You aren't secure in your own home. You can be indefinitely detained without cause, trial or recourse. Cops are abusive. Soldiers with machine guns around town. Yeah, I feel real safe.
My rights are most definitely infringed.
The SCOTUS loves to ignore the 9th amendment. They seem to find all these restrictions on civil liberties all over the place, because things aren't explicitly enumerated. Oh wait.
"The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
People can quote all the safety statistics they want about flying - I prefer to keep my feet on terra firma, tyvm. I hate flying on any plane as it is... but I wouldn't ever step foot on this thing!
I don't want to wait in a line if I have a simple transaction - like checking into a hotel or printing tickets. Faster line to the kiosk, faster service by the kiosk, (usually) no confusion on the part of the computer. I like to have the opportunity to do things for myself, before having to rely on another person - often, this is not possible. Complex problems require human intervention. Computer errors too. And customer service by a computer exacerbates problems, because it is perceived as insincere and says, "we don't care about you and we aren't going to waste our time on you". Human workers will always be necessary - but in declining numbers, as machines become increasingly efficient and capable of performing complex tasks that could only have been done by a human before.
And for as fun/cool/effective as technology is, Slashdot readers are innovating their own demise.
A) Media attention will do nothing to stop this. Never has. There is nothing new about the government granting itself more authority, and it -never- gives it up.
B) I would create a new mod category and call it 'Wrong', and your post would be the first one to get it ^_^
I've paid taxes my entire life, whether I made $4000/year or $60,000/year. I see 33% of my paycheck disappear to Uncle Sam each week. That '47%' comment is so disgustingly inaccurate, I don't know why it has gotten air time any further than that greedy prick uttered the words.
Politicians, corporations and rich people immediately point out that all of this activity is 100% legal by the current US tax code. Certainly immoral - but who cares? They're running away with all the money, that's all that matters to them.
Soooooo glad I haven't "upgraded" to iOS 6 yet. Between the maps and now this, it sounds like a real piece of trash.
I've been an Apple hater for decades - their PCs suck, but I will admit that their hand-held devices are amazing. They've taken a big step backwards in my book, with iOS 6.
Arrogance? Naaaah! Just confidence:-) When you're right about everything, it is very frustrating to deal with wrong/stupid people/Republicans.
What do I do? I'm a life-long computer nerd but studied my other passion in college - political science. So, I've gotten to be real good with rhetoric, to disguise my strong language in sweet-sounding prose and occasionally throw a few qualifying statements in there so that I don't make them feel so stupid.
But in similar fashion, it sometimes drives me crazy to argue with a fellow computer nerd who ~does~ know what they're talking about, but just has polar-opposite opinions from my own (like Mac users... tho they are more like idiot-savants).
I have an opinion on everything, it's always correct, and it matters more than everyone else's!:-D
It sounds like they are doing with Iran what they did with Iraq: big on talk, short on facts. Israel and the United States are looking for any and every reason to launch an attack on Iran to at least give it some guise of legitimacy. They argue that a nuclear-armed Iran would set off an arms race in the region... Israel has nukes, Pakistan has them, and so does India. Foreign policy experts and even the US State Department agree that Iran is a 'rational actor', and they know that if they launch any nuclear attack, they themselves will be vaporized. What a nuclear-armed Iran WOULD do, is negate the Israeli threat in the region. Frankly they have no reason NOT to want a nuke. It will probably lead to some measure of peace and stability in the region, the first in quite a long time.
To spend so much money on this project, I will GUARANTEE that it will somehow be used by the US military to spy on other countries AND American citizens. It is the only possible reason the government would justify spending so much money.
And, as George Carlin says, don't trust ANYTHING the government tells you. Basically, you can trust that the opposite is true.
I fail to understand how I am a kool-aid drinker, when I point out that a) they both suck, and b) cite facts to back those arguments up. Mitt Romney was "for it before he was against it", and we see that especially with the health care plan that he passed in Massachusetts. Mitt Romney is an outright liar (worse than most politicians), and Obama didn't call him out on any of it during the first debate.
http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/
Nowhere in my post did I say or even imply that Obama isn't also an ideologue. He takes liberties with the facts and with his record as well, but has not changed his platform 180 degrees in the course of a day. It has been the stated goal of the Republican party to make him a one-term president, and they have obstructed nearly every piece of controversial legislation that Democrats have introduced. The Senate filibustered more bills than in all the years this country has existed. With the "Tea Party" at the helm, they have shifted to the far right with their social, economic, and foreign policies.
Obama doesn't know how to play the game. His inexperience at politics means that he doesn't know the key players on a personal basis and never had to work with them, it means that he doesn't know how to use the bullypulpit of the president, and it means that he doesn't know how to use the 'carrot and stick' to get Congress to do what he wants. His inexperience is glaring.
I'm writing in Ron Paul for president. Living here in New Jersey (ugh!), the state is guaranteed to go to Obama, so my vote doesn't make a damn bit of difference anyways. Ron Paul's mantra is to "stop telling people what to do!" I don't agree with many of his positions, but I do think that he is the best person for the job.
I follow politics very closely, and although I'm just another asshole with an opinion, I at least think that it is an informed opinion.
Obama does suck, but Mitt Romney is a far more dangerous choice - not so much because of his policies, but because the far-right Republican party would have control of at least one, and possibly both houses of Congress. They are a party of war-mongers, elitists who favor the rich, and have a downright hatred of government. Their extremist social policies seek to enforce a "Christian nation" "as the founders intended".
Mitt Romney is willing to say and do ~anything~ to get elected. He has no principles. And based on the positions that he -has- taken, he wants a regressive tax system where the "job creators" (aka rich people) are taxed very little, and us non-rich (aka moochers) have to "pay our fair share". He has pandered to Israel and repeatedly shown during his trips overseas, that he has no understanding of foreign policy or affairs, and makes brash, off-the-cuff remarks that can be seen as aggressive and undisciplined.
This man is extremely dangerous not only for America, but for the entire world. Obama might not be any good, but Romney will destroy the American dream, and several other countries along with it.
I live in New York City and am an avid cyclist and amateur racer. I know how to handle a bicycle. I commute daily to work, 6 miles each way. I love it.
I have also smashed two helmets in the past year, and I have no doubt that they have protected me from serious injury. The rest of my body was pretty badly injured, but besides a slight headache, my head was fine. I follow all rules of the road: stop for red lights and cross when it is safe, stop before the crosswalk, don't block traffic, stop for pedestrians, don't cut people off... the only thing I control on the road is ME.
I had three crashes last year: one because of an aggressive taxi driver (the ONLY time that has happened), once by someone who threw their car door open (broke my collarbone), and once by an oblivious idiot driver who turned into me in an intersection while I was in the bike lane - we were both stopped at a red light and I was standing right next to his window in bright blue and orange and made eye contact with him (broke my hip). Bicycle lanes are the MOST DANGEROUS place for a cyclist to be - nobody respects them. Pedestrians walk in them, package delivery people and street vendors push their carts in them, people park in them, cops park in them, pedestrians don't bother looking while crossing them, couriers and Chinese delivery people compulsively ride against traffic.... The safest place to be is in traffic, as far to the right as possible, 4 feet away from the parked cars. Unfortunately, NYC by law requires cyclists to be in the bike lane when one is provided... although that is enforced about as often as speeding is: never. Speed limit in town is 30mph, and if I get up to that speed, cars are still zooming past me. Taxis are actually the safest drivers on the road! They know to look for cyclists. It is the out-of-towners who are the most dangerous (like the guy who hit me in the intersection). There was an article in yesterday's newspaper about how 176 cyclists have been killed already this year in NYC... and of course that article was reporting on the latest fatality.
Riding on the sidewalk is illegal, unsafe, and just plain annoying. Another barrier to cycling is that, outside of NYC, many drivers (especially in NJ) feel that the road is theirs, and will harrass cyclists and sometimes hit them intentionally.
Bike helmets shouldn't be optional, they should be MANDATORY. Maybe people don't want to wear one because it isn't fashionable. But when they smash their head open on the pavement, I'll bet they regret that decision.
Andrew Jackson is considered the American Hitler by the natives.
Cherokee trail of tears: forced march from fertile lands to a desert. 4,000 dead. Hitler forced the Jews to do the same.
Homestead act: move on in! Even though we promissed them the land. Israel does this same thing every day.
Seminole Indians in Florida were among the last tribes to resist. They were hunted down and killed by the American military. Just like Rwanda.
Smallpox was intentionally spread to native populations, killing at minimum 500,000. Saddam at one point had chem/bio weapons (obviously not when we invaded... clearly a false pretense for war), and used them on his own people.
Korean "War": 2.5 million dead civilians
Gulf "War": +5000 dead civilians
Vietnam: unnecessary war that killed 59,000 Americans. Nearly 1 million Vietnamese (North+South) civilians were killed.
That's off the top of my head in a minute. And my numbers are conservative averages from numerous academic/government sources.
The USA was not the only actor in these conflicts - but as the most powerful nation on earth, you can damn well bet we killed the most!
Please, read the encyclopedia! Not wikipedia, but the real thing! There were ***millions of people already living here***. Deny it all you want. They were here when the white man came, and gone not long after.
Let's pretend that the American invasion didn't directly result in all those deaths. Saddam never came close to killing as many of his own people as we have. And society was nowheres near as chaotic as it has been! Lots of Iraqis agree - live was MUCH better under Saddam. At least it was a stable, secular government. Far from good, but better than what we have done!
The American news ignores tons of stories, big stories that get lots of coverage in other countries but is not ever reported on here. Every time I leave the USA it's like going to a whole new planet. The fact that Fox News is the most watched in the USA, that CNN is totally absurd (Chilenian miner coverage with fake rescue torpedo? Election hype?) They compensate for a lack of content by using flashy graphics, television "personalities" (not journalists), and fill in the rest with ads. MSNBC is just a joke.
BBC international is very fair, and Al Jazeera more-so. It is just politically incorrect to acknowledge that, because they report favorably on some stories about our enemies (because our enemies are 100% completely evil people who hate everything America stands for. yeah.) There is fair criticism for all news agencies, but none moreso than the US "mainstream media"
You buy into the US propaganda as much as anyone.
Native Americans? America is named after an Italian guy. When Columbus landed, there were at MINIMUM 900,000 people living in the current USA (by a study commissioned by the US government. Most estimates tend to put the population at around 10 million. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica.
We infected them with smallpox, raped and pillaged their villages and lands, and hunted them down and massacred them in the name of "Manifest Destiny"... we were bringing civility to the savages!
WWII? A MINIMUM of 250,000 Japanese civilians in less than a week! INTENTIONALLY!
How many millions of civilians have we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? You don't hear about THAT on the American news networks. Too gruesome for people to stomach, I guess. The US government claims it doesn't keep statistics on civilian deaths (a total lie... read the wikileaks files). Most estimates put Afghan civilian deaths north of 100,000, and Iraq close to 1,000,000.
Look at the chaos we have caused in these countries. The governments in place before the war were horrific, but never killed anywheres close to the number of people that we have killed! Europeans defined the borders of the Middle East, grouping together people who have hated each other for thousands of years. As soon as the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, we left too and the Taliban came to power. One of Osama bin Laden's qualms with the USA is that we abandoned him and his Mujahadeen (who we considered allies at the time... the enemy of my enemy is my friend) by not delivering on promised aid after the war. Yeah, we sure did prevent the spread of communism.
America has caused all of these problems!!!!!!!!!
The war in Afghanistan was completely justified; Iraq was a total lie, formulated by GWB as retaliation on Saddam for putting a bounty out on Bush Sr while he was prez. I said the day that Bush was "elected", that we would be going to war in Iraq. Providential to the extreme.
Coalition carelessness, poor combat strategy (troops can't even fire back because of stupid rules of engagement) and absolutely no coherent plan for afterwards. These people are total clowns, beholden to Boeing and Lockheed and Blackrock and Haliburton and all the rest.
Ya'll need to start reading history books that were NOT written in the USA. And watching the BBC or Al Jazeera news. 1000x more accurate and informative than any of the garbage on American "news" channels. Half the censorship (oh think of the children! we mustn't make anyone feel uncomfortable!). How can an informed decision be made, based on incomplete / WRONG information? Because it's all business, dollars and cents, baby!
War to finance? Just print more money. Been doing it for decades.
The US government is so full of shit, you can't trust not a single word they say. I'm no conspiracy theorist... I inform myself on these topics and their lies are blatantly clear! We are NOT free, we do NOT have the moral high-ground, and we are just as fucking bad as the Soviets. Come to NYC and tell me the NYPD doesn't use gestapo tactics. Seriously. Get stopped once. The only reason we get away with all of this is... nobody else has bombs bigger than ours! Yet.
Your best bet is moving to Canada... they don't piss anyone off, nobody wants to bomb THEM!
Yep, lets just throw some more money at it! That'll make our kids smarter!
As the Federal government rains cash down on the states, they are slowly taking away what has always been a decision of the local people: what the kids get taught in school. This obviously has tremendous implications (I'll just mention the word 'Hitler' here), and is just one more example of the Feds taking control of our daily lives.
No Child Left Behind (laff) has been a travesty to the educational system, and has set a dangerous precedent.
Want to cure low graduation rates in high school? Give them something to look forward to after graduation: college. Free. The dumb ones can even just get a 2 year degree, but this would give younger students something to work towards, where college is just for rich white folks [I myself am a poor white, and only in college because of the government was generous enough to give me full scholarship]. There is no doubt that manufacturing jobs are fleeing overseas, and many low-skilled service-sector jobs went overseas years ago. By educating so many more people at this higher level, we would have higher employment and more innovation - the one thing that has kept America successful. We haven't had much of that in the past few years.
Ethics doesn't mean paying bloated prices. WHICH I might add get passed on directly to the consumer and lead to inflation. Real wage increases are non-existant.
And "my kind"? You seem to portray me as some evil, rich, aristocratic snob who snubs his nose at the "poor working class". Know what I make right now? $9 an hour. Think I want to make more than that? Sure do. Think I'm worth more than that? Damn right. But you know what? The market says otherwise. So what do I do? I learn more, I improve, and I beat out the other guy. Economic safety nets don't work because not everybody puts forth equal effort. Lazy people drain the system while hard workers have to pick up the slack. And I will have you know that not all businesses have the corporate greed that you so love to paint us with. As I said, plain and simple - I won't screw anybody over with fancy language and legal tactics, nor will I myself be screwed over by heavy-handed union tactics (note: I am self-employed, but write this from the perspective of an employer).
At the end of the day, its either red or black ink. You can have your job and get paid what the market says you will get paid, or you can be unionized and screw the company over and not know if you have a job the next day. Like it or not, foreign countries have no regard for their workers. Thats the fact. Live with it. Companies reap what the market says they will get. Why should workers get an unfair share? They have free choice to move where there is work, to learn new skills, and to improve their lot.
I am shocked that there aren't more reasonable and business-savvy people trolling this discussion. I consider myself a liberal but this whole argument for subsidized-everything and communist economics is just blowing things completely out of the water. Face reality folks! The Chinese are here to stay!
Actually, you make too many assumptions. I HAVE carried garbage. I HAVE carried bricks, lumber, nails, and tools. And my hands ARE callused (and not from typing). Standing around is no excuse. And what I said about 5-10 guys doing nothing wasn't an exaggeration. I have NEVER, in all my life, seen state road crews work. Privatized ones work because they have an incentive. Unionized state workers have no fear of losing their jobs or taking a pay cut.
Why pay somebody for hours they haven't worked? Seems non-sensical to me; thats what a salary is for.
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You aren't secure in your own home. You can be indefinitely detained without cause, trial or recourse. Cops are abusive. Soldiers with machine guns around town. Yeah, I feel real safe. My rights are most definitely infringed.
And they ignore the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth amendments too. But they worship the 2nd amendment!
The SCOTUS loves to ignore the 9th amendment. They seem to find all these restrictions on civil liberties all over the place, because things aren't explicitly enumerated. Oh wait. "The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people."
People can quote all the safety statistics they want about flying - I prefer to keep my feet on terra firma, tyvm. I hate flying on any plane as it is... but I wouldn't ever step foot on this thing!
And yet people freely share their information. For Zuckerberg, we aren't the customers, we're the product
I don't want to wait in a line if I have a simple transaction - like checking into a hotel or printing tickets. Faster line to the kiosk, faster service by the kiosk, (usually) no confusion on the part of the computer. I like to have the opportunity to do things for myself, before having to rely on another person - often, this is not possible. Complex problems require human intervention. Computer errors too. And customer service by a computer exacerbates problems, because it is perceived as insincere and says, "we don't care about you and we aren't going to waste our time on you". Human workers will always be necessary - but in declining numbers, as machines become increasingly efficient and capable of performing complex tasks that could only have been done by a human before.
And for as fun/cool/effective as technology is, Slashdot readers are innovating their own demise.
A) Media attention will do nothing to stop this. Never has. There is nothing new about the government granting itself more authority, and it -never- gives it up.
B) I would create a new mod category and call it 'Wrong', and your post would be the first one to get it ^_^
I've paid taxes my entire life, whether I made $4000/year or $60,000/year. I see 33% of my paycheck disappear to Uncle Sam each week. That '47%' comment is so disgustingly inaccurate, I don't know why it has gotten air time any further than that greedy prick uttered the words.
Politicians, corporations and rich people immediately point out that all of this activity is 100% legal by the current US tax code. Certainly immoral - but who cares? They're running away with all the money, that's all that matters to them.
Soooooo glad I haven't "upgraded" to iOS 6 yet. Between the maps and now this, it sounds like a real piece of trash. I've been an Apple hater for decades - their PCs suck, but I will admit that their hand-held devices are amazing. They've taken a big step backwards in my book, with iOS 6.
Two solutions exist for America - first, repeal all free-trade agreements. Second, the perennial favorite: bomb em!
I would mod you up if I hadn't already posted my (important/correct) opinion on this parent thread :-)
Arrogance? Naaaah! Just confidence :-) When you're right about everything, it is very frustrating to deal with wrong/stupid people/Republicans.
:-D
What do I do? I'm a life-long computer nerd but studied my other passion in college - political science. So, I've gotten to be real good with rhetoric, to disguise my strong language in sweet-sounding prose and occasionally throw a few qualifying statements in there so that I don't make them feel so stupid.
But in similar fashion, it sometimes drives me crazy to argue with a fellow computer nerd who ~does~ know what they're talking about, but just has polar-opposite opinions from my own (like Mac users... tho they are more like idiot-savants).
I have an opinion on everything, it's always correct, and it matters more than everyone else's!
Two words: Planned obsolescence
And sent to prison, I'm sure! Scheme to defraud, or tax evasion, or some BS excuse. Creates jobs for 'corrections officers' though right?
It sounds like they are doing with Iran what they did with Iraq: big on talk, short on facts. Israel and the United States are looking for any and every reason to launch an attack on Iran to at least give it some guise of legitimacy. They argue that a nuclear-armed Iran would set off an arms race in the region... Israel has nukes, Pakistan has them, and so does India. Foreign policy experts and even the US State Department agree that Iran is a 'rational actor', and they know that if they launch any nuclear attack, they themselves will be vaporized. What a nuclear-armed Iran WOULD do, is negate the Israeli threat in the region. Frankly they have no reason NOT to want a nuke. It will probably lead to some measure of peace and stability in the region, the first in quite a long time.
To spend so much money on this project, I will GUARANTEE that it will somehow be used by the US military to spy on other countries AND American citizens. It is the only possible reason the government would justify spending so much money. And, as George Carlin says, don't trust ANYTHING the government tells you. Basically, you can trust that the opposite is true.
I fail to understand how I am a kool-aid drinker, when I point out that a) they both suck, and b) cite facts to back those arguments up. Mitt Romney was "for it before he was against it", and we see that especially with the health care plan that he passed in Massachusetts. Mitt Romney is an outright liar (worse than most politicians), and Obama didn't call him out on any of it during the first debate. http://factcheck.org/2012/10/dubious-denver-debate-declarations/ Nowhere in my post did I say or even imply that Obama isn't also an ideologue. He takes liberties with the facts and with his record as well, but has not changed his platform 180 degrees in the course of a day. It has been the stated goal of the Republican party to make him a one-term president, and they have obstructed nearly every piece of controversial legislation that Democrats have introduced. The Senate filibustered more bills than in all the years this country has existed. With the "Tea Party" at the helm, they have shifted to the far right with their social, economic, and foreign policies. Obama doesn't know how to play the game. His inexperience at politics means that he doesn't know the key players on a personal basis and never had to work with them, it means that he doesn't know how to use the bullypulpit of the president, and it means that he doesn't know how to use the 'carrot and stick' to get Congress to do what he wants. His inexperience is glaring. I'm writing in Ron Paul for president. Living here in New Jersey (ugh!), the state is guaranteed to go to Obama, so my vote doesn't make a damn bit of difference anyways. Ron Paul's mantra is to "stop telling people what to do!" I don't agree with many of his positions, but I do think that he is the best person for the job. I follow politics very closely, and although I'm just another asshole with an opinion, I at least think that it is an informed opinion.
Obama does suck, but Mitt Romney is a far more dangerous choice - not so much because of his policies, but because the far-right Republican party would have control of at least one, and possibly both houses of Congress. They are a party of war-mongers, elitists who favor the rich, and have a downright hatred of government. Their extremist social policies seek to enforce a "Christian nation" "as the founders intended".
Mitt Romney is willing to say and do ~anything~ to get elected. He has no principles. And based on the positions that he -has- taken, he wants a regressive tax system where the "job creators" (aka rich people) are taxed very little, and us non-rich (aka moochers) have to "pay our fair share". He has pandered to Israel and repeatedly shown during his trips overseas, that he has no understanding of foreign policy or affairs, and makes brash, off-the-cuff remarks that can be seen as aggressive and undisciplined.
This man is extremely dangerous not only for America, but for the entire world. Obama might not be any good, but Romney will destroy the American dream, and several other countries along with it.
I live in New York City and am an avid cyclist and amateur racer. I know how to handle a bicycle. I commute daily to work, 6 miles each way. I love it. I have also smashed two helmets in the past year, and I have no doubt that they have protected me from serious injury. The rest of my body was pretty badly injured, but besides a slight headache, my head was fine. I follow all rules of the road: stop for red lights and cross when it is safe, stop before the crosswalk, don't block traffic, stop for pedestrians, don't cut people off... the only thing I control on the road is ME. I had three crashes last year: one because of an aggressive taxi driver (the ONLY time that has happened), once by someone who threw their car door open (broke my collarbone), and once by an oblivious idiot driver who turned into me in an intersection while I was in the bike lane - we were both stopped at a red light and I was standing right next to his window in bright blue and orange and made eye contact with him (broke my hip). Bicycle lanes are the MOST DANGEROUS place for a cyclist to be - nobody respects them. Pedestrians walk in them, package delivery people and street vendors push their carts in them, people park in them, cops park in them, pedestrians don't bother looking while crossing them, couriers and Chinese delivery people compulsively ride against traffic.... The safest place to be is in traffic, as far to the right as possible, 4 feet away from the parked cars. Unfortunately, NYC by law requires cyclists to be in the bike lane when one is provided... although that is enforced about as often as speeding is: never. Speed limit in town is 30mph, and if I get up to that speed, cars are still zooming past me. Taxis are actually the safest drivers on the road! They know to look for cyclists. It is the out-of-towners who are the most dangerous (like the guy who hit me in the intersection). There was an article in yesterday's newspaper about how 176 cyclists have been killed already this year in NYC... and of course that article was reporting on the latest fatality. Riding on the sidewalk is illegal, unsafe, and just plain annoying. Another barrier to cycling is that, outside of NYC, many drivers (especially in NJ) feel that the road is theirs, and will harrass cyclists and sometimes hit them intentionally. Bike helmets shouldn't be optional, they should be MANDATORY. Maybe people don't want to wear one because it isn't fashionable. But when they smash their head open on the pavement, I'll bet they regret that decision.
Andrew Jackson is considered the American Hitler by the natives. Cherokee trail of tears: forced march from fertile lands to a desert. 4,000 dead. Hitler forced the Jews to do the same. Homestead act: move on in! Even though we promissed them the land. Israel does this same thing every day. Seminole Indians in Florida were among the last tribes to resist. They were hunted down and killed by the American military. Just like Rwanda. Smallpox was intentionally spread to native populations, killing at minimum 500,000. Saddam at one point had chem/bio weapons (obviously not when we invaded... clearly a false pretense for war), and used them on his own people. Korean "War": 2.5 million dead civilians Gulf "War": +5000 dead civilians Vietnam: unnecessary war that killed 59,000 Americans. Nearly 1 million Vietnamese (North+South) civilians were killed. That's off the top of my head in a minute. And my numbers are conservative averages from numerous academic/government sources. The USA was not the only actor in these conflicts - but as the most powerful nation on earth, you can damn well bet we killed the most! Please, read the encyclopedia! Not wikipedia, but the real thing! There were ***millions of people already living here***. Deny it all you want. They were here when the white man came, and gone not long after. Let's pretend that the American invasion didn't directly result in all those deaths. Saddam never came close to killing as many of his own people as we have. And society was nowheres near as chaotic as it has been! Lots of Iraqis agree - live was MUCH better under Saddam. At least it was a stable, secular government. Far from good, but better than what we have done! The American news ignores tons of stories, big stories that get lots of coverage in other countries but is not ever reported on here. Every time I leave the USA it's like going to a whole new planet. The fact that Fox News is the most watched in the USA, that CNN is totally absurd (Chilenian miner coverage with fake rescue torpedo? Election hype?) They compensate for a lack of content by using flashy graphics, television "personalities" (not journalists), and fill in the rest with ads. MSNBC is just a joke. BBC international is very fair, and Al Jazeera more-so. It is just politically incorrect to acknowledge that, because they report favorably on some stories about our enemies (because our enemies are 100% completely evil people who hate everything America stands for. yeah.) There is fair criticism for all news agencies, but none moreso than the US "mainstream media"
You buy into the US propaganda as much as anyone. Native Americans? America is named after an Italian guy. When Columbus landed, there were at MINIMUM 900,000 people living in the current USA (by a study commissioned by the US government. Most estimates tend to put the population at around 10 million. Source: Encyclopedia Britannica. We infected them with smallpox, raped and pillaged their villages and lands, and hunted them down and massacred them in the name of "Manifest Destiny"... we were bringing civility to the savages! WWII? A MINIMUM of 250,000 Japanese civilians in less than a week! INTENTIONALLY! How many millions of civilians have we killed in Iraq and Afghanistan? You don't hear about THAT on the American news networks. Too gruesome for people to stomach, I guess. The US government claims it doesn't keep statistics on civilian deaths (a total lie... read the wikileaks files). Most estimates put Afghan civilian deaths north of 100,000, and Iraq close to 1,000,000. Look at the chaos we have caused in these countries. The governments in place before the war were horrific, but never killed anywheres close to the number of people that we have killed! Europeans defined the borders of the Middle East, grouping together people who have hated each other for thousands of years. As soon as the Russians pulled out of Afghanistan, we left too and the Taliban came to power. One of Osama bin Laden's qualms with the USA is that we abandoned him and his Mujahadeen (who we considered allies at the time... the enemy of my enemy is my friend) by not delivering on promised aid after the war. Yeah, we sure did prevent the spread of communism. America has caused all of these problems!!!!!!!!! The war in Afghanistan was completely justified; Iraq was a total lie, formulated by GWB as retaliation on Saddam for putting a bounty out on Bush Sr while he was prez. I said the day that Bush was "elected", that we would be going to war in Iraq. Providential to the extreme. Coalition carelessness, poor combat strategy (troops can't even fire back because of stupid rules of engagement) and absolutely no coherent plan for afterwards. These people are total clowns, beholden to Boeing and Lockheed and Blackrock and Haliburton and all the rest. Ya'll need to start reading history books that were NOT written in the USA. And watching the BBC or Al Jazeera news. 1000x more accurate and informative than any of the garbage on American "news" channels. Half the censorship (oh think of the children! we mustn't make anyone feel uncomfortable!). How can an informed decision be made, based on incomplete / WRONG information? Because it's all business, dollars and cents, baby! War to finance? Just print more money. Been doing it for decades. The US government is so full of shit, you can't trust not a single word they say. I'm no conspiracy theorist... I inform myself on these topics and their lies are blatantly clear! We are NOT free, we do NOT have the moral high-ground, and we are just as fucking bad as the Soviets. Come to NYC and tell me the NYPD doesn't use gestapo tactics. Seriously. Get stopped once. The only reason we get away with all of this is... nobody else has bombs bigger than ours! Yet. Your best bet is moving to Canada... they don't piss anyone off, nobody wants to bomb THEM!
Yep, lets just throw some more money at it! That'll make our kids smarter! As the Federal government rains cash down on the states, they are slowly taking away what has always been a decision of the local people: what the kids get taught in school. This obviously has tremendous implications (I'll just mention the word 'Hitler' here), and is just one more example of the Feds taking control of our daily lives. No Child Left Behind (laff) has been a travesty to the educational system, and has set a dangerous precedent. Want to cure low graduation rates in high school? Give them something to look forward to after graduation: college. Free. The dumb ones can even just get a 2 year degree, but this would give younger students something to work towards, where college is just for rich white folks [I myself am a poor white, and only in college because of the government was generous enough to give me full scholarship]. There is no doubt that manufacturing jobs are fleeing overseas, and many low-skilled service-sector jobs went overseas years ago. By educating so many more people at this higher level, we would have higher employment and more innovation - the one thing that has kept America successful. We haven't had much of that in the past few years.
Ethics doesn't mean paying bloated prices. WHICH I might add get passed on directly to the consumer and lead to inflation. Real wage increases are non-existant.
And "my kind"? You seem to portray me as some evil, rich, aristocratic snob who snubs his nose at the "poor working class". Know what I make right now? $9 an hour. Think I want to make more than that? Sure do. Think I'm worth more than that? Damn right. But you know what? The market says otherwise. So what do I do? I learn more, I improve, and I beat out the other guy. Economic safety nets don't work because not everybody puts forth equal effort. Lazy people drain the system while hard workers have to pick up the slack. And I will have you know that not all businesses have the corporate greed that you so love to paint us with. As I said, plain and simple - I won't screw anybody over with fancy language and legal tactics, nor will I myself be screwed over by heavy-handed union tactics (note: I am self-employed, but write this from the perspective of an employer).
At the end of the day, its either red or black ink. You can have your job and get paid what the market says you will get paid, or you can be unionized and screw the company over and not know if you have a job the next day. Like it or not, foreign countries have no regard for their workers. Thats the fact. Live with it. Companies reap what the market says they will get. Why should workers get an unfair share? They have free choice to move where there is work, to learn new skills, and to improve their lot.
I am shocked that there aren't more reasonable and business-savvy people trolling this discussion. I consider myself a liberal but this whole argument for subsidized-everything and communist economics is just blowing things completely out of the water. Face reality folks! The Chinese are here to stay!
Actually, you make too many assumptions. I HAVE carried garbage. I HAVE carried bricks, lumber, nails, and tools. And my hands ARE callused (and not from typing). Standing around is no excuse. And what I said about 5-10 guys doing nothing wasn't an exaggeration. I have NEVER, in all my life, seen state road crews work. Privatized ones work because they have an incentive. Unionized state workers have no fear of losing their jobs or taking a pay cut.
Why pay somebody for hours they haven't worked? Seems non-sensical to me; thats what a salary is for.