I wish Americans would stop believing that they entered WW2 out of the goodness of their hearts.
When did I say or imply that?
I didn't. I know full well we entered when it was clearly in our interest to do so.
The fact remains they were European Wars that the United States had no choice to get involved in, and we lost good men and money on both. Any influence the US's demands of reparations had in the start of WW2 gets lost in a sea of European cowardace, malfeasense, procrastination, and belligerence.
No, you don't get an apology, because you're an equally arrogant (insert appropriate foriegner slur here.) You start out insulting me, and now think you're owed an apology? Astounding.
And you're still an AC.
the USA Department of Justice has been indicting USA companies and citizens in relation to the scandal.
So then we're cleaning up our own mess. Who else can say the same?
Europe started both wars. Either through direct power plays, or failing to stop the rise of a belligerent Germany prior to WW2. You started the messes, we had to clean them up. Do you think that endears favor among American citizens and politicians?
Don't act as if we owed you anything, besides to make sure the wars ended in our favor.
We endured both wars for longer than you, lost millions of military and civil personnel.
You started said wars, and yet you speak as if we owed you to be in the wars from day one. Ever thought maybe the US wasn't fond of the idea of cleaning up your messes, and only became involved when absolutely needed?
You were late into both wars, losing a few hundred thousand military personnel. Again, Europe created the wars. Don't act like we owed you a damn thing, besides joining in when it was clear our asses were on the line too. Europe has only become neutered and lost it's war-like fashion because of the US presence- such that any war would involve attacking Americans, a prospect no one takes lightly.
The purpose of NATO, and heavy American presence in Europe, was to keep "The Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down."
We don't like losing hundreds of thousands of men because of European political power plays- and since we decided to stay in Europe, we haven't.
Dear Europe, Check your records. We've paid that invoice twice in the first half of the 20th century, and protecting you from Soviet Russia for the second half of the 20th century puts us well in the black.
Why would anyone need a slander campaign to make the UN look bad?
Standard news will make the UN look bad all on it's own- which you'd know if you've been paying any attention to the oil-for-food scandal, or any other story that's popped up in the past decade or so.
It just pisses me off to see this black and white thinking
I'm sure you're into all sorts of sophisticated and multi-layered shades of grey, but when it comes down to it, there is still Good, Evil, Better, Worse, etc. People like you would use the justification of 'sophistication' to shut down your naturaul-born facilities for judgement, and actually consider any situation less clearly, and take no resolute position or action- all in the name of appearing 'compassionate' and 'understanding'. Such thinking makes a man less useless, slow, and indecisive.
Don't keep your mind too open, buddy, or people will throw a lot of trash into it.
Spoken like someone who's never been depended on to run a business. When your employees have to feed their families, you've got to feed yours, the mechanics have to be paid, the lights have to stay on, your investors want some dividends, and some old trucks have to be replaced, you'll find out your priorities would be pretty damn similar.
It's the way it works in our capitilistic society, which fortunately produces enough wealth that we can still be pretty darn clean about these kinds of things, especially compared to even two or three decades ago.
This is what happens when you pussify a nation so much even normal police don't carry guns- and the few who do have so little practice, training, or experience in carrying firearms and deciding when to shoot, they fuck up spectacularly.
Yeah, we let our cops shoot people who threaten them or others in their presence. The ones who die from police bullets are typically the sort society can do without.
but in the US and other countries where we're supposedly "innocent until proven guilty", lethal weapons carried by law enforcement might truely be seen for the problem they are.
When someone is attacking you, the fact that a criminal act is in progress is not in question. We do not need a large legal system, a couple lawyers, a judge, and a jury to figure out that something bad is going down. Killing the attacker at that point is not a matter of 'justice','innocence', or 'guilt', but a matter of self-preservation. Police officers have the same right of self preservation as the rest of us, in addition to the duty to protect bystanders from an obviously dangerous individual.
How many pirates would have to get perforated before they learned to leave certain ships alone? I'd imagine word would travel fast, even amongst pirates.
Sure, the passengers on one ship might hear some gunfire, but the next several voyages would be quite peaceful.
Yep. You could have taken the time to offer some sort of vauge rationalization of the EU/UN seeking power over the DNS, but instead you latch onto some bit of hyberbole of mine like a rabid dog. You use it as an excuse to shut down the conversation- yet in your desire to get in the last shot (one obviously familiar to me) you come back and only prove my most recent point.
You (and the EU and UN) have nothing to offer but sneers, and are good at nothing but staring down your noses at us silly, juvinile, arrogant americans- who, after such defects, still manage to be the world's sole superpower. Must really grate you to live in our shadow, eh, seeing as how we're a bunch of rubes?
Comeon, come back and try to get in the last shot. You know you want to. You can't have this sub thread end with me calling you useless, can you? All 6 people who bother to read this deep might think this American got the better of you, and you certainly can't have that embarrasment from some jingoist flag-waver stand. Surely you have one more taunt to offer? Or, hope of all hopes, maybe you have some reason why the EU or UN would be any better than ICANN?
Nah, I'm sure you'll just have some other 'stupid american' taunt. Can you resist posting it? Likely not.
Fascinating. A half dozen replies in, and you suddenly decide that after wasting all this time with me, i'm not serious nor worth a response?
I can only surmise that you have no answer then, and are seeking to avoid discussing the meat of the matter because all you have is crow to offer. Sudenly playing 'I'm above this discussion' after going so deep into it looks rather absurd.
Most countries care about not turning the world against it and its citizens, the only exceptions seem to be rouge nations.
I think it's more a matter of "What you want isn't terribly relevant to us", more than "We want you to turn against us."
We also know in advance, that if we don't go along with what you want in pretty much any department, the answer to "What are you going to do about it?" is "Nothing."
The US should not kowtow to every little demand in the hopes that the world won't turn against us- everyone wants to take down the king of the hill anyway, so trying to please everyone is rather pointless.
Your ilk comes around and demands we do things just to garner your goodwill, without any explanation of why we would benefit from performing or declining to perform any activity, other than your absolutely worthless "goodwill." You somehow harbor the notion that the US should behave on some imaginably high plane of moral standards, the sort that you wouldn't expect from your own government or any other. Yet the egragious moral acts of other countries go unnoticed so your kind can run a sob story about how some murderous jihadist, having been captured, was made to sit uncomfortably for a few hours.
The double standards and ridiculous expections you try to pass off as being a good international citizen to us americans are rather transparent. Countries of old europe have always been rather brash and straightforward about doing whatever suits their national interest, and your pathetic attempts at guilting the United States to act against its interest contradict what you permit of your own nations.
We'll keep the internet, thank you very much. ICANN is good enough, and to think such a bloated bueacracy as the EU or a corrupt organization such as the UN could do any better is farcial.
Wether it fractures or not depends on you, not us. European countries are theoretically capable of setting up their own DNS servers if they are unhappy with the way the US runs things. Most US citizens could give a rats ass if they can't surf to USAisaRoguenation.org.nz.
Not when it turns the rest of the world against its citizens.
And the sort of folks or governments that care about this sort of technical arcana.... just what do you think you're going to do about it?
Scour at us, frown, and write very angry letters. And when we ignore all that, write an even more strongly worded letter. I doubt all these concerned european powers can even muster up the organizational skills to set up different DNS root servers, but they sure could screw up something functional that we hand them control of.
WoW has seperate servers for roleplaying- the vast majority of the servers are populated by folks- like me- who don't give a rat's ass about pretending to be something I'm not and just want to play the game. The race, gender and class are simply choices towards that end- playing the game.
I imagine many other MMORPG's have a similar distribution of players.
That being said, who you really are isn't terribly important to playing the game, so revealing such details about yourself is wholly optional.
That'll buy a hell of a lot of DDT, which is the only thing you need to eradicate malaria.
Unfortunately, a bunch of overwrought environmentalists managed to get the use and manufacture of DDT severely restricted on the basis of some very bad science.
The malaria problem has already been solved. We just need to allow third world countries to use the same solution we used before some trashy 60's book that cried about DDT softening eggshells.
If the US sneezes, the whole world catches a cold.
That's a very old saying and it plays out in economic trends time and time again. If other countries tried to fuck us with sanctions, it would hurt them far more.
The US is the worlds biggest, richest market. No one wants to cut themselves off from that for any significant length of time.
Slashdot Mirror
I wish Americans would stop believing that they entered WW2 out of the goodness of their hearts.
When did I say or imply that?
I didn't. I know full well we entered when it was clearly in our interest to do so.
The fact remains they were European Wars that the United States had no choice to get involved in, and we lost good men and money on both. Any influence the US's demands of reparations had in the start of WW2 gets lost in a sea of European cowardace, malfeasense, procrastination, and belligerence.
No, you don't get an apology, because you're an equally arrogant (insert appropriate foriegner slur here.) You start out insulting me, and now think you're owed an apology? Astounding.
And you're still an AC.
the USA Department of Justice has been indicting USA companies and citizens in relation to the scandal.
So then we're cleaning up our own mess. Who else can say the same?
Yet the USA was one of the prime offenders in that scandal!
Really? Show me the involvement of US politicians.
Or STFU, you worthless AC.
Europe started both wars. Either through direct power plays, or failing to stop the rise of a belligerent Germany prior to WW2. You started the messes, we had to clean them up. Do you think that endears favor among American citizens and politicians?
Don't act as if we owed you anything, besides to make sure the wars ended in our favor.
We endured both wars for longer than you, lost millions of military and civil personnel.
You started said wars, and yet you speak as if we owed you to be in the wars from day one. Ever thought maybe the US wasn't fond of the idea of cleaning up your messes, and only became involved when absolutely needed?
You were late into both wars, losing a few hundred thousand military personnel.
Again, Europe created the wars. Don't act like we owed you a damn thing, besides joining in when it was clear our asses were on the line too. Europe has only become neutered and lost it's war-like fashion because of the US presence- such that any war would involve attacking Americans, a prospect no one takes lightly.
The purpose of NATO, and heavy American presence in Europe, was to keep "The Americans in, the Russians out, and the Germans down."
We don't like losing hundreds of thousands of men because of European political power plays- and since we decided to stay in Europe, we haven't.
Dear Europe,
Check your records.
We've paid that invoice twice in the first half of the 20th century, and protecting you from Soviet Russia for the second half of the 20th century puts us well in the black.
Regards,
US
Why would anyone need a slander campaign to make the UN look bad?
Standard news will make the UN look bad all on it's own- which you'd know if you've been paying any attention to the oil-for-food scandal, or any other story that's popped up in the past decade or so.
It just pisses me off to see this black and white thinking
I'm sure you're into all sorts of sophisticated and multi-layered shades of grey, but when it comes down to it, there is still Good, Evil, Better, Worse, etc. People like you would use the justification of 'sophistication' to shut down your naturaul-born facilities for judgement, and actually consider any situation less clearly, and take no resolute position or action- all in the name of appearing 'compassionate' and 'understanding'. Such thinking makes a man less useless, slow, and indecisive.
Don't keep your mind too open, buddy, or people will throw a lot of trash into it.
Spoken like someone who's never been depended on to run a business. When your employees have to feed their families, you've got to feed yours, the mechanics have to be paid, the lights have to stay on, your investors want some dividends, and some old trucks have to be replaced, you'll find out your priorities would be pretty damn similar.
It's the way it works in our capitilistic society, which fortunately produces enough wealth that we can still be pretty darn clean about these kinds of things, especially compared to even two or three decades ago.
This is what happens when you pussify a nation so much even normal police don't carry guns- and the few who do have so little practice, training, or experience in carrying firearms and deciding when to shoot, they fuck up spectacularly.
Yeah, we let our cops shoot people who threaten them or others in their presence. The ones who die from police bullets are typically the sort society can do without.
Nonetheless, both ships have still been attacked by pirates.
Who proceeded to win darwin awards, I imagine.
but in the US and other countries where we're supposedly "innocent until proven guilty", lethal weapons carried by law enforcement might truely be seen for the problem they are.
,'innocence', or 'guilt', but a matter of self-preservation. Police officers have the same right of self preservation as the rest of us, in addition to the duty to protect bystanders from an obviously dangerous individual.
When someone is attacking you, the fact that a criminal act is in progress is not in question. We do not need a large legal system, a couple lawyers, a judge, and a jury to figure out that something bad is going down. Killing the attacker at that point is not a matter of 'justice'
Passenger, fishing and cargo ships should hold to their own jobs.
Self defense is a fundamental right.
How many pirates would have to get perforated before they learned to leave certain ships alone? I'd imagine word would travel fast, even amongst pirates.
Sure, the passengers on one ship might hear some gunfire, but the next several voyages would be quite peaceful.
well, that's too bad. I haven't spent much time on them so I couldn't really tell.
Yep. You could have taken the time to offer some sort of vauge rationalization of the EU/UN seeking power over the DNS, but instead you latch onto some bit of hyberbole of mine like a rabid dog. You use it as an excuse to shut down the conversation- yet in your desire to get in the last shot (one obviously familiar to me) you come back and only prove my most recent point.
You (and the EU and UN) have nothing to offer but sneers, and are good at nothing but staring down your noses at us silly, juvinile, arrogant americans- who, after such defects, still manage to be the world's sole superpower. Must really grate you to live in our shadow, eh, seeing as how we're a bunch of rubes?
Comeon, come back and try to get in the last shot. You know you want to. You can't have this sub thread end with me calling you useless, can you? All 6 people who bother to read this deep might think this American got the better of you, and you certainly can't have that embarrasment from some jingoist flag-waver stand. Surely you have one more taunt to offer? Or, hope of all hopes, maybe you have some reason why the EU or UN would be any better than ICANN?
Nah, I'm sure you'll just have some other 'stupid american' taunt. Can you resist posting it? Likely not.
Fascinating. A half dozen replies in, and you suddenly decide that after wasting all this time with me, i'm not serious nor worth a response?
I can only surmise that you have no answer then, and are seeking to avoid discussing the meat of the matter because all you have is crow to offer. Sudenly playing 'I'm above this discussion' after going so deep into it looks rather absurd.
Unfortunately, in the minds of most Americans, communism is equivalent to totalitarianism.
Name a nation-state that has practiced communism without authoritarianism.
Conversely, there have been numerous authoritarian states that weren't communist- no one denies that.
Communism cannot exist without totalitarinism, or in small self-selected voluntary societies (comunes).
blah blah blah usual back and forth between a bed wetting european and an unapologetic american blah blah blah
Now go away and play with your playstation.
Oh, snap! You sure dissed me!
I did notice, however, that you failed to address the one point that's really core to this entire thread:
ICANN is good enough, and to think such a bloated bueacracy as the EU or a corrupt organization such as the UN could do any better is farcial.
Thank you! come again!
Most countries care about not turning the world against it and its citizens, the only exceptions seem to be rouge nations.
I think it's more a matter of "What you want isn't terribly relevant to us", more than "We want you to turn against us."
We also know in advance, that if we don't go along with what you want in pretty much any department, the answer to "What are you going to do about it?" is "Nothing."
The US should not kowtow to every little demand in the hopes that the world won't turn against us- everyone wants to take down the king of the hill anyway, so trying to please everyone is rather pointless.
Your ilk comes around and demands we do things just to garner your goodwill, without any explanation of why we would benefit from performing or declining to perform any activity, other than your absolutely worthless "goodwill." You somehow harbor the notion that the US should behave on some imaginably high plane of moral standards, the sort that you wouldn't expect from your own government or any other. Yet the egragious moral acts of other countries go unnoticed so your kind can run a sob story about how some murderous jihadist, having been captured, was made to sit uncomfortably for a few hours.
The double standards and ridiculous expections you try to pass off as being a good international citizen to us americans are rather transparent. Countries of old europe have always been rather brash and straightforward about doing whatever suits their national interest, and your pathetic attempts at guilting the United States to act against its interest contradict what you permit of your own nations.
We'll keep the internet, thank you very much. ICANN is good enough, and to think such a bloated bueacracy as the EU or a corrupt organization such as the UN could do any better is farcial.
Wether it fractures or not depends on you, not us. European countries are theoretically capable of setting up their own DNS servers if they are unhappy with the way the US runs things. Most US citizens could give a rats ass if they can't surf to USAisaRoguenation.org.nz.
Not when it turns the rest of the world against its citizens.
And the sort of folks or governments that care about this sort of technical arcana.... just what do you think you're going to do about it?
Scour at us, frown, and write very angry letters. And when we ignore all that, write an even more strongly worded letter. I doubt all these concerned european powers can even muster up the organizational skills to set up different DNS root servers, but they sure could screw up something functional that we hand them control of.
WoW has seperate servers for roleplaying- the vast majority of the servers are populated by folks- like me- who don't give a rat's ass about pretending to be something I'm not and just want to play the game. The race, gender and class are simply choices towards that end- playing the game.
I imagine many other MMORPG's have a similar distribution of players.
That being said, who you really are isn't terribly important to playing the game, so revealing such details about yourself is wholly optional.
That'll buy a hell of a lot of DDT, which is the only thing you need to eradicate malaria.
Unfortunately, a bunch of overwrought environmentalists managed to get the use and manufacture of DDT severely restricted on the basis of some very bad science.
The malaria problem has already been solved. We just need to allow third world countries to use the same solution we used before some trashy 60's book that cried about DDT softening eggshells.
This is insightful?
Lotta political hacks posting and moderating. How bout that.
Try saying something original and useful in the slightest, not the same sort of tripe we've heard for the past 5 years.
If the US sneezes, the whole world catches a cold.
That's a very old saying and it plays out in economic trends time and time again. If other countries tried to fuck us with sanctions, it would hurt them far more.
The US is the worlds biggest, richest market. No one wants to cut themselves off from that for any significant length of time.
You know there are, in fact, women who continue to do those sorts of things, and enjoy it?