The problem with citing Viet Nam (and your claim about My Lai is specious unless you back it with evidence) is that in the three years following the war in Viet Nam, the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh murdered more VietNamese than had died in the previous 25 years of war. So you have a long way to go before arguing that our attempts to stop such brutality were anything but for the better. Likewise, you can complain about US presence in Cambodia if you want, but you should explain why we should have sat by while the VC used Cambodia to attack us.
Most of your other claims similarly fall apart -- we don't execute minors at all. Most of the allegedly `US' coups you cite were not our doing, and we have gone far out of our way, putting our own soldiers at risk, to avoid hitting civilian targets.
As for the Kyoto treaty, I have presented my arguments on this subject elsewhere in this thread. Please follow up there.
The problem with this argument is that due to economic stagnation and manufacturing moving offshore, Europe is already below the level of emissions demanded by the treaty. In contrast, the arbitrary selection of 1990 as a start date asks the US to roll back a whole decade of growth.
As for '20% of CO2 emissions', is it not true that the US produces rather more than 20% of the world's goods?
Since the Isreali's have so-far failed to acheive that situation it's a fair comment to say the UN should step in.
The problem I have with this is that the UN has been in the West bank for two generations. They're the ones who run (throught the UNRWA) the camps where Hamas build their bombs and the schools where Palestinian children are taught that Suicide is glamorous as long as you take `enemy' civillians with you.
No, I have to say that the UN has a long way to go before they are credible as a force for peace in the middle east...
Which? Are you talking about America? How has the UN tried to sabotage them?
No, I said that to sign Kyoto would be to sabotage the US economy in the name of emissions reductions which are occurring anyway.
Remember that amount of pollution coming from the US has been dropping steadily for decades...
How about dropping nukes on large cities? Might that not tell you something?
Not when taken in context. Perhaps you consider the loss of many times more Americans (and Japanese!) in an island-by-island conquest of Japan in a war we never asked for to be preferable, but if you do, you'll have to provide an argument for why we should think the same...
How about sponsoring murderous military governments throughout South America?
Care to back that claim up? Especially the `just the other day' bit...
You are correct that the EU members (most of whom would not be required to reduce emissions at all by the treaty) have now agreed to ratify the treaty. It's not clear to me that this addresses any of the problems with the document, though, such as the crippling harm it would do to the US economy while not placing any restriction on those nations responsible for the most emissions...
If the only alternative is to give those powers to governments - which are prone to things like the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges, the U.S. genocide of American Indian nations, the rape of Nanking, etcetera - the U.N. might be the lesser of evils.
I note that you don't cite with any examples for the US which are less than a century and a half old. Might this not tell us something?
Well, its always going to be easier for the major world superpower to fix its problems that some 3rd world country that can barely feed its population.
Certainly. But sabotaging larger powers who are not producing that much of the world's pollution doesn't help this goal any...
It is however time that the UN put it's foot down and enforced the supposed "borders" around gaza and the west bank.
Ah, yes. Heaven forfend that there be a political thread without tendentious and poorly-backed statements like that one. Was that intended to be a troll? If not, how about the UN start by ceasing to give money to organizations like Hamas, and by not allowing the refugee camps which they run to be used as bomb factories? Remember that 98% of the West Bank has not been under any form of occupation since Oslo, and that Israel has been trying to achieve exactly the situation you call for (a secure border with the PA areas, with no attacks through in either direction) for decades...
What peace did the UN keep in East Timor? Under the UN agreements, massacres were commonplace. Only when regional governments got involved did things improve, and even now the UN is working to prevent justice for those who were involved and to limit the ability of the new government to defend itself -- see
here for more on UN sabotage of the East Timorese independence movement, and current UN attempts to keep the new nation from being able to keep order or defend itself.
Do a google search on the Homolka case, in which Canada made it a crime to mention a particular murder case in any web site or news medium.
The UK?
Prior restraint on the press and the Official Secrets Act, which makes it legal for the government to decide something was secret after the fact and jail you for saying it.
Sweden? Norway?
Incredibly confiscatory systems of taxation, bad records on privacy rights, signatory to a raft of EU IP measures which make DMCA look benign.
France? Germany?
Haven't you noticed how many/. stories there have been about the governments of these countries suing US ISPs to force them to take down content which is legal here?
Belgium?
Home of a court system where the vaguely defined term `human rights violations' is a catch-all for any sort of prosecution, and can get you jailed for months waiting for trial.
The Netherlands?
Where Pim Fortuyn was just brutally murdered for daring to express a popular but conservative political opinion?
Switzerland?
Which is cooperating with the EU on financial privacy invasions in the name of `Uniform Tax Enforcement'.
Plus all of these nations save Switzerland are signatory to abusive treaties such as the EU treaty of extraditions, which makes it possible to sieze any citizen of any country in the EU without extradition hearing for actions which were not illegal where they were committed but would be illegal in another EU member's jurisdiction.
Actually 73 countries haveratified it so far. Japan did so today . And all 15 EU states have ratified it as well.
This is simply incorrect. I'd suggest you look up the difference between `sign' and `ratify', and then go back and read your own article. 73 nations have signed the treaty, but far, far fewer have ratified it. Under the EU agreement, all EU nations have indeed now agreed to ratify the pact, but it has no legal impact until they do so and enough other nations to make up 55% of the world's emissions do so.
those nations using the most pollution-heavy technologies
What, you mean the US?
No, the US pollutes less per capita or per production than almost any other nation on Earth -- we just produce more than most. In comparison, many less developed nations, such as China, which make up a huge percentage of the world's emissions, are not even restricted by the treaty.
a US economy which is producing less pollution every year anyway, the treaty offers nothing
That's news to me. Care to share your source?
Well, let's be fair - unless there's a clandestine Scandanavian space program, no country that might conceivably launch humans to another celestial body has a sterling human rights record.
I would argue that the US does. Perhaps you disagree, but be prepared to provide cites if so...
Nor do we `break' treaties we find problematic. The ABM treaty had specific provisions for either party to pull out given six months notice, and we used those provisions. Choosing not to sign nonsense treaties like Kyoto is not the same as `breaking' them. But perhaps you had another example in mind?
You haven't read much about the EU's IP legislation have you? Much less about the rules in nations such as Germany and France -- much of the EU's current push makes the DMCA look like child's play.
Now, if we want to talk about civil rights in general, all of the nations you name have prior restraint on the press. All of them have confiscational income taxes -- Finland, for example, tops out at 70% of income, and Finland and Norway both chare progressive rates for traffic tickets. All of these nations are also signatory to the EU treaty on extradition, which requires nations to extradite anyone without legal review or extradition hearing if requested by any other nation in the EU, even for actions performed in places where they are legal.
Criticize the Greek government (a crime in Greece) on a website in Finland, go to a Greek jail. Commit something that meets the (very strict) British definition of slander on a website in Italy, go to a British jail.
Doesn't sound much like `more free than the US' to me...
Can I take it from your comment that you don't actually have a rational point to make? And if not, why aren't you voicing such a point instead of hurling insults?
Re:Can We Callanmge the SEC and FAASB?
on
Data Quality Act
·
· Score: 1
The standard Honda Accord is a SULEV.
Right, so clearly people are already buying SULEV without being forced into doing so. If we want more people to do so, let's look at some of the reasons why people buy cars other than the Honda Accord. Often, people are concerned about the fact that smaller, lighter cars are less safe, or newer engines cost more to maintain, or a raft of other reasons which drivers of other models of cars could tell you. I'm sure Honda is looking at these reasons -- they want to sell more cars, after all...
[6 pounds is] higher than 1.65, that's for sure.
Yes. Yes, it is. But without more information on whether 6 pounds is high or low, whether it is more or less than last year, and what differences in input and output of those facilities make for that difference, the fact that 6 is greater than 1.65 isn't useful for any purpose save to sound scary.
What, like the Cuyuhoga catching fire in the 70s?
Yes, environmentalists (and REM fans) are fond of that one. But again, is it not true that pollution levels had already begun to drop long before that, and have been dropping steadily long after that? Doesn't it tell you something that you have to go back to 1969 (the actual year of the fire) to find an example for a discussion in 2002?
Not at all. According to my logic, if this specific body has done just about nothing but abuse such power as it has been given by sovereign governments, sovereign governments should stop giving it power.
But perhaps you can provide an argument for giving the UN massive new powers, considering that it has abused those it has already so badly?
OK, fine. So who do we give the land back to? The Indians we stole it from? They had only just finished stealing the land in various bloody and genocidal wars from each other. The Indians they stole it from? Well, they got it the same way. Where do you stop?
Which is well and good, but what do you propose as an alternative? The UN has a terrible record in either human rights or in the ability to run projects of anything near this scale efficiently. The Chinese are hardly a model of internationalism or concern for human rights. No one else is on there way up there. Do we not go because no one else is going?
Another note: You speak of the National Missile Defense as creating new weapons of mass destruction, but is exactly the prospect of such a defense which made it possible for the US and Russia to just commit to decommissioning two-thirds of the nuclear weapons on the planet. Seems like a win, no?
And I would add that there are very good reasons Kyoto was rejected. Have you noticed that almost no one else ratified it either? (Yes, the EU did, but this means nothing without the member states signing on, and none of them have done so or even expressed an intention to do so).
Kyoto would have handcuffed the US economy, while not placing any restrictions on those nations using the most pollution-heavy technologies. Europe loves the idea of the US signing, because they don't manufacture much anymore anyway, but for a US economy which is producing less pollution every year anyway, the treaty offers nothing.
Oh, are we back on the subject of the Chinese space program? Certainly, you aren't talking about the US with a statement like that. Or can you show me a nation where the poor have more, or where what the poor have is increasing nearly so fast as it is in the US?
Might that have something to do with the fact that the UN spends a lot of its time complaining about freedoms we hold dear, while having no problem with abuses in other member nations?
<sarcasm>
Well let's see. The UN sees nothing strange about having Syria, China, and the Sudan on their Human Rights committee. Sure, they seem to have good judgement, let's give 'em the reins.
</sarcasm>
Or not...
More seriously, after the hatefest in Durban, after the UN declared having a national holiday of Mother's Day to be a form of discrimination against women (see here), after widespread sale of UN food aid for sex by UN workers in Africa, and UN participation in the sex trade in Asia, just why would we want to give these guys more power?
Slashdot Mirror
The problem with citing Viet Nam (and your claim about My Lai is specious unless you back it with evidence) is that in the three years following the war in Viet Nam, the Communist government of Ho Chi Minh murdered more VietNamese than had died in the previous 25 years of war. So you have a long way to go before arguing that our attempts to stop such brutality were anything but for the better. Likewise, you can complain about US presence in Cambodia if you want, but you should explain why we should have sat by while the VC used Cambodia to attack us.
Most of your other claims similarly fall apart -- we don't execute minors at all. Most of the allegedly `US' coups you cite were not our doing, and we have gone far out of our way, putting our own soldiers at risk, to avoid hitting civilian targets.
As for the Kyoto treaty, I have presented my arguments on this subject elsewhere in this thread. Please follow up there.
The problem with this argument is that due to economic stagnation and manufacturing moving offshore, Europe is already below the level of emissions demanded by the treaty. In contrast, the arbitrary selection of 1990 as a start date asks the US to roll back a whole decade of growth.
As for '20% of CO2 emissions', is it not true that the US produces rather more than 20% of the world's goods?
Since the Isreali's have so-far failed to acheive that situation it's a fair comment to say the UN should step in.
The problem I have with this is that the UN has been in the West bank for two generations. They're the ones who run (throught the UNRWA) the camps where Hamas build their bombs and the schools where Palestinian children are taught that Suicide is glamorous as long as you take `enemy' civillians with you.
No, I have to say that the UN has a long way to go before they are credible as a force for peace in the middle east...
Which? Are you talking about America? How has the UN tried to sabotage them?
No, I said that to sign Kyoto would be to sabotage the US economy in the name of emissions reductions which are occurring anyway.
Remember that amount of pollution coming from the US has been dropping steadily for decades...
How about dropping nukes on large cities? Might that not tell you something?
Not when taken in context. Perhaps you consider the loss of many times more Americans (and Japanese!) in an island-by-island conquest of Japan in a war we never asked for to be preferable, but if you do, you'll have to provide an argument for why we should think the same...
How about sponsoring murderous military governments throughout South America?
Care to back that claim up? Especially the `just the other day' bit...
You are correct that the EU members (most of whom would not be required to reduce emissions at all by the treaty) have now agreed to ratify the treaty. It's not clear to me that this addresses any of the problems with the document, though, such as the crippling harm it would do to the US economy while not placing any restriction on those nations responsible for the most emissions...
If the only alternative is to give those powers to governments - which are prone to things like the Holocaust, the Stalinist purges, the U.S. genocide of American Indian nations, the rape of Nanking, etcetera - the U.N. might be the lesser of evils.
I note that you don't cite with any examples for the US which are less than a century and a half old. Might this not tell us something?
Well, its always going to be easier for the major world superpower to fix its problems that some 3rd world country that can barely feed its population.
Certainly. But sabotaging larger powers who are not producing that much of the world's pollution doesn't help this goal any...
It is however time that the UN put it's foot down and enforced the supposed "borders" around gaza and the west bank.
Ah, yes. Heaven forfend that there be a political thread without tendentious and poorly-backed statements like that one. Was that intended to be a troll? If not, how about the UN start by ceasing to give money to organizations like Hamas, and by not allowing the refugee camps which they run to be used as bomb factories? Remember that 98% of the West Bank has not been under any form of occupation since Oslo, and that Israel has been trying to achieve exactly the situation you call for (a secure border with the PA areas, with no attacks through in either direction) for decades...
What peace did the UN keep in East Timor? Under the UN agreements, massacres were commonplace. Only when regional governments got involved did things improve, and even now the UN is working to prevent justice for those who were involved and to limit the ability of the new government to defend itself -- see here for more on UN sabotage of the East Timorese independence movement, and current UN attempts to keep the new nation from being able to keep order or defend itself.
Canada?
Do a google search on the Homolka case, in which Canada made it a crime to mention a particular murder case in any web site or news medium.
The UK?
Prior restraint on the press and the Official Secrets Act, which makes it legal for the government to decide something was secret after the fact and jail you for saying it.
Sweden? Norway?
Incredibly confiscatory systems of taxation, bad records on privacy rights, signatory to a raft of EU IP measures which make DMCA look benign.
France? Germany?
Haven't you noticed how many /. stories there have been about the governments of these countries suing US ISPs to force them to take down content which is legal here?
Belgium?
Home of a court system where the vaguely defined term `human rights violations' is a catch-all for any sort of prosecution, and can get you jailed for months waiting for trial.
The Netherlands?
Where Pim Fortuyn was just brutally murdered for daring to express a popular but conservative political opinion?
Switzerland?
Which is cooperating with the EU on financial privacy invasions in the name of `Uniform Tax Enforcement'.
Plus all of these nations save Switzerland are signatory to abusive treaties such as the EU treaty of extraditions, which makes it possible to sieze any citizen of any country in the EU without extradition hearing for actions which were not illegal where they were committed but would be illegal in another EU member's jurisdiction.
Actually 73 countries haveratified it so far. Japan did so today . And all 15 EU states have ratified it as well.
This is simply incorrect. I'd suggest you look up the difference between `sign' and `ratify', and then go back and read your own article. 73 nations have signed the treaty, but far, far fewer have ratified it. Under the EU agreement, all EU nations have indeed now agreed to ratify the pact, but it has no legal impact until they do so and enough other nations to make up 55% of the world's emissions do so.
those nations using the most pollution-heavy technologies
What, you mean the US?
No, the US pollutes less per capita or per production than almost any other nation on Earth -- we just produce more than most. In comparison, many less developed nations, such as China, which make up a huge percentage of the world's emissions, are not even restricted by the treaty.
a US economy which is producing less pollution every year anyway, the treaty offers nothing
That's news to me. Care to share your source?
This article is a good place to start.
Well, let's be fair - unless there's a clandestine Scandanavian space program, no country that might conceivably launch humans to another celestial body has a sterling human rights record.
I would argue that the US does. Perhaps you disagree, but be prepared to provide cites if so...
Nor do we `break' treaties we find problematic. The ABM treaty had specific provisions for either party to pull out given six months notice, and we used those provisions. Choosing not to sign nonsense treaties like Kyoto is not the same as `breaking' them. But perhaps you had another example in mind?
You haven't read much about the EU's IP legislation have you? Much less about the rules in nations such as Germany and France -- much of the EU's current push makes the DMCA look like child's play.
Now, if we want to talk about civil rights in general, all of the nations you name have prior restraint on the press. All of them have confiscational income taxes -- Finland, for example, tops out at 70% of income, and Finland and Norway both chare progressive rates for traffic tickets. All of these nations are also signatory to the EU treaty on extradition, which requires nations to extradite anyone without legal review or extradition hearing if requested by any other nation in the EU, even for actions performed in places where they are legal.
Criticize the Greek government (a crime in Greece) on a website in Finland, go to a Greek jail. Commit something that meets the (very strict) British definition of slander on a website in Italy, go to a British jail.
Doesn't sound much like `more free than the US' to me...
Can I take it from your comment that you don't actually have a rational point to make? And if not, why aren't you voicing such a point instead of hurling insults?
The standard Honda Accord is a SULEV.
Right, so clearly people are already buying SULEV without being forced into doing so. If we want more people to do so, let's look at some of the reasons why people buy cars other than the Honda Accord. Often, people are concerned about the fact that smaller, lighter cars are less safe, or newer engines cost more to maintain, or a raft of other reasons which drivers of other models of cars could tell you. I'm sure Honda is looking at these reasons -- they want to sell more cars, after all...
[6 pounds is] higher than 1.65, that's for sure.
Yes. Yes, it is. But without more information on whether 6 pounds is high or low, whether it is more or less than last year, and what differences in input and output of those facilities make for that difference, the fact that 6 is greater than 1.65 isn't useful for any purpose save to sound scary.
What, like the Cuyuhoga catching fire in the 70s?
Yes, environmentalists (and REM fans) are fond of that one. But again, is it not true that pollution levels had already begun to drop long before that, and have been dropping steadily long after that? Doesn't it tell you something that you have to go back to 1969 (the actual year of the fire) to find an example for a discussion in 2002?
Moderator, please mod parent up, insightful.
Not at all. According to my logic, if this specific body has done just about nothing but abuse such power as it has been given by sovereign governments, sovereign governments should stop giving it power.
But perhaps you can provide an argument for giving the UN massive new powers, considering that it has abused those it has already so badly?
OK, fine. So who do we give the land back to? The Indians we stole it from? They had only just finished stealing the land in various bloody and genocidal wars from each other. The Indians they stole it from? Well, they got it the same way. Where do you stop?
Which is well and good, but what do you propose as an alternative? The UN has a terrible record in either human rights or in the ability to run projects of anything near this scale efficiently. The Chinese are hardly a model of internationalism or concern for human rights. No one else is on there way up there. Do we not go because no one else is going?
Care to back up your statement? Care to point to another nation (UN member or not) whose citizens enjoy as much freedom as Americans do?
Another note: You speak of the National Missile Defense as creating new weapons of mass destruction, but is exactly the prospect of such a defense which made it possible for the US and Russia to just commit to decommissioning two-thirds of the nuclear weapons on the planet. Seems like a win, no?
And I would add that there are very good reasons Kyoto was rejected. Have you noticed that almost no one else ratified it either? (Yes, the EU did, but this means nothing without the member states signing on, and none of them have done so or even expressed an intention to do so).
Kyoto would have handcuffed the US economy, while not placing any restrictions on those nations using the most pollution-heavy technologies. Europe loves the idea of the US signing, because they don't manufacture much anymore anyway, but for a US economy which is producing less pollution every year anyway, the treaty offers nothing.
Let's Fuck the Poor in Space, Too!
Oh, are we back on the subject of the Chinese space program? Certainly, you aren't talking about the US with a statement like that. Or can you show me a nation where the poor have more, or where what the poor have is increasing nearly so fast as it is in the US?
Of course, this is just an American way of thinking...
Oh yes, no one else is exploited. Certainly not in Tibet, or Cuba, or North Korea. Oh no, no exploitation there.
Might that have something to do with the fact that the UN spends a lot of its time complaining about freedoms we hold dear, while having no problem with abuses in other member nations?
<sarcasm> Well let's see. The UN sees nothing strange about having Syria, China, and the Sudan on their Human Rights committee. Sure, they seem to have good judgement, let's give 'em the reins. </sarcasm>
Or not...
More seriously, after the hatefest in Durban, after the UN declared having a national holiday of Mother's Day to be a form of discrimination against women (see here), after widespread sale of UN food aid for sex by UN workers in Africa, and UN participation in the sex trade in Asia, just why would we want to give these guys more power?