Dan, Jesse is biased because he has the right to be, and ought to be. We aren't a newspaper, we are just a bunch of folks arguing with each other. Sure, Jesse is biased, but so are the rest of us. If he, and the other writers here, were not, no one would come to this website!
You can not even defend your own beliefs! Do you guys even have any beliefs? I am not saying that we should enforce morality on other people, then we would be no better than the people who we claim are "immoral." But how can you morally equivilize everything in life? Do you do this when you make decisions for yourself? If you do, would it really be considered making your own decisions? Frankly, I couldn't give a damn about what other people think, but when I make my own decisions, I do not want to be manipulated by this "everyone is right, no one is wrong" bullshit! If this attitude was around during WWII, you would be speaking German and I would be a bar of soap!
This is in response to when Jesse said in response to my latest post about the Clinton admin warning the Bush admin. Seeing as how Jesse probably won't care that there are legitimate reasons for the Clinton adminstration not taking actions against Al Qaeda, I'll be breif with the details. Furthermore because of my own laziness, from now on when I say Bush or Clinton in this post, I'm refering to their adminstrations.
1. Clinton had planned to attack the forces plotting against us, but because of incidents involving his wang, the American people would not have supported it.
2. The second time Clinton was going to strike was during an election, and he didn't want to make that into Gore's campaign.
You see Jesse, it's not that I really care, it's that you unnecarily bashed Clinton, since there were actual reasons for Clinton, and I've looked and found NONE for Bush, except that he wanted to sweep the budget crisis under the rug.
WHO's standards of morality per say? Obviously you mean by yours, YOURS. We look back at the Romans and their gladiators and wonder how could they do something so cruel, but you are looking through your own eyes and their in lies the problem. It wasn?t considered wrong back then and that?s because the mentality was different. Just as their mentality is different in the Middle East. YOU DO NOT HAVE THE RIGHT TO TELL SOMONE ELSE WHAT IS RIGHT AND WRONG. Just because it makes since to you, does not mean it will to them. This is the problem with many US citizens; they feel that their way is right and that just how it is, but it?s not the truth. Americas are some of the cockiest ethnocentric bastards of the world. Once you understand that their life style works as it has for thousands of years, and the people do not want to change it, let it go let them be their own country. We should support no one but our selves and we should NEVER judge anyone. We feel as though some how we inherited the duty of policing the earth, but we didn?t, and no one wants to be policed. You may not realize this, as most feeble people have not but morality is 100% opinion, their is no true right, their is no true wrong.
It isn't exactly a piece of cake to for citizens to leave those countries. They don't even have that freedom in many places. Fine, let the bastards rot, but lets not pretend that hanging homosexuals and stoning to death adulterers is morally equivilant to trial by jury. If a country is crazy and it keeps to itself, fine! The fact is that we have been damaged by countries who began as despotic regimes minding their own business. Who cared about Taliban Afghanistan before 9/11? They were just blowing up thousand year old Buddah statues, not Americans (actually, they were harming us indirectly by harboring Bin Laden before 9/11, I am just trying to make a point)! Just because a country has a different form of governement is no reason in itself invade a country, but pretending that everything in the world is morally equivilant is not a good thing.
Just because we like democracy does not give us the right to shove it down other peoples throats, we would then be as bad as Russia after World War 2. I think we should let countries do what ever the hell they want and not fight unless we are first damaged. If the people want democracy let the bastards get it them selves, they don't need our help. If someone wants to worship a different god he can get the hell out of those countries
Oh, and BTW Dan, Clinton knew and also did nothing, not to mention after the Kohl (don't mind my spelling) he did nothing!
I don't know how much freedom of speech was allowed in the Iraq elections. Who ran against Saddam again? Were there any newspapers that were anti-Saddam? Well, if there was, they would have gotten a bullet through their head. Freedom of speech is the most crucial element in democracy. Without it, the citizens are not informed, and can be manipulated even more easily by those in power, creating a dictatorship. I guess Saddam Hussein won with 99.9% of the vote. Seems like a good old fashioned Soviet election.
I find it hard to believe that the terrorist attacks were completely inevitable. I've heard accounts of people in the Clinton adminstration who warned the Bush administration of the Al Qaeda stirring up. The response of the Bush administration was one of either arrogance or ignorance, I'm not really sure which. My point is that was a typical American response: to not care. Something unfortunate has to happen for anybody to listen, and even when they do, they don't react right, and they still don't care for very long. Don't get me wrong, I love America, I'm just not too fond of most Americans.
btw, technically, Saddam Hussein was elected "democratically", it was just a corrupt election.
and also, America doesn't just go into countries and place democracies, it puts whatever is easiest to manipulate (think chile, they democratically elected a communist, we dispose him and put a dictator in his stead)
Gross, I am trying to remember the Arab country with a popularly elected government...wait, that is right, there is none! I really can't remember any freedom of speech or religion either in the Middle East. Sure, America has puppet regimes in the Middle East who are dictatorial and suppress freedom, and as I wrote earlier in re: how different are we that is a huge mistake that undermines America's efforts. When I speak of democracy, I do not mean America dominating everyone, I mean elected governments, freedom of speech and other freedoms. Sorry, but I don't consider a country where adulterers are stoned to death very "ideal." Right now, the Arab world is in a sorry state. Most Arabs agree that popularly elected governments and freedom of speech would be a good thing. Maybe you misinterpretted my article, but I never said that what America does in bribing corrupt regimes is good, quite the opposite. Finally, since when did we start talking about South East Asia? The fact is that in the middle east, individuals, mainly religious leaders view the U.S. and the West as the threat. Maybe because of American interference in the past in the Middle East, maybe because of Western Culture that they see as pornographic and unholy, maybe because democracy lessens their power. Whatever the reason, these individuals, not everyone, view the U.S. as the "Great Satan" and have used their own means to attack Western and American targets. Maybe the Arab world is not ready yet, but democracies, not corrupt dictatorships, would make the Middle East more peaceful, and allow for a better world as a whole.
Good call Jesse, thanks for the backup . . . but Ben when you talk about how the Arab countries haven't got the message of democracy you are completely wrong because the have got the message and they have had very bad expierences with it. You see America's democracy works great in America but when we enforce it in other countries, namely Vietnam, we do it to establish puppet governments that are basically dictatorships. Now if you look at Afghanistan we tried to instill a puppet government by messing around with the countries internal affairs . . .and we gave a horrid image of what American democracy is. So by you saying that we haven't been able to spread freedom and democracy around the world, you are wrong because America has had oppurtunities to spread the "ideal government" but instead we spread cruel dictatorships that oppress the people more than the current gov't. But to change paths and argue with both Jesse and Ben, I don't think that other countries of the world think we are the "Great Satan" and instead they really don't care, they have bigger fish to fry. They have to worry about their neighbors with atomic weapons .. . obviosly some of the world thinks we are a horrid country but a lot of them don't think of us as their biggest threat.
