Thread: russia now, and the Soviet Union

I agree with you russkayalove and that is that Mike is basing his opinions too much on his books and very isolated events that have no real connection to the big picture. Mike, maybe as a Texan, you want your "lone star state" to be independant and that is why you support any side but the American side, often contradicting yourself.

Originally Posted by mike

Yes, the history curriculum of the public school is definitely not what I relied on. Think for a second about who is deciding what you should or should not be learning in public school. Believe it or not, there are other resources. Try the library. Big place. Full of books. Free admission. Check it out.

Well when you teach history in a school, you don't tend to go into every incident. That is specializing too much in a field. It is just like how you don't teach quantum physics in high school or detailed nuclear physics. You may scratch the surface but you don't go into detail.

And stop saying that America isn't democratic or a free society. You have no evidence tying anything to that. You take one incident such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and use that to say Americans live under a dictatorship.

Originally Posted by Rahul

And stop saying that America isn't democratic or a free society. You have no evidence tying anything to that. You take one incident such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and use that to say Americans live under a dictatorship.

Again, I'll get to the rest tomorrow. I never said America was a dictatorship. I'd appreciate it if you stopped making this kind of crap up. By the way, in a democracy the president is elected, not selected.

History is generally written by the victors this is true it is, but if you are intelligent enough and do your resurch well, you will find the real truth. Don't be leave what your government tells you, as they are human too, and will do anything to make the selfs look better, IE, Australia, Election day for John Howard, There was a hehe, Norwigin ship called the tamper off the coast that had rescued a sinking boat load of refugees, and howard claimed that the refugees where chucking there children over board, to make the australia public made at the refugees (Howard has anti immigration polices, as opposed to the opposition who are pro refugee).

Obviously the refugees where not chucking there kids overboard, and after John howard won the election, this fact came to light.

This is to russkayalove, who wrote something in the General forum, but a reply to which would not be appropriate:

Wanting to believe something is not true isn't the same as it being not true. I'm very offended by this, because unlike the people who share your views I go to great troubles to be able to back up my information. Here is something from the CIA's own website on the years it spent trying to assassinate Chile's democratically elected president and replace him with a murderous dictator. If it's untrue, why is the CIA admitting it openly? http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/chile/index.html Read about the Congressional committee set up in 1975 to force the CIA to report on all of the things it's done. It's usually nicknamed the Church Committee Hearings, after Congressman Frank Church (who I suppose headed it). There is plenty of factual information like this available, but most people choose to ignore it for their own convenience. Sadly, I don't have to make any of it up. I wish it weren't true, but it is.

Originally Posted by mike

Originally Posted by Rahul

And stop saying that America isn't democratic or a free society. You have no evidence tying anything to that. You take one incident such as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and use that to say Americans live under a dictatorship.

Again, I'll get to the rest tomorrow. I never said America was a dictatorship. I'd appreciate it if you stopped making this kind of cr@p up. By the way, in a democracy the president is elected, not selected.

Look, I never said that I liked George Bush and I hope every American president from now on is a Democrat. Do you have any evidence he was "selected" though?

hahaha, funny, I didn't know I could go to a local library and find a bunch of books there, or hop on the internet and look up a bunch of facts . Mike, you go to alot of trouble to find information and facts that back up YOUR OPINION, and I respect that you go to such trouble to do that. Although, to me that doesn't make you any more convincing. Anyone can find some soart of facts or information that support their opinion about the war or government.

...or maybe he allows the reading he does do to form his opinions, instead of just using the one Fox News gives him...

No, Fox News is fair and balanced, scotcher. Why else would Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting devote an entire section to it? http://www.fair.org/media-outlets/newscorp-fox.html

So, does this mean you didn't bother to read the information I showed you? That's a shame.

Originally Posted by russkayalove

hahaha, funny, I didn't know I could go to a local library and find a bunch of books there, or hop on the internet and look up a bunch of facts . Mike, you go to alot of trouble to find information and facts that back up YOUR OPINION, and I respect that you go to such trouble to do that.

No, I read facts and it creates an opinion in my head.

Although, to me that doesn't make you any more convincing. Anyone can find some soart of facts or information that support their opinion about the war or government.

Yes, so why is it that the arguments for war are all patriotic rhetoric and appeals to fear and emotion? Why did Tony Blair's "intelligence report on Iraq" plagiarize a bunch of magazines and some guy's college thesis?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/2736149.stm
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2003/02/item ... 1714_1.htm

And why did Robin Cook, Tony Blair's long-time political friend and colleague, Leader of The House Of Commons, former Foreign Minister, Cabinet Member, and privvy to all the very same classified intelligence reports as the Prime Minister (all the "proof" we keep being told exists but can't be published), this week resign from the government in protest at the coming war?

You can read a transcript of his resignation speech here:

http://www.alba.org.uk/cookresign.html

It might be interesting for you to note that the fantasy terrorism/ Al Qaeda link, used by the Bush administration to such great effect in cynically manipulating US public opinion, was given so little credence in this country even by the US' allies that Cook didn't even feel the need to mention it, even to question it, in his speech.

Didn't six or seven English MPs resign in all?

Originally Posted by mike

Didn't six or seven English MPs resign in all?

Yes, three Junior Ministers and three more Parlimentary Secretaries (the lowest rung on the ministerial ladder) resigned, along with Robin Cook, and 139 Labour MPs voted against their own Labour government in the Commons vote.

I hope all this bombing doesn't destroy that Victory Museum in Baghdad where Saddam put his gifts from foreign countries. Like the pistols and gold cowboy boots with silver-plated spurs Reagan bought him (his nickname for Saddam was "The Cowboy" after all), or that football with all of the 1982 New York Giants' signatures on it. I think Chirac also sent him a ceremonial sword or something. It will be interesting to see those items recovered.

Rights are definitely a thing that we need to have and we shouldn't thank a government for it. But rights have to be restricted, otherwise you have anarchy. But when too many rights are restricted, as in Communism, you have your basic needs and rights being ignored.
The rights we have in the West, are definitely good. Although the system isn't perfect(don't say I didn't say that), it is the best thing we have so far. You cannot deny you don't have your rights in the US or Canada.

I can deny I dont have specific rights in the United States,
As a homosexual citizen of the country, I have many less rights than my heterosexual counterparts,
which include (in most parts or all of the country)
- not being allowed to serve in the military for my sexual orientation
- lack of partner benefits which extend to legally married heterosexual couples (a long and extensive list this is)
- lack of protection from descrimination by many employers, or educational institutions (many companies do offer legal protection but it is only because it is the status of their policies from their beliefs and not by legal mandate, and the same applies to most educational institutions)

The US is clearly behind in human rights, and being a 17 year old teenager, and having to be aware of my second class status in a country built on principles of the seperation of church and state, and of civil liberties is a horrible reality to face.
It is one thing to believe homosexuality is wrong, for your own opinion, but to prevent the legal liberties to us because of speculative and frankly in the opinion of myself and the worlds top psychologists, and medical associations blatantly false religious belief.... now that is WRONG.
The laws of our country should not be based on religious scripture.

Anyways, if you want to look at a beautiful example of perfection in freedom, liberty, peace, and justice.... just take your eye and observe
Sweden
Netherlands
Denmark
Belgium

And specific other European nations. The United States is conservatively backwards, we are no longer the leader (and havent been for a very long time) in the qualities the society and government supposedly want to spread throughout the world.

Yeah my goal as an adult, is to get the fuck out of here, and marry a Swedish man. :P
Too bad they dont speak Russian there.

Sounds to me like it's V's lucky day!


In seriousness, I think Connecticut recently passed legislation on civil unions between same sex couples that would give them the same rights as heterosexual spouses. At least, I remember last year Gov. Rowland promised to sign it. I haven't heard anything about it or kept up with it since then, though.

Sweden is not a beautiful example of perfection in freedom, liberty, peace and justice. What's the difference between freedom and liberty by the way? The govt takes all our money, so we don't have much economic freedom. We have peace, but this is because we don't care. We simply close our eyes and ignore problems, and then some people call that a good thing, because we don't get involved in conflicts. Not very helpful. Justice? We have way too few policemen, criminality is on the rise, and criminals get away with horrible crimes with just a couple of years in "prison". Except lack of freedom and law abiding citizens, the living standards in Swedish prisons are probably better than those in schools. I can't say I know much about the Netherlands, but it seems it's a pretty decent country. Denmark however - hrm, despite their military aid to the USA - is going dooooooown. Their f*cking nazi party is gaining a lot of support too fast, and it is really a threat. We better disarm them quickly

Um, considering your nick is (random)malchik, I think mike is a bit wrong

Sweden's citizens were boasted by TIME magazine in the summer of 2002 as of having the second highest quality of life in the whole world.
Okay well maybe not *boasted* (it was only a chart).
But the point has been made.
And well from reading Francis Strand's well known blog with rich descriptions of life in Sweden, it seems a perfectly fine place to live, lets consider the other options...

I can live in Egypt, and be sentenced to a prison sentence doing hard labor for 40 years (ala the trials of the men arrested on the floating nightclub on the Nile last year.)
I can live in err Wyoming or Texas and be dragged by 2 rednecks in a pickup truck and then beaten to death and left to die on a fence (ala Mathew Shepard).

Take a compliment, your countrys a good place to live.

Oh and accordingly there is a subtle difference to the synonyms of liberty and freedom (not that I actually paid attention to this at the time, im just typing it tp combat your irrelevent snappy comment that had no place within your response but to be rude.)

here is the quote from the American Heritage Dictionary of The English Language:

Freedom is the most general term: “In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free” (Abraham Lincoln). Liberty stresses the power of free choice: “liberty, perfect liberty, to think, feel, do just as one pleases” (William Hazlitt). License sometimes denotes deliberate deviation from normally applicable rules or practices to achieve a desired effect: poetic license. Frequently, though, it denotes undue freedom: “the intolerable license with which the newspapers break... the rules of decorum” (Edmund Burke).

So as you can see each of these examples expresses the concept of freedom in a different way. So even though freedom, liberty, and license can all be used to express the same series of thought, they carry precise undertones of meaning.
But I suppose it is rather useless to use two in the same sentence, oh well just wanted to point out there is a different nuance to each.

Who has the first highest? Usually the UN's list is topped by Norway (now with its own neo-Nazi movements growing) and Canada. Other than the lack of insurance benefits and tax breaks, who cares about freedom of marriage anyway? It is a useless religious tradition that is contrary to the polyamorous nature of humans. I am not saying monogamy isn't good, but you shouldn't have to threaten your spouse with a piece of paper to keep them from leaving you. If you do then they probably have a good reason to walk away from you to begin with.

Originally Posted by mike

Who has the first highest? Usually the UN's list is topped by Norway (now with its own neo-Nazi movements growing) and Canada. Other than the lack of insurance benefits and tax breaks, who cares about freedom of marriage anyway? It is a useless religious tradition that is contrary to the polyamorous nature of humans. I am not saying monogamy isn't good, but you shouldn't have to threaten your spouse with a piece of paper to keep them from leaving you. If you do then they probably have a good reason to walk away from you to begin with.

Canada and Finland are usually quite close. However, in the most recent UN list, I don't think Canada did that well. The only real social problems I have been aware of are that law does not require women to be paid as much as men in most jobs and the Natives are still on their reserved and not being helped to mix in with the rest of society. But besides that, there aren't too many problems.