I Am An American

[echidna]

j2 i'm not attacking i'm questioning through statment, at most i am seeking to provoke.
attack is a very different posture
the discussions on this board are some of the most enlightened and insightful comments i have seen from US citizens in relation to US foreign policy. - and i have no desire to deride or inhibit that.

what would i do?
i would and i do protest loudly and often as best i can.
that is about all one can do from the outside right now.
for a start i know that an aweful lot of people in the 'greatest democracy on earth' don't vote.
And they profess that, that is part of why the system is best or because they don't think their vote will differ the result.
this at least in part may explain how george jnr scammed in with the florida fiasco and daddies judges, and still he is 'the hero of the democratic world' [oops i'm not meaning to disparage his republican credentials - he does hold the record for lawful mass murder in texas (119 people if my memory serves)] from outside it seemed that there was little questioning of his mandate.

why does my ethnicity bear relevance here? we obviously have much in common as we are typing educated english [sans punctuation - oo a little bit of french there sorry] on active TCP/IP network connections
so i figured that non-requisite self-identification was a bit passe since i could lie and tell you that i'm a Tongan Princess and that you can call me your highness or a Yakuza gun runner with seven fingers
so we are both educated comfortably afluent english speakers the ethnic/gender cloak is in the nature of the medium through which we meet not the method of my rhetoric [though ambiguous i am]

if i get in deep water i swim - balast is a big mistake when swimming, why would i go wading with ballast?

[j2k4]

Originally posted by echidna@6 May 2003 - 12:01
j2 i'm not attacking i'm questioning through statment, at most i am seeking to provoke.
attack is a very different posture
the discussions on this board are some of the most enlightened and insightful comments i have seen from US citizens in relation to US foreign policy. - and i have no desire to deride or inhibit that.

what would i do?
i would and i do protest loudly and often as best i can.
that is about all one can do from the outside right now.
for a start i know that an aweful lot of people in the 'greatest democracy on earth' don't vote.
And they profess that, that is part of why the system is best or because they don't think their vote will differ the result.
this at least in part may explain how george jnr scammed in with the florida fiasco and daddies judges, and still he is 'the hero of the democratic world' [oops i'm not meaning to disparage his republican credentials - he does hold the record for lawful mass murder in texas (119 people if my memory serves)] from outside it seemed that there was little questioning of his mandate.

why does my ethnicity bear relevance here? we obviously have much in common as we are typing educated english [sans punctuation - oo a little bit of french there sorry] on active TCP/IP network connections
so i figured that non-requisite self-identification was a bit passe since i could lie and tell you that i'm a Tongan Princess and that you can call me your highness or a Yakuza gun runner with seven fingers
so we are both educated comfortably afluent english speakers the ethnic/gender cloak is in the nature of the medium through which we meet not the method of my rhetoric [though ambiguous i am]

if i get in deep water i swim - balast is a big mistake when swimming, why would i go wading with ballast?

Your reply begs a longer response than I can manage now as I'm off shortly to work.

For now:

Most of us, for reasons other than pride, have revealed our origins (a surprising number, myself excluded, are of a somewhat "transient" origin )
It helps to have, as shorthand, some demographic construct to provide "general" info, i.e. the ability to infer a probable level of awareness as regards relevant subjects.

Ballast, as I intended it, is for purposes of mitigating or attenuating the bias which we ALL have to whatever extent.

I will try to revisit late tonight.

Yakuza gun-runner, huh? Hmmmm....

[j2k4]

Originally posted by echidna@6 May 2003 - 12:01
j2 i'm not attacking i'm questioning through statment, at most i am seeking to provoke.
attack is a very different posture
the discussions on this board are some of the most enlightened and insightful comments i have seen from US citizens in relation to US foreign policy. - and i have no desire to deride or inhibit that.

what would i do?
i would and i do protest loudly and often as best i can.
that is about all one can do from the outside right now.
for a start i know that an aweful lot of people in the 'greatest democracy on earth' don't vote.
And they profess that, that is part of why the system is best or because they don't think their vote will differ the result.
this at least in part may explain how george jnr scammed in with the florida fiasco and daddies judges, and still he is 'the hero of the democratic world' [oops i'm not meaning to disparage his republican credentials - he does hold the record for lawful mass murder in texas (119 people if my memory serves)] from outside it seemed that there was little questioning of his mandate.

why does my ethnicity bear relevance here? we obviously have much in common as we are typing educated english [sans punctuation - oo a little bit of french there sorry] on active TCP/IP network connections
so i figured that non-requisite self-identification was a bit passe since i could lie and tell you that i'm a Tongan Princess and that you can call me your highness or a Yakuza gun runner with seven fingers
so we are both educated comfortably afluent english speakers the ethnic/gender cloak is in the nature of the medium through which we meet not the method of my rhetoric [though ambiguous i am]

if i get in deep water i swim - balast is a big mistake when swimming, why would i go wading with ballast?

Okay-
Sorry to re-quote, but........

The tone of your last post seems a bit different, somehow.

First of all, why provoke? It usually only leads to exhibitions of this forum at it's worst.
If you seek a reasoned and reasonable discourse, post that way.

We are in total agreement as to voter apathy; those who complain the loudest usually vote the least, if at all.

If we could only extend that apathy to include the ignorant, we might find we have another alternative.

As regards events in Florida in 2000 (I will recount this AGAIN, for perhaps the tenth time in this forum):

1) Dubya WON the election on the pure vote count-perhaps you, like many others who are genetically anti-Bush, aren't aware that the 'count' DID go on, but with no legal bearing. It was completed (and informally "certified") by a team of Liberal/ Democrat operatives about 8 months after the fact; they concluded (albeit on page "20" in most newspapers; I read it in probably 5 big-city papers, also in USA Today), that Bush even extended his lead, and after counting the absentee/military vote, extended his lead even further. This is FACT.

2) If you read any account of the actual legal proceedings, you would realize the Federal Supreme Court did not 'give' the election to Bush-they merely disallowed the Florida Court's overstep.

3) Who did Dubya 'murder'? You take great rhetorical liberties here-lawful execution=mass murder? Come now....
Texas is a historically conservative state; the death penalty was there before Dubya and is still there today-are you suggesting he has some proprietary claim to executions carried out while he was in office there?
That he is somehow deficient for not posturing as an anti-death penalty activist? Did you apply this same standard to that other mass-murderer, Bill Clinton?

Frankly, it really doesn't matter where you're from, so let me say to your regal Tongan Princess/seven-fingered Yakuza gun-running highness: You may be an educated, comfortable, affluent English-speaker, but, rest assured, you are, without any doubt whatsoever, WRONG.

[echidna]

If you are permitted under your law to take lives then you are not a mass murderer
is that what you mean j2k4?

if it is perfectly OK for bush and clinton to take lives under their legal systems
- then ipso facto
excecutions on behalf of saddam are just as valid to his supporters

you can't change the fact that USA is the only english speaking nation on earth still using the death penalty
and that you [as you reiterate] elected a champion death penaliser [more under shrubby than any previous govenor off Texas]

killing someone is murder
for a refresher try reading Exodus 20 "Thou shalt not kill." i learned it before i started school
i had heard that the USA was "one nation under God" and since this is from the old testament it counts for jews and christians
there seems to be a seam of hypocracy running to the core of the US psyche
topically for instance, why is it just fine for the USA to hold the largest stockpiles of 'weapons of mass destruction' in the world while you invade foreign a state to 'stop them aquiring or using "WMD"'
as the only nation on earth to actually use nuclear weapons isn't it a bit fresh to get upset about others wanting the same thing
[i'm definitely not advocating that everyone ought have an atomic - but N Korea doesn't seem likely to be attacked by th US anymore]
it is because the statemments of so many from the USA don't make logical sence or seem hypocritical that i wanna provoke some responses that do.
[that isn't a dig at anyone specific - as i have said before the reason i persist is that the members of this board are able to cause me to think and not just want to leave or flame like at most boards - and diverse opinions are the true reason for democracy rather than majoritory agreement]
j2k4 you think i'm wrong i think you're a hypocrit [in a nation of them], touche!

[MagicNakor]

If I was going to be anal, I'd point out that "Thou shalt not kill" has been erroneously translated from the original Hebrew for "Thou shalt not murder."

But I'm not going to be.

[j2k4]

Originally posted by echidna@7 May 2003 - 04:08
If you are permitted under your law to take lives then you are not a mass murderer
is that what you mean j2k4?

if it is perfectly OK for bush and clinton to take lives under their legal systems
- then ipso facto
excecutions on behalf of saddam are just as valid to his supporters

you can't change the fact that USA is the only english speaking nation on earth still using the death penalty
and that you [as you reiterate] elected a champion death penaliser [more under shrubby than any previous govenor off Texas]

killing someone is murder
for a refresher try reading Exodus 20 "Thou shalt not kill." i learned it before i started school
i had heard that the USA was "one nation under God" and since this is from the old testament it counts for jews and christians
there seems to be a seam of hypocracy running to the core of the US psyche
topically for instance, why is it just fine for the USA to hold the largest stockpiles of 'weapons of mass destruction' in the world while you invade foreign a state to 'stop them aquiring or using "WMD"'
as the only nation on earth to actually use nuclear weapons isn't it a bit fresh to get upset about others wanting the same thing
[i'm definitely not advocating that everyone ought have an atomic - but N Korea doesn't seem likely to be attacked by th US anymore]
it is because the statemments of so many from the USA don't make logical sence or seem hypocritical that i wanna provoke some responses that do.
[that isn't a dig at anyone specific - as i have said before the reason i persist is that the members of this board are able to cause me to think and not just want to leave or flame like at most boards - and diverse opinions are the true reason for democracy rather than majoritory agreement]
j2k4 you think i'm wrong i think you're a hypocrit [in a nation of them], touche!

You are not steeped in the old testament, then.

A society and it's laws are usually (the U.S. is no exception) an amalgam of the variety of influences which bear upon it; as the U.S. is indeed a "melting pot", I'm sure you can appreciate why certain inconsistencies exist.
To compare Bush (or Clinton, for that matter) to Saddam is a refusal to split the same hairs you use to denigrate our system and charge hypocrisy.
This is true intellectual laziness on your part-if you aren't inclined to differentiate the cases, don't try to debate the point.

Saddam has murdered with his bare hands. Bush and Clinton governed states where legally (read: societally) sanctioned executions took place.
If you condemn Bush and Clinton, you likewise condemn the American people, which (guess what?) makes you anti-American.

What have the death-penalty and english speech got to do with each other or anything else? Are you suggesting english speech equates to enlightenment, just not in the U.S.? That supposition SHOULD be offensive in many corners of the world; I would look both ways when expressing similar sentiments, if I were you.

"One Nation, under God...." was coined when there was, for the purposes
it was originally written, only 'one God' to consider.
Just for you, I will petition the powers that be to amend the document to include Allah, and all other extant references to a "Supreme Being".

As regards nukes and other WMD, THAT cat got out of the bag many, many years ago (and if you've noticed, beginning with the old USSR, there were many more "catbags" than just ours). If you can't, or won't, understand what 'containment' means, I haven't the time or inclination to explain it to you.

If you choose thus to charge ME with hypocrisy, I must say to you, "welcome to the real world". There is no pie in my sky.

[echidna]

i'm just wanting to point out that under US law clinton and bush aren't 'murderers' and that under saddams law he wasn't either
i don't think either are right and i only used the commandment quote to indicate that most US citizens would have been taught that killing/murder is wrong, also speaking english provides no enlightenment whatsoever, it does allow for a huge amount of diverse cross cultural reading which many languages don't

there were a lot more than one deity worshiped in north america when the 'one nation' thing was being written
the USA was just at war with the people who worshiped them or had infected them with small pox or flu

and please get it straight the USA is not america no matter how much it would like to be
buy a map, there are 2 continents in the americas and 21 nations
i am not even anti-USA people some of them are my friends and many of them i respect greatly
i am deeply oposed to the US regime. [it is much like the US refrain that it is the regime not the Iraqi people who are the enemy] and i hope no-one would hold me responsible for the acts of the government here so in kind i don't hold you responsible [unless you voted for bush]

:: BEWARE :: EXTREME SARCASM IN THE NEXT TEXT BLOCK ::

oh and containment worked so well didn't it
it's such a safer word since the end of the cold war
especially for NYC and DC office workers

one day you might find the 'real world' but i doubt you'd like it

thanx MagicNakor i didn't know that
but what is the difference [if you know] between the hebrew definitions for murder and killing?
they sit quite close in my mind, i suppose that 'killing' can apply to the taking of life from any species whereas 'murder' usually means people killing people
[which would negate 'the smiths' 'meat is murder' unless you're a cannibal]

[ilw]

Just like to say something I heard which i thought was a little bit amusing and that is America wouldn't be allowed into the European Union (if they ever wished to do so) because of human rights abuses. (eg death penalty, some immigration law and Camp X-Ray prisoners)

[j2k4]

Echidna-

That was a commendable exercise in what is termed in some parts hereabout as the "Hokey Pokey".

The only response I feel obliged to make:
The death penalty was enacted via public referendum; Saddam was law unto himself.
If you fail to note the difference, I surely cannot sway you.

By the way, my PC sits on top of a map of the world (I have a LARGE desk); I know my way around the western hemisphere very well.
While we are as American as the people of, say, Chile, should we be precluded from referring to ourselves as such because we are also the 'United States of..."?

[echidna]

all i mean is i have nothing against the regimes in uruguay or bolivia so saying i am anti-american is incorrect
and all the canadians i have ever met always say that they are canadian, i've even seen some of them get upset when they're called american [which as you point out they are] same for my friends from chile, brazil, and argentina [respectively chilean, brazilian and argentinian pedantic as this might be]

i do note many myriad differences between the USA and Iraq
but laws are effected by the people living under them
and as such they are diffinitively different from on state to another
i mean if you're going to throw stones at someone you should at least attempt to try on their shoes and look at the world from their perspective - this is usually very difficult with someone you're aiming a stone at because it necesitates finding fault in yourself
in the case of the USA i think it is far more important for you to try to understand the perspective of the other because your throwing a lot more than stones these days daddio

(if we're doing the hokey-pokey aren't we meant to put hands, feet etc. in and out and then turn around and shake about, so it might just be inappropriate to sway me during this dance, maybe you can sway me during a slow waltz later on )
PS i'm feeling a bit jealous of your desk my map's all the way over there on the wall