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5:30 PM | 
Posted by
kender
Dear readers, one of the commentors on my little blog here is Ryan Ray. I like Ryan. He attempts to counter my posts, mostly about communism, and tries very hard, and I applaud him for that attempt. Sometimes he even has a valid, yet minor, point.
I was going to post a response to a comment he made, and in fact wrote it up in the comment box. But I decided that it needed to be front page stuff. Below is my response to his comment about my posting the french parody song, and my response to that.
Enjoy, and please toss in your own two cents. And American pennies only please.
Key "ryan" >>Kender<<
His words are in "quotemarks", mine are in the >>arrows<<
Ryan, at the bottom of this comment you made elsewhere on this blog are the words "fiery response from me" which is you saying this was a fiery response. This is 'fiery'?
O.K., as S.O.P., I will take this apart bit by bit.
"as for the weaklings that the french are today"
>>Let's begin today with some lessons in capitalization. Can you say that? Good, then do it. I am not asking for perfect grammar, as I don't have perfect grammar due to the fact that I write as I speak, but at least put forth the effort to capitalize, if nothing else, the beginning of sentences. Some punctuation wouldn't hurt either, son. You come off as lazy, (a classic communist trait BTW) and kind of uneducated, which I don't really believe completely, but then the other readers may not know that you are in school still. As for the comment you made about the french today being weaklings it is their choice. They have chosen, along with the rest of Europe, a path of appeasment, which is leading them down the road to ruin. Ruin by the simple act of NOT acting to stop radical islamic factions from forming in their countries, and allowing them to begin putting their, (radical islamists), view upon the countries they are in.<<
"i feel that i have some defending to do from a country with a (not always happy) tradition of french-canadians."
>>There is nothing you can say that will defend the inaction, and complete cowardice, of the french. They have gone right along with the corrupt U.N.s agenda, backing sanctions against Iraq when they were not working, obstensibly to give a peaceful resolution a chance, while reaping huge profits, illegally I may add, and standing in the way of what is right. France wants desperately to matter on the world stage. But they don't, and rightfully so. They have done nothing to earn respect. They give in to terrorists demands simply by showing that they will not stand against them, all in the name of short term profits and at the expense of long term freedom.<<
"i mean if you're going to make fun of them there's ample ammunition for it. they never win or even fight wars and they have a strange inferiority complex that leads to insane nuclear testing."
>>You have valid points there, and I have no argument with that statement except that france pursues a nuclear program in their defense, which is funny in itself since france understands the concept of defense in one way.....Raise Our Arms. As for france having an inferiority complex? That is not strange at all. That just simply shows that in one respect, at least, they are perceptive.<<
"but the song was written awkwardly and oftentimes was too retarded and tasteless. the only thing funny about it is the melody. you can put anything into that melody and make it funny. watch."
>>Yes, the song was somewhat awkward, but it is a PARODY!!! A concept, by the way, which would have meant death in the ussr. I never claimed the song was great, but I said it was funny.<<
"you're a green one,
you're a yank
you lie so you can steal
you're as friendly as a weasel
as helpful as a snake
you f'in waaaanKERS! :D"
>>Obviously you have no grasp of, nor appreciation for, parody. That was a sad attempt, as you didn't stay within the cadence of the original song. Perhaps I will write one about communist canuk kids eh?<<
"see it sounds a lot like shit but it goes on and on. it's just that easy. true that it's a song lyric but it's a valid statement as well. matthew good also sings about falling in love with a bad idea which i can get to in a minute."
>>Parody doesn't have to be well written, simply funny. I stand by my statement that this song is just that.<<
"but about the weaklings that they are today and the statue of liberty. at the time they gave your country the statue of liberty it was commonplace for men to wear today's women's clothes in public. enough said."
>> I would like to know what womens clothes you are speaking about. That is really in invalid point as it has nothing to do with the statue or the french or the song. Really this section made no sense whatsoever.<<
"they gave it because the american revolution gave their people the courage they required to enact their own coup d'etat. it was an applause of the original american indepedence."
>> Ah, if only the french would have stayed on the path they stepped upon during their revolution then perhaps today the would be a stronger country, capable of defending themselves and not making such fools of themselves as they do in the eyes of so much of the free world. In fact, if they had followed our example, instead of following their tiny chickenshit hearts and hiding in holes everytime someone else picked up a gun, maybe the would have stood up to hitler, and America, along with her allies, would not have had to save the world.....twice.<<
"they can recognize good ideas, so they can recognize bad ones too. what they're doing today is warning your country of a bad idea."
>>The only good idea that france ever recongnized was the one that led to them helping us gain our freedom from the English. (Well, and maybe the metric system. I admire the metric system as it is based on math and you can lose all info on it save the way to create the system and go out and perfectly recreate it. That is an awesome idea. But I digress.) Then again, I believe they mostly did that to piss off the English in the first place. And the only warning the french should EVER be able to give is one in Paris saying, "Hide, here come the Germans....again!<<
"it comes off as acerbic, foreign, retarded and pointless, but it's sincerely a friendly message. and that's why you guys are so offended by it."
>>It comes off as acerbic because the french are naturally that way. It comes off as foriegn, in a sense of the word that means one doesn't understand it, because they french concept of bravery does not exist. Cowardice is a concept that is 'foreign' to the American psyche, but ingrained in the french. It comes off as retarded and pointless because french foriegn policy is also retarded and pointless. THE FRENCH ARE ARE FUCKING COWARDS PERIOD!!!! I, along with most Americans, don't consider the current stance of the french as a sincerely friendly message. The only time the french have been sincerely friendly to us , after the statue thing, is when WE are marching in Paris, and not the Germans.<<
"friends are the ones who kick your ass or shoot you down when you need it the most. conversely, they're usually the ones who piss you off the most when they do it."
>>NO!!!!! Friends stand beside you. Wise friends may take you aside and say that you should rethink your course of action if they don't believe in what you are doing, but still they stand WITH YOU. They don't yell out in front of everybody that you are wrong. Friends have your back, meaning they watch it in a fight and help you win, not stab you in it. True friends know how to speak to you when they think you are wrong so you don't get angry, but listen and consider instead.<<
"i heard your country was moved far enough to take your french fries back and make them "freedom fries" a la 1984. friends piss each other off more often than not. so take them for what they are."
>>The word french fries came about after WW1, when the doughboys returned home, and it is actually a Belgian creation. Some people do call them freedom fries, but most people still don't. The country is suffeciently outraged by the french action to notice, but still don't see the point of changing our common usage of a word because of a bunch of cowardly frogs.<<
"i've never been to france but i like them."
>>Good, you like them, please go there and visit. Paris stinks to high heaven in the summer due to the dog shit in the streets. I think france looks like a beautiful country, from what I have seen. Too bad it is filled with a bunch of backwards thinking assholes.<<
"they have the best football team in the world and pires/viera/zidane/trezeguet/henry are unstoppable when on their game. if you saw them in 1998 on the TV, you saw their whole country at its best."
>>O.K., let me set something straight. When you talk to an American, the word football means the game we play here called by that name. The game you call football we call soccer. If you talk to an American about soccer call it soccer. We don't care what the rest of the world calls it, much like we don't care that the rest of the world is metric.<<
"at its worst, i've heard that they were assholes on the ivory coast lately and have a long history of being assholes in africa. they were the target example in "the wretched of the earth" by franz fanon. as for what your blog says regarding french atrocities, it's lying. i've seen the video."
>>I have not read that book, but perhaps old Franzy had something there. As for being assholes in the Ivory Coast, if you have seen the video, how can you say it is lying? The french soldiers there are shooting unarmed demonstrators. And the world press sayss not one word? But we shoot one fucking insurgent, after they (insurgents) have been boobytrapping bodies, pretending to play dead and then setting off explosives, or acting as if they are surrendering and then ambushing us, and we are the bad guys? What mitigating circumstances led the french murderers to shoot unarmed demonstrators? Perhaps they were hurling insults at the french? BTW, unarmed people are the only people that the french like to shoot at, as that is the only group that can't fight back.<<
"your quote went that the american soldier was shooting an injured threat to his life. there was no threat to his life. the man was down and out and unarmed."
>> See above for comments on this quote.<<
"a country that appoints itself as above the geneva convention should try leading by example if they don't want to piss the world off, which escalates and makes otherwise normal people start talking about terrorist activities in the united states mainland as an actually viable alternative."
>>The Americans are bound to the GC only as far as signatories to that paper are concerned. The terrorists and insurgents have been acting far outside its' bounds, yet want us to follow its rules. That is BS, yet we have been following the GC, except for minor instances, and those do get investigated, and sometimes, if the evidence is strong enough, prosecuted.<<
"my point is, that soldier was a pussy."
>>I won't even go there with you. The idea of you fighting for anything other than a place at the bar is absurd to me, and until you have been in his position you have no right to judge. I probably would have done the same thing.<<
"in everyone's experience, it's easier to fight than not to fight. your first instinct is to punch someone in the head when shit goes down. even when someone starts talking about sense that you have no idea about, you tune them out and want to punch them in the head. if someone really pisses you off, you want to drop a bomb or fire any weapon. it's an animal instinct. we're still very animal here."
>>No, when someone starts talking "'sense' that you have no idea about" you don't tune them out. You show them the error of their thinking, like I attempt with you. THEN you whack them in the head. And in the animal kingdom, since you brought it up, who rules? Yeah, the biggest meanest fuckin' animal in the group.<<
"not fighting is what's much harder to do. it's what the mentally tough are able to provide as an option. the physically tough component has nothing to do about it. it's nothing to do with penis size or loneliness either. it's about knowledge, future sense and the sincere desire for a decrease of pain in the world."
>>Fighting, when it is called for, takes a strength far beyond the weakness needed to be a coward. The mentally tough, us BTW, have provided it as an option, and exercised that option when the rest of the world was too fearful or lazy or corrupt to act. America does have a desire to decrease the suffering in the world, starting, like charity, at home. And before you start on all our homeless, which BTW we have fewer of than most countries, ours, unlike most countries, rarely die of startvation. And you brought up the penis size thing.....freudian slip perhaps?<<
"as an aside, you must have noticed that the election results in your country most always represented the line between slave states and non-slave states. they have comparisons of maps out there. i'm just saying that maybe your civil war didn't intend what it wanted to, or maybe your country has a sincere inferiority problem like a collective slave mentality, such as what was said about nazi-era germans. maybe it's a problem that they need to talk about, i don't know."
>>You certainly don't know. Many states that voted 'red' to use our figure of speech, did not exist during that time. Same goes for kerry, and the 'blue' states. The civil war was not only to stop slavery but to hold together a union that would, in the long run, make us the most properous and free country that this planet has ever seen. You have said elsewhere that the french have an inferiority complex. Now you claim that of us. If we did we would probably see eye to eye with the french. We don't. We don't have a superiority complex either. We have a faith in the beliefs that this country was founded on. We have faith that our founding documents are as true today as they were 228 years ago, and we believe they will be as true and relevant 228 years from now.<<
"my long-winded point was that i'll be watching like a hawk and if i hear anything else that's negative about the french in general (without provocation from current or historical news) you can expect another defensive and fiery response from me."
>>O.K. hawkboy, you have read this post, and I have been nothing if not derisive about the french. I have in fact called them "cowards"! I said they have "tiny chickenshit hearts"! I said they "hide in holes", like so many islamic terrorists BTW! I have intimated they are back-stabbers! I have called them fools! I called them "cowardly frogs"! I called them "backwards thinking assholes"! I have agreed with you that the french are "weaklings", "losers", "acerbic", and not in a funny way, and also "foreign", "retarded" and "pointless".<<
"without provocation from current or historical news i say."
>>Since you left yourself that particular out I will say that everyting I have said about the french stands. Fuck the french. They are the biggest group of proud cowards this world has ever known.<<
"that still leaves it open. yeah it's open still. of course it's open."
>>It is open. Bring it on son. You need an education commie boy!<<
"but like i proved you can make fun of any nationality using that famous melody because the scale is so loaded. even american nationality."
>>Yes you can. That is what is so great about parody."<<
"peace."
>>Perhaps when radical islam is dead. Your turn Ryan.<<
I was going to post a response to a comment he made, and in fact wrote it up in the comment box. But I decided that it needed to be front page stuff. Below is my response to his comment about my posting the french parody song, and my response to that.
Enjoy, and please toss in your own two cents. And American pennies only please.
Key "ryan" >>Kender<<
His words are in "quotemarks", mine are in the >>arrows<<
Ryan, at the bottom of this comment you made elsewhere on this blog are the words "fiery response from me" which is you saying this was a fiery response. This is 'fiery'?
O.K., as S.O.P., I will take this apart bit by bit.
"as for the weaklings that the french are today"
>>Let's begin today with some lessons in capitalization. Can you say that? Good, then do it. I am not asking for perfect grammar, as I don't have perfect grammar due to the fact that I write as I speak, but at least put forth the effort to capitalize, if nothing else, the beginning of sentences. Some punctuation wouldn't hurt either, son. You come off as lazy, (a classic communist trait BTW) and kind of uneducated, which I don't really believe completely, but then the other readers may not know that you are in school still. As for the comment you made about the french today being weaklings it is their choice. They have chosen, along with the rest of Europe, a path of appeasment, which is leading them down the road to ruin. Ruin by the simple act of NOT acting to stop radical islamic factions from forming in their countries, and allowing them to begin putting their, (radical islamists), view upon the countries they are in.<<
"i feel that i have some defending to do from a country with a (not always happy) tradition of french-canadians."
>>There is nothing you can say that will defend the inaction, and complete cowardice, of the french. They have gone right along with the corrupt U.N.s agenda, backing sanctions against Iraq when they were not working, obstensibly to give a peaceful resolution a chance, while reaping huge profits, illegally I may add, and standing in the way of what is right. France wants desperately to matter on the world stage. But they don't, and rightfully so. They have done nothing to earn respect. They give in to terrorists demands simply by showing that they will not stand against them, all in the name of short term profits and at the expense of long term freedom.<<
"i mean if you're going to make fun of them there's ample ammunition for it. they never win or even fight wars and they have a strange inferiority complex that leads to insane nuclear testing."
>>You have valid points there, and I have no argument with that statement except that france pursues a nuclear program in their defense, which is funny in itself since france understands the concept of defense in one way.....Raise Our Arms. As for france having an inferiority complex? That is not strange at all. That just simply shows that in one respect, at least, they are perceptive.<<
"but the song was written awkwardly and oftentimes was too retarded and tasteless. the only thing funny about it is the melody. you can put anything into that melody and make it funny. watch."
>>Yes, the song was somewhat awkward, but it is a PARODY!!! A concept, by the way, which would have meant death in the ussr. I never claimed the song was great, but I said it was funny.<<
"you're a green one,
you're a yank
you lie so you can steal
you're as friendly as a weasel
as helpful as a snake
you f'in waaaanKERS! :D"
>>Obviously you have no grasp of, nor appreciation for, parody. That was a sad attempt, as you didn't stay within the cadence of the original song. Perhaps I will write one about communist canuk kids eh?<<
"see it sounds a lot like shit but it goes on and on. it's just that easy. true that it's a song lyric but it's a valid statement as well. matthew good also sings about falling in love with a bad idea which i can get to in a minute."
>>Parody doesn't have to be well written, simply funny. I stand by my statement that this song is just that.<<
"but about the weaklings that they are today and the statue of liberty. at the time they gave your country the statue of liberty it was commonplace for men to wear today's women's clothes in public. enough said."
>> I would like to know what womens clothes you are speaking about. That is really in invalid point as it has nothing to do with the statue or the french or the song. Really this section made no sense whatsoever.<<
"they gave it because the american revolution gave their people the courage they required to enact their own coup d'etat. it was an applause of the original american indepedence."
>> Ah, if only the french would have stayed on the path they stepped upon during their revolution then perhaps today the would be a stronger country, capable of defending themselves and not making such fools of themselves as they do in the eyes of so much of the free world. In fact, if they had followed our example, instead of following their tiny chickenshit hearts and hiding in holes everytime someone else picked up a gun, maybe the would have stood up to hitler, and America, along with her allies, would not have had to save the world.....twice.<<
"they can recognize good ideas, so they can recognize bad ones too. what they're doing today is warning your country of a bad idea."
>>The only good idea that france ever recongnized was the one that led to them helping us gain our freedom from the English. (Well, and maybe the metric system. I admire the metric system as it is based on math and you can lose all info on it save the way to create the system and go out and perfectly recreate it. That is an awesome idea. But I digress.) Then again, I believe they mostly did that to piss off the English in the first place. And the only warning the french should EVER be able to give is one in Paris saying, "Hide, here come the Germans....again!<<
"it comes off as acerbic, foreign, retarded and pointless, but it's sincerely a friendly message. and that's why you guys are so offended by it."
>>It comes off as acerbic because the french are naturally that way. It comes off as foriegn, in a sense of the word that means one doesn't understand it, because they french concept of bravery does not exist. Cowardice is a concept that is 'foreign' to the American psyche, but ingrained in the french. It comes off as retarded and pointless because french foriegn policy is also retarded and pointless. THE FRENCH ARE ARE FUCKING COWARDS PERIOD!!!! I, along with most Americans, don't consider the current stance of the french as a sincerely friendly message. The only time the french have been sincerely friendly to us , after the statue thing, is when WE are marching in Paris, and not the Germans.<<
"friends are the ones who kick your ass or shoot you down when you need it the most. conversely, they're usually the ones who piss you off the most when they do it."
>>NO!!!!! Friends stand beside you. Wise friends may take you aside and say that you should rethink your course of action if they don't believe in what you are doing, but still they stand WITH YOU. They don't yell out in front of everybody that you are wrong. Friends have your back, meaning they watch it in a fight and help you win, not stab you in it. True friends know how to speak to you when they think you are wrong so you don't get angry, but listen and consider instead.<<
"i heard your country was moved far enough to take your french fries back and make them "freedom fries" a la 1984. friends piss each other off more often than not. so take them for what they are."
>>The word french fries came about after WW1, when the doughboys returned home, and it is actually a Belgian creation. Some people do call them freedom fries, but most people still don't. The country is suffeciently outraged by the french action to notice, but still don't see the point of changing our common usage of a word because of a bunch of cowardly frogs.<<
"i've never been to france but i like them."
>>Good, you like them, please go there and visit. Paris stinks to high heaven in the summer due to the dog shit in the streets. I think france looks like a beautiful country, from what I have seen. Too bad it is filled with a bunch of backwards thinking assholes.<<
"they have the best football team in the world and pires/viera/zidane/trezeguet/henry are unstoppable when on their game. if you saw them in 1998 on the TV, you saw their whole country at its best."
>>O.K., let me set something straight. When you talk to an American, the word football means the game we play here called by that name. The game you call football we call soccer. If you talk to an American about soccer call it soccer. We don't care what the rest of the world calls it, much like we don't care that the rest of the world is metric.<<
"at its worst, i've heard that they were assholes on the ivory coast lately and have a long history of being assholes in africa. they were the target example in "the wretched of the earth" by franz fanon. as for what your blog says regarding french atrocities, it's lying. i've seen the video."
>>I have not read that book, but perhaps old Franzy had something there. As for being assholes in the Ivory Coast, if you have seen the video, how can you say it is lying? The french soldiers there are shooting unarmed demonstrators. And the world press sayss not one word? But we shoot one fucking insurgent, after they (insurgents) have been boobytrapping bodies, pretending to play dead and then setting off explosives, or acting as if they are surrendering and then ambushing us, and we are the bad guys? What mitigating circumstances led the french murderers to shoot unarmed demonstrators? Perhaps they were hurling insults at the french? BTW, unarmed people are the only people that the french like to shoot at, as that is the only group that can't fight back.<<
"your quote went that the american soldier was shooting an injured threat to his life. there was no threat to his life. the man was down and out and unarmed."
>> See above for comments on this quote.<<
"a country that appoints itself as above the geneva convention should try leading by example if they don't want to piss the world off, which escalates and makes otherwise normal people start talking about terrorist activities in the united states mainland as an actually viable alternative."
>>The Americans are bound to the GC only as far as signatories to that paper are concerned. The terrorists and insurgents have been acting far outside its' bounds, yet want us to follow its rules. That is BS, yet we have been following the GC, except for minor instances, and those do get investigated, and sometimes, if the evidence is strong enough, prosecuted.<<
"my point is, that soldier was a pussy."
>>I won't even go there with you. The idea of you fighting for anything other than a place at the bar is absurd to me, and until you have been in his position you have no right to judge. I probably would have done the same thing.<<
"in everyone's experience, it's easier to fight than not to fight. your first instinct is to punch someone in the head when shit goes down. even when someone starts talking about sense that you have no idea about, you tune them out and want to punch them in the head. if someone really pisses you off, you want to drop a bomb or fire any weapon. it's an animal instinct. we're still very animal here."
>>No, when someone starts talking "'sense' that you have no idea about" you don't tune them out. You show them the error of their thinking, like I attempt with you. THEN you whack them in the head. And in the animal kingdom, since you brought it up, who rules? Yeah, the biggest meanest fuckin' animal in the group.<<
"not fighting is what's much harder to do. it's what the mentally tough are able to provide as an option. the physically tough component has nothing to do about it. it's nothing to do with penis size or loneliness either. it's about knowledge, future sense and the sincere desire for a decrease of pain in the world."
>>Fighting, when it is called for, takes a strength far beyond the weakness needed to be a coward. The mentally tough, us BTW, have provided it as an option, and exercised that option when the rest of the world was too fearful or lazy or corrupt to act. America does have a desire to decrease the suffering in the world, starting, like charity, at home. And before you start on all our homeless, which BTW we have fewer of than most countries, ours, unlike most countries, rarely die of startvation. And you brought up the penis size thing.....freudian slip perhaps?<<
"as an aside, you must have noticed that the election results in your country most always represented the line between slave states and non-slave states. they have comparisons of maps out there. i'm just saying that maybe your civil war didn't intend what it wanted to, or maybe your country has a sincere inferiority problem like a collective slave mentality, such as what was said about nazi-era germans. maybe it's a problem that they need to talk about, i don't know."
>>You certainly don't know. Many states that voted 'red' to use our figure of speech, did not exist during that time. Same goes for kerry, and the 'blue' states. The civil war was not only to stop slavery but to hold together a union that would, in the long run, make us the most properous and free country that this planet has ever seen. You have said elsewhere that the french have an inferiority complex. Now you claim that of us. If we did we would probably see eye to eye with the french. We don't. We don't have a superiority complex either. We have a faith in the beliefs that this country was founded on. We have faith that our founding documents are as true today as they were 228 years ago, and we believe they will be as true and relevant 228 years from now.<<
"my long-winded point was that i'll be watching like a hawk and if i hear anything else that's negative about the french in general (without provocation from current or historical news) you can expect another defensive and fiery response from me."
>>O.K. hawkboy, you have read this post, and I have been nothing if not derisive about the french. I have in fact called them "cowards"! I said they have "tiny chickenshit hearts"! I said they "hide in holes", like so many islamic terrorists BTW! I have intimated they are back-stabbers! I have called them fools! I called them "cowardly frogs"! I called them "backwards thinking assholes"! I have agreed with you that the french are "weaklings", "losers", "acerbic", and not in a funny way, and also "foreign", "retarded" and "pointless".<<
"without provocation from current or historical news i say."
>>Since you left yourself that particular out I will say that everyting I have said about the french stands. Fuck the french. They are the biggest group of proud cowards this world has ever known.<<
"that still leaves it open. yeah it's open still. of course it's open."
>>It is open. Bring it on son. You need an education commie boy!<<
"but like i proved you can make fun of any nationality using that famous melody because the scale is so loaded. even american nationality."
>>Yes you can. That is what is so great about parody."<<
"peace."
>>Perhaps when radical islam is dead. Your turn Ryan.<<
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30 comments:
"if you saw them in 1998 on the TV, you saw their whole country at its best."
And it would figure that france at her best is at soccer.
And what happened to the Matthew Good point you were going to make?
"it was commonplace for men to wear today's women's clothes in public."
I am STILL trying to digest the meaning AND the relevance of this bit. Does this mean you wouldn't wear womens clothes in public? Are you too shy to do that? Not secure enough in your manhood maybe?
Don't take this personally. It is just when I re-read that sentence my mind is twisting around trying to decipher the meaning and relevance of it and I begin to get a headache and that just makes me mean. Sorry. But I am leaving it in. Maybe it will remind you to explain it to me.
Ryan, this is all I have to say about the UN and your comment.....
"Like it or not, it's still the best idea to follow. In fact, by definition, we're not supposed to like the UN. It takes away from every member country's independence. We're supposed to have traded that for a hope in the future."
......is this.....
“They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
-Benjamin Franklin
Two things. Most of this doesn't seem to be especially worth replying to, so I'll just grab a few points.
First, Nixon confused liberty with independence, while they are semi-related (sometimes), the Ben Franklin quote is only sort of relevant.
Also, Kender said that American's do not have a superiority complex. I disagree. American's (as a whole) most certainly do have a superiority complex. I suppose you could argue whether or not such a frame of mind is justified or not, but the majority of American's are extremely ethnocentric. This is brought about by a lack of experience (ignorance) from most American's who have done little to no travel and so therefore have no valid comparison to make.
Before I take apart yet another comment, as soon as time permits, I just want to say one thing. Europeans have a much easier time traveling to a different country. You can drive across the whole of europe in a few days, and hit several countries. In America we can drive for a few days and get to the other side of our country....and that is not taking much time to enjoy the local scene. Just a point to ponder.
Point taken and actually, I am quite aware of it. I didn't really even blame Americans for not having travel experiences since I know that traveling is beyond the budget abilities of many Americans. However, it really only means that Americans need to be especially aware of their supposed lack of experience and not revel in it as so many Americans seem to do.
Kender,
I fail to see why you fixate on your hatred of the French that is on a level of a schoolkid pointing at a guy with long hair and chuckling, "fucking faggot, he he."
The only things worth pointing out are that a) a country's culture and people can be separated from the corruption of their leaders and b) the US is WAAAAYY more corrupt! If you are interested in governemntal cowardice, how woudl you feel about a country that did things like
-- covertly infect its own citizens with syphilis for "research purposes"
-- goes and overturns democratically elected governments in other countries for political expedience, while turning a blind eye to torture (Chile, Iran, Haiti)
-- has a vice president who's company set up an offshore office in order to trade with Iran for profit (as Halliburton has done)
-- has a president who lied to it's citizenry about going to war and has put hundreds of thousands of our citizens who want to defend their country at unneeded risk
-- deliberately facilitated the events of 9/11 in order to marshal public support behind the encroachment on our civil liberties and illegal warfare abroad. And I stand by that . DELIBERATELY.
-- promised federal aid to help in the rebuilding of the destruction of Lower Manhattan as part of his public campaigning and never delivered -- all the while using the events of 9/11 as justification for his insane foreign policy?
That, Kender, looks like corruption and cowardice to me.
Before getting all superior to the French, it is time for all of you who hold these retarded views to take a good long look in the mirror and figure out how we can clean house in our own country. Because our leaders are just as bad, if not worse. I could go on, and on and on.
Mais peut-etre vous avez peur de faire ca? Ce serait trop difficile pour la plupart des gens d'admettre que c'est juste, la phrase, "Les gens qui habitent dans les maisons de verres-- ils ne faut jamais lancer des pierres."
Regards,
L.
Lillet....house will be cleaned here, but not if it means having a liberal in office. The current democratic platform is as close to a socialist/communist agenda as anyone has ever come in this country, and they must be defeated. The only reason this has gone so far into the french quarter, so to speak, is because Ryan has decided to "defend" them. I could pick on Spain, to a point, or any one of a dozen other countries I am sure, but the french are very high profile cowards.
You can stand by your belief that the administration knew of 9/11, but I want to see proof. I don't trade in lies and speculation. One doesn't need the shield of lies and speculation when the sword of truth is on ones hip.
I agree with you about glass houses dear, and I am not afraid of what we have done? How you infer that is beyond me.
That should be I am not afraid of what we have done!
The UN righty hawking is a joke. These same exact republicans, made the same exact move on the UN under Reagan. The UN situation is going to be a boobie trap for the repugs, if Senator Coleman continues on his baseless tirade. It's funny that Coleman has made all these assertations and allegations with no evidence and no data. $2500 a month to Annan's son? Thats the best you got yet you throw all these 20 billion figures out to the media? Amateur hour. Sen. Levin has done taken a much better position on the investigations than Coleman has.
Lets not play games, we all know the republicans have a vested interest in getting rid of the UN for a couple of reasons...one that will never admit is the psychotic ramblings of Rapture-right mushroom cloud Unifactionist Christians. A bunch of moonie cultist politician freaks wanting to instill their "world peace organization"? I wonder what the world would think seeing a bunch of politicians worship some old Korean guy, calling him Father, placing a funky crown on his head. Rev. Moon to replace Kofi Annan? Uhhhh, I don't think sooooooo.
If the Repubs continue Texaco, Unocal, and Chevron are all going to draw major heat. Pipeline money from the last 4 years were have to be investigated at the behest of the money bagmen of the GOP. Do you really think thats going to make them happy?
Let's not forget the billions the Bushistas and Bremer stole from Iraqs accounts in the ministry either.
http://www.iapprovethismessiah.com/
And as far as your supposed "war on terror" How do you account for Bush creating a civil war in Iraq after 2 years of quagmire? He outed Saddam to put in Shiite's? Come on, give me a break. I thought we were bringing them "freedom"? You want to see two true democracys? Spain and Valenzuela. And what does Bush think? He hatest them. Yet the people elected them. And as far as the Afghanistan democracy? Here's a eyewitness link for you...http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/21/1441204&mode=thread&tid=25
Alright, we'll start with this article you posted:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,11498606%255E31501,00.html
I'm not sure I totally buy the arguement that is being presented as a justification for this war. Mainly, because I just can't believe that Bush is that smart or subtle. Although since most of the time I think he is mainly a puppet I suppose it could be others doing this kind of deep/forward thinking. However, assuming I go along with this theory, there are a few issues:
Why are we doing such a terrible job of it? Why are/were not our soldiers as well equipped as possible before entering the war? We did we not have enough (or at least as many as possible) soldiers on the ground to start the war in Iraq as so have been unable to keep control of the country. As soon as we get control in one part, another part flares up. WE let weapons depots go to the foreign fighters that WE let in through the unsecured borders. Now, to make up for all these problems, we are making our soldiers stay longer than is mentally healthy leading them to make all kinds of stupid mistakes. This kind of incompetency is what is going to allow the Jihadist movement to succeed in the goal that was stated in that article because the Islamic world is slowly turning in their favor the longer we are there and the more "atrocities" at American hands they see on the news (Abu Graib, killing unarmed wounded). Our incompetence may in the end win the Jihadist movements war (or at least start it) for them.
Aside from all that, I really HATE being lied to, as I’ve said before, and I don’t appreciate being lied to about why we were going to war no matter what the reason or intention was. Maybe others (who voted for Bush) enjoy it as they seem to. I DO NOT.
Another comment I wanted to reply to is this one:
> As it turns out the anti war movement here was more of a political ploy than an actual outrage. I base this on the fact that the protests have disappeared since the election. <
Sorry, wrong. The reason that you have stopped seeing protests (for the most part) is that people are extremely disillusioned with our system right now. They’re so disillusioned, that they don’t even know where to begin or what good it might do.
One more:
> The reason that kerry lost was not gay marriage...and it wasn't moral issues or religion or anything like that. Kerry lost to Bush because Bush IS fighting these guys and kerry had no better plan to deal with them.<
Actually, Kerry probably did lose based on religious/moral issues. The election was very close and many people I have talked to voted against Kerry simply because of some of those issues. They have no real idea of what is going on in Iraq, nor do they, deep down, care. People like my mom who could never vote for someone who does not oppose abortion (no abortion debates here – its been done, and its pointless to argue about being fundamentally based in belief and faith, its just an example) are very abundant and are probably the reason Bush was able to win.
oh hey Ryan, whats up? Got some relatives up Canuck way...BTW, the guy who shot the Iraqi in the mosque was just the tip of the Fallujah iceberg. If you have followed Kevin Sikes'(the NBC cameraman) blog, he says in typical vanilla US media fashion, "Marines were on a liberal weapons-free zone, meaning shoot anything in sight." In other words, another Gitmo/Abu Ghraib. Kill one to save many. It's quite incredible to witness right hegemonic commies try to wriggle out of that one. The day it came out all the freepers were saying Arroyo was a hero and Sikes should be shot or imprisoned. Remember the AP photographer who barely escaped Fallujah after 4 days of fighting? He saw Black Hawks indiscrimately shooting whole families holding white flags above them trying to swin across the Euphrates. Not to mention the napalm.
www.dahrjamahl.com
Oh yeah, and this one:
>>I will do that after some research. It is also a myth that people cannot get medical care here if they are poor. Why do you think our medical bills are so high? Because poor people use the system and never pay. They have NO incentive to better themselves as long as the government will take care of them, so they stay poor.<<
I don’t want to be mean, but you are obviously not qualified to talk on this subject. This is spoken by someone who pretty obviously has little knowledge of the healthcare system and less experience with it as someone uninsured. I have never been without insurance. My girlfriend has not had it since she was little. If I get a cold, or the flu, I go to the doctor, they write me a prescription, I go pay my ten dollar co-pay and I get better. If she gets something requiring antibiotics, she can’t go see an inexpensive doctor. If she has the money to pay to go see a doctor, she may get a prescription. This will then cost her $40-100 or more. If she does not have the money for one, the other, or both, she will get sick (or I will find the money because I care about her, but I’m using her as an example). She may get very sick at which point she gets to go to the emergency room where they will then take care of her. (This has fortunately not happened). This is part of why the cost of health care is expensive for all of us because the poor have to wait until it is life threatening. Read this article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/business/yourmoney/12cont.html?ex=1103605200&en=9c34a7aebfd452e2&ei=5006&partner=ALTAVISTA1
I can go more on this subject, but not now.
K1....you would be sorely mistaken about me not having the knowledge to comment on healthcare field. I have been intimately involved with doctors and hospitals my entire life, and have dealt with the insurance nighmare, and high medical bills.
I have had a friend die because the hospital was swamped with the indigent and even though he had insurance they still made him wait. He died on a gurney, in a hallway, at USC Medical center in L.A. from kidney failure. His insurance, the same insurance I had at the time told him to go there as it was closest and they took his insurance there. He died because there are many people that cannot afford health insurance clogging up the hospital with colds and minor considerations. I have seen many people with minor conditions in ERs, as ER is bound to take you whether you have insurance or not. IN fact that is the first question you are asked now by medical personnel...not what's wrong, but what insurance do you have?
Why can't they afford health insurance? I will tell you. Now your GF may not qualify for this statement but most people don't have the education or skills to get a job that would let them afford health insurance. Healthcare costs are skyhigh because hospitals and doctors must make up the small amount of money that the state pays them to take care of these poor people. They do that by charging insurance companies more. They do that by charging for every single pill, where ALL costs attributed to that pill, from the deliveryman to the charge nurse are factored in and passed along to the patient and the insurance company.
Another factor is the propensity of people to not lead healty lives, by smoking, drinking to excess and eating an unhealthy diet. A healthy diet is cheap. Limited but cheap.
I know whereof I speak on this subject.
Sorry to hit a sore point, it just frustrates me that people see others who don't have as much as they do as being less intelligent, educated, motivated, etc. as themselves. That everyone's problems and issues are their own fault and should be dealt with on their own. Your view completely does not take into account those who had benefits at their job until they were "right-sized", who would love to work somewhere where benefits were provided, but never had the opportunity or encouragement to get the education needed for one of those jobs. It doesn't take into account kids who's parents were uneducated and unmotivated who are left without healthcare. My GF is putting herself through school - there is no money left over for health insurance, and she's not the only one I know in this situation. A friend of mine married his girlfriend because she had a tumor in her ear and he had insurance, she did not. Talk about the sactity of marriage that lots of conservatives like to waive about. There are lots and lots of reasons why people don't have insurance. Laziness and lack of education is low on the number that I have seen.
Don't you see though that the situation with your friend you just described is why massive changes need to happen in our healthcare system? If those sick people had had access to a regular doctor, not the ER, your friend might still be alive. I liked the suggestion that the guy in the article I posted made, but I also like the german system. The system is completely broken and the drug companies and insurance providers have already proven that they aren't going to fix it. That leaves it up to the government - at least for a while - to get things back under control.
I won't argue with you on people's propensity to lead unhealthy lives, I'm just not sure what we can do about it.
Anyway, that, along with my other previous post is probably enough for you to reply to, and it is time for bed. Goodnight.
Nascarblue.....step on up son and let's see just waht inanity of yours I can set you straight on today shall we?
First, if the repuclicans made the same move to get us out of the UN under Reagan then perhaps they were forward thinking also. There is more evidence coming to light everyday regarding the OFF program, including moeny trails linking saddam to palestinian bombers.
Moving on....I just don't understand your whole rant on moonies, so we will leave that under the heading of "you forgot your meds" mmmkaaayy? What ever 'vested interests' the republicans have for getting us out of the UN that you may believe are most likely wrong. We need out of the UN because they WILL lead us into a one world government. A government where our Constitution and Bill of Rights no longer apply, and we will ALL be under the jurisdiction of a world court. Are you stupid enough to believe that the UN is going to come up with a better document that protects you from tyranny? I certainly don't believe that.
If money was stolen from Iraqi accounts it will trun up and the thieves will be brought to task for it. Until there is an investigation into it I am not going to worry about it.
Next step:
So Bush created a civil war in Iraq? You are either a complete idiot or you really do need meds. Did it ever occur to you that perhaps, just maybe possibly there may be a remote fucking chance that it is the "insurgents" that refuse to lay down their weapons and VOTE that caused your supposed "civil war"?
About spain. The spaniards are quickly becoming cowards of french proportions. Do you really think that spain changing the government because of the train bombings is going to do any good? They have simply shown that they are cowards and terror tactics work on them. The terrorists now know that spain is whipped and no longer a problem.
About (Valenzuela) Venezuela. It seems to be a good democracy, from what little i know of it, but I believe they have a much higher unemployment and poverty rate than the U.S. Afganistsan is in a major transition, and if we were to leave there tomorrow it would fall apart quickly (like Iraq would) and become an even more dangerous place, (to us) than it was before.
K1...you don't have to believe that Bush is that smart or subtle, as you said above. This administration is both of those things.
As why we are doing such a terrible job (in Iraq) you ask? It is because it is well known that we went in almost alone, and our enemies, the enemies of the U.S., believe we do not have the resolve for a fight like they are bringing on. I have news for them. We do, and as long as we have a man in charge that has the balls to do what needs to be done, we will see this through to the end. However if we get a gutless wonder in office we are screwed. Why didn't we have our soldiers as well equipped as possible before we went in? BILL CLINTON! He gutted the armed forces while he was in office. Where do you think his (false) surplus came from? He cut funding for equipment and personnel. As far as I am concerned that left wing closet commie should be brought up on charges of treason.
If jihad joe does manage to get the whole of the "arab street' turned against us and start a large scale war it will be interesting to see who stands with us then. When the arabs conquer the weak appeasing bastards that refuse to stand against them I wonder who they will call to give them freedom once more. If that nightmare scenario does occur, I am going to laugh if the good ol' U.S. lets them stew in it for awhile.
I don't like being lied to either, and saddam DID have WMD, as he used them to gas the Kurds. We sold them to him, we know he HAD them...but now the terrifying question is where are they?
And I stand by my belief that the anti war protests were organized more for political motives than anything else. And the democrats have called in groups of voters and the overwhelming response of why they voted for Bush is the war on terror. I will have to find that link for you on that story.
nascarblue again...war id hell, and when you don't know who the enemy is shoot first, ask second. Those people were warned repeatedly that we were coming strapped for bear, and yes I have heard the rumors of iraqi men being turned back, until I see some proof I won't deal with it. If that happened I am sad to hear that. What they should have done was round them up and lock 'em down.
K1...I agree that we need to do something about our healthcare in this country. I don't know what tho'. It seems that I have read of canadians that can afford it coming to the U.S. in search of better quality healthcare. If that is true, and we go with a socialized medical system, what happens? And if we do go with a socialized medical system, how many doctors are we going to lose to other industries where they can work less for the same pay that a doctor would recieve under that system?
As for prescription meds I think that if the government funds research into a new medication that the company that produces it should have some sort of profit share program with the government. After all, the government funded the research, but the company keeps all the money? That is outrageous.
And if we do have a superiority complex we can damn well afford it. This is a great country. We have a population growth of less than one percent but an immigration rate of almost 3.5% per 1000 population. People come here from all over the world to chase our freedom and the success they can achieve here. A success that is more easily achieved here than anywhere else.
We cannot afford a superiority complex. In one breath you blame the world for our inability to control Iraq because they didn't help us and we didn't have the troops to do things right ourselves. In the next breath you are saying that we can afford a superiority complex. What we need a little humility.
If someone came to me who had been a prick and been saying "I'm the greatest, I'm the greatest! You all suck because you are not me!" and then came to me and said "By the way, could you help me out with this thing I've got going on?" My reponse would be to say "Hell no, if you're so great, you deal with it."
This is what has happened to us and it is largely our superiority complex's fault.
HHHmmm..that is one way to look at it. If we do have a superiority complex it is more about how great we think it is to live here. But I can see your point.
You do know what would happen if we implemented your idea for the drug companies right? They would see their profits go down. As a result, and to make up for this, they would raise the prices or their medications. This would then cause higher insurance for those who have it and even more out of reach drug costs for those who don't.
Healthcare is a monster out of control and the only agency big enough to get control of it, like it or not, is the government. What did you think about the idea of the guy who wrote that article about a system controlled by the government, but paid into optionally by people? When you read about other people coming here for treatment it is generally specialists that they come to see. Maybe we create a system that only encompases general practitioners and medication and leaves specialists as privatized entities? I'm not sure what for sure needs to happen, I just know that something like this is probably along the right lines.
K1
I can see that happening with the drug companies. Are price controls the way to go? R&D has to be paid for somehow. What I am saying is that if the government is going to invest in R&D they should recoup their costs, OR teh companies could put a lowerprice on new drugs. Problem is, where does new R&D money come from?
If we kept specialists privatized I believe we would have even more specialists than we do now and less GPs. I can't think of any way to rein in spending in healthcare, save for the end of using less technological wonders, like MRIs, and stepping back into the 50s. Take two aspirin and call me in the morning. A major problem, one of our own creation, is strains of bacteria that are resistant to older meds.
Recent, and by recent I mean within the last 2 years, work with phages has shown promise in dealing with multi drug resistant bacterial strains. Also on the forefront, but still far from being used, is the possibility of using gene therapy to combat illnesses that are now costly to battle. Stem-cell research shows promise, but not enough for private enterprise to jump into with both feet, then again, a polio vaccine didn't show enough promise for private enterprise so the government funded that and look how successful that has been.
The point I am trying to make is healthcare is patently out of control and new drugs are needed in some areas, and at the same time drug companies, in teh quest for more money, advertise drugs on TV, sometimes without ever saying what the drug is for, and people flock to their doctor asking for this new drug or the other new miracle pill. The drug companies are trying to convince us that we are all depressed or messed up in some other way and need pills for everything, and at the heart of it is new technologies, i.e. better testing and diagnosis, and new drugs ar what drives up the cost. Couple that with people without healthcare and unhealthy lifestyles and the propensity of folks to run to a doctor at the slightest sniffle and we do have a crisis on our hands.
The solution? I am not sure. Private care costs much more than public care. Public care degrades the quality of care, due to keeping cost factors down by limiting personnel and methods of healthcare. There needs to be a balancing act. Nobody has found the pole yet, so we continue to grasp the wire and hang on, hoping to figure it out before we fall.
Can we balance great healthcare while still integrating emerging technologies and treatments while keeping healthcare from becoming so costly that it bankrupts us? That is the question we should be asking ourselves.
You are exactly right. This is the question our politicians should be asking and are not. The current system is ba-roken and getting worse. Our current administration seems to think it is great however, since they haven't done anything to try to fix it. Although (unfortunately from my point of view) I guess they've got four more years to try to do something. I don't expect miracles, but an attempt (even a pretend attempt to pretend they care if they pretended well) would be nice.
(even a pretend attempt to pretend they care if they pretended well)
Well said...I think.:D
OK K1 said something about Americans not traveling......I have spent over 9 years of my life outside the US I have been to Scotland, Ireland, England, Belgium, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Spain, France, Germany (both of them...pre wall fall), Italy, Greece, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Argentina, Honduras, Ecuador, Mexico, Kuwait, Jordan, Oman......I think thats it, I have been to several of them more than once, and...ooooh! I forgot, Eygpt (yuck!) Ethiopia, and Kenya (2 great countries), OK I think thats it.
Ryan Ray; In his bio he claims socialism as a intrest so I will not bother trying to deprogram him, its to late and I really could care less anyway.
Nixon, congratulations, I wish I had the time and money to do so much traveling. I will eventually.
However, notice that I did not say "The guy who goes by the name of Richard Nixon does not travel." I said that Americans in general do not do much traveling - certainly not as much as many people in other parts of the world - and so do not have the same appreciation or respect for other cultures.
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