Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

>> "best interests", but I'd say once you get to the federal level, it
>> seems that the primary concern is electability. Most do the most they
>> can to benefit themselves within that constraint. Electability is what
>> is supposed to guarantee that the country gains as well. 
>
> Yep.  But I think they're less worried about getting re-elected now than
> they were, perhaps.

Perhaps the two parties' platforms are closer to each other than they
used to be?

> Yep. But the very idea that "as long as I get reelected, I'll do
> anything I can get away with" is what I'm talking about. I mean, we have
> all kinds of scandals, the whole gitmo bay thing, the whole wikileaks
> thing, etc etc.

What Wikileaks scandals represent a state of affairs that is worse now
than when you were younger?

Ditto the Gitmo thing. Trashing the rights of the "other" is part of US
history. It sucks, but I don't think it's worse than before. If you
think of the wider issue of atrocities and crappy treatment of others,
it wouldn't surprise me if things were worse in the past.

Post a reply to this message

Neeum Zawan wrote:
> What Wikileaks scandals represent a state of affairs that is worse now
> than when you were younger?

More like the response to it. When Nixon was called out, we went after the 
President, not the newspapers. I don't remember people threatening Deep 
Throat with being locked up in solitary without a trial, or being shipped 
off to a foreign country military base to be tortured to death.  Pinko 
commies got blackballed, not disappeared into torture centers.

> Ditto the Gitmo thing. Trashing the rights of the "other" is part of US
> history. 

It is still considered scandalous that Lincoln locked people up without 
trial during the civil war. People are still bothered by the US locking up 
people of Japanese descent during WW2 - we still recognise *that* as wrong.

And, face it, most people *are* outraged at Gitmo, at bankers trashing the 
economy, at the "too big to fail" concept, etc etc etc. Yet it continues.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

scott wrote:
>> Do you believe your government is working in the best interests of the
>> people of the country? If you answer, what country are you in?
> 
> You can't answer that correctly unless you have access to the same 
> information and expertise that the government has.  

You seem to have missed the word "believe" in there.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

>>> Do you believe your government is working in the best interests of the
>>> people of the country? If you answer, what country are you in?
>>
>> You can't answer that correctly unless you have access to the same
>> information and expertise that the government has.
>
> You seem to have missed the word "believe" in there.

I don't like to believe, I like to know :-)

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> wrote:
> Neeum Zawan wrote:
> > What Wikileaks scandals represent a state of affairs that is worse now
> > than when you were younger?

> More like the response to it. When Nixon was called out, we went after the 
> President, not the newspapers. I don't remember people threatening Deep 
> Throat with being locked up in solitary without a trial, or being shipped 
> off to a foreign country military base to be tortured to death.  Pinko 
> commies got blackballed, not disappeared into torture centers.

  This whole phenomenon happening in the US after the 9/11 attacks,
the whole "war on terror", gradually taking away people's rights to
privacy, things like the Patriot Act and so on, is quite saddening.
They demonstrate that the ultimate goal of the terrorists was achieved:
To instigate fear.

  One of the major principles of the US has always been "never submit to
terrorist demands". If I understand this correctly, the idea is that if
you start conceding some demands, it will only cause a slippery slope
where the terrorist demand more and more, and it will be hard to stop
the vicious cycle.

  The same idea could be restated as "never submit to fear of terrorism".
The most basic goal of terrorism is to instigate fear, and if you succumb
to it, the terrorist will have won, and it will only result in a similar
slippery slope, where the fear itself can be abused to cause even more
fear, with no end in sight. Once you start fearing the terrorists, there's
no end to the vicious cycle that follows.

  Degrading your own citizen's privacy and enacting draconian "anti-terrorist"
laws that bypass basic human and civil rights, is succumbing to the fear.
This is a sad state of affairs.

  (Not that Europe hasn't succumbed to the same fear as well. It's just
that the symptoms are slightly different. One could best describe these
symptoms as a "battered wife syndrome" at a multinational level.)

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

scott <sco### [at] scottcom> wrote:
> >>> Do you believe your government is working in the best interests of the
> >>> people of the country? If you answer, what country are you in?
> >>
> >> You can't answer that correctly unless you have access to the same
> >> information and expertise that the government has.
> >
> > You seem to have missed the word "believe" in there.

> I don't like to believe, I like to know :-)

  That may be a good goal, but it's impossible to know everything for
certain, and very often you just *have* to make assumptions.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

Post a reply to this message

Warp wrote:
> They demonstrate that the ultimate goal of the terrorists was achieved:
> To instigate fear.

I disagree that's the ultimate goal, but yes.

> The most basic goal of terrorism is to instigate fear,

The most basic goal of terrorism is to get the big guy (the USA in this 
case) to strike back indiscriminately, harming people near the terrorist who 
would otherwise not be fighting the USA.  I.e., a terrorist from Afganistan 
blows up a building in the USA, so the USA blows up a building full of 
innocent Afganis, so now huge numbers of Afganis who didn't care before are 
now allied with the terrorists.

I don't think folks in Iran or Iraq or whatever care if average Americans 
are afraid if that's all that happens. When it changes policy to put them in 
power locally, that's the benefit.

Rationally speaking, of course. Religious nutcases are something different.

>   Degrading your own citizen's privacy and enacting draconian "anti-terrorist"
> laws that bypass basic human and civil rights, is succumbing to the fear.
> This is a sad state of affairs.

Agreed.

I'm also trying to figure out where the War On Drugs fits in.  Maybe the US 
government tried that first, and found there weren't really all that many 
people who cared about it. :-)

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   Serving Suggestion:
     "Don't serve this any more. It's awful."

Post a reply to this message

Darren New <dne### [at] sanrrcom> writes:

> Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> What Wikileaks scandals represent a state of affairs that is worse now
>> than when you were younger?
>
> More like the response to it. When Nixon was called out, we went after

Oh, OK. 

> the President, not the newspapers. I don't remember people threatening

The media landscape has definitely changed, as is a factor for all of
this. Easy access to propaganda leads to easier radicalization.

>> Ditto the Gitmo thing. Trashing the rights of the "other" is part of US
>> history. 
>
> It is still considered scandalous that Lincoln locked people up without
> trial during the civil war. People are still bothered by the US locking

And I don't doubt 150 years from now, Gitmo will be considered
scandalous as well.

> up people of Japanese descent during WW2 - we still recognise *that* as
> wrong.

But Gitmo is not locking up Americans, which is the difference between
the current scenario and your two scenarios. 

> And, face it, most people *are* outraged at Gitmo, at bankers trashing
> the economy, at the "too big to fail" concept, etc etc etc. Yet it
> continues.

Keep electing the guys who let you down, and it will continue.

Post a reply to this message

On 1/17/2011 8:34 PM, Neeum Zawan wrote:
>> I think a lot of what happens in the USA, a lot of what Americans
>> complain about, is that it's pretty obvious that in spite of what the
>> people want, and in spite of what would be good for the country as a
>> whole, it just keeps not happening, regardless of who gets elected. How
>
> How often have these people who complain a lot decided to "make
> compromises" and end up voting Republican or Democrat? As long as that
> is their reasoned approach, the party they vote for has no incentive to
> cater to them.
>
P1: You can pick between the man with the bloody axe, or the one with 
the bloody knife.

P2: Uh, what about the guy in the corner?

P1: Oh, that's Fred, he's quite mad and keeps a chainsaw under the 
table. We suspect it *may* be a bit bloody too.

P2: Hmm, right... how about I just be going now then?

P1: Sure, if you think you can make it to the door before Fred does!

-- 
void main () {

     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

<A HREF='http://www.daz3d.com/index.php?refid=16130551'>Get 3D Models, 
3D Content, and 3D Software at DAZ3D!</A>

Post a reply to this message

>    That may be a good goal, but it's impossible to know everything for
> certain, and very often you just *have* to make assumptions.

Sure, but assuming/believing that what the government is doing is for or 
against the country as a whole seems to involve a huge number of 
assumptions, so I would rather reply with "sorry, don't know enough 
about that" than answer one way or the other.

Post a reply to this message