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mr crisper
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Registered: 07/24/00
Posts: 928
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: Phred]
#989586 - 10/24/02 12:58 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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The US exhibits more respect towards the citizens of many countries than the leaders of those countries do
is this a fact or an opinion? if it is a fact please offer some evidence. such as bodycounts. if it is an opinion please phrase it as such. y'know - 'it seems to me that...'
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The price for oil is set by a cabal of totalitarian despots, on whatever whim seizes them at the moment.
do they have harems? whatever whim? really? can you tell me more about their whims? what kind of explanation is this? can we look back and chart the rise and fall of oil prices in accordance to the seizures of this whimsical cabal?
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You mean like the hundreds of billions of taxpayer's dollars given outright and "loaned" (usually with no realistic hope of repayment) to Third World countries for development programs?
yes, exactly. unlike the ....what was last year?, $380 billion that was spent by the miltary. why is this idea so bad? yes it is obviously different to your resigned point of view, but whynot try it?
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. If the "American Way of Life" is such a dud product
the american way of life with caps! wow must be something special or is it just another meaningless phrase that people are taught to believe in. ala coke adds life! and 'do it!'...do what, exactly? what is the american way of life? name one person who truly lives it. does it involve being obese?
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Obviously the Islamic world detests the product. That's why they buy so little of it.
your use of 'obviously' attempts to make this statement unarguable. but its like saying mr crisper doesn't like to do it, so he doesn't buy nike, obviously. if i don't drink coke, would it mean that i have less life than someone who does drink it? your product is a cheap slogan, did you fall for it? ha-hah!
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What country was it who aided the Afghanis in getting rid of both the Soviets and the Taliban?
what country helped fund the taliban to fight the soviets? did this country act out of nobility and a desire to help the long suffering afghanis and oust the taliban, or were they less beautiful motivations such as greed and revenge? gotta get that pipeline aflowing.
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since I am not clairvoyant...................
Then your future as a consultant is assured
ive been working as a consultant here in tokyo for 5 years. if i couldn't do the job, i wouldn't have lasted a year. you are clairvoyant. i guess you already know what advice i would give you.
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Of course, in the majority of the Third World the law is whatever the despot in charge at the moment says it is
another bit of waffle. 'of course' nice to see a bit of variety in your openings, still the same effort to present the sentence as factual. when it is essentially just the result of you being bombarded by years of terrorist dictator fear mongering propaganda and are now spouting it out here almost word for word. in the majority of the third world? c'mon give us a percentage. despot? rather a loaded term, exactly how many third world leaders qualify for this title. and who is qualified to give it? or is it just your personal opinion, which, do not be mistaken, i hold in high regard. 'at the moment' - this implies a high turnover. what is the average term of office for a third world leader? what are we talking here? days? weeks? months? years? is the average term shorter for those you have decided are despots. how do these averages compare to those of developed countries?
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I've made some incorrect decisions in my life. I accept full responsibility for them
i try and do the same, but i'm perfectly flawed.
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in what situations do you feel pity, feel a need to protect and take care of living being weaker than yourself? y'know compassion.
That is properly left to individual conscience in a free society. No one will stop you from doing whatever you choose (presuming you violate no laws) to aid others.
thats nice. again, in what situations do you feel feeeeeel pity and/or compassion?
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Phred
Fred's son


Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: Xlea321]
#989679 - 10/24/02 01:35 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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Actually they were. The work of actually designing the initial structure of computers and the internet was done purely on taxpayers money.
Actually, no, it wasn't. There is little if any relation between ENIAC and post-1960s computers or between the hardwired dedicated-line architecture of Arpanet and the post-1990 World Wide Web. Some original research was funded by taxes, true. But it is a tiny, tiny fraction of the total spent to date, and virtually all of the tax money that WAS spent was spent decades ago. Steve Wozniak's floppy drive controller card, for example, had no relationship to anything that had come before. In those days mainframes and minis used reel-to-reel tape drives, and the crude "personal computers" of the time loaded their programs from cassettes. I could give countless other examples, but you would ignore them. Fortunately, many of the people who read this forum are quite conversant with the development of computing, and will disregard your baseless claims.
It has to be said that this must be the most racist statement I've ever read on the board. I'm sure you'dve fitted right in back in the days of slavery. "Freedom? What do the damn stupid niggers need freedom for?".
Alex123 standard maneuver number six... when faced with a question which can't be answered without admitting one's position is untenable, accuse the questioner of being a racist, and hope everyone reading the exchange will be too dim to notice the evasion.
What was racist about my comment? That is exactly how the majority of the rice (THE staple crop of the region) is grown in China and Southeast Asia; human stoop labor from dawn to dusk on small peasant landholdings (or collective paddies) using human feces (and often pig feces) as a fertilizer. You were unaware of this?
How does my description of the traditional (pre-Nike factory) labor of peasants show I am in favor of slavery? Few if any of those peasants own slaves; they do the work themselves.
Don't judge everyone elses culture by your own values.
I made no judgement whatsoever, son. Farming is hard work, no matter who does it. I think I'd make a terrible farmer, but I don't put anyone down for choosing to be one. But I also don't put anyone down who chooses to work in a Nike factory rather than spend every daylight hour day up to their ankles in leech-infested water that smells like feces.
And that is the point which, as usual, you are clumsily trying to evade. The fact of the matter is that people choose to endure lousy conditions in a factory because every other alternative available to them is worse.
pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (10/24/02 02:26 PM)
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Phred
Fred's son


Registered: 10/18/00
Posts: 12,949
Loc: Dominican Republic
Last seen: 10 years, 1 month
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: mr crisper]
#989867 - 10/24/02 02:25 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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mr_crisper writes:
is this a fact or an opinion? if it is a fact please offer some evidence. such as bodycounts.
I don't have precise figures readily to hand, but Nigerians imprisoned, tortured, and killed more Nigerians than the US ever did. Insert any African country in place of "Nigeria" and the statement remains true. Likewise with Cambodia, the Philippines, and just about every other developing country in the world, with the possible exception of Viet Nam.
Has the US killed, imprisoned, and tortured more Africans than African leaders have? Have they seized more land than African leaders have? Have they extracted more "taxes" (read "robbed blind") from the populace than African leaders have? Or Cambodian, Yugoslavian, Philippino, etc. leaders have? No, they have given grants and loans and famine relief to those nations, participated in UN peacekeeping missions, and sent experts to assist in setting up infrastructure projects that their leaders are incapable of initiating or indifferent to completing.
Who has shown more respect to the people of those nations -- their leaders or the USA?
if it is an opinion please phrase it as such. y'know - 'it seems to me that...'
I will if you will. Up to now, you haven't bothered to do so.
can you tell me more about their whims? what kind of explanation is this? can we look back and chart the rise and fall of oil prices in accordance to the seizures of this whimsical cabal?
The spot price of crude is set exclusively by OPEC. The only OPEC country that makes a pretense at being a democratic country is Kuwait, where some of the members of the government are elected by men, since women are not allowed to vote. All the other member nations are run by despots in the literal sense of the word. According to the Oxford Dictionary of Current English, "despot: absolute ruler", harems are not a prerequisite to becoming a despot.
There have been many, many examples over the years of OPEC raising and lowering the price of crude based not on availability or demand, but on how pissed off they happened to be with Israel at the time. The best-known instance was in the early Seventies.
the american way of life with caps! wow must be something special or is it just another meaningless phrase that people are taught to believe in.
Sigh. You have nothing of substance with which to rebut, so you sneer at my careful attempt to make clear what this part of the thread is all about -- the claim that the US tries to impose its values, ideals, etc. (The American Way of Life, for short) on the rest of the world.
what is the american way of life?
That which you despise, apparently. It is up to those who claim America is trying to force it on the rest of the world to provide a full definition -- I am not the one who authored that allegation. If I attempt to provide a definition, I'll be flamed for putting words in someone's mouth.
if i don't drink coke, would it mean that i have less life than someone who does drink it?
What has that got to do with the Islamists' well-documented hatred for the Great Satan's ungodly lifestyle? Do you intend to actually rebut my claims, or just dance around with pointless rhetorical nitpicking?
what country helped fund the taliban to fight the soviets?
No country helped the Taliban fight the Soviets. The Taliban was formed after the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan.
did this country act out of nobility and a desire to help the long suffering afghanis and oust the taliban, or were they less beautiful motivations such as greed and revenge?
Ah. I see. Not only must the actions be good, but the motivations BEHIND the actions must also be good. It is not impossible for two parties to desire the same outcome for different reasons. Did the US assist the Afghanis in ousting the Taliban or not?
still the same effort to present the sentence as factual. when it is essentially just the result of you being bombarded by years of terrorist dictator fear mongering propaganda and are now spouting it out here almost word for word.
I live in Latin America, and have had long conversations with many people from Columbia, Chile, Panama, etc. They all have given me many examples of situations where the written law and constitution of their countries is brushed aside whenever it suits the leader of the moment. I have also spoken to two teachers who spent most of their careers in various African countries who said the same thing. I doubt I'm the only one who is aware of this.
n the majority of the third world? c'mon give us a percentage.
More than fifty per cent.
despot? rather a loaded term, exactly how many third world leaders qualify for this title. and who is qualified to give it? or is it just your personal opinion...
See the Oxford Dictionary's definition of "despot", or crack open your own and look it up. Then do a search on how many third world countries are run by elected leaders versus how many have leaders who seized power by force. Draw your own conclusions from there.
what is the average term of office for a third world leader? what are we talking here? days? weeks? months? years?
In Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa, it can be any of the above. It depends on how much effective force the leader is willing to exert against those who would seize his power.
The point which you are so strenuously trying to evade is that in these countries there is no objective law unless the despot of the day decides it suits his purposes to obey it. If he chooses not to, there is little to be done.
thats nice. again, in what situations do you feel feeeeeel pity and/or compassion?
If you mean me as an individual, how is that relevant to your call for national governments to violate their constitutional obligations to serve their own citizens ahead of those of other countries?
pinky
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Edited by pinksharkmark (10/24/02 05:40 PM)
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mr crisper
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Registered: 07/24/00
Posts: 928
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: Phred]
#990958 - 10/24/02 08:45 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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In reply to:
on how pissed off they happened to be with Israel at the time. The best-known instance was in the early Seventies.
did israel do anything to raise their ire? this is your ' best-known instance ' of a whim?
In reply to:
You have nothing of substance with which to rebut
and you offered nothing more than an empty slogan, an unfulfillable dream, how could my rebuttal have been more substantial?
In reply to:
Did the US assist the Afghanis in ousting the Taliban or not?
yes...at the cost of over 3000 civilian casualities, its a good thing the us troops were doing their best to help these people. did the us assist in putting the taliban in power in the first place? (i remember a similar scenario with s.hussein, back when he was a buddy)
In reply to:
They all have given me many examples of situations where the written law and constitution of their countries is brushed aside whenever it suits the leader of the moment
this never happens in the us, does it? as president millard fillmore wrote -'the constitution and laws of the united states forbid all interference with the religious or political concerns of other nations'. maybe the ink on that section has faded a bit and its hard to read.
In reply to:
so you sneer at my careful attempt
am i really so nasty? my apologies. i do appreciate your efforts to share your views, just as much as i'm sure you appreciate mine.
In reply to:
what is the american way of life?
That which you despise, apparently
nice use of apparently. i would have thought your clairvoyant skills would have enabled you to at least use an 'of course'. don't assume i invest much emotional energy in political discussion, why bother? it is an empty answer that contains no relevant information and merely tries to create 'sides'. then you go on to slip out of giving any real definition, your excuses being 'its not my job' and fear of being flamed. more like, you are unable to define it just as nobody can define 'do it'. go on have a try, i won't bite.
In reply to:
Do you intend to actually rebut my claims, or just dance around with pointless rhetorical nitpicking
more like dance around your pointless rhetoric. a recurrent theme in my previous reply to you was to point out the tools you use to push your claims and give them 'substance'. i used examples like the coke or nike slogans as comparisons to reveal the emptiness of your careful attempts.
In reply to:
The Taliban was formed after the USSR withdrew from Afghanistan.
sorry, i fucked up that one before. were the people who formed the taliban backed financially and materially by the us? aren't the taliban another example of a us puppet getting 'out of hand'.
In reply to:
how is that relevant to your call for national governments to violate their constitutional obligations to serve their own citizens ahead of those of other countries?
i am asking you as an individual about your personal experiences, to show the importance of these qualities in human relationships. i would like to see all the world's peoples treated humanely, have good food and water and be able to live without fear. haha obviously it is an ideal. what is an ideal - a direction to move towards?
thanks for your time and effort in this forum, pinky, i always appreciate and enjoy your posts.
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foghorn
enthusiast
Registered: 12/13/01
Posts: 308
Last seen: 20 years, 3 months
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: mr crisper]
#991189 - 10/24/02 09:48 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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good posting guys
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Xlea321
Stranger
Registered: 02/25/01
Posts: 9,134
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: Phred]
#991631 - 10/24/02 11:52 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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Ok pink, so tomorrow in your brave new world the corporations have complete power to do whatever they want. They repeal all the employment rights the unions got for us, they end the right of children to an education (remember, employment rights are restrictions to free trade)...if they opened a factory in the middle of New York paying 50 cents an hour do you think they'd be short of workers? Would they find 12 year old kids who would do the work or not?
Would that be a good thing?
If they can find enough desperate people to exploit and abuse does that make it right?
-------------------- Don't worry, B. Caapi
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carbonhoots
old hand

Registered: 09/11/01
Posts: 1,351
Loc: BC Canada
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: Xlea321]
#991790 - 10/25/02 01:04 AM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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well said.
They probably wouldn't be short of workers at 50 cents an hour. It all depends on the desperation level of the worker.
I'm amazed at the legitimacy of current capitalistism. It's like a manifesto for sociopathic behavior. It turns all trades and goods and services into a byproduct of profit taking. Turns needs (like health care) into a form of leverage.
It becomes the vehicle sickos ride to power.
-------------------- -I'd rather have a frontal lobotomy than a bottle in front of me
CANADIAN CENTER FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES
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Innvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!


Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: mr crisper]
#994787 - 10/26/02 01:38 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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sorry for the delay..i was out of town...
****could i assume your point of view is that anything goes, so long as a profit is made?****
as long as the law of the land isn't violated
****if people make ill-considered decisions it is their own fault? fukkem.****
Exactly (as long as their decision wasn't influenced by false info). Do you (not you in particular) need someone to hold your hand on every decision?
****survival of the fittest kinda thing?****
economically speaking...yes
****what do you think the world will be like 10, 20 and 30 years from now, assuming there are no major disasters that seriously disrupt the fabric of society?****
compare our society today from the 60's and you'll have your answer. We are more integrated (racially) is one example.
****in what situations do you feel pity, feel a need to protect and take care of living being weaker than yourself? y'know compassion. ****
To pity is to demean. I feel bad for those that physically or mentally cannot perform what they love to do. Or those that cannot work from reasons beyond their control but not the underachievers that can work but choose to drain off those that make this and other countries work.....compassion is reserved for those kinds of people. The handicapped, the injured and disabled, and those that want to work but are unable...that my friend is REAL compassion not feeling sorry for some crackhead that won't get a job..tough love.
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America....FUCK YEAH!!!
Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
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Innvertigo
Vote Libertarian!!


Registered: 02/08/01
Posts: 16,296
Loc: Crackerville, Michigan U...
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Re: The anti-Yanks are all talk, no action [Re: mr crisper]
#994797 - 10/26/02 01:43 PM (22 years, 3 months ago) |
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****it means its quite ok for me to sell smack and guns to schoolkids****
****they don't have to buy them, if they do its their own stupid whiny fault. ****
WOW are you way off there...when did i ever say that children should take this kind of responsibility? Did you even read my posts? I suggest you actually read and understand a post befor commenting on it. My beliefs are quite consistant and i would never say something like that....if you've been here a while you'd know that.
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America....FUCK YEAH!!!
Words of Wisdom: Individual Rights BEFORE Collective Rights
"The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." -- Thomas Jefferson
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