Whether or not you believe that theists are deluded, it's impossible to argue with the second half of that point, namely that religious belief has a negative impact on civilisation.
It has a negative impact (what you and Dawkins point out). It also has positive impacts. The question is what the net effect is.
Really, the problem with religion is that faith is not a reliable process of forming accurate beliefs, nor is it a reliable process for forming beneficial beliefs. However, tradition is at least a partially reliable process for forming beneficial beliefs, due to processes similar to natural selection. This has the surprising result that popular, long-established religions are on average better than newer religious movements. When you consider the evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity is a relatively new religious movement, and consider the effect of cults compared to that of older religions, this indeed seems to make sense.
They'll conveniently ignore that Hitler was a Catholic and that Nazis had "gott mit uns" on their belt buckles
Not especially true: many Nazis were occultists who were more committed to pre-Christian German paganism. Hitler's personal beliefs aren't especially well-known since religion wasn't a motivating factor for him, simply one of many propaganda tools.
and they'll ignore the fact that the communist totalitarian regimes, far from being free of religion, enforced a cult of personality of their great leaders, deifying them shamelessly
Yes but they were still atheistic. Turns out getting rid of religion doesn't solve the problem after all. This is basic troubleshooting: if removing religion doesn't remove the unwanted behavior, then religion isn't the source of the unwanted behavior.
By the way I'm not promoting agnosticism; I think that you have to make a leap of faith somewhere, and on this issue the options seem to me theism and strong atheism.
Why? What's wrong with continuing to suspend judgment in the lack of evidence? I don't know whether my next-door neighbor wears underpants to bed, but I don't take a "leap of faith" just because I'm compelled to hold uninformed opinions about issues I don't know about.
A publicity stunt where you're getting into a boxing ring and punching each other? Come on--Uwe Boll isn't a champion boxer or anything. You take a man up on a challenge, at least put in some time learning how to throw a punch.
Invasions and military occupations happen all the time. There aren't enough spare resources in this world to respond to every single one of them. Those with the means to do so have to prioritize and pick their battles.
Not currently...perhaps 15 years ago. And you, me and anyone else does not have the right to take one piece of land from one country and make it another country.
The US did no such thing, either in Bosnia or in Kosovo. The only thing NATO did was protect the peaceful self-determination of the majority populations of Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Russian government is no more unethical than the US government that supported the "orange revolution" in Georgia and Ukraine in order to encircle Russia, using money through CIA, the George Soros foundation etc.
Supporting democracy is just as unethical as quashing it?
We are talking social welfare here...to be able to go the doctor, to afford a serious operation or medicine, etc. In the US poorer people die like dogs because they can not afford hospitals or doctors.
Let me ask you: which country trains the most doctors, invents the most medicine, and so forth?
Bullshit. There is no such thing. It's only Bush and his cronies that says that. Talibans are not interested in bringing the world to the control of a medieval religious dictatorship, they are only interested in their areas being so. You are not very serious if you thing that they have the means to conquer the world, do you?
The Taliban were primarily interested in controlling Afghanistan. It's the people who the Taliban were harboring who were the problem. They aren't the threat the Soviets were, but they're still killers and we still have every right to slay them.
No, it leads to brain damage. It also makes it easier to come in contact with more serious drugs. The guy that sells you Marijuana also sells heroine and cocaine. That's the most usual thing anyway.
Alcohol causes brain damage, too. And in my experience, the marijuana culture is very much separate from the hard drug culture.
No, I would take from the extremely and filthy rich and give it to the poor. It's simple, and my life style will not be in danger from that.
You still haven't figured out how the world works, if you think redistributing wealth is worthwhile.
Neo-natal development can be just as strong a formative influence as genetics, and homosexuality hasn't been pinned down to either yet. Heck, even childhood development can be a strong formative experience. (For instance, I've heard theories that one reason we like boobies so much is because we weren't breastfed enough as babies. I've also heard theories that round perky breasts are better for safely feeding infants, so our preference is naturally selected, and perhaps sexually selected on top of that.)
You can't make an acronym by arbitrarily selecting some letter inside the same word. TWITTER could be an acronym for "Totally Without Intelligence, To Tell Electronic Relations", however.
That aside - I have no idea what mr Heston's impact on anything was, but I have see the 10 Cmds, and I found him overly pompous; he didn't make me believe in the character he portrayed. But, hey, I may just be ignorant and uncultured.
Heston's Biblical roles were epic, larger-than-life figures. Naturalism belongs firmly to a different era and genre altogether, and it's inappropriate to judge Heston by the criteria of naturalistic film.
I would pose that question to the Cypriots. The US had no obligation to defend them and no good reason to extend the effort: Cyprus is of little significance to the future security of the world or of Europe, Turkey is not a significant threat, and there are always bigger fish to fry. No one is ever going to be able to immediately redress all the grievances in the world, despite your fantasies about the UN.
No, it is the Albanians of Kosovo that wanted to leave Serbia. Kosovo has Serbs, but of course you don't know that, because your media does not tell you such "details".
Yes, Kosovo has Serbs, just as Czechoslovakia had Germans. But the Serbs of Kosovo are a minority population who used the military force of greater Serbia to oppress the majority of Kosovars, just as they did in Bosnia.
The hypocrisy is from your part. You either protect all or none. You can't just protect some, because it serves your interests.
That's what every human organization and every nation in history has ever done.
What you say is illogical. The UN is composed of 100s of nations. How come all these nations are trying to undermine the American government?
Of those hundreds of nations, only a dozen or so respect human rights any more than the United States does. The UN lacks moral authority because the majority of UN members are violent, murderous governments with little pretense of being anything more. Even among the security council, Russia has proven increasingly prone to use assassination and political violence, and China has, within the past 20 years, used tanks and machine guns to murder peaceful protesters in their own streets. Any organization that can be even remotely influenced by such governments is not to be trusted.
No, charity is much worse than welfare. USA creates wealth for the rich: 10% of the population owns 90% of wealth. 50 million people are under poverty in the USA, as we speak.
"Poverty" in America often involves having cable TV and being overweight. I'd rather be poor by American standards than rich by the standards of half the countries on the map.
What business is more important than drugs? people die by the millions from heroine and cocaine, and the cost in society is huge. What business do you have in Afghanistan anyway?
There are a considerable number of people in Afghanistan who are willing to kill people in order to bring much of the world under the control of a medieval religious dictatorship. In case you forgot, they killed some of us awhile back. And if we didn't go over there to kill some of them, we'd be at greater risk. I have lots of problem with how this war on terrorism has been executed, but going into Afghanistan and slaying the al-Qaeda and Taliban we found there was absolutely the right call. Our only mistake is that we failed to slay any more of them.
Marijuana is not safe. It leads to brain damage.
Compared to alcohol and tobacco, it's as safe as apple pie: it's non-addictive, non-lethal, doesn't lead to violent behavior, and relieves stress.
But the worst thing is that it opens the path to more dangerous drugs.
That's never been proven. That's never even been suggested by empirical evidence.
Rich people get richer by the minute off your back, exploiting your life, throwing you some bones to lick off (an average car, an average house, shitty TV and an average life), while they live a luxurious life laughing hard at how many suckers like you this world has
Ah yes: and you would give up an average life for a life of poverty just to spite those who have more than you. Sorry, but come the revolution, I'm on the side of the rich folks putting you envious little turds against the wall.
Or you could refer me to like, one book, or one website, or one summary of a book or something.
If you're that interested, purchase some books or google around. Linking to sources is the most effort I'll make, sorry if that doesn't please you.
Tell me what book or what site, because I'm not gonna search around and make your case for you. Either that or, hey: I argue that the CFR is just some harmless, snotty discussion society, and implore *you* to find some book or website to back up my claim. See? By your standards, I win too.
One have to love people who don't read the provided links.
You linked me to a catalog of the CFR's publications in general. I'm not going to read through the entirety of the CFR's publications since their founding in order to make your case for you. That's your job. Likewise, giving me Amazon's search results for "council on foreign relations" is just about as lazy. Either give me your case or admit you don't have one!
Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Israel aren't members of NATO, but they aren't our enemies. NATO is simply an alliance of like-minded nations, and it works for the same reason the UN doesn't work. You will never get the Koreans to protect Japan, the Greeks to protect Turkey, or Pakistan to protect India. And there's no way to force them. NATO works because the nations of North America and Europe are already inclined to help protect each other. All NATO does is formally recognize that friendship.
To put it differently, NATO or no NATO, the US would always rise to the defense of Canada, Britain, or Germany. NATO simply makes it easier for the US to do so, and for the other members to help each other as well.
It should be the UN's obligation, not the United States'. You understand that if it's something decided globally, then it would be much more acceptable, do you?
Maybe it should be, but it's not. And in practice, it would still be our obligation because every time the UN wants to go to war (Korea 1950, Iraq 1991), it uses the American military to do so.
With due respect:
you took Kosovo out of Serbia. It's like taking New York out of the US.
you allowed culture stealing in the case of 'Macedonia'.
Cyprus has been invaded in 1974 by Turkey, yet you are doing nothing about that.
You supported various Juntas around the world.
You wanted the Palestinians to be more democratic, i.e. to vote for their leaders, but when the elected leaders were the ones you did not expect, you spoke against them (double standards).
It's the people of Kosovo who wanted to leave Serbia. All the US government did was try to protect them from Milosevic's genocide. "Macedonia" is a stupid pissing match not worth discussing, and it's hypocritical of you to criticize American interventionism on the one hand while also criticizing the US government for failing to intervene in Cyprus. As for the Palestinians, we're in the right. Democratically elected governments that shoot rockets into residential neighborhoods are still guilty of shooting rockets into residential neighborhoods and deserve to be slain to the last man.
The UN is not corrupted. That's what your media wants you to accept. Some of the people of the UN are corrupted, but Bush is way way way more corrupted, let's not forget that. The UN is very important for peace on Earth, and USA does anything they can to undermine it.
The UN does everything they can to undermine the American government. They have their role to play but the US provides an important counterbalance to the UN's power. A critical American principle that foreigners never understand is that we understand, and stridently fight against, the dangers of centralized power.
Charity is not welfare. Tent cities outside Los Angeles anyone?
Indeed: charity is better than welfare, as are all the things America has historically done to relieve poverty by creating wealth (instead of merely redistributing it). It's not perfect but neither are your welfare states.
You are currently interfering with Chavez' government in Venezuela: you want him to be removed from power, and you (well, not you, it's not your fault, it's your government's fault, that you unfortunately voted for, without knowing what is gonna happen) do anything you can to achieve it.
I'm going to have to see some solid evidence that we're doing a damn thing about Venezuela other than buying their oil. What makes you think I voted for this government anyway, or for any government?
You don't need all that guns. Who is going to invade Washington? no one. So let's stop talking fantasies for a minute...
No one is going to invade Washington precisely because of our military power. In any case, it's vitally necessary for the security of the world that America maintains its military: even if the UN takes over our foreign obligations, the US is the only country left that can afford the military force necessary to meet all those obligations, which is why every UN military operation of any consequence was predominantly executed by American troops. The other developed nations spend too much money on social welfare programs to even completely defend themselves, let alone intervene in human rights crises or defend nations like South Korea and Japan.
You are not doing this in any degree that's effective, because drugs is a valuable way of controlling the population and foreign affairs. For example, you are not burning the opium fields in Afghanistan, where most of the world's drugs come from, even though t
The question is where you'd fine such an engineer. Unless he/she is already a bit of a nutjob, an engineering background should come with decent employment options and intelligence that would somewhat contrast with the somewhat brainwashed or easily overwhelmed variety of terrorist-recruit that tends to be more readily available.
Middle Eastern universities have historically graduated more engineers than can actually find jobs over there. In addition, many of these engineers joined radical Islamic groups in college, just as lots of American college students used to join radical political movements.
The reason everything "suggested" in their bimonthly magazine, forums, conferences etc. starts being implemented by democrats and republicans alike is because they just happen to always like what they see there. In fact, it's pure coincidence, right?
Since I don't read their bimonthly magazine for myself, I wouldn't know. Given that you follow it rather closely, I'm sure you could give me a long, bulleted list of examples beginning with the CFR's founding, and that no one can find a single example of the CFR's magazine proposing something that was not ultimately implemented. So let's have your side of the case.
Besides, when you invite literally all the people who make these decisions to join the CFR, and they use the CFR to discuss what they want to do, it's no surprise that they end up doing what they told the CFR they wanted to do. If Cheney tells the CFR we should build missile defenses in eastern Europe, and later on we see the administration building missile defenses in eastern Europe, that's no more sinister than if Cheney told the Rotary Club about what they wanted to do. So in addition, you'd have to show that all these ideas originate from members of the CFR who don't openly hold political office.
Actually, it would take about 6 months/1 year to regain the former image, in doing the following:
1) remove armies from around the world; restrict your armies for your defense only.
2) dismantle NATO.
Welching on our obligations to foreign countries isn't going to help anything. In particular, our protection of Japan and South Korea has done more to keep East Asia peaceful than anything else.
3) work in the context of the UN organization.
4) study history and support the right view historically (in cases of Israel vs Palestinians, Turkey vs Cyprus, Tibet vs China, Greece vs Macedonia etc).
With due respect, I think we already do these things.
5) stop interfering with countries of the former Soviet Block.
6) dismantle Guantanamo.
Fair enough.
7) recognize the International Court of Justice.
No thanks. As corrupt as the American government can get, it doesn't match the corruption of the UN; leaving our government under the jurisdiction of a corrupt foreign entity is a bad deal and we're shocked that other countries do it.
8) sign the Kyoto agreement and act on the environmental issues.
Fair enough.
9) improve social welfare.
Recent history aside, we've always done this in our own way.
10) stop interfering with South America countries.
When's the last time we've interfered with a South American country, aside from our anti-drug efforts?
11) minimize weapon production.
Yes, I'm sure lots of folks around the world would like that. Should we disband the military and send you all nice invitations to send your troops to Washington?
12) start a military campaign against drugs; burn all the drug-producing fields around the world (the ones that your satellites know about).
Honestly, the US murder rates, historically, have had more to do with the particular social issues surrounding ethnic minorities and the American approach to drug and alcohol prohibition. Legal possession of firearms is almost a non-factor. It does, however, dramatically lower rates of home invasion and burglary, robbery, and in some cases sexual assault and rape. There are also philosophical reasons that the right to self-defense is sacred in America.
You know, the states did successfully secede. They had to apply for readmission after the war and their electoral votes didn't count in the 1864 election. It's just that, while the Constitution implicitly gives the states the authority to secede, it explicitly gives the federal government the authority to declare war on whatever country they want, including a country of recently-seceded states.
The Council on Foreign Relations isn't some horrible conspiracy to control the government. It's just a discussion group that invites the rich and powerful. Just because someone starts a snobby club that invites the rich and powerful to be members doesn't mean that they're a secret society infiltrating the government, especially when they're neither secret nor a society.
Nowadays, there is no way I trust any individual with a weapon of mass destruction. Or an anti-aircraft missile. Or a gernade launcher. Or a machine gun. The potential damage an unhinged person could do is huge.
I thought all the anti-aircraft missiles, grenade launchers, and machine guns were already controlled by individuals. Did we replace our army with robots so quickly?
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It has a negative impact (what you and Dawkins point out). It also has positive impacts. The question is what the net effect is.
Really, the problem with religion is that faith is not a reliable process of forming accurate beliefs, nor is it a reliable process for forming beneficial beliefs. However, tradition is at least a partially reliable process for forming beneficial beliefs, due to processes similar to natural selection. This has the surprising result that popular, long-established religions are on average better than newer religious movements. When you consider the evangelical/fundamentalist Christianity is a relatively new religious movement, and consider the effect of cults compared to that of older religions, this indeed seems to make sense.
Not especially true: many Nazis were occultists who were more committed to pre-Christian German paganism. Hitler's personal beliefs aren't especially well-known since religion wasn't a motivating factor for him, simply one of many propaganda tools.
and they'll ignore the fact that the communist totalitarian regimes, far from being free of religion, enforced a cult of personality of their great leaders, deifying them shamelesslyYes but they were still atheistic. Turns out getting rid of religion doesn't solve the problem after all. This is basic troubleshooting: if removing religion doesn't remove the unwanted behavior, then religion isn't the source of the unwanted behavior.
Why? What's wrong with continuing to suspend judgment in the lack of evidence? I don't know whether my next-door neighbor wears underpants to bed, but I don't take a "leap of faith" just because I'm compelled to hold uninformed opinions about issues I don't know about.
A publicity stunt where you're getting into a boxing ring and punching each other? Come on--Uwe Boll isn't a champion boxer or anything. You take a man up on a challenge, at least put in some time learning how to throw a punch.
Honestly, even when you're 16 or so it's not exactly difficult to pass the GED, and most community colleges will accept that in lieu of high school.
Invasions and military occupations happen all the time. There aren't enough spare resources in this world to respond to every single one of them. Those with the means to do so have to prioritize and pick their battles.
The US did no such thing, either in Bosnia or in Kosovo. The only thing NATO did was protect the peaceful self-determination of the majority populations of Bosnia and Kosovo.
The Russian government is no more unethical than the US government that supported the "orange revolution" in Georgia and Ukraine in order to encircle Russia, using money through CIA, the George Soros foundation etc.Supporting democracy is just as unethical as quashing it?
We are talking social welfare here...to be able to go the doctor, to afford a serious operation or medicine, etc. In the US poorer people die like dogs because they can not afford hospitals or doctors.Let me ask you: which country trains the most doctors, invents the most medicine, and so forth?
Bullshit. There is no such thing. It's only Bush and his cronies that says that. Talibans are not interested in bringing the world to the control of a medieval religious dictatorship, they are only interested in their areas being so. You are not very serious if you thing that they have the means to conquer the world, do you?The Taliban were primarily interested in controlling Afghanistan. It's the people who the Taliban were harboring who were the problem. They aren't the threat the Soviets were, but they're still killers and we still have every right to slay them.
No, it leads to brain damage. It also makes it easier to come in contact with more serious drugs. The guy that sells you Marijuana also sells heroine and cocaine. That's the most usual thing anyway.Alcohol causes brain damage, too. And in my experience, the marijuana culture is very much separate from the hard drug culture.
No, I would take from the extremely and filthy rich and give it to the poor. It's simple, and my life style will not be in danger from that.You still haven't figured out how the world works, if you think redistributing wealth is worthwhile.
You could just drop out of high school, go to community college, and apply to university as a transfer student. Can't you?
Neo-natal development can be just as strong a formative influence as genetics, and homosexuality hasn't been pinned down to either yet. Heck, even childhood development can be a strong formative experience. (For instance, I've heard theories that one reason we like boobies so much is because we weren't breastfed enough as babies. I've also heard theories that round perky breasts are better for safely feeding infants, so our preference is naturally selected, and perhaps sexually selected on top of that.)
Holy shit! Is that you, Angry German Kid?
You can't make an acronym by arbitrarily selecting some letter inside the same word. TWITTER could be an acronym for "Totally Without Intelligence, To Tell Electronic Relations", however.
Heston's Biblical roles were epic, larger-than-life figures. Naturalism belongs firmly to a different era and genre altogether, and it's inappropriate to judge Heston by the criteria of naturalistic film.
I would pose that question to the Cypriots. The US had no obligation to defend them and no good reason to extend the effort: Cyprus is of little significance to the future security of the world or of Europe, Turkey is not a significant threat, and there are always bigger fish to fry. No one is ever going to be able to immediately redress all the grievances in the world, despite your fantasies about the UN.
Yes, Kosovo has Serbs, just as Czechoslovakia had Germans. But the Serbs of Kosovo are a minority population who used the military force of greater Serbia to oppress the majority of Kosovars, just as they did in Bosnia.
The hypocrisy is from your part. You either protect all or none. You can't just protect some, because it serves your interests.That's what every human organization and every nation in history has ever done.
What you say is illogical. The UN is composed of 100s of nations. How come all these nations are trying to undermine the American government?Of those hundreds of nations, only a dozen or so respect human rights any more than the United States does. The UN lacks moral authority because the majority of UN members are violent, murderous governments with little pretense of being anything more. Even among the security council, Russia has proven increasingly prone to use assassination and political violence, and China has, within the past 20 years, used tanks and machine guns to murder peaceful protesters in their own streets. Any organization that can be even remotely influenced by such governments is not to be trusted.
No, charity is much worse than welfare. USA creates wealth for the rich: 10% of the population owns 90% of wealth. 50 million people are under poverty in the USA, as we speak."Poverty" in America often involves having cable TV and being overweight. I'd rather be poor by American standards than rich by the standards of half the countries on the map.
What business is more important than drugs? people die by the millions from heroine and cocaine, and the cost in society is huge. What business do you have in Afghanistan anyway?There are a considerable number of people in Afghanistan who are willing to kill people in order to bring much of the world under the control of a medieval religious dictatorship. In case you forgot, they killed some of us awhile back. And if we didn't go over there to kill some of them, we'd be at greater risk. I have lots of problem with how this war on terrorism has been executed, but going into Afghanistan and slaying the al-Qaeda and Taliban we found there was absolutely the right call. Our only mistake is that we failed to slay any more of them.
Marijuana is not safe. It leads to brain damage.Compared to alcohol and tobacco, it's as safe as apple pie: it's non-addictive, non-lethal, doesn't lead to violent behavior, and relieves stress.
But the worst thing is that it opens the path to more dangerous drugs.That's never been proven. That's never even been suggested by empirical evidence.
Rich people get richer by the minute off your back, exploiting your life, throwing you some bones to lick off (an average car, an average house, shitty TV and an average life), while they live a luxurious life laughing hard at how many suckers like you this world hasAh yes: and you would give up an average life for a life of poverty just to spite those who have more than you. Sorry, but come the revolution, I'm on the side of the rich folks putting you envious little turds against the wall.
Or you could refer me to like, one book, or one website, or one summary of a book or something.
If you're that interested, purchase some books or google around. Linking to sources is the most effort I'll make, sorry if that doesn't please you.Tell me what book or what site, because I'm not gonna search around and make your case for you. Either that or, hey: I argue that the CFR is just some harmless, snotty discussion society, and implore *you* to find some book or website to back up my claim. See? By your standards, I win too.
You linked me to a catalog of the CFR's publications in general. I'm not going to read through the entirety of the CFR's publications since their founding in order to make your case for you. That's your job. Likewise, giving me Amazon's search results for "council on foreign relations" is just about as lazy. Either give me your case or admit you don't have one!
Australia, Japan, South Korea, and Israel aren't members of NATO, but they aren't our enemies. NATO is simply an alliance of like-minded nations, and it works for the same reason the UN doesn't work. You will never get the Koreans to protect Japan, the Greeks to protect Turkey, or Pakistan to protect India. And there's no way to force them. NATO works because the nations of North America and Europe are already inclined to help protect each other. All NATO does is formally recognize that friendship.
To put it differently, NATO or no NATO, the US would always rise to the defense of Canada, Britain, or Germany. NATO simply makes it easier for the US to do so, and for the other members to help each other as well.
It should be the UN's obligation, not the United States'. You understand that if it's something decided globally, then it would be much more acceptable, do you?
Maybe it should be, but it's not. And in practice, it would still be our obligation because every time the UN wants to go to war (Korea 1950, Iraq 1991), it uses the American military to do so.
With due respect:
It's the people of Kosovo who wanted to leave Serbia. All the US government did was try to protect them from Milosevic's genocide. "Macedonia" is a stupid pissing match not worth discussing, and it's hypocritical of you to criticize American interventionism on the one hand while also criticizing the US government for failing to intervene in Cyprus. As for the Palestinians, we're in the right. Democratically elected governments that shoot rockets into residential neighborhoods are still guilty of shooting rockets into residential neighborhoods and deserve to be slain to the last man.
The UN is not corrupted. That's what your media wants you to accept. Some of the people of the UN are corrupted, but Bush is way way way more corrupted, let's not forget that. The UN is very important for peace on Earth, and USA does anything they can to undermine it.
The UN does everything they can to undermine the American government. They have their role to play but the US provides an important counterbalance to the UN's power. A critical American principle that foreigners never understand is that we understand, and stridently fight against, the dangers of centralized power.
Charity is not welfare. Tent cities outside Los Angeles anyone?
Indeed: charity is better than welfare, as are all the things America has historically done to relieve poverty by creating wealth (instead of merely redistributing it). It's not perfect but neither are your welfare states.
You are currently interfering with Chavez' government in Venezuela: you want him to be removed from power, and you (well, not you, it's not your fault, it's your government's fault, that you unfortunately voted for, without knowing what is gonna happen) do anything you can to achieve it.
I'm going to have to see some solid evidence that we're doing a damn thing about Venezuela other than buying their oil. What makes you think I voted for this government anyway, or for any government?
You don't need all that guns. Who is going to invade Washington? no one. So let's stop talking fantasies for a minute...
No one is going to invade Washington precisely because of our military power. In any case, it's vitally necessary for the security of the world that America maintains its military: even if the UN takes over our foreign obligations, the US is the only country left that can afford the military force necessary to meet all those obligations, which is why every UN military operation of any consequence was predominantly executed by American troops. The other developed nations spend too much money on social welfare programs to even completely defend themselves, let alone intervene in human rights crises or defend nations like South Korea and Japan.
You are not doing this in any degree that's effective, because drugs is a valuable way of controlling the population and foreign affairs. For example, you are not burning the opium fields in Afghanistan, where most of the world's drugs come from, even though t
Middle Eastern universities have historically graduated more engineers than can actually find jobs over there. In addition, many of these engineers joined radical Islamic groups in college, just as lots of American college students used to join radical political movements.
Since I don't read their bimonthly magazine for myself, I wouldn't know. Given that you follow it rather closely, I'm sure you could give me a long, bulleted list of examples beginning with the CFR's founding, and that no one can find a single example of the CFR's magazine proposing something that was not ultimately implemented. So let's have your side of the case.
Besides, when you invite literally all the people who make these decisions to join the CFR, and they use the CFR to discuss what they want to do, it's no surprise that they end up doing what they told the CFR they wanted to do. If Cheney tells the CFR we should build missile defenses in eastern Europe, and later on we see the administration building missile defenses in eastern Europe, that's no more sinister than if Cheney told the Rotary Club about what they wanted to do. So in addition, you'd have to show that all these ideas originate from members of the CFR who don't openly hold political office.
I eagerly await your argument.
Welching on our obligations to foreign countries isn't going to help anything. In particular, our protection of Japan and South Korea has done more to keep East Asia peaceful than anything else.
3) work in the context of the UN organization. 4) study history and support the right view historically (in cases of Israel vs Palestinians, Turkey vs Cyprus, Tibet vs China, Greece vs Macedonia etc).With due respect, I think we already do these things.
5) stop interfering with countries of the former Soviet Block. 6) dismantle Guantanamo.Fair enough.
7) recognize the International Court of Justice.No thanks. As corrupt as the American government can get, it doesn't match the corruption of the UN; leaving our government under the jurisdiction of a corrupt foreign entity is a bad deal and we're shocked that other countries do it.
8) sign the Kyoto agreement and act on the environmental issues.Fair enough.
9) improve social welfare.Recent history aside, we've always done this in our own way.
10) stop interfering with South America countries.When's the last time we've interfered with a South American country, aside from our anti-drug efforts?
11) minimize weapon production.Yes, I'm sure lots of folks around the world would like that. Should we disband the military and send you all nice invitations to send your troops to Washington?
12) start a military campaign against drugs; burn all the drug-producing fields around the world (the ones that your satellites know about).We're doing this and it needs to stop.
Honestly, the US murder rates, historically, have had more to do with the particular social issues surrounding ethnic minorities and the American approach to drug and alcohol prohibition. Legal possession of firearms is almost a non-factor. It does, however, dramatically lower rates of home invasion and burglary, robbery, and in some cases sexual assault and rape. There are also philosophical reasons that the right to self-defense is sacred in America.
You know, the states did successfully secede. They had to apply for readmission after the war and their electoral votes didn't count in the 1864 election. It's just that, while the Constitution implicitly gives the states the authority to secede, it explicitly gives the federal government the authority to declare war on whatever country they want, including a country of recently-seceded states.
The Council on Foreign Relations isn't some horrible conspiracy to control the government. It's just a discussion group that invites the rich and powerful. Just because someone starts a snobby club that invites the rich and powerful to be members doesn't mean that they're a secret society infiltrating the government, especially when they're neither secret nor a society.
I thought all the anti-aircraft missiles, grenade launchers, and machine guns were already controlled by individuals. Did we replace our army with robots so quickly?