude that you value comfort and a full belly more than you value your freedom. You certainly do not value truth,
The article says people are more annoyed with spam than door-to-door salespeople knocking on their front door. Or even unsolicited phone calls.
OK. People would rather put up with some poor yammering sod than hit "delete"?
Makes little sense to me.
Whose history have you been reading?
Tell me how Americans saved the world for democracy in the 20th century without endangering it first.
Yeah, right. Americans divided Europe into opposing arm camps; Americans killed the arch duke; Americans started World War I; Americans captured Czechoslovakia and those were American tanks in Poland in 1939; those were American bombers over London; those were American troops fighting toward Moscow; those were American fascist leaders hanging from street lamps in Rome; those were Americans who voted for Hitler; those ere Americans Stalin used to occupy and oppress half of Europe; those were Americans running the Soviet Union for 70 years;
Tell me again how Americans weren't colonialists themselves.
We colonized; we stopped. After all, we spent almost 200 years as a colony under the thumb of a distant monarchy. Europeans were/are better at it. (See west Africa today.)
Tell me again how Americans didn't prosper on the looted wealth and resources of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Trade isn't looting. Both Americans and Europeans had every right to do business there. Demanding that we stay out of other parts of the world so they can stay "pristine" and "uncorrupted" by the West is simply racism -- "We wise white Westerners need to create an artificial environment so these poor not-so-wise brown people can remain frozen in their quaint local lifestyles". (As for real looting, just how did all those Greek, Roman and Egyptian artifacts end up in museums in Berlin and London?)
Tell me again how Americans accept all their minorities, rather than segregating and attempting to exterminate several of them.
Our relations with native Americans are nothing to be proud of, but it was inevitable. European culture, as imported to the Americas, was completely at odds with Indian culture. To argue that Europeans should have stayed in Europe and left the Indians alone displays a racist-based ignorance of history and humanity. As for Latin America, I'll let you decide who was less civilized: Indian cultures based on constant war and practicing human sacrifice of their children or brainwashed conquistadors?
Tell me again that Americans didn't write and believe Dianetics, The Manifesto of the Unabomber, and The Turner Diaries.
We have our share of loons, charlatans and criminals, too. We just don't vote them into office, walk away from democracy, and let them start the killing.
I stand corrected. Maybe I read too much UK press.
SuSE adds value by delivering more than 1000 pages of excellent documentation (beats getting half-baked advice rom the web);a well-tuned configuration; and a working update system.
If people don't think that's worth paying for, that's their decision. I suspect SuSE figurs they havent lost a sale, anyway, since people who expect Linux to cost nothing, as well as being free, aren't much of a market.
I bought it for good support, reliable updates, and great documentation. It's worth 60 bucks.
I'm a happy SuSE 8.2 user who switched to FreeBSD and cancelled a 9.0 preporder. (The jury is still out, tho.) I'm noticing no subjective performace differences between the two.
I believe the installed kernel isn't replaced until the first online update. Is that update available to people who haven't purchased SuSE?
Agree that SuSE is a great distribution, and the FreeBSD is good enough to spoil me, too.
Remember, tho, that it's a European product. All those binaries are in there because, first, it's a great selling point, and, second, because bandwidth costs more in Europe. Systems like ports or emerge are only viable when bandwidth costs are negligible. That's why all those European Linux magazine stick CD's and DVD's on their covers.
Tell me again how Europeans saved the world for democracy in the 20th century.
Tell me again how Europeans fought colonialism.
Tell me again how Europeans didn't prosper on the looted wealth and resources of Asia, Africa and Latin America.
Tell me again how Europeans accept all their minorities, rather than segregating and attempting to exterminate several of them.
Tell me again that Europeans didn't write and believe Das Kapital, Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto.
Thanks, but I'll pass on the email invitation.
I'll wrap up by saying that I think that many, perhaps most, people in and outside the U.S. have forgotten how radical and revolutionary the principles on which the U.S. is based really are. When an American starts to act in accordance with the principles outlined in the Declaration of Independence and in all the other writings of the founders, it can shock others who were nurtured in another kind of culture. Americans really do believe that the only source of a government's legitimacy is the informed consent of the governed expressed in fair elections. We really do believe that any and all governments that are not derived democratically are illegitimate and that the people they oppress must rise up and overthrow them. In the modern world, contrary to the Enlightment world of the American Revolution, the rise of totalitarianism means oppressed people lack the means to revolt and overthrow their governments. That means that other democracies have an obligation to find ways to thwart and eliminate those regimes.
The requirements of the Cold War -- national survival -- meant that the U.S. spent 50 years looking the other way, finding allies against the primary threat where we could, regardless of their legitimacy.
But, that's over. The Cold War ended ten years ago. The political allegiances the U.S. forged during that time still linger on, but they are already changing. For example, the ongoing discussion about NATO, and growing questioning of our relations with the Saudis and other oil-rich Arab plutocracies. (At the street level, Americans don't like what they've seen of the Middle East since 9-11, and that applies to both the Arabs and Israel. In time, this shift in viewpoint will alter U.S. foreign policy.)
It's my impression that much of the world now sees the Cold War between the U.S. and the USSR as a struggle between two equally amoral opponents, and now profess fear that U.S. dominance is as dangerous as Soviet dominance. Nothing is farther from the truth. Where America dominates, it dominates because the people accept and want what it offers. E.g.,there are McDonalds all over Europe, but Europeans own them and Europeans eat there. They are free to take their business elsewhere, If enough do, McDonalds will leave their city. Unlike the Soviets, no jack-boot American troops marched in the streets to compel people to accept foreign products.
That said, no American is a saint. We suffer from the same temptations and the same greed as everyone. But that does not obscure the fundamentally revolutionary nature of the American belief system.
Sorry, you're lapsing into something that's incoherent. Try again when you don't want to rant about the "rights of workers" like a good little socialist.
Maybe we Americans would be better off to just stop buying Volkswagens, Mercedes, Chryslers, Posches, and Audis; to stop buying Shell gas, etc., etc.
Don't forget that the U.S. exists thanks to the failures of Europe. We produced democracy while Europe produced monarchies, fascism, socialism, communism, the "diktat" of the state, and other abominations. It's only been in the last 50 years, while Europe prospered thanks to U.S. protection, that they've started to emerge from that swamp of bogus ideology.
My ancestors fled Europe because of persecution after one of them was burned at the stake (in what is now Germany). Things are not perfect in the U.S. but it wasn't Europe that had to send troops and money to North America three times in one century to keep Americans from enslaving the world.
No, you are talking about the missile crisis. I'm not.
Of course, the U.S. hated the communist way of life., Any sane person would.The Soviet people can only be faulted for not rising up and eliminating their oppressors. That they did not is testimony to the bogus lure of nationalism.
Since the Soviet Union had missiles targetted on every city in the country, we had every reason to seek allies (not necessarily friends) where we could. After all, the Soviets were allied with us in WWII. Communism was no less a threat than Naziism and fascism.
Actions by one state against another are justfied if the second nation poses a threat against the first. (That would not be true if a legitimate and democratic international political structure existed that could create legislation binding on all people. But, it does not exist.) You would have me believe that U.S. actions to thwart the Soviets and foster American interests were just as bad as Soviet actions to thwart the U.S. That's ludicrous and contemptable. Motivation and purpose count.
If you believe that the only legitimate way of life is a democratic way, that the only legitimate government is an elected government, you won't condemn deomcracies for not allowing nondemocracies free rein to do as they please.
I don't quite understand what you're saying about the UN, but I will say this: It is a nondemocratic organization. I am not interested in giving nondemocratic states a right to join a "peer group" in New York. I am interested in promoting democracy and defeating those who oppose it. I did not vote for my representative in the UN, and neither did you. Certainly, there is no ethical reason to treat oppressive countries as peers of democracies. Why place the "freedom" of governments above the freedoms of their citizens?
The only reaon for the UN to exist is to spread democracy. It can't do that if it continues to treat criminal states with undeserved dignity. The U.S. and the other legitimate democracies would be better advised to leave the UN and establish their own "League of Democracies".
U.S. support for states like Saudi Arabia and others is a legacy of the Cold War. The American people know little about the Saudis except that they are repressive, especially to women, and would rather they just went away and were replaced by something slightly less medieval. If they weren't sitting on all that oil, they'd still be poor fisherman.
As for Israel and Palestine, Israel's behavior is often equivalent to apartheid. But, after living in the Arab Middle East for some years, I'm convinced that many Arabs are not interested in democracy, but expect to be taken care of by someone else. (Many told me that the Gulf States, rich with oil, were obligated to "send money" to them so they wouldn't have to work so hard.) It's very much still a tribal culture. And, I can't tell you how many Palestinians have told me that " 'Arafat is a corrupt and incompetent leader", but that "we owe him our allegiance". I just don't get that.
What's wrong with businesses trying to advance their own interests? What's wrong with countries trying to enhance and protect the interests of their citizens? Don't German businesses and German citizens expect the German government to protect them no matter where they are on the globe?
If you don't like U.S. dominance, compete and try to surpass us. Otherwise, don't be a hyprocite and hold the U.S. accountable to standards you apply neither to yourself, your own country, or others.
God forbid you expect the rest of the world to accept what goes on in Brussels as a precedent?
Your argument seems to assume that a country like the Soviet Union deserves to be treated as a peer of civilized democracies. It didn't. Systems of individual morals and ethics do not transfer to relations between states. The Soviet Union was an oppresive anti-human totalitarian regime that committed a series of atrocities against both its own citizens and other nations. Because of its nature, its actions to oppose the U.S. were untenable. Because of its own nature, U.S. actions to oppose the USSR were tenable. The USSR did not merit being treated as an acceptable member of the international community. It was a force for evil in the world and the world is better for its disappearance.
(Especially Europe, not that many Europeans seem to have any sense of gratitude for the sacrifices the U.S. made three times in the 20th century to save Europe from the vile leaders and philosophies it spawned. But, now that they're fat and happy, Europeans seems to think that the U.S. was as much of an oppressor as the Soviets. If they doubt what they owe to the U.S., let them go to Buchenwald and Auschwitz.)
Trying to depict the U.S. missiles in Turkey as the moral equivalent of the Soviet missiles in Cuba is tantamount to treating the jailer who locks up a convicted serial killer as the moral equivalent of that murderer.
I do agree that the UN remains a sham, because it accepts nondemocratic governments as members. How can the UN be a force for positive change when it treats countries like Libya, Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe, and other deniers of freedom as the peers of democracies like the U.S., UK, Germany, etc. Nondemocratic regimes are the enemies of humanity, The UN should actively work to eliminate them, rather than give wrap them in respectability in New York.
If you don't threaten us or other democracies, we will leave you alone. In today's world, however, any totalitarian regime is a threat to any democracy anywhere. That's because totalitarian regimes base their survival on conjuring a threat from democracies.
What's "fair" about leaving enemy missiles in Cuba? What's "fair" about not opposing totalitarian regimes? What's fair about not working to spread democracy?
If the rest of the world wants to hate the U.S. because we want them to live free and democractic lives and because we believe that any government that is not freely elected by its people is illegitimate and should be eliminated, then they'll just have to hate the U.S.
Meanwhile, they can all wallow in their racism, their own hatred, and their own glorified tribal politics. Some day they'll pay the price for that.
Don't forget that we're still iving in a world where the racist anti-Semitic ruler of a major country (Malaysia) can get away with declaring that democracy is something Jews invented to protect themselves. Civilized people can't afford to let that kind of nonsense persist.
That's not to the point.
Governments classify information because they fear it could be used to damage the interests of their country. Why should any government release information that can be used by its enemies?
No, the plans developed in the Manhattan Project are not available.
Why do you think that it is so important for a government to allow its enemies to see information that can be used to kill its citizens?
Having lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, let me say you are wrong. (Getting your history from talk radio these day?)
The missiles installed by the Soviets in Cuba were no sham. They carries nuclear warheads and could reach much of the eastern U.S.
There is no reason why the U.S. should have acquiesced to this threat simply because the U.S. has similar weapons stationed in Turkey. The fovernment of the U.S., and every other country, has a moral obligation to do what is necessary to protect its citizens. Kennedy would have defaulted on his moral responsibilities and merited impeachment if he didn't act to remove those missiles.
Military competitions like the Cold War aren't about "playing fair"; they're about winning.
Any regime that is not elected by the people it governs is illegitimate and has no right to exist. In today's world, totalitarian regimes foster their own survival by threatening democratic governments. In the absence of any apparent international effort to eliminate these totalitarian regimes (after all, the UN lets them all in as members, treating them as peers of civilized nations), democractic governments have a right to eliminate them.
The U.S. is not some benificent society obligated to help the world. It's a country created explicitly to avoid the rest of the world. Americans have every right to be partisan in defense of their nation, to act in their perceived self-interest, and no obligation to "play fair" when choosing between people like Batista and Castro. Both were/are scum, but Batista was scum whose behavior benefited the U.S., and Castro is scum whose behavior benefited America's enemy. Why would any sensible society choose to support the ally of an enemy?
Who knows?
But there's one problem with this cynical approach. It's pointless to classify something that's already been released. I.e., retroactive classification doesn't hide anything.
How does Sci-Fi know that there are any documents in the first place? That's the whole point of classifying something: keep it a secret.
I might claim NASA has classified documents proving that von Braun was really a time traveller from the future. No one would believe NASA's denials.
>> There is no other good reason for the government to hide information from its people.
It's classified to keep it away from the bad guys, not the American public. Suppose someone declassified every document created during the Manhattan Project. How long would it be before some publisher (or web geek) published detailed plans for the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? By my calendar, those files are almost 60 years old, but I sure don't want them in the public domain.
>> ...the funding by President Kennedy of the longest-running terrorist campaign against any nation (Operation Mongoose, against Cuba...
Nice twist of logic. Regime's like Castro's have no right to exist. Kennedy was justifed to go after him. Especially because he turned his island into a Soviet launch pad.
There's no guarantee that the officials with the authority to declassify whatever files SC-Fi thinks exist actually work in NASA. It seems much more likey to me that any files, if they exist, were classified by another agency.