Nonsense. The universe is made up of objective facts. If you did not actually believe that, you wouldn't be wasting your time sending words out over the wire, now would you?
Leaving aside the racist and false analogies of the site you link to, just what does this statement mean? That we are all citizens of a totalitarian dictatorship which pays us to send our children to blow themselves up in the children's areas of restaurants in order to distract us from the fact that we live in a state in which we have no freedoms and no democracy? I'd have to differ, really...
The next year the Soviets developed such a computer of their own, using stolen US technlogies. When they unveiled it to the world, they invited representatives from the US to ask it any questions, to show that they had caught up.
`What is Kruschev's shoe size?' asked the US ambassador.
`9 1/2', said the Computer.
`What is the atomic weight of Helium?' asked the US Ambassador.
`4.0026' said the computer.
`What is the annual wheat outout of the Soviet Union?' asked the General.
`But what about the crime problem in America's inner cities?', said the computer.
With due respect, I'd suggest you read more about the DeCal program at UCB. This course was indeed not developed with university funds, nor was the teacher paid to give it. However, the course was an official UCB course, offered for credit, and advertised in the school bulletin. School resources were available for the teaching of this course.
As plenty of articles on this whole affair have pointed out, a graded part of the course was going to see the instructor get screwed at a sex club. This is something that should be offered for credit at a taxpayer-funded school?
first off we are not "just as bad" in a cultural sense. only in a death sense.
What does this mean? Is killing an enemy soldier in war because he is trying to kill you `just as bad' as killing thousands of enemy civilians because you believe their culture is the `great satan'? No, of course not. We are not in any way `as bad' as them. Where do you get this?
second buchanan is the closes ideolog to bin laden..
How do you figure? Unless your position is that `wanting to restrict immigration and wanting to kill thousands of civilians are just the same, man', this doesn't float at all. I'm not that fond of Mr. Buchanan's views on a number of subjects, but to compare him to Bin Laden is simply nonsense.
Now, if we take your words literally, and say `yes, Mr. Buchanan is the closest we come to Bin Laden, and he's not even remotely close to him', then you've made my point exactly
yes i do seee a difference. america(tm) pushes the buttons for our bombs and the muslims have to sacrifice accuale people.
If that's the only difference you see between attacking enemy soldiers who are trying to kill you and blowing yourself up in the children's area of a restaurant, then you, sir, are a moral midget.
i dont think that any ideology or country that convinces people to die and kill for it is "right" in any true sense of the word.
So you really see no difference between killing someone in self defense when they are trying to kill you, as we are doing and killing civilians for the `crime' of being from the wrong culture, as Mr. Bin Laden advocates?
i hope that you will stop the use of the word islamist or islamic, because anyone who believes in islam is muslim.
The article states that the class was developed as part of the Decal program, yes -- in other words, the teacher was not payed with taxpayer funds, but the class was held in a University classroom (built and maintained with tax dollars), advertised in the university bulletin (with tax dollars), and held with university resources (paid for with tax dollars).
I'm curious though, where you get the idea that one would have to `find sex offensive' (whatever that means) in order to feel the idea of tripe like this being endorsed by a public university and being offered for university credit highly offensive. Care to explain?
I don't find urination `offensive' either, in the proper time and place, but that doesn't mean I want my tax dollars going to encourage people to receive university credit for doing so...
k so 19 muslim men had the gall to kill themsleves and take 2000-3000 people with them as well as 2 buildings. the only reason americans find this so damn evil is because it happened to us.... why doesnt pat buchanan condemn the war in afghanistan, it kills children?
I'm not sure how Mr. Buchanan enters into this discussion at all, but as to the difference between the attacks of September 11 and our response to those actions, well, let's see: while Mr. Bin Laden's followers went out of their way to maximize civilian targets while striking at a civilian target, we have gone out of our way, including putting American soldiers on the ground in harm's way, to strike only military targets and to avoid hitting civilians. You don't see any difference?
and as for muslim(there is no such word as islamic) leaders not condemning it, well politics are politics. I'm certainly not trying to be an apologist for the attacks i'm just pointing out that we are just as bad.
Of course we are not `just as bad'. Where do you get this idea?
and the bombers in israel? why don't you find something out about them before you spout your mouth off, because the majority of them are motiviated by a desire for freedom in their homeland,
How should we believe this when 98% of the PA areas have not been occupied at all since Oslo, and Israel has placed offer after offer on the table offering complete independence for the PA areas in exchange only for an end to the suicide bombings, only to have these offers refused by Arafat?
Is it not actually the case that these poor deluded suicide bombers are acting because Arafat convinces them that they have a chance to destroy all of Israel and take it for themselves?
I welcome you to provide cites for any of the claims you make in your first paragraph, but I would remind you that while you assure us that `all christians are responsible for the holocaust' (truly an amazing claim, since Hitler himself stated destroying and replacing Christianity in Germany as one of his goals), I must ask you how much more culpable, then, are the Arab leaders who allied themselves with Hitler?
and before anyone goes off on a "The Qur'an says fight them all etc etc" rant, allow me to point out that all fighting sanctioned in the qur'an is of a purely defensive nature, with well defined limits. 2:190 "Fight in the cause of Allah, those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors." If you want I could find the links for the limits (not harming civilians etc.) but i don't think it is necessary
I'm not sure how you want us to believe this claim when you make it two paragraphs after claiming that murder-suicide bombings are justified, but let's take it at face value. What then do you say to the constant stream of Islamic leaders in the Arab world telling us that attacks on civilians in Israel (and in many cases the US !) are a holy duty, and those who make them are martyrs? I'm happy to hear that you disagree with this interpretation, but surely you do not claim that this is not a very common interpretation of the Quran?
yeah, well i'm a little disappointed by the US government not giving a shit about the innocent civilians slaughtered in jenin, [hrw.org] so we'll call it even.
How many times are you going to repeat this lie? Even Arafat's own official report of the fighting at Jenin only claims 56 Palestinians died, and admits that almost all of them were combatants.
Hamas' account of the battle, as reported by the Egyptian weekly al-Ahram confirms that those killed were combatants, who died in battle.
Or perhaps you know something that Arafat and Hamas do not? Care to share with us?
With due respect, while I welcome you to provide cites of anything being done by Christians or Jews that approaches the horror of the attacks of September 11 or of the murder-suicide bombings, the fact remains that unlike such actions you may point to, those flying planes into buildings and sending young children to blow themselves up in the hopes of taking civilians with them state explicitly that they are doing so in the name of Islam, and as called for by Islam.
I would certainly welcome a statement from Islamic leaders that the people committing these horrible acts do not, in fact, correctly understand what Islam calls for. Unfortunately, no such statement has emerged from the Arab world -- indeed, many, many statements in support of such an interpretation of Islam have been made.
Which is all very well, except that Christians and Jews aren't flying planes into buildings or blowing themselves up in the children's areas of restaurants.
Now, I'm not a Muslim, and I won't pretend to be able to tell you whether such actions are `true Islam' or not, but they are being done by people who call themselves Muslims, and not by people who claim to belong to other religions.
I have to say that I've also been a little disappointed by the failure of the Islamic community here in the US to condemn such actions...
And I'm telling you that the article is not a legimate interpretation of what the court ruled. You're reading a hysterical interpretation of what the EJC ruled, that conflicts with what it actually said. The fact that it confuses the ECHR with the ECJ by itself should be ringing alarm bells. In any case, the ECJ can rule what it wants, the ECHR trumps it in those countries that have signed up. Even if the ECJ had ruled that European citizens have the "right" to be denied access to conflicting opinions, the ECHR would never allow such a thing in the countries the ECHR covers.
The court's actual ruling, which as I said ruled not that he could be dismissed because he was an EU employee (a ruling which would not bother me), but rather that the citizens of the EU have a `human right' not to here the EU criticized can be read
here. The relevant passage reads:
148 In that regard, it must be recalled that the right to freedom of expression laid down in Article 10 of the ECHR constitutes, as has already been made clear, a fundamental right, the observance of which is guaranteed by the Community Courts and which Community officials also enjoy (Oyowe and Traore v Commission, paragraph 16, and E v ESC, paragraph 41). None the less, it is also clear from settled case-law that fundamental rights do not constitute an unfettered prerogative but may be subject to restrictions, provided that the restrictions in fact correspond to objectives of general public interest pursued by the Community and do not constitute, with regard to the objectives pursued, a disproportionate and intolerable interference which infringes upon the very substance of the rights protected (see Schräder v Hauptzollamt Gronau, paragraph 15; Case C-404/92 P X v Commission [1994] ECR I-4737, paragraph 18; Case T-176/94 K v Commission [1995] ECR-SC I-A-203, II-621, paragraph 33; and N v Commission, paragraph 73).
(a clear statement that the ECHR's protections on free speech only exist to the extent that said speech is not against the `public interest') and
46 In terms of Article 10(2) of the ECHR, specific restrictions on the exercise of the right of freedom of expression can, in principle, be justified by the legitimate aim of protecting the rights of others. The rights at issue here are those of the institutions that are charged with the responsibility of carrying out tasks in the public interest. Citizens must be able to rely on their doing so effectively. 47 That is the aim of the regulations setting out the duties and responsibilities of the European public service. So an official may not, by oral or written expression, act in breach of his obligations under the regulations, particularly Articles 11, 12 and 17, towards the institution that he is supposed to serve. That would destroy the relationship of trust between himself and that institution and make it thereafter more difficult, if not impossible, for the work of the institution to be carried out in cooperation with that official. 48 In exercising their power of review, the Community Courts must decide, having regard to all the circumstances of the case, whether a fair balance has been struck between the individual's fundamental right to freedom of expression and the legitimate concern of the institution to ensure that its officials and agents observe the duties and responsibilities implicit in the performance of their tasks.
Thus, as I said, this is argued not as a use of the privilege of the employer to choose who to hire, but as an assertion that the government has a right to restrict free speech in this matter. Thus, Mr. Conolly's speech was ruled not only to be grounds for firing, but to be something the state could validly rule to be illegal, in the `public interest'.
Another article on this matter can be found
here. There was also some discussion of the matter on the floor of parliament the week that article came out, but I don't have a cite for that at the moment.
Well, as they say on TV, `we report, you decide'. I certainly welcome the readers of this thread to look at the only evidence you have provided (a few lines from China's constitution), and at the evidence I have provided (links to hundreds of individuals persecuted by the Chinese government and hundreds of instances of oppressive policies of the Chinese government), and make up their own minds.
Your `proof' that there is religious freedom consisted of a pointer to the Chinese constitution, which promises such freedom. In reality, this is but one of many freedoms promised by the Chinese constitution which does not exist in reality.
Or do you claim that citizens of the Soviet Union also had freedom of speech and religious freedom because the Soviet constitution promised these things?
I have posted copious documentation on the actual state of religious and political freedom in China in the thread I linked to above. I invite any readers curious about these matters to look there.
Now on to the second half of your post. Let's look at some of these statements:
"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistentwith the purposes of the UN.?" I'd say that's pretty clear.
Perfectly clear, but only because it is taken out of context. The UN Charter also says:
"Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defense if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations."
so, again, after the attacks of September 11 occurred, all bets were off as far as the restrictions placed by the UN charter.
Your turn to cite evidence that the security council approved of how the US chose to respond to 9-11.
On September 28, 2001, both the Security Council and the General Assembly approved US-drafted, US-sponsored measures approving our actions in response to the attacks of September 11. I welcome you to look these up.
Can you provide me with a shred of evidence that the presence of Syria, China or Sudan has had an adverse effect on the judgement of the human rights committee?
While I would argue that such effects are clearly evident, especially in the Human Rights Committee's statements in the matter of Israel, this is beside the point entirely. The mere presence of such notorious human rights violators on the Human Rights committee does irreparable harm to the UN's credibility.
It also states that whether or not they have followed the requirements of the convention is a matter for a tribunal to decide, and that until such a decision has been made, they are to be considered POW's and treated as such.
This is a misrepresentation of a specific provision of the Conventions, which actually calls for such tribunals only in the case where a nation has generally upheld their obligations under the conventions, but where an individual soldier caught fighting in civilian garb claims that he had legitimate reasons to do so.
For more on the Geneva Conventions, see
this article
Afghanistan is free? When did this happen?
Around when it was liberated by US and Northern Alliance troops, basically. Is there more progress to be made? Sure. Is it miles beyond where it was under the Taliban? Clearly.
Food aid is STILL at the present time lower than it was prior to the US attack.
This is simply incorrect. Indeed, in actual fact, even during the air war more aid was reaching Afghanistan than had under the Taliban. Once Kabul fell and the roads from the north were open, aid shipments skyrocketed again. See here for an analysis of claims that food aid is not getting through.
Finally, on the issue of US Foreign policy, I repeat that I do not see a legitimate claim against America by those who you claim `have ample reasons to be angry'. If you do see such a legitimate claim, perhaps you should spell it out.
You maintain that income and purchasing power have nothing to do with standard of living. While I beg to differ, I will agree that in choosing a place to live, people take many factors into account -- for some people, an extra two years (within the margin of error, I would argue) of average lifespan, or a lower crime rate may outweight the fact that by American standards not 5 percent but rather the vast majority percent of Swedes are `poor' -- and this is the problem with the UN study you cite -- it takes only your issues into account and not economics or individual liberty, thus providing a picture which is at least as incomplete as you claim that provided by the study I posted is.
But you are right that economics are not the only factors people will consider, so I will reword my statement. I assert that the US is the most free, the most democratic, and the most prosperous nation on earth, and I leave people to judge for themselves how important these factors are to them.
As to the credibility of that UN study, I ask only that we consider how seriously a study which had for several years previous to the edition you cite ruled that Canada was the best nation on earth in which to live. As to how Canadians themselves feel about this matter, I will only mention that twice as many Canadians move to the US each year Americans move to Canada, even though the US population is nine times that of Canada. Even the actor from the famous `I'm Joe and I'm Canadian' Molson ads now lives in Los Angeles...
It's a fine line, and one which has to be ruled carefully, but whipping up hatred against groups of people based on arbitrary attributes which are not inherently anti-social does strike me as being as legimate to punish as, say, slander and libel which are merely more specific examples of the same laws.
I would argue that such distinctions are by nature arbitrary, and as such, constitute a view of free speech rights which depends on such rights being defined by government, rather than the American approach, in which the rights are inherently the property of the individual, and such powers as government has over these rights is clearly delineated.
I know of no European power which operates under the limitation of any equivalent of the 9th and 10th ammendments to the US Constitution.
By the way, as a side note, on this side of the pond, libel and slander cases are based not on the type of `atmospheric' argument you give, but on specific and demonstrable damage having been done to the victim.
With due respect, what are you claiming is exaggerated? The fact that there is no religious freedom in China, the fact that there is no political freedom in China, the facts of the massacre at Tianenmen, or the facts of the laogai?
Fine and good. The distinction makes no difference to the argument at hand, namely that Kyoto would shaft the US (and the UK), while giving a free ride to other European nations, and to nations like China which are responsible for much of the world's emissions.
With due respect, Kyoto refers purely to emissions of CO2 and a few other gasses, not to all pollution.
As for who is `the bad guy' here, I'm not sure what bothers you about the US. Perhaps you can explain? So far, the only complaint you've made is that we consume a lot, but this amounts to no more than complaining that we are a rich nation.
You may mean cases where political and religious freedom were `restricted'. I meant (and said) religious and political persecution.
The tens of thousands in the
laogai (Chinese forced labor camps for political and religious dissidents) would surely argue that their freedoms have been more than `restricted'. So would the many more who have been murdered, had they only the chance.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the brutal crackdown at Tianenmen. I ask that you not dishonor the unarmed protesters murdered on that day by playing semantic games with their suffering.
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Nonsense. The universe is made up of objective facts. If you did not actually believe that, you wouldn't be wasting your time sending words out over the wire, now would you?
We are all Palestinian [sinkers.org]
Leaving aside the racist and false analogies of the site you link to, just what does this statement mean? That we are all citizens of a totalitarian dictatorship which pays us to send our children to blow themselves up in the children's areas of restaurants in order to distract us from the fact that we live in a state in which we have no freedoms and no democracy? I'd have to differ, really...
The next year the Soviets developed such a computer of their own, using stolen US technlogies. When they unveiled it to the world, they invited representatives from the US to ask it any questions, to show that they had caught up.
`What is Kruschev's shoe size?' asked the US ambassador.
`9 1/2', said the Computer.
`What is the atomic weight of Helium?' asked the US Ambassador.
`4.0026' said the computer.
`What is the annual wheat outout of the Soviet Union?' asked the General.
`But what about the crime problem in America's inner cities?', said the computer.
With due respect, I'd suggest you read more about the DeCal program at UCB. This course was indeed not developed with university funds, nor was the teacher paid to give it. However, the course was an official UCB course, offered for credit, and advertised in the school bulletin. School resources were available for the teaching of this course.
As plenty of articles on this whole affair have pointed out, a graded part of the course was going to see the instructor get screwed at a sex club. This is something that should be offered for credit at a taxpayer-funded school?
Then you're somewhat confused as to who Mr. Buchanan is. But see my response to your other post for more on this.
first off we are not "just as bad" in a cultural sense. only in a death sense.
What does this mean? Is killing an enemy soldier in war because he is trying to kill you `just as bad' as killing thousands of enemy civilians because you believe their culture is the `great satan'? No, of course not. We are not in any way `as bad' as them. Where do you get this?
second buchanan is the closes ideolog to bin laden..
How do you figure? Unless your position is that `wanting to restrict immigration and wanting to kill thousands of civilians are just the same, man', this doesn't float at all. I'm not that fond of Mr. Buchanan's views on a number of subjects, but to compare him to Bin Laden is simply nonsense.
Now, if we take your words literally, and say `yes, Mr. Buchanan is the closest we come to Bin Laden, and he's not even remotely close to him', then you've made my point exactly
yes i do seee a difference. america(tm) pushes the buttons for our bombs and the muslims have to sacrifice accuale people.
If that's the only difference you see between attacking enemy soldiers who are trying to kill you and blowing yourself up in the children's area of a restaurant, then you, sir, are a moral midget.
i dont think that any ideology or country that convinces people to die and kill for it is "right" in any true sense of the word.
So you really see no difference between killing someone in self defense when they are trying to kill you, as we are doing and killing civilians for the `crime' of being from the wrong culture, as Mr. Bin Laden advocates?
i hope that you will stop the use of the word islamist or islamic, because anyone who believes in islam is muslim.
That's not what dictionary.com says.The article states that the class was developed as part of the Decal program, yes -- in other words, the teacher was not payed with taxpayer funds, but the class was held in a University classroom (built and maintained with tax dollars), advertised in the university bulletin (with tax dollars), and held with university resources (paid for with tax dollars).
I'm curious though, where you get the idea that one would have to `find sex offensive' (whatever that means) in order to feel the idea of tripe like this being endorsed by a public university and being offered for university credit highly offensive. Care to explain?
I don't find urination `offensive' either, in the proper time and place, but that doesn't mean I want my tax dollars going to encourage people to receive university credit for doing so...
That's because people surfing pr0n at Berkeley are probably just doing their homework. Your tax dollars at work, ladies and gentlemen.
k so 19 muslim men had the gall to kill themsleves and take 2000-3000 people with them as well as 2 buildings. the only reason americans find this so damn evil is because it happened to us. ... why doesnt pat buchanan condemn the war in afghanistan, it kills children?
I'm not sure how Mr. Buchanan enters into this discussion at all, but as to the difference between the attacks of September 11 and our response to those actions, well, let's see: while Mr. Bin Laden's followers went out of their way to maximize civilian targets while striking at a civilian target, we have gone out of our way, including putting American soldiers on the ground in harm's way, to strike only military targets and to avoid hitting civilians. You don't see any difference?
and as for muslim(there is no such word as islamic) leaders not condemning it, well politics are politics. I'm certainly not trying to be an apologist for the attacks i'm just pointing out that we are just as bad.
Of course we are not `just as bad'. Where do you get this idea?
Oh, and one more point. You say:
and the bombers in israel? why don't you find something out about them before you spout your mouth off, because the majority of them are motiviated by a desire for freedom in their homeland,
How should we believe this when 98% of the PA areas have not been occupied at all since Oslo, and Israel has placed offer after offer on the table offering complete independence for the PA areas in exchange only for an end to the suicide bombings, only to have these offers refused by Arafat?
Is it not actually the case that these poor deluded suicide bombers are acting because Arafat convinces them that they have a chance to destroy all of Israel and take it for themselves?
I welcome you to provide cites for any of the claims you make in your first paragraph, but I would remind you that while you assure us that `all christians are responsible for the holocaust' (truly an amazing claim, since Hitler himself stated destroying and replacing Christianity in Germany as one of his goals), I must ask you how much more culpable, then, are the Arab leaders who allied themselves with Hitler?
and before anyone goes off on a "The Qur'an says fight them all etc etc" rant, allow me to point out that all fighting sanctioned in the qur'an is of a purely defensive nature, with well defined limits. 2:190 "Fight in the cause of Allah, those who fight you, but do not transgress limits; for Allah loveth not transgressors." If you want I could find the links for the limits (not harming civilians etc.) but i don't think it is necessary
I'm not sure how you want us to believe this claim when you make it two paragraphs after claiming that murder-suicide bombings are justified, but let's take it at face value. What then do you say to the constant stream of Islamic leaders in the Arab world telling us that attacks on civilians in Israel (and in many cases the US !) are a holy duty, and those who make them are martyrs? I'm happy to hear that you disagree with this interpretation, but surely you do not claim that this is not a very common interpretation of the Quran?
yeah, well i'm a little disappointed by the US government not giving a shit about the innocent civilians slaughtered in jenin, [hrw.org] so we'll call it even.
How many times are you going to repeat this lie? Even Arafat's own official report of the fighting at Jenin only claims 56 Palestinians died, and admits that almost all of them were combatants. Hamas' account of the battle, as reported by the Egyptian weekly al-Ahram confirms that those killed were combatants, who died in battle.
Or perhaps you know something that Arafat and Hamas do not? Care to share with us?
With due respect, while I welcome you to provide cites of anything being done by Christians or Jews that approaches the horror of the attacks of September 11 or of the murder-suicide bombings, the fact remains that unlike such actions you may point to, those flying planes into buildings and sending young children to blow themselves up in the hopes of taking civilians with them state explicitly that they are doing so in the name of Islam, and as called for by Islam.
I would certainly welcome a statement from Islamic leaders that the people committing these horrible acts do not, in fact, correctly understand what Islam calls for. Unfortunately, no such statement has emerged from the Arab world -- indeed, many, many statements in support of such an interpretation of Islam have been made.
Which is all very well, except that Christians and Jews aren't flying planes into buildings or blowing themselves up in the children's areas of restaurants.
Now, I'm not a Muslim, and I won't pretend to be able to tell you whether such actions are `true Islam' or not, but they are being done by people who call themselves Muslims, and not by people who claim to belong to other religions.
I have to say that I've also been a little disappointed by the failure of the Islamic community here in the US to condemn such actions...
And I'm telling you that the article is not a legimate interpretation of what the court ruled. You're reading a hysterical interpretation of what the EJC ruled, that conflicts with what it actually said. The fact that it confuses the ECHR with the ECJ by itself should be ringing alarm bells. In any case, the ECJ can rule what it wants, the ECHR trumps it in those countries that have signed up. Even if the ECJ had ruled that European citizens have the "right" to be denied access to conflicting opinions, the ECHR would never allow such a thing in the countries the ECHR covers.
The court's actual ruling, which as I said ruled not that he could be dismissed because he was an EU employee (a ruling which would not bother me), but rather that the citizens of the EU have a `human right' not to here the EU criticized can be read here. The relevant passage reads:
(a clear statement that the ECHR's protections on free speech only exist to the extent that said speech is not against the `public interest') and Thus, as I said, this is argued not as a use of the privilege of the employer to choose who to hire, but as an assertion that the government has a right to restrict free speech in this matter. Thus, Mr. Conolly's speech was ruled not only to be grounds for firing, but to be something the state could validly rule to be illegal, in the `public interest'.Another article on this matter can be found here. There was also some discussion of the matter on the floor of parliament the week that article came out, but I don't have a cite for that at the moment.
Well, as they say on TV, `we report, you decide'. I certainly welcome the readers of this thread to look at the only evidence you have provided (a few lines from China's constitution), and at the evidence I have provided (links to hundreds of individuals persecuted by the Chinese government and hundreds of instances of oppressive policies of the Chinese government), and make up their own minds.
Or do you claim that citizens of the Soviet Union also had freedom of speech and religious freedom because the Soviet constitution promised these things?
I have posted copious documentation on the actual state of religious and political freedom in China in the thread I linked to above. I invite any readers curious about these matters to look there.
Now on to the second half of your post. Let's look at some of these statements:
"All members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistentwith the purposes of the UN.?" I'd say that's pretty clear.
Perfectly clear, but only because it is taken out of context. The UN Charter also says:
so, again, after the attacks of September 11 occurred, all bets were off as far as the restrictions placed by the UN charter.Your turn to cite evidence that the security council approved of how the US chose to respond to 9-11.
On September 28, 2001, both the Security Council and the General Assembly approved US-drafted, US-sponsored measures approving our actions in response to the attacks of September 11. I welcome you to look these up.
Can you provide me with a shred of evidence that the presence of Syria, China or Sudan has had an adverse effect on the judgement of the human rights committee?
While I would argue that such effects are clearly evident, especially in the Human Rights Committee's statements in the matter of Israel, this is beside the point entirely. The mere presence of such notorious human rights violators on the Human Rights committee does irreparable harm to the UN's credibility.
It also states that whether or not they have followed the requirements of the convention is a matter for a tribunal to decide, and that until such a decision has been made, they are to be considered POW's and treated as such.
This is a misrepresentation of a specific provision of the Conventions, which actually calls for such tribunals only in the case where a nation has generally upheld their obligations under the conventions, but where an individual soldier caught fighting in civilian garb claims that he had legitimate reasons to do so.
For more on the Geneva Conventions, see this article
Afghanistan is free? When did this happen?
Around when it was liberated by US and Northern Alliance troops, basically. Is there more progress to be made? Sure. Is it miles beyond where it was under the Taliban? Clearly.
Food aid is STILL at the present time lower than it was prior to the US attack.
This is simply incorrect. Indeed, in actual fact, even during the air war more aid was reaching Afghanistan than had under the Taliban. Once Kabul fell and the roads from the north were open, aid shipments skyrocketed again. See here for an analysis of claims that food aid is not getting through.
Finally, on the issue of US Foreign policy, I repeat that I do not see a legitimate claim against America by those who you claim `have ample reasons to be angry'. If you do see such a legitimate claim, perhaps you should spell it out.
You maintain that income and purchasing power have nothing to do with standard of living. While I beg to differ, I will agree that in choosing a place to live, people take many factors into account -- for some people, an extra two years (within the margin of error, I would argue) of average lifespan, or a lower crime rate may outweight the fact that by American standards not 5 percent but rather the vast majority percent of Swedes are `poor' -- and this is the problem with the UN study you cite -- it takes only your issues into account and not economics or individual liberty, thus providing a picture which is at least as incomplete as you claim that provided by the study I posted is.
But you are right that economics are not the only factors people will consider, so I will reword my statement. I assert that the US is the most free, the most democratic, and the most prosperous nation on earth, and I leave people to judge for themselves how important these factors are to them.
As to the credibility of that UN study, I ask only that we consider how seriously a study which had for several years previous to the edition you cite ruled that Canada was the best nation on earth in which to live. As to how Canadians themselves feel about this matter, I will only mention that twice as many Canadians move to the US each year Americans move to Canada, even though the US population is nine times that of Canada. Even the actor from the famous `I'm Joe and I'm Canadian' Molson ads now lives in Los Angeles...
More on your other points in a second reply...
It's a fine line, and one which has to be ruled carefully, but whipping up hatred against groups of people based on arbitrary attributes which are not inherently anti-social does strike me as being as legimate to punish as, say, slander and libel which are merely more specific examples of the same laws.
I would argue that such distinctions are by nature arbitrary, and as such, constitute a view of free speech rights which depends on such rights being defined by government, rather than the American approach, in which the rights are inherently the property of the individual, and such powers as government has over these rights is clearly delineated.
I know of no European power which operates under the limitation of any equivalent of the 9th and 10th ammendments to the US Constitution.
By the way, as a side note, on this side of the pond, libel and slander cases are based not on the type of `atmospheric' argument you give, but on specific and demonstrable damage having been done to the victim.
With due respect, what are you claiming is exaggerated? The fact that there is no religious freedom in China, the fact that there is no political freedom in China, the facts of the massacre at Tianenmen, or the facts of the laogai?
Fine and good. The distinction makes no difference to the argument at hand, namely that Kyoto would shaft the US (and the UK), while giving a free ride to other European nations, and to nations like China which are responsible for much of the world's emissions.
With due respect, Kyoto refers purely to emissions of CO2 and a few other gasses, not to all pollution.
As for who is `the bad guy' here, I'm not sure what bothers you about the US. Perhaps you can explain? So far, the only complaint you've made is that we consume a lot, but this amounts to no more than complaining that we are a rich nation.
You may mean cases where political and religious freedom were `restricted'. I meant (and said) religious and political persecution.
The tens of thousands in the laogai (Chinese forced labor camps for political and religious dissidents) would surely argue that their freedoms have been more than `restricted'. So would the many more who have been murdered, had they only the chance.
Yesterday was the anniversary of the brutal crackdown at Tianenmen. I ask that you not dishonor the unarmed protesters murdered on that day by playing semantic games with their suffering.
Well, as they say on Fox: we report, you decide. I think anyone reading this thread has decided by this point...