Baghdad doesn't have many energy problems. The issues are more relevant to other areas. What happens is that Baghdad takes priority over other areas so you'll never really see the lights go out in Baghdad.
I don't think I'll ever change your mind but here is something to consider...
I don't listen to or have access to Rush (other than some articles I read). I don't want to listen to him anyway. The prolbem is not that Rush lies. Yes, there are quite a few lies but let's just ignore them for now. The problem is that he is BIASED. I don't think he makes up stuff. But he does present a one-sided view. Are parts of Iraq better off than ever? Absolutely! Is most of Iraq better than before? Nope!
If you really want to be informed, the answer is not to avoid corporate-controlled mainstream media. The answer, instead, is to read/listen/watch/etc multiple sources.
* Democracy: Reasonable, bizarrely we are labelled a consitutional monarchy, which AFAICT means we have no constitution and the monarch has no practical power. There are other posts (e.g. US style sheriffs) that could be elected.
I am not an expert on this but my impression is that the monarchy DOES have POWER. The reason you don't know that is because the monarch hasn't used it recently. If the monarchy was under threat, I would imagine that the Queen would call out the military to defend herself. If I'm not mistaken, Canadian soldiers take an oath, not to Canada, but to the British monarchy (Canada is a slave to the British monarchy in theory; in practice it is mostly independent). If my understanding is correct, the Queen has more power over the Canadian military than the Canadian government even.
Even if they were to come up with something "capitalist" it would capitalism according to Arab rules and traditions rather than North American traditions.
There is only one capitalism. Everything else is non-pure and intermediate stages towards pure capitalism. There is no such thing as Middle Eastern captialism, any more than North American capitalism.
Anyway, the original author's point is that democracy does not necessarily result in capitalism. Democracy could result in socialism, for example. Or it could result in a religious fundamentalist society (this is highly likely in Iraq and this is why USA is not implementing democracy--USA is trying to implement an autocratic system). As a matter of fact, pure democracy and pure capitalism are contradictory. Under true democracy, the majority will overthrow the minority wealthy elite. Capitalism is an elitist system and hence a tiny minority will accumulate wealth and power. Democracy will not permit this if it is perfect.
I'll make this short (hopefully) since you may not read it or respond to it. Don't want to waste time typing up something with no response:)
I'll just sum up my arguments.
Iraq: A Grave Sin
Your argument that Iraq had WMD is weak. As someone above points out, USA never really had any PROOF. All USA had was guesses by so-called intelligence experts.
Given that you invaded for WMD, and now can't find them (most likely there isn't any), you committed a grave sin. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase over the next few years) looking for some bogus WMD which never existed. If that's ok with you, as Madeline Albright said of killing millions due to Sanctions, well, all I can say is that we have different morals. What you are doing is executing someone for a supposed crime when in fact the person did no harm. There is no way to back out of it. All you can do is to avoid doing that in the future--which isn't happening with USA (eg. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, etc--why is USA supporting this horrible regimes?).
Liberatarianism
I say you cannot call yourself liberatarian (even the US version of liberatarian, which is nothing more than liberatarian-right or liberatarian-conservative). You are more conservative than liberatarian. You are against non-intervention. You are against a person's right to choose (eg. abortion). I imagine you are also against legalizating drugs. And how about legalizing prostitution? Or how about homosexuals? That's not very liberatarian if you are against those.
How can you be more of a Liberatarian than anything if you want some entity (government) messing with people's personal decisions (eg. drugs, abortion, homosexuality, etc)? It's hard to say what you are without knowing you (although that Political Compass did provide some insight). My guess is that you are probably a classical liberal, aka traditional conservative (eg. Pat Buchanan). Although, that would place you on the far-right and your test results don't seem to indicate that.
In any case, it's your choice what you call yourself. I'm not a Liberatarian and could care less what you call yourself.
Abortion
The whole notion of life is arbitrary. There is no OBJECTIVE way to determine what is life? You say a fetus is life. How do you know? What if science didn't exist? Some might even argue that a fertilized egg (say at the instant you had sex) is life. Is it? How about sperm? Or the egg? Is that life?
You are just drawing a line. So is everyone else. Your view is based on religion. Can you honestly say that a fetus is a life if you weren't introduced to Christian doctrine?
Socialism
Well, you aren't a socialist:) although you have socialist leanings. Things like funding for arts, culture, etc are key to socialism. There is no point having public schools, if you don't have public art. There is no point having public healthcare if you don't have public energy supply. Supporting one and not the other means you are just arbitrarily picking stuff.
I don't understand that link you listed. What does political correctness have to do with anything? Are you talking about the fact that there are multiple languages on that site? If yes, you picked a bad example. They are a translation service. You'd expect them to have multiple languages. In any case, there is nothing wrong with having multiple languages (even for govt services).
Religion
I don't think the religious issues have much to do with political correctness (conservatives like to throw around the word political correctness but the word has specific meaning). Instead, they deal with core issues. Pledging allegiance to God has nothing to do with political correctness but a lot to do with God in people's lives.
I don't think many are calling for the abolishment of the Christman tree (the trees have little to do with Christmas if anything). But
Technology limitations likely did play a role in those games. I remember C&C had performance issues early on (I think early beta or something). WCIII (my brother has this so I know it) doesn't have a good engine. It's Blizzard's first 3D engine and I think they could have done much better. I am pretty sure WCIII limited the number of units for performance reasons. If I'm not mistaken, Blizzard even said that (before the game came out I think--fans were asking for Starcraft like 100+ units per side).
I don't know what to say about TA. I was never really into it--probably because my PC didn't run that game well. I used to have a ton of arguments with my roommate at that time who loved TA, whereas I loved Starcraft:) It's just too bad that TA, one of the top RTS games of all time, just died off. Its gameplay sucked IMO but it had features. In fact, many RTS games STILL don't have TA's features.
My favourite genre is RTS (I don't play FPS at all). I think one of the problems with RTS is that it is too popular. RTS games because a cash cow and this means that companies are reluctant to try new things. The early days (circa mid 90's, with C&C, Red Alert, TA, WCII, SC, AOE) were more innovative in my eyes. Yes, they improved slowly BUT companies tried new things. Nowadays, they are just rehashing things. You can tell by looking at maps. The maps have not changed AT ALL since that era. Yes, there are terrain bonuses and the like but they still suck...
All you guys (you and eveyrone on Slashdot with the same argument) are looking at it from a non-user point of view. What you guys use a word processor for differs from the real users. Typing up a letter or just entering some numbers into a spreadsheet might be ok for you but the real users need more features. For example, Excel is still better than anything in OOo. In particular, the plotting in OOo sucks compared to Excel. And I'm not even an Excel "user".
With your line of thinking, there is no difference between an old word processor, say Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS and a modern one, say MS Word XP. I'll bet the real users can point out a million things that are better in the latter product.
One of the reasons Linux is not popular is because it just doesn't have the same features as Windows. For a programmer, or a systems admin, everything might look the same. But for an end-user things can be very different.
I haven't read the full report you cite but based on the first link, it doesn't prove ANYTHING. I have no idea what the cited report (in the first link) uses to measure the index but how can they possibly measure the software index? For computers (i.e. hardware), it's easy. You just look at performance, speed, memory capacity, etc. But how about software?
The benefits of software are intangible. Therefore, they are likely to be undervalued.
Also, YOUR points (as opposed to the links you cite) are just as vague. How can you say that a debugger does not result in productivity improvments? How about automated tools for generating GUI elements? ANd so forth. I have a feeling that you, as well as the guy you cite, are not adjusting for results. For instance, it might take a programmer 50 hours to create a "program" now, just like it took 50 hours 30 years ago. However, the results are vastly different. Unlike 30 years ago, now the "program" will have more features. I'll bet you are not counting soft things like that (features, appeal, ease of use, etc)...
I know you capitalists love to invoke everything, including ownership of the world, to defend yourselves...but can you PLEASE leave physics out of this?
What you are saying is happening but not the way you imagine--or your capitalistic economic books talk about. When jobs are lost, other jobs ARE created. But these jobs are often worse than the previous ones. If engineers lose their jobs, they will get another job all right. It just won't be engineering or anything professional. When manufacturing laid off people, they got other jobs (often in the service industry) which were FAR worse (in terms of pay).
Also, cost of living does not necessarily increase with increased trade. I can cite a ton of South American countries that have "benefitted" from trade yet their standard of living is the same (worse in some cases). What you fail to realize--something that capitalist books won't mention--is that the benefit does NOT accrue to the average worker.
American wages, for example, have been almost flat over 30 or 40 years! (I can't remember the stats but they only grew like 4% or something like that--adjusted for inflation of course). In contrast, executive wages have skyrocketed. In the 70's, executives made something like 50x the average worker. Now they make 250x.
There are benefits from trade--I'm not disagreeing on that. But your capitalist economic books will also point out how the benefit from trade can be allocated. If countries A and B are trading, A can get all the benefit, or B can, or they can share it in some manner. Unfortunately for the poorer countries, the benefit accrues to rich countries. Now, replace countries with corporation vs worker, and you'll note that the benefit does NOT accrue to the workers of the world. Instead, the benefit is more likely to accrue to the capitalists and coordinator class (eg. management).
Don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-Asian (I'm originally from there anyway:) ). I'm just against capitalism and it modern incarnation called neo-liberal economics.
My, non-capitalist view, is that USA severly overconsumes. I think USA will, at some point, have to devalue their currency. It is just overvalued and otherwise it won't remain competitive. For instance, if the oil producing countries switched to the Euro, from the "petral-dollar", USA will get hit. Gunpoint capitalism then becomes the norm...
These U.S. companies never did learn to think even 10 years down the road. If you start exporting high tech jobs to Asia then who is going to be left to buy your products over here?
There is no such thing as a US company. All capitalism has are companies--international ones that are not basd on any country. Under capitalism, you don't care about countries. If anything, free trade will ensure that there is no such thing as an American or Canadian or Japanese or whatever corporation. Corporations will be able to move easily to other countries. It wouldn't suprise me if corporations move to another country overnight without letting anyone know (like has happened to some sports teams).
The Asian countries never seem to have went through their industrial revolution and unionization era so they don't seem to have many of the laws that protect us against corporations looking for cheap slave labor.
My theory is that unionization will not occur. There are several reasons for this but perhaps the most important is that unions can't fight for worker rights in the modern era. If you form a union in those countries, the corporation will, on top of trying to crush it, just move to another region/country/continent/etc.
Speaking as a leftist, I don't think unions are the answer to the modern capitalists. Unions simply aren't designed to withstand multinational entities. Unions are very localized and require government laws to support them. When corporations aren't local, and when governments don't care about anyone, it doesn't work well. So what else is there for the workers? I'm working on it:)...
Speaking as a movie fan, I completely agree with the CEO of Blockbuster (when was the last time I agreed with any corporate elite?;) ) Region codes do absolutely nothing to a movie fan, other than make it worse (especially for foreign films that are NOT released locally)...
I've been sort of unemployed for a couple of years (since I graduated from school:( ) so I haven't really been into gaming (haven't upgraded my PC, haven't bought a game in a long time, etc). So, I'm not sure about C&C Generals. How is that game? I was sort of following it BEFORE it came out. I didn't think it was going to be revolutionary. It just LOOKED like a rehash with better graphics. Is the game play any good?
Warcraft III? Well, I like STRATEGY over TACTICS. Warcraft III goes towards tactics. I personally prefer strategy. You know, the long term planning, resource management, and stuff like that.
I need to get a job first but the only game I'm waiting for is Starcraft II:) Yes, Blizzard hasn't announced it but I'm sure they'll start on it soon:)
Based on what the authors of that test say, I think the test evoked the right emotions in you. Your reaction to that sex question is funny but that's what it's supposed to evoke. I think people who are in favour of loyal marriage would have the same reaction as you.
You weren't doing the test properly--at least I don't think so. You were CONSCIOUSLY trying to place yourself somewhere on the econopolitical spectrum. You shouldn't be doing that. You should have just answered the question without thinking about where you would end up. It should be just based on your feelings and thoughts. Perhaps you wanted to project a particular image of yourself to me so you weren't comfortable with the test. It's just a test and it is not perfect, although I find it accurate based on a few friends I know of.
Anyway, it seems you are close to the center. Since BOTH tests placed you a little to the left, you may not be a conservative at all (although you are nowhere near left or far-left and hence cannot be called a leftist).
Socialism is definately a giant NO in a place like the United States, for example, but I believe there are situations where it makes some sense.
That's weird. How can you say socialism is not appropriate in some places yet is ok in other places? Why do you say that? I haven't seen too many people place restrictions on socialism. Usually people are either for it or totally against it. Perhaps the fact that you are close to the center is the reason why you put a clause on socialism (instead of outright acceptance or rejection).
We did not give supplies to Iraq so that they could murder their own people, we gave them to help their fight with Iran. That was wrong, I freely admit, it was the "enemy of my enemy" logic, which I disagree with (for the most part anyway).
It's just too bad that people who follow the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' philosophy never realize that it leads to allying with the devil. You say it was wrong but USA is still on the same path. How come you (meaning USA) is allied with Ahmed Chalibi and his buddies? How do you know he isn't the next devil that you allied with? He is known for accounting irregularities (codeword for he stole money from the US govt). Already, as I pointed out, he is severely restricting media in Iraq. It wouldn't surprise me if Iraq ended up with just the state media in 1 year!
But I again say that, in order for us to be dissallowed from using that argument, you'd have to prove that two wrongs don't[-ed] make a right. If anything, we can at least say we're trying to atone for our own past atrocities.
See that's the problem... You are just using that as an EXCUSE. You CANNOT correct those mistakes. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase) in order to take out Saddam. You (will) destabilize Iraq.
It's just too bad that you don't see what the neoconservatives are up to. It's too bad that you believe every lie coming out of George Bush. It's too bad that you rely solely on the corporate-controlled yes-men in the media.
There is NO WAY you can correct the deaths of innocents! Following your ideology, who is USA going to invade to correct past mistakes? Egypt perhaps? Or maybe Saudi Arabia? Or Kuwait? We all know how horrilbe the regime in Kuwait is so are you saying USA should invade Kuwait next, killing tens of thousands in the process?
Pardon my strong language here... You are basically a "sinner" who hasn't come to terms with his "sin". You sort of realize what USA did was wrong but you haven't come to terms with it. You still hope that you can avoid confronting you past "sins" by somehow correcting them.
I never did use it as a pretext for war. I was saying, regardless of what we did 15 years ago, right now I truly believe we are making things better for Iraqi citizens. And even though I make that claim, I don't pretend that that was a pretext for war either. Never said it, never implied it.
Ss the world moves towards (pure) capitalism... subsidization will become less common. So people who use a service a lot (and hence are subsidized by others) will have to pay more. A lot of geeks (like me) use the internet far more than an average person. I think I'm going to be paying $150/month in internet (instead of $30/month) in 10 years (adjusting for inflation):(
You clearly do not respect gaming but others do. Right now gaming is in its infancy but if it picks up, I'm sure people wouldn't mind having it one their resumes. For instance, putting a professional chess designation in some countries actually helps job prospects.
In addition, none of this matters. If someone can make $100k or even $40k, they should do it. When you graduate from school, it doesn't mean you'll get a job. I've been pretty much unemployed since I graduated from unversity 3 years ago and some others I know are in the same position. The jobs people like us do get/have are unrelated to our careers so being a professional gamer is the same thing. If someone offered me $40k when I was 18, I would have taken it. If things didn't work out, I can go back to school (who says you can't go back to school when you are say 23?) You can even use the money you earned. This the same approach as athletes. The VAST MAJORITY of athletes fail. Only a few make it. But if some guy can get drafted (even if a low position) and make $100k, they should take it. They can go to school AFTER the team cuts them and use the money they earned.
As far as hard work is concerned, if these guys are doing it for 12 hours a day, that IS hard work. At least it shows me that someone can be committed and work long hours when needed. How does graduating from a university show that you are a hard worker? Many of the people I knew from school (who have jobs now) weren't exactly hard workers.
With RTS games, though, I rarely play multiplayer, because I tend to feel that either the rush gets you...
Rushing is part of RTS games... get used to it man. Not dissing you... just saying it's part of the genre. If you don't get used to it, you'll NEVER really get into RTS games. Think of it as a high-risk tactic where the enemy is sacrificing everything for an early win (if they lose the rush, you usually have the advantage). The only time I am against rushing is when the game is unbalanced. I haven't played games in a while (no job=no money) but the C&C games have horrible balance. I never really considered rushing in C&C games to be a fair tactic. Rushing in games like AOE (Age of Empires), Warcraft II, Starcraft, etc are perfectly ok in my eyes...
I also have problems with triple and quadruple rushes in games like Starcraft (eg. 3 of the enemy vs 1 of you). You can defend 2vs1 rush but anymore more than that is tough (unless you are Terran or something). It totally sucks when this happens but this isn't a game problem (not usually at least). This is mostly because your allies are smoking weed instead of helping you;) One of the things that makes RTS games unjoyable for newbies is that other players don't help each other. Games like Warcraft III try to eliminate these problems but RTS games aren't perfect yet. I think RTS games need a bit more work on the team aspect.
How about the eye strain? I think it all depends on WHAT you do at work. When I had a job, I really didn't like to do certain things when I came home because it was doing almost the same thing.
If you spent your whole day programming, I don't know if you want to come home and do some programming too. Or if you spend your whole day installing, configuring and supporting computer systems, I don't know if you want to come home and mess around with Linux.
Approximately 250,000 people died during the Saddam Hussein atrocities. The vast majority of these were in the 80's, when USA, France, and others were ACTIVELY supporting Iraq. If you, as USA, was going to invade Iraq, or if you supported the war, you cannot use that. USA supported these crimes! They even provided the political support for Iraq to use chemical weapons. It will be totally hypocritical of USA to use that as a pretext for war. If USA truly believed in it, it will be satisfied if some other country, or some Iraqis, invade USA to get the war criminals in USA who facilitated the mass murder.
If you are going to cite atrocities, you really have no moral ground unless you leave out stuff that your side supported.
Also, stop quoting the State department PLEASE! You are discrediting yourself by referencing propaganda. If you went with the US government view, Iraq without a doubt has WMD. I certainly hope that you don't quote Powell's proof he presented at the UN, or President Bush's "proof". I mean, the US govt still maintains that they did NOT help Usama bin Laden. But if you look at independent sources, you'll get something else. Relying on government propaganda is just lame.
More people will die now than before. The number that was quoted was only for Baghdad. The number of people Saddam Hussein killed in the last several years is small comapred to the innocent deaths that are occurring now (unless you attribute the UN sanctions death to him, which I'm not doing).
In any case, this isn't about deaths. I value life. I'm not going to get into a debate over numbers of deaths. That just cheapens lives. All I'll say is that your numbers are way off.
I also read the beginning of the article you posted... but even in the U.S. there are restrictions on free speech that encourages violence against others. You can't stand on a street corner rallying people to beat police officers. The press that was invaded in Iraq was doing just that - it wasn't simple dissent. Also, since Al-Jazeera is not an Iraqi news outlet, those rules don't apply....
What the IGC (Iraqi Governing Council, aka US proxy) is doing is totally against freedoms. It would not be permitted in at least 50% of the countries in the world--and it is nowhere near the freedoms guaranteed in USA. This is so bad that it doesn't even compare to corrupt countries like India or South Africa where press freedoms aren't as great. USA is making Iraq into its "assets", just like it has done to all Middle Eastern and Latin American countries over the decades. I don't even think you know is going on. I mean, if the most anti-Saddam newspaper is all of a sudden shut down because it is anti-IGC, how is that freedom?
You say that USA restricts freedoms. You sound you live in Canada (Canada restricts freedoms; not USA...I'm from Canada BTW:) ). You CAN stand on a street corner and preach violence. Fascists do it all the time (ever looked at the KKK or Aryan Nation?) I don't know where you get this idea that speech (and hate speech) is restricted. Not in USA! Even in countries like Canada (where there are more restrictions), you can publish quite a bit.
As far as Al-Jazeera is concerned, the first to suppression of media is to ban FOREIGN media. The local ones are easily controlled but the foreign ones are independent. You need to look no further than Zimbabwe.
I am a conservative, to be sure, but I don't necessarily believe in imperialism as much as i believe in free will.
You don't sound like a conservative to me...but more on this later... Free will? I guess if forcing someone to follow your views, or forcing some people to be a proxy state is your idea free will. USA is bringing free will to the Middle East all right... just like how Britain was educating the savages in India, Africa, and the Middle East.
The fact is that it can be done - just because it hasn't been done in over fifty years doesn't mean it's still no
Risk is part of a business. You should always be prepared to pay for it if you give out loans or whatever. Unless you are not a capitalist, you only have the "right" to complain if there is some illegal activity going on.
If you invest in the stock market (via stocks or bonds) and if you lose anything, you shouldn't be complaining...
BTW, I'm not saying you DESERVE any of it... all I'm saying is that capitalism is all about that...
You are not giving them their freedom! You are forcing YOUR views onto them.
The American revolutionaries got help but it was THEM that was driving the revolution. It wasn't some foreign force that, all of a sudden, decided a "regime change" was good for the Americans. I'll guarantee you that if Mexico/Spain invaded USA to free them at that time, the Founding Fathers would not have supported that. In fact, if France invaded USA in order to "free" the Americans, I doubt anyone would have supported it too...
--VERY LONG--
I hope you take the time to read this because I spent some time on it:)
Since the "end of major combat", fewer civilians have been killed as a result of insurgency than would have been killed by Saddam's regime (on average).
Speculation can lead to your demise. Let's see. Approximately 1500 have died since the "end of major operations" in Baghdad ALONE. That's all in half a year (approximately). Who knows how many have died in other areas. Let's say an average of 3000 in one year (that's just one city too, although the biggest city). What was Saddam's biggest atrocity? Probably his chemical attack against Kurds in Halabja. Supposedly this killed 5,000. Now, are you telling me that Saddam was killing more than 3000 per year before the war? Do you have any proof other than the US government (propaganda) documents?
As a side note, Saddam killed A LOT during the Iran-Iraq war. I'm not counting these people because it is hard to say what was going on at that time. It's not clear how many of the deaths at that time were human rights abuses, and how many were war casulties. Also, the US government backed Saddam Hussein at that time (remember this famous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam?)
I envision an Iraq where the money from oil revenues pays for schools, roads, hospitals, and other social services, so that people don't have to pay taxes or have any other financial burden of the like.
Is USA going to be profitting from this? Or is this supposed to be a neutral thing left to the Iraqis to decide? How much do you want to bet that American oil companies will control all the oil coming out of Iraq in 10 years?
I envision free press (which already exists now), and a place where people can be as secure in their persons as people are here in the U.S. Part of my vision is already come to pass - there is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to dissent - freedoms they didn't have before.
There sure is a lot of free press in Iraq right now;| Just recently the IGC banned Al-Jazeera and a bunch of other media. That's free media to you? A while ago the same thing happened. I can't find a link to the newsj--sorry about that (sucks how you have to pay for newspaper archives). But read the beginning of this article. This article is from Justin Raimondo who is on the far right so I don't necessarily agree with it or him (I'm on the far left) but it illustrates my point. You only have to read the beginning part.
The problem is that you are either a neoconservative who is in favour of imperialism (unlikely), or that you are a naive "liberal" (likely). You ACTUALLY think what Bush said in front of the National Endowment for Democracy will happen/is true. Sad to say, it won't and it never has. You just CANNOT bring democracy and freedom to a country with a gun. Gunpoint democracy is doomed to fail. The last person to try that was probably Lenin (and his invasion of Poland) but it never got anywhere. Name ONE country that USA has meddled with since WWII, that ended up democratic or free. The answer is absolutely ZERO! There are lots of examples (El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Colombia, Iraq (before), Iran, Indonesia, Philliphines, and so on) but it never worked.
Democracy and Freedom has to come from WITHIN the people (if you are a liberal you should know this already). Foreign forces can never impose it on others. It's just like say women's rights or equality or something. Contrary to what conservatives think, you just cannot bring equality to women in the Middle East (for example) by forcing the people to accept it. It's too bad the conservatives don't understand liberalism (whi
Slashdot Mirror
Did you also know that more than 50% of the Iraqis wanted the Americans to leave? If I'm not mistaken, that same poll covered that question.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Baghdad doesn't have many energy problems. The issues are more relevant to other areas. What happens is that Baghdad takes priority over other areas so you'll never really see the lights go out in Baghdad.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I don't think I'll ever change your mind but here is something to consider...
I don't listen to or have access to Rush (other than some articles I read). I don't want to listen to him anyway. The prolbem is not that Rush lies. Yes, there are quite a few lies but let's just ignore them for now. The problem is that he is BIASED. I don't think he makes up stuff. But he does present a one-sided view. Are parts of Iraq better off than ever? Absolutely! Is most of Iraq better than before? Nope!
If you really want to be informed, the answer is not to avoid corporate-controlled mainstream media. The answer, instead, is to read/listen/watch/etc multiple sources.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Venezuela is not a dictatorship...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
* Democracy: Reasonable, bizarrely we are labelled a consitutional monarchy, which AFAICT means we have no constitution and the monarch has no practical power. There are other posts (e.g. US style sheriffs) that could be elected.
I am not an expert on this but my impression is that the monarchy DOES have POWER. The reason you don't know that is because the monarch hasn't used it recently. If the monarchy was under threat, I would imagine that the Queen would call out the military to defend herself. If I'm not mistaken, Canadian soldiers take an oath, not to Canada, but to the British monarchy (Canada is a slave to the British monarchy in theory; in practice it is mostly independent). If my understanding is correct, the Queen has more power over the Canadian military than the Canadian government even.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Even if they were to come up with something "capitalist" it would capitalism according to Arab rules and traditions rather than North American traditions.
There is only one capitalism. Everything else is non-pure and intermediate stages towards pure capitalism. There is no such thing as Middle Eastern captialism, any more than North American capitalism.
Anyway, the original author's point is that democracy does not necessarily result in capitalism. Democracy could result in socialism, for example. Or it could result in a religious fundamentalist society (this is highly likely in Iraq and this is why USA is not implementing democracy--USA is trying to implement an autocratic system). As a matter of fact, pure democracy and pure capitalism are contradictory. Under true democracy, the majority will overthrow the minority wealthy elite. Capitalism is an elitist system and hence a tiny minority will accumulate wealth and power. Democracy will not permit this if it is perfect.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I'll make this short (hopefully) since you may not read it or respond to it. Don't want to waste time typing up something with no response :)
:) although you have socialist leanings. Things like funding for arts, culture, etc are key to socialism. There is no point having public schools, if you don't have public art. There is no point having public healthcare if you don't have public energy supply. Supporting one and not the other means you are just arbitrarily picking stuff.
I'll just sum up my arguments.
Iraq: A Grave Sin
Your argument that Iraq had WMD is weak. As someone above points out, USA never really had any PROOF. All USA had was guesses by so-called intelligence experts.
Given that you invaded for WMD, and now can't find them (most likely there isn't any), you committed a grave sin. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase over the next few years) looking for some bogus WMD which never existed. If that's ok with you, as Madeline Albright said of killing millions due to Sanctions, well, all I can say is that we have different morals. What you are doing is executing someone for a supposed crime when in fact the person did no harm. There is no way to back out of it. All you can do is to avoid doing that in the future--which isn't happening with USA (eg. Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Colombia, etc--why is USA supporting this horrible regimes?).
Liberatarianism
I say you cannot call yourself liberatarian (even the US version of liberatarian, which is nothing more than liberatarian-right or liberatarian-conservative). You are more conservative than liberatarian. You are against non-intervention. You are against a person's right to choose (eg. abortion). I imagine you are also against legalizating drugs. And how about legalizing prostitution? Or how about homosexuals? That's not very liberatarian if you are against those.
How can you be more of a Liberatarian than anything if you want some entity (government) messing with people's personal decisions (eg. drugs, abortion, homosexuality, etc)? It's hard to say what you are without knowing you (although that Political Compass did provide some insight). My guess is that you are probably a classical liberal, aka traditional conservative (eg. Pat Buchanan). Although, that would place you on the far-right and your test results don't seem to indicate that.
In any case, it's your choice what you call yourself. I'm not a Liberatarian and could care less what you call yourself.
Abortion
The whole notion of life is arbitrary. There is no OBJECTIVE way to determine what is life? You say a fetus is life. How do you know? What if science didn't exist? Some might even argue that a fertilized egg (say at the instant you had sex) is life. Is it? How about sperm? Or the egg? Is that life?
You are just drawing a line. So is everyone else. Your view is based on religion. Can you honestly say that a fetus is a life if you weren't introduced to Christian doctrine?
Socialism
Well, you aren't a socialist
I don't understand that link you listed. What does political correctness have to do with anything? Are you talking about the fact that there are multiple languages on that site? If yes, you picked a bad example. They are a translation service. You'd expect them to have multiple languages. In any case, there is nothing wrong with having multiple languages (even for govt services).
Religion
I don't think the religious issues have much to do with political correctness (conservatives like to throw around the word political correctness but the word has specific meaning). Instead, they deal with core issues. Pledging allegiance to God has nothing to do with political correctness but a lot to do with God in people's lives.
I don't think many are calling for the abolishment of the Christman tree (the trees have little to do with Christmas if anything). But
Technology limitations likely did play a role in those games. I remember C&C had performance issues early on (I think early beta or something). WCIII (my brother has this so I know it) doesn't have a good engine. It's Blizzard's first 3D engine and I think they could have done much better. I am pretty sure WCIII limited the number of units for performance reasons. If I'm not mistaken, Blizzard even said that (before the game came out I think--fans were asking for Starcraft like 100+ units per side).
:) It's just too bad that TA, one of the top RTS games of all time, just died off. Its gameplay sucked IMO but it had features. In fact, many RTS games STILL don't have TA's features.
I don't know what to say about TA. I was never really into it--probably because my PC didn't run that game well. I used to have a ton of arguments with my roommate at that time who loved TA, whereas I loved Starcraft
My favourite genre is RTS (I don't play FPS at all). I think one of the problems with RTS is that it is too popular. RTS games because a cash cow and this means that companies are reluctant to try new things. The early days (circa mid 90's, with C&C, Red Alert, TA, WCII, SC, AOE) were more innovative in my eyes. Yes, they improved slowly BUT companies tried new things. Nowadays, they are just rehashing things. You can tell by looking at maps. The maps have not changed AT ALL since that era. Yes, there are terrain bonuses and the like but they still suck...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
All you guys (you and eveyrone on Slashdot with the same argument) are looking at it from a non-user point of view. What you guys use a word processor for differs from the real users. Typing up a letter or just entering some numbers into a spreadsheet might be ok for you but the real users need more features. For example, Excel is still better than anything in OOo. In particular, the plotting in OOo sucks compared to Excel. And I'm not even an Excel "user".
With your line of thinking, there is no difference between an old word processor, say Wordperfect 5.1 for DOS and a modern one, say MS Word XP. I'll bet the real users can point out a million things that are better in the latter product.
One of the reasons Linux is not popular is because it just doesn't have the same features as Windows. For a programmer, or a systems admin, everything might look the same. But for an end-user things can be very different.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I haven't read the full report you cite but based on the first link, it doesn't prove ANYTHING. I have no idea what the cited report (in the first link) uses to measure the index but how can they possibly measure the software index? For computers (i.e. hardware), it's easy. You just look at performance, speed, memory capacity, etc. But how about software?
The benefits of software are intangible. Therefore, they are likely to be undervalued.
Also, YOUR points (as opposed to the links you cite) are just as vague. How can you say that a debugger does not result in productivity improvments? How about automated tools for generating GUI elements? ANd so forth. I have a feeling that you, as well as the guy you cite, are not adjusting for results. For instance, it might take a programmer 50 hours to create a "program" now, just like it took 50 hours 30 years ago. However, the results are vastly different. Unlike 30 years ago, now the "program" will have more features. I'll bet you are not counting soft things like that (features, appeal, ease of use, etc)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I know you capitalists love to invoke everything, including ownership of the world, to defend yourselves...but can you PLEASE leave physics out of this?
Sivaram Velauthapillai
What you are saying is happening but not the way you imagine--or your capitalistic economic books talk about. When jobs are lost, other jobs ARE created. But these jobs are often worse than the previous ones. If engineers lose their jobs, they will get another job all right. It just won't be engineering or anything professional. When manufacturing laid off people, they got other jobs (often in the service industry) which were FAR worse (in terms of pay).
:) ). I'm just against capitalism and it modern incarnation called neo-liberal economics.
Also, cost of living does not necessarily increase with increased trade. I can cite a ton of South American countries that have "benefitted" from trade yet their standard of living is the same (worse in some cases). What you fail to realize--something that capitalist books won't mention--is that the benefit does NOT accrue to the average worker.
American wages, for example, have been almost flat over 30 or 40 years! (I can't remember the stats but they only grew like 4% or something like that--adjusted for inflation of course). In contrast, executive wages have skyrocketed. In the 70's, executives made something like 50x the average worker. Now they make 250x.
There are benefits from trade--I'm not disagreeing on that. But your capitalist economic books will also point out how the benefit from trade can be allocated. If countries A and B are trading, A can get all the benefit, or B can, or they can share it in some manner. Unfortunately for the poorer countries, the benefit accrues to rich countries. Now, replace countries with corporation vs worker, and you'll note that the benefit does NOT accrue to the workers of the world. Instead, the benefit is more likely to accrue to the capitalists and coordinator class (eg. management).
Don't get me wrong: I'm not anti-Asian (I'm originally from there anyway
My, non-capitalist view, is that USA severly overconsumes. I think USA will, at some point, have to devalue their currency. It is just overvalued and otherwise it won't remain competitive. For instance, if the oil producing countries switched to the Euro, from the "petral-dollar", USA will get hit. Gunpoint capitalism then becomes the norm...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
These U.S. companies never did learn to think even 10 years down the road. If you start exporting high tech jobs to Asia then who is going to be left to buy your products over here?
:) ...
There is no such thing as a US company. All capitalism has are companies--international ones that are not basd on any country. Under capitalism, you don't care about countries. If anything, free trade will ensure that there is no such thing as an American or Canadian or Japanese or whatever corporation. Corporations will be able to move easily to other countries. It wouldn't suprise me if corporations move to another country overnight without letting anyone know (like has happened to some sports teams).
The Asian countries never seem to have went through their industrial revolution and unionization era so they don't seem to have many of the laws that protect us against corporations looking for cheap slave labor.
My theory is that unionization will not occur. There are several reasons for this but perhaps the most important is that unions can't fight for worker rights in the modern era. If you form a union in those countries, the corporation will, on top of trying to crush it, just move to another region/country/continent/etc.
Speaking as a leftist, I don't think unions are the answer to the modern capitalists. Unions simply aren't designed to withstand multinational entities. Unions are very localized and require government laws to support them. When corporations aren't local, and when governments don't care about anyone, it doesn't work well. So what else is there for the workers? I'm working on it
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Speaking as a movie fan, I completely agree with the CEO of Blockbuster (when was the last time I agreed with any corporate elite? ;) ) Region codes do absolutely nothing to a movie fan, other than make it worse (especially for foreign films that are NOT released locally)...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
I've been sort of unemployed for a couple of years (since I graduated from school :( ) so I haven't really been into gaming (haven't upgraded my PC, haven't bought a game in a long time, etc). So, I'm not sure about C&C Generals. How is that game? I was sort of following it BEFORE it came out. I didn't think it was going to be revolutionary. It just LOOKED like a rehash with better graphics. Is the game play any good?
:) Yes, Blizzard hasn't announced it but I'm sure they'll start on it soon :)
Warcraft III? Well, I like STRATEGY over TACTICS. Warcraft III goes towards tactics. I personally prefer strategy. You know, the long term planning, resource management, and stuff like that.
I need to get a job first but the only game I'm waiting for is Starcraft II
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Based on what the authors of that test say, I think the test evoked the right emotions in you. Your reaction to that sex question is funny but that's what it's supposed to evoke. I think people who are in favour of loyal marriage would have the same reaction as you.
You weren't doing the test properly--at least I don't think so. You were CONSCIOUSLY trying to place yourself somewhere on the econopolitical spectrum. You shouldn't be doing that. You should have just answered the question without thinking about where you would end up. It should be just based on your feelings and thoughts. Perhaps you wanted to project a particular image of yourself to me so you weren't comfortable with the test. It's just a test and it is not perfect, although I find it accurate based on a few friends I know of.
Anyway, it seems you are close to the center. Since BOTH tests placed you a little to the left, you may not be a conservative at all (although you are nowhere near left or far-left and hence cannot be called a leftist).
Socialism is definately a giant NO in a place like the United States, for example, but I believe there are situations where it makes some sense.
That's weird. How can you say socialism is not appropriate in some places yet is ok in other places? Why do you say that? I haven't seen too many people place restrictions on socialism. Usually people are either for it or totally against it. Perhaps the fact that you are close to the center is the reason why you put a clause on socialism (instead of outright acceptance or rejection).
We did not give supplies to Iraq so that they could murder their own people, we gave them to help their fight with Iran. That was wrong, I freely admit, it was the "enemy of my enemy" logic, which I disagree with (for the most part anyway).
It's just too bad that people who follow the 'enemy of my enemy is my friend' philosophy never realize that it leads to allying with the devil. You say it was wrong but USA is still on the same path. How come you (meaning USA) is allied with Ahmed Chalibi and his buddies? How do you know he isn't the next devil that you allied with? He is known for accounting irregularities (codeword for he stole money from the US govt). Already, as I pointed out, he is severely restricting media in Iraq. It wouldn't surprise me if Iraq ended up with just the state media in 1 year!
But I again say that, in order for us to be dissallowed from using that argument, you'd have to prove that two wrongs don't[-ed] make a right. If anything, we can at least say we're trying to atone for our own past atrocities.
See that's the problem... You are just using that as an EXCUSE. You CANNOT correct those mistakes. You killed 10,000 (likely to increase) in order to take out Saddam. You (will) destabilize Iraq.
It's just too bad that you don't see what the neoconservatives are up to. It's too bad that you believe every lie coming out of George Bush. It's too bad that you rely solely on the corporate-controlled yes-men in the media.
There is NO WAY you can correct the deaths of innocents! Following your ideology, who is USA going to invade to correct past mistakes? Egypt perhaps? Or maybe Saudi Arabia? Or Kuwait? We all know how horrilbe the regime in Kuwait is so are you saying USA should invade Kuwait next, killing tens of thousands in the process?
Pardon my strong language here... You are basically a "sinner" who hasn't come to terms with his "sin". You sort of realize what USA did was wrong but you haven't come to terms with it. You still hope that you can avoid confronting you past "sins" by somehow correcting them.
I never did use it as a pretext for war. I was saying, regardless of what we did 15 years ago, right now I truly believe we are making things better for Iraqi citizens. And even though I make that claim, I don't pretend that that was a pretext for war either. Never said it, never implied it.
What WAS
Ss the world moves towards (pure) capitalism... subsidization will become less common. So people who use a service a lot (and hence are subsidized by others) will have to pay more. A lot of geeks (like me) use the internet far more than an average person. I think I'm going to be paying $150/month in internet (instead of $30/month) in 10 years (adjusting for inflation) :(
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You clearly do not respect gaming but others do. Right now gaming is in its infancy but if it picks up, I'm sure people wouldn't mind having it one their resumes. For instance, putting a professional chess designation in some countries actually helps job prospects.
In addition, none of this matters. If someone can make $100k or even $40k, they should do it. When you graduate from school, it doesn't mean you'll get a job. I've been pretty much unemployed since I graduated from unversity 3 years ago and some others I know are in the same position. The jobs people like us do get/have are unrelated to our careers so being a professional gamer is the same thing. If someone offered me $40k when I was 18, I would have taken it. If things didn't work out, I can go back to school (who says you can't go back to school when you are say 23?) You can even use the money you earned. This the same approach as athletes. The VAST MAJORITY of athletes fail. Only a few make it. But if some guy can get drafted (even if a low position) and make $100k, they should take it. They can go to school AFTER the team cuts them and use the money they earned.
As far as hard work is concerned, if these guys are doing it for 12 hours a day, that IS hard work. At least it shows me that someone can be committed and work long hours when needed. How does graduating from a university show that you are a hard worker? Many of the people I knew from school (who have jobs now) weren't exactly hard workers.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
With RTS games, though, I rarely play multiplayer, because I tend to feel that either the rush gets you...
;) One of the things that makes RTS games unjoyable for newbies is that other players don't help each other. Games like Warcraft III try to eliminate these problems but RTS games aren't perfect yet. I think RTS games need a bit more work on the team aspect.
Rushing is part of RTS games... get used to it man. Not dissing you... just saying it's part of the genre. If you don't get used to it, you'll NEVER really get into RTS games. Think of it as a high-risk tactic where the enemy is sacrificing everything for an early win (if they lose the rush, you usually have the advantage). The only time I am against rushing is when the game is unbalanced. I haven't played games in a while (no job=no money) but the C&C games have horrible balance. I never really considered rushing in C&C games to be a fair tactic. Rushing in games like AOE (Age of Empires), Warcraft II, Starcraft, etc are perfectly ok in my eyes...
I also have problems with triple and quadruple rushes in games like Starcraft (eg. 3 of the enemy vs 1 of you). You can defend 2vs1 rush but anymore more than that is tough (unless you are Terran or something). It totally sucks when this happens but this isn't a game problem (not usually at least). This is mostly because your allies are smoking weed instead of helping you
Sivaram Velauthapillai
How about the eye strain? I think it all depends on WHAT you do at work. When I had a job, I really didn't like to do certain things when I came home because it was doing almost the same thing.
If you spent your whole day programming, I don't know if you want to come home and do some programming too. Or if you spend your whole day installing, configuring and supporting computer systems, I don't know if you want to come home and mess around with Linux.
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Approximately 250,000 people died during the Saddam Hussein atrocities. The vast majority of these were in the 80's, when USA, France, and others were ACTIVELY supporting Iraq. If you, as USA, was going to invade Iraq, or if you supported the war, you cannot use that. USA supported these crimes! They even provided the political support for Iraq to use chemical weapons. It will be totally hypocritical of USA to use that as a pretext for war. If USA truly believed in it, it will be satisfied if some other country, or some Iraqis, invade USA to get the war criminals in USA who facilitated the mass murder.
:) ). You CAN stand on a street corner and preach violence. Fascists do it all the time (ever looked at the KKK or Aryan Nation?) I don't know where you get this idea that speech (and hate speech) is restricted. Not in USA! Even in countries like Canada (where there are more restrictions), you can publish quite a bit.
If you are going to cite atrocities, you really have no moral ground unless you leave out stuff that your side supported.
Also, stop quoting the State department PLEASE! You are discrediting yourself by referencing propaganda. If you went with the US government view, Iraq without a doubt has WMD. I certainly hope that you don't quote Powell's proof he presented at the UN, or President Bush's "proof". I mean, the US govt still maintains that they did NOT help Usama bin Laden. But if you look at independent sources, you'll get something else. Relying on government propaganda is just lame.
More people will die now than before. The number that was quoted was only for Baghdad. The number of people Saddam Hussein killed in the last several years is small comapred to the innocent deaths that are occurring now (unless you attribute the UN sanctions death to him, which I'm not doing).
In any case, this isn't about deaths. I value life. I'm not going to get into a debate over numbers of deaths. That just cheapens lives. All I'll say is that your numbers are way off.
I also read the beginning of the article you posted... but even in the U.S. there are restrictions on free speech that encourages violence against others. You can't stand on a street corner rallying people to beat police officers. The press that was invaded in Iraq was doing just that - it wasn't simple dissent. Also, since Al-Jazeera is not an Iraqi news outlet, those rules don't apply....
What the IGC (Iraqi Governing Council, aka US proxy) is doing is totally against freedoms. It would not be permitted in at least 50% of the countries in the world--and it is nowhere near the freedoms guaranteed in USA. This is so bad that it doesn't even compare to corrupt countries like India or South Africa where press freedoms aren't as great. USA is making Iraq into its "assets", just like it has done to all Middle Eastern and Latin American countries over the decades. I don't even think you know is going on. I mean, if the most anti-Saddam newspaper is all of a sudden shut down because it is anti-IGC, how is that freedom?
You say that USA restricts freedoms. You sound you live in Canada (Canada restricts freedoms; not USA...I'm from Canada BTW
As far as Al-Jazeera is concerned, the first to suppression of media is to ban FOREIGN media. The local ones are easily controlled but the foreign ones are independent. You need to look no further than Zimbabwe.
I am a conservative, to be sure, but I don't necessarily believe in imperialism as much as i believe in free will.
You don't sound like a conservative to me...but more on this later... Free will? I guess if forcing someone to follow your views, or forcing some people to be a proxy state is your idea free will. USA is bringing free will to the Middle East all right... just like how Britain was educating the savages in India, Africa, and the Middle East.
The fact is that it can be done - just because it hasn't been done in over fifty years doesn't mean it's still no
That's capitalism! (tm)
Risk is part of a business. You should always be prepared to pay for it if you give out loans or whatever. Unless you are not a capitalist, you only have the "right" to complain if there is some illegal activity going on.
If you invest in the stock market (via stocks or bonds) and if you lose anything, you shouldn't be complaining...
BTW, I'm not saying you DESERVE any of it... all I'm saying is that capitalism is all about that...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
lol... that's so true.. when are humans going to start resisting that? :)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
You are not giving them their freedom! You are forcing YOUR views onto them.
The American revolutionaries got help but it was THEM that was driving the revolution. It wasn't some foreign force that, all of a sudden, decided a "regime change" was good for the Americans. I'll guarantee you that if Mexico/Spain invaded USA to free them at that time, the Founding Fathers would not have supported that. In fact, if France invaded USA in order to "free" the Americans, I doubt anyone would have supported it too...
Sivaram Velauthapillai
--VERY LONG-- :)
;| Just recently the IGC banned Al-Jazeera and a bunch of other media. That's free media to you? A while ago the same thing happened. I can't find a link to the newsj--sorry about that (sucks how you have to pay for newspaper archives). But read the beginning of this article. This article is from Justin Raimondo who is on the far right so I don't necessarily agree with it or him (I'm on the far left) but it illustrates my point. You only have to read the beginning part.
I hope you take the time to read this because I spent some time on it
Since the "end of major combat", fewer civilians have been killed as a result of insurgency than would have been killed by Saddam's regime (on average).
Speculation can lead to your demise. Let's see. Approximately 1500 have died since the "end of major operations" in Baghdad ALONE. That's all in half a year (approximately). Who knows how many have died in other areas. Let's say an average of 3000 in one year (that's just one city too, although the biggest city). What was Saddam's biggest atrocity? Probably his chemical attack against Kurds in Halabja. Supposedly this killed 5,000. Now, are you telling me that Saddam was killing more than 3000 per year before the war? Do you have any proof other than the US government (propaganda) documents?
As a side note, Saddam killed A LOT during the Iran-Iraq war. I'm not counting these people because it is hard to say what was going on at that time. It's not clear how many of the deaths at that time were human rights abuses, and how many were war casulties. Also, the US government backed Saddam Hussein at that time (remember this famous photo of Donald Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddam?)
I envision an Iraq where the money from oil revenues pays for schools, roads, hospitals, and other social services, so that people don't have to pay taxes or have any other financial burden of the like.
Is USA going to be profitting from this? Or is this supposed to be a neutral thing left to the Iraqis to decide? How much do you want to bet that American oil companies will control all the oil coming out of Iraq in 10 years?
I envision free press (which already exists now), and a place where people can be as secure in their persons as people are here in the U.S. Part of my vision is already come to pass - there is freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, freedom to dissent - freedoms they didn't have before.
There sure is a lot of free press in Iraq right now
The problem is that you are either a neoconservative who is in favour of imperialism (unlikely), or that you are a naive "liberal" (likely). You ACTUALLY think what Bush said in front of the National Endowment for Democracy will happen/is true. Sad to say, it won't and it never has. You just CANNOT bring democracy and freedom to a country with a gun. Gunpoint democracy is doomed to fail. The last person to try that was probably Lenin (and his invasion of Poland) but it never got anywhere. Name ONE country that USA has meddled with since WWII, that ended up democratic or free. The answer is absolutely ZERO! There are lots of examples (El Salvador, Guatemala, Chile, Panama, Colombia, Iraq (before), Iran, Indonesia, Philliphines, and so on) but it never worked.
Democracy and Freedom has to come from WITHIN the people (if you are a liberal you should know this already). Foreign forces can never impose it on others. It's just like say women's rights or equality or something. Contrary to what conservatives think, you just cannot bring equality to women in the Middle East (for example) by forcing the people to accept it. It's too bad the conservatives don't understand liberalism (whi