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#141 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 466 weeks ago
"sure I've been called xenophobic. I just happen to believe that America is the greatest country and the other countries aren't as good. That used to be called patriotism." - Kenny Powers
Fuck fuckity fuck fuck fuck. Am I doing this right?
No, I don't want to own slaves. No, I don't think people from "insert country here" are better or worse than "America".
I just think each country should cater its immigration policies to favor its own citizens and longevity/prosperity. Europe or the US admitting hundreds of thousands of people who are quasi illiterate, lack a skill and don't speak the native tongue, is a retarded immigration policy.
Are you familiar with game theory at all? You're thinking about all of this as if it's a zero-sum game. Meaning you seem to look at the world as an 'us against them' sorta thing (and fair enough 'cause that's what was bread into us through natural selection and all, but as a society our greatest leaps forward have come once we were able to rise above our genetic encoding and work together).
I personally don't believe 'civilization' is a zero-sum game though, and it's certainly not us-against-them. If you think about any of the major steps forward we as a society have taken, it has always been accompanied by a push for more cooperation, further globalization. Nato and later the EEC/EU basically ended war on the European continent, and in the western world in general. That seems to indicate we should look at society as a positive sum game, the results we've managed as a society together are greater than the sum of what we would've been able to do on our own. You know, 'the rising tide raises all boats' and all that jazz...
The best protection against international strife of any sort is to make the world smaller, more unified. I'm European, but I'd much rather consider myself a world citizen, and that's what I'd hope we all aim for. To that end, patriotism is not a virtue, it's an impediment.
Now of course, the practical concerns you raise (language skills, cultural divides, religious indoctrination, etc...) need to be managed properly and are genuine cause for concern. But we shouldn't lose track of the overall goal, which is to improve society for everyone, not just those who happen to have a blue or burgundy passport. And I think that's what is setting people off in your, SG's, James' and buzz's posts. You all seem to be stuck in this 'them bad, us good' narrative, which is incredibly frustrating and unhelpful.
#142 Re: The Garden » Turkish Army Attempt to Stage Coup » 466 weeks ago
johndivney wrote:Randall Flagg wrote:No military should ever take over control of their country. Civilian control of the military is crucial to any democracy.
That's a weird thing to say anyway. As in it's never right for a military to step in & protect its own people from an oppressive government/leader? Surely the fundamental point of a military is to protect its countries people,mine that from threats inside or out.
But where is the line drawn? And no government can oppress its people without the military helping them do it. Edrogan can issue edicts, but if his military and police forces don't enforce them, he's a lion with no teeth.
A lot of people in the US thought Bush/Obama was a tyrant. You could spin a million different things to a point it appears a threat. If you believed Bush was behind 9/11, shouldn't you want the military to remove him from power? If you think Obama is setting up FEMA camps to imprison citizens who disagree, shouldn't the military intervene?
I believe in Democracy, as flawed as it is. The military's purpose is to follow the orders of the democratically elected leaders. That Turkey's military has assigned themselves as the keepers of secularism and freedom (an admittedly honorable notion) doesn't mean that they have the legal authority to do so.
As they allegedly had F-16s locked on to Edrogan's plane and didn't fire makes me think this may all have been a hoax anyway, especially with the purging that has occurred since. The EU should put pressure on Turkey to conform to western standards, but I don't believeTurkey will ever be admitted to the EU. It would open Europe to a flood of Islamist like never before as poor, uneducated Arabs enter Turkey through Iraq and Syria. And since you need universal approval to enter the EU, it's very unlikely you're every going to get unanimous consent.
100% correct, and well put. As much as I hate Erdogan and the damage he's doing to his country, he has the support of a large part of his people and is their democratically elected leader; the military should respect that. Selfishly, I would've preferred the coup to have been successful though. It's disconcerting to see him abusing this coup to push through even more authoritarian legislation.
#143 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 466 weeks ago
You're right. I forgot no one could look at the stars before the Chinese. Listen to yourself. It's not like the west didn't have math. Just because we use Arabic numbers now doesn't mean there weren't other symbols for counting. Gun powder is the only contribution of note, and again, let's talk about the past thousand years.
Chinese philosophy was a joke and the Greeks had much more impact than anyone. But keep trying to avoid the issue and explain how the printing press, calculus, automobiles, computers, air travel, rockets, telephones, telegraphs, radios, television, satellites, trains, electricity, western medicine and the Internet are are all eclipsed by these grand inventions outside of Europe and America.
Without the West Africa would still be a collection of tribes, south Anericans would be sacrificing to their sun gods, Australia would have aborigines dawning war paint, Japan would have samurai China would still be nothing more than a trade stop.
That you can't acknowledge the importance and dominance of western culture really says something. But anything to get offended over.
Come on man, you know better than this. You're turning the argument upside down. No one is saying Western civilization hasn't made major contributions. Of course it has more so than other cultures, that's easy to objectively demonstrate. But saying or acknowledging that is a far cray from claiming that no other civilization has ever done anything noteworthy (which is what King is saying). It's extremely distasteful and a sign of weakness to downplay the achievements of others to feel better about yourself, and that's exactly what King was doing here. More importantly, he's using it as an excuse to justify lesser treatment of non-whites.
#144 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 466 weeks ago
Is what he said not true? I'm not one to take pride in the actions of other people, but western ( European ) culture and in turn American culture has done more to progress this world than any other. I mean, Africans hadn't even invented the wheel when Europeans found them. Native Americans didn't have a written language until the 17th or 18th century.
Colonization is what brought the rest of the world into the modern era. If you had to name the 5 most important people or their inventions in the past 1000 years, can you name one person who isn't white?
Notice I'm talking about what King actually said and not that blurb in your attached image.
Is there a single African nation today where your average person is 1/10th as secure and comfortable as your average black in America?
Asia and the middle-east would beg to differ...
The white inventor argument is one of the oldest and most debunked arguments ever. What have non-whites ever contributed to society? How about algebra, tea, universities, the toothbrush, surgery, hospitals, coffee, optics, the guitar, astronomy, paper currency, gunpowder, printing, the compass, paper, cast iron, ink, terracotta, ...
#145 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 466 weeks ago
I grew up poor with parents that were together on again/off again and I haven't killed anyone. People need to stop making excuses. It's a choice. It's easier than doing the right thing. We coddled them for so long and gave them stuff for nothing...what did we think was going to happen?
Good for you, and I don't mean that sarcastically. But not everyone has your faculties, and it's indisputable that your upbringing/social status growing up determine the kind of person you end up being. Hell, case in point, you've grown up in less then ideal circumstance, and you've grown up to be quite jaded about society 
.
#146 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 466 weeks ago
harmon420 wrote:Smoking Guns wrote:This guys nails it. Black man calling it like he sees it.
Alex Jones, the same guy that denies the Sandy Hook shootings were real? Yeah anything on his page is surely a solid source for whatever point you're attempting to make.
Don't know about Alex Jones. Should we dismiss this man's message about the breakdown of the family?
Alex Jones is an insane fuckwad, one of the more disturbing characters on the extreme right in the US, and I do believe most conservatives would agree with that. More importantly, this whole 'breakdown of the family' narrative is inane bullshit. There's absolutely nothing that is specific to a family as it is usually defined that makes people good, nor is there anything about the absence of a 'normal family' that turns people inherently bad. Kids need to be taught values, the difference between right and wrong, but that's just as likely to happen in a single-parent household, a same-sex household, or a mormon-style polygamous household.
I have grown up in a broken home, and have zero relationship with anyone in my family except for my mom, sister and dad (in that order). I haven't seen my grand parents, nephews, nieces, aunts, uncles, ... in close to two decades and frankly couldn't care less. Some would say I turned out fine, and that's 'cause my parents - each in their own way - taught me how to be a productive member of society, because they raised me right. It's because I went to a good school, and had good friends growing up.
Family values... what a meaningless, hollow phrase...
#147 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 467 weeks ago
johndivney wrote:Wtf ^
Explain. Please?
hahaha I just wanted to see GNR live in pro shot setting but that song deals with issues we are dealing with today! America doesn't need to be divided but United!
Trump is a uniter? It's been a long time since I've seen such a divisive candidate: not only is his rhetoric extremely divisive, the electorate is extremely divided about him as well. Civil War could be the anthem for an anti-Trump campaign, with it's quotes from MLK and a Peruvian communist (!) guerrilla fighter. Even the Cool Hand Luke sample seems to be a warning against the sort of authoritarian rhetoric that Trump stands for.
#148 Re: The Garden » 2016 Presidential Election Thread » 468 weeks ago
Still think Trump can take this. The polls have been telling us he can't win since he started his campaign. The media has been telling us that. They said he wouldn't even get the nomination.
Well, he did. And Hillary fucking Clinton is still his opponent. All he has to do is convince people he'll be better than her. Even for a mad man that is feasible.
Debates will be decisive imo. No way Hillary will come out looking good from those.
Once the primaries were underway, Trump has consistently matched or beaten the polls though. So while you're right that no one in the media give him a chance way back when, I do think he's been in the public eye enough (both of them) for the general populace to have a decent enough idea of who they are and what they stand for to make the polls somewhat accurate.
Of course, there's no accounting for what will happen over the next couple of months, people are fickle...
But, having said that, my money's on Hillary: Trump wasn't even able to convince half of the republican voters in the primaries, and due to his polarizing nature is bound to have alienated more republican voters than I suspect Hillary has democrats. I guess in the land of the blind the one-eyed man truly is king, even if that man is a woman.
#149 Re: Guns N' Roses » 6/7/16 PAUL BROWN STADIUM, CINCINNATI, OH UNITED STATES » 468 weeks ago
Even if Steven & duff do look like death warmed up, credit to them they made it.
I actually think Steven looks really good for his age (not taking into account the effects of his stroke of course). He seems really fit and energetic. Also, that happy look in his eyes playing those songs probably made him look 10 years younger.
#150 Re: The Garden » The United Kingdom General Election, 2nd May 2024 » 468 weeks ago
I don't want this to be a Trump discussion or about Islam. Their are other threads for that.
Oh, I didn't think you'd be serious... why don't you just say the above instead of shutting out our American friends?
