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Originally posted by 3RA1N1AC@19 March 2004 - 23:35
again, the same song and dance about "our" perspective. i'm sick of hearing about "our" perspective as if it's a perspective that ought to be shared by all of the citizens just because some advisors, speech writers, lobbyists, etc stick their collective hand up the asses of all the prominent ventriloquist dummies, and make them talk about what "our" perspective and "our" interests are. i was so sick of hearing "do it our way or you are pro-terrorist" on the very day that george w. bush said: "Over time it's going to be important for nations to know they will be held accountable for inactivity... You're either with us or against us in the fight against terror." here's us, here's the terrorists. you're with us or you're with them. there is no third choice, neutrality is not an option. either/or. you'd think that the president of the united states or at least somebody he passes on the way to the watercooler would be familiar with the old either/or fallacy, but there they go again... ivy league ain't what it used to be.
as for whether the "appeasement" accusation is a criticism against democracy. what this accusation does is to trivialize the interests of the spanish people, to trivialize any and all of their domestic & international issues aside from iraq & terrorism, and to boil the election of their government down to a vote to stand up against terrorists or a vote to back down from terrorists. it's an issue of whether spanish democracy is meant to serve the whims of its citizens or the whims of u.s. politicians, and whether casting such a dispersion on their election (for supposedly supporting terrorists ((appease: to gratify, to concede)) rather than the u.s. gov't) is arrogant & anti-democratic. if you can find any instance of me implying in my previous post that hastert is making it a left vs right issue, i'll eat a cockroach.
i am not addressing myer's comments, i am not addressing your ideals, and i am not gonna be distracted to address the nebulous "our" perspective. this post and my previous one are about dennis hastert's comment, and what it means. hastert does not say anything in that comment about appearance. he says "in a sense." that means a wholly different thing from appearance. it's not "they might appear to be choosing to appease." it's "they have chosen to appease." you mixed and matched bits from hastert, bits from myer, bits of your own ideals, and retroactively inserted a consensus between yourself and those politicians in place of what i was actually responding to. my topic wasn't whether "our" consensus perspective involves either/or demands. it was whether members of the u.s. gov't have spent the last couple of years issuing either/or propositions, such as bush's "with us or against us" proposition, and hastert's "occupy iraq or appease terrorism" proposition. you are not personally obligated to defend everything that our leaders say to the rest of the world... but to deny that they've even said it?
and of course it's purely political. nobody in his right mind would say such a thing and actually believe the words coming out of his own mouth. that's what separates politicians from mere mortal schlubs. the sheer, deadpan dishonesty and manipulativeness of everything they say.
What a crazy convoluted rant, something about eating coachroaches with handpuppets.
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His views will not be backed by the White House, which is hoping for some continuing alliance with Spain, but they capture the mood of America, our correspondent says.
Where the fuck did this guy get the pulse of America? What absolute bullshit, and sent back to the UK and published as fact. Unbiased my ass.