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*Dicktice wrote:
Flash: A couple of years ago I started the "Dr. No Syndrome" thread (look it up)
I tried to locate it via Search three times, and also scrolling through 4 threads back to pages 3 of each. I recall that thread, that you posted it in a folder which some Moderator later moved.
in which I claimed that Osama bin Laden and Co. were out to spoil new and recovering nations' efforts at democracy. He's "the sergeant we love to hate," in other words.
Was Adolf Hitler "the sergeant we love to hate"?
Bin Laden has stated his desire to murder every U.S. citizen -- children included. No difference imo -- except that Bin Laden hasn't (yet) the ability to herd Americans into box cars and send us via train to crematory ovens and firing squads. Of course he wouldn't go to all that fuss anyway; Bin Laden would dump a couple dozen nukes on our heads if he could.
The ultimate consequence in my view, if we keep our cool, will be to bring about mutually protective policies between the currently mismatched nations of the World.
Nice. But ilk like Bin Laden don't want peace or understanding between "mismatched nations." They want to conquer, period, and they don't care how many American skulls they'll be standing on when it's over.
Bin Laden and his cohorts have already more than once proven themselves capable and entirely willing to butcher "fellow" Muslims (including in the Mid-East AND Africa) who "dare" to disagree with them. In fact, he's lost support in Afghanistan because of all the vicious, senseless slaughter of other Muslims.
No, he's not "Dr. No" -- he's a real person, a fanatical bigot who would put a bullet in the head of anyone who disagrees with him. And he'd have no remorse for it.
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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How do you know Bin Laden can't be reasoned with? If USA stops supporting Israel and the Saudi Government. He might give up on trying to destroy USA.
"...all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
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even if he could be reasoned with, i would not support my own government if it let foreign policy be dictated to it by some j*ck ass with delusions of granduer sitting in some allah-forsaken hole in the middle of nowhere.
just find the general vicinity and nuke the f*cker and be done with it.
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How do you know Bin Laden can't be reasoned with?
*Because he has his mind made up, or sure seems to. Westernism = "evil, Devil, must be destroyed" in his mind. He has admitted this in person to a Western journalist with cameras and a translator present.
He hopes to bomb America and kill American children. Why? Because America bombed Japan during WWII. Why do American children of today "have to pay" for what Americans in 1945 did? Or why do I have to pay for it ["kill all Americans"]? I was born 20 years after WWII ended. Japan has made peace with America; who is bin Laden to "punish" the US for what happened 60 years ago between it and Japan [while he also apparently conveniently forgets Pearl Harbor]? He's not Japanese. The guy is a fruitcake.
Do you think Adolf Hitler could have been reasoned with? He hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them. Bin Laden hates Westerners and wants to exterminate us.
You can't reason with the unreasonable.
If USA stops supporting Israel and the Saudi Government. He might give up on trying to destroy USA.
So we should abandon the Israelis and leave them to be torn to shreds by their enemies? Would a Jewish blood bath please you?
As for the Israel argument itself: It's always about Israel primarily, right? Even if Israel willingly dissolved its gov't tomorrow and everyone "went home" (wherever else that might be), bin Laden would still be set on destroying the US/UK/West because our values/ideals are in direct conflict with his radical fundamentalist Muslim beliefs. Or just because of Japan and WWII (his own on-camera admission). There's always a pretext for war, right? Especially to warmongering idiots like him and Hitler.
Israel is a red flag, a card to be played by bin Laden. Do you really think he cares about the Palestinians? If he did, he'd take peaceful steps to try and calm the situation...not whip up even more anti-Semitism, which also comes at the expense of Palestinians.
Or, to put it another way [2nd paragraph especially, regarding the "Palestinian question"]:
In 1971, in the lobby of the Cairo Sheraton, Palestinian terrorists shot Wasfi al-Tal, the prime minister of Jordan, at point-blank range. As he fell to the floor dying, one of his killers began drinking the blood gushing from his wounds. Doesn't that strike you as a little, um, overwrought? Three decades later, when bombs went off in Bali, killing hundreds of tourists plus local waiters and barmen, Bruce Haigh, a former Aussie diplomat in Indonesia, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, had no doubt where to put the blame. As he told Australia's Nine Network: "The root cause of this issue has been America's backing of Israel on Palestine."
Suppose this were true: that terrorists blew up Australian honeymooners and Scandinavian stoners in Balinese nightclubs because of "the Palestinian question". Doesn't this suggest that these people are, at a certain level, nuts? After all, there are plenty of Irish Republican Army sympathisers across the world (try making the Ulster Unionist case in a Boston bar), yet they never thought to protest against British rule in Northern Ireland by blowing up, say, German tourists in Thailand.
Food for thought.
::EDIT:: Article from which quotes were taken
We all know [i]those[/i] Venusians: Doing their hair in shock waves, smoking electrical coronas, wearing Van Allen belts and resting their tiny elbows on a Geiger counter...
--John Sladek (The New Apocrypha)
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He hopes to bomb America and kill American children. Why? Because America bombed Japan during WWII. Why do American children of today "have to pay" for what Americans in 1945 did? Or why do I have to pay for it ["kill all Americans"]? I was born 20 years after WWII ended. Japan has made peace with America; who is bin Laden to "punish" the US for what happened 60 years ago between it and Japan [while he also apparently conveniently forgets Pearl Harbor]? He's not Japanese. The guy is a fruitcake.
Wait a minute. Bin Laden has just wasted his entire fortunes,sent his followers to death and is in hiding because he wants america to pay for what it did to the japs? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Bin Laden couldn't give a fuck about the japanese. The main reason he hates america is because it supports the Saudi Royal Family and the injustice towards muslims that american forgien polices enable.
Do you think Adolf Hitler could have been reasoned with? He hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them. Bin Laden hates Westerners and wants to exterminate us.
Yes. He wanted to get rid of the jews. But no other country would accept them. Including USA which sent a ship full of jews back. He thought that this was a silent aproval from the world that they didn't like they jews and that he could destroy them. Remember he only came up with the Holocaust DURING the war and he never visited a concentration camp.
So we should abandon the Israelis and leave them to be torn to shreds by their enemies? Would a Jewish blood bath please you?
If i said yes would that lower me in your eyes? Lol actually i don't want to see any jewish blood bath. EXCEPT for those that took part in the opression of the palestinians,lebanese and the syrians. I want them to suffer the same way they made the arabs suffer.
As for the Israel argument itself: It's always about Israel primarily, right? Even if Israel willingly dissolved its gov't tomorrow and everyone "went home" (wherever else that might be), bin Laden would still be set on destroying the US/UK/West because our values/ideals are in direct conflict with his radical fundamentalist Muslim beliefs. Or just because of Japan and WWII (his own on-camera admission). There's always a pretext for war, right? Especially to warmongering idiots like him and Hitler.
The main muslim anger that existed before the illegal invasion of iraq was about the Israel-Palestenian issue. If Palestine was given back to the palestinians and USA stops occupying Iraq. Stops supporting the Saudi Government, remove it's troops from saudi arabia. Leaves Afghanistan he would be satiated.
Israel is a red flag, a card to be played by bin Laden. Do you really think he cares about the Palestinians? If he did, he'd take peaceful steps to try and calm the situatio
THERE IS NO PEACEFUL END TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINAIN CONFLICT.
Unless the Israelies decided that they should disolve their government or the arabs decided that they won't want their land back. So far Israel isn't willing to give up and the only person who could have made the arabs give up on their claim to all of palestine is dead (arafat). The only other way is military action. Israel was born because of Jewish terrorist activties. Maybe the new palestine will be born the same way.
After all, there are plenty of Irish Republican Army sympathisers across the world (try making the Ulster Unionist case in a Boston bar), yet they never thought to protest against British rule in Northern Ireland by blowing up, say, German tourists in Thailand.
Actually that wasn't made by Palestinians or Al-Qaeda. This act was started by an indonesian group who didn't like what is going on in Bali. Indonesia is a muslim country. Bali (part of indonesia) however is mainly Hindu. So what goes on in Bali is diffrent form what happens in ther est of indonesia. You know in the beaches the kind of actitvies the tourists get into like strippers. Jemaah Islamiah was the group who stared it. Granted though. If the illegal occupation of Palestine didn't happen there would have been so much support for militant organisations like these.
"...all I ask is a tall ship, and a star to steer her by."
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Back to Dr, No: A fictitious figure, power-bent (irrelevant as to why in the film) who wants to hold the World hostage by threatening to launch atomic bombs via international ballistic missiles. This was in the early 1950's, remember. Potential Dr. No's know a lot "better" ways to hold us hostage now, which aren't so vulnerable to attack. He gets his just reward just in the nick of time, thanks to oo7. But, you guys are ruining my analogy by bringing-in the middle east conflict, between faiths that believe in an afterlife. My point--ad nausium--is that the secular powers, capable right now of delivering instant anihilation to each other, are being diverted for the mment by a mutual irritant (Osam bin Laden) which which I admit now threatens to get out of hand. Unfortunately, it isn't the Whole World which feels threatened. I'm very suspicious of the heads of religions which encurage the crimes we are witnessing against anyone not under their thrall. My solution, if I had the guts of my own convictions, would be to support education beyond the influence of these despots for every child in the World, which covers the history of every religion in turn, along the three R's, and basic science. Then, if they can still take over the minds our children to make willing suicidal bombers of 'em, I'll admit I'm wrong. I hope I live to see the outcome.
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The intervening time has shown Osama bin Laden still responsible for drawing former disparate secular camps of the world together in common defense, but now the danger of his creating new disparate religious camps makes his capture or assination all the more urgent.
If we had the nerve (perish the thought) to infiltrate his camp and give up our lives in the way his adherents are being convinced to do, regardless who gets blown away in the process, where would that eventually lead? Probably nowhere but to whole armies of suicidal soldiers. They're described as the most reliable and cheapest weapons known, according to prominent (still living, you'll notice) Islamic authorities.
My best suggestion would be to convince the respective populations of believers of all faiths, that "Paradise" is not for suicides. How this could be accomplished, might be to convene an inter-denominational congress of religious authorities and declare such an edict, then preach it regiously to the faithful. That would have the effect of reducing Osama's suicidal-bomber arsenal only to a fanatical fringe of loyalists, and hopefully to himself--like Hitler--in the end
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He hopes to bomb America and kill American children. Why? Because America bombed Japan during WWII. Why do American children of today "have to pay" for what Americans in 1945 did? Or why do I have to pay for it ["kill all Americans"]? I was born 20 years after WWII ended. Japan has made peace with America; who is bin Laden to "punish" the US for what happened 60 years ago between it and Japan [while he also apparently conveniently forgets Pearl Harbor]? He's not Japanese. The guy is a fruitcake.
Wait a minute. Bin Laden has just wasted his entire fortunes,sent his followers to death and is in hiding because he wants america to pay for what it did to the japs? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA
Bin Laden couldn't give a fuck about the japanese. The main reason he hates america is because it supports the Saudi Royal Family and the injustice towards muslims that american forgien polices enable.
Do you think Adolf Hitler could have been reasoned with? He hated Jews and wanted to exterminate them. Bin Laden hates Westerners and wants to exterminate us.
Yes. He wanted to get rid of the jews. But no other country would accept them. Including USA which sent a ship full of jews back. He thought that this was a silent aproval from the world that they didn't like they jews and that he could destroy them. Remember he only came up with the Holocaust DURING the war and he never visited a concentration camp.
So we should abandon the Israelis and leave them to be torn to shreds by their enemies? Would a Jewish blood bath please you?
If i said yes would that lower me in your eyes? Lol actually i don't want to see any jewish blood bath. EXCEPT for those that took part in the opression of the palestinians,lebanese and the syrians. I want them to suffer the same way they made the arabs suffer.
Then why should you care about what happened to Jewish Refugees during World War II? The German NAZIs made similar claims that the Jews were oppressing them, and they wanted to make the Jews suffer the same way they claimed that the Jews made the German people suffer. The German NAZIs said it and they did it, and now the Palestinians are saying it. Do you really want to empower the Palestinians, and Al Qaeda Arabs to carry out a second Final Solution in the Middle East?
As for the Israel argument itself: It's always about Israel primarily, right? Even if Israel willingly dissolved its gov't tomorrow and everyone "went home" (wherever else that might be), bin Laden would still be set on destroying the US/UK/West because our values/ideals are in direct conflict with his radical fundamentalist Muslim beliefs. Or just because of Japan and WWII (his own on-camera admission). There's always a pretext for war, right? Especially to warmongering idiots like him and Hitler.
The main muslim anger that existed before the illegal invasion of iraq was about the Israel-Palestenian issue. If Palestine was given back to the palestinians and USA stops occupying Iraq. Stops supporting the Saudi Government, remove it's troops from saudi arabia. Leaves Afghanistan he would be satiated.
As Hitler was when Chamberlain allowed Germany to grab Austria, the Rhineland, and half of Czechoslovakia. Hitler did not invade Poland afterwards right, because Hitler was satiated?
Israel is a red flag, a card to be played by bin Laden. Do you really think he cares about the Palestinians? If he did, he'd take peaceful steps to try and calm the situatio
THERE IS NO PEACEFUL END TO THE ISRAELI-PALESTINAIN CONFLICT.
Unless the Israelies decided that they should disolve their government or the arabs decided that they won't want their land back. So far Israel isn't willing to give up and the only person who could have made the arabs give up on their claim to all of palestine is dead (arafat). The only other way is military action. Israel was born because of Jewish terrorist activties. Maybe the new palestine will be born the same way.
After all, there are plenty of Irish Republican Army sympathisers across the world (try making the Ulster Unionist case in a Boston bar), yet they never thought to protest against British rule in Northern Ireland by blowing up, say, German tourists in Thailand.
Actually that wasn't made by Palestinians or Al-Qaeda. This act was started by an indonesian group who didn't like what is going on in Bali. Indonesia is a muslim country. Bali (part of indonesia) however is mainly Hindu. So what goes on in Bali is diffrent form what happens in ther est of indonesia. You know in the beaches the kind of actitvies the tourists get into like strippers. Jemaah Islamiah was the group who stared it. Granted though. If the illegal occupation of Palestine didn't happen there would have been so much support for militant organisations like these.
I really wonder what makes you Brits so fond of Radical Muslims, was it the London bombing perhaps? Did you think those terror babies were really cute or something?
I really don't know what's going on in the Labor Party with the rank party members trying to force Tony Blair's resignation in favor of a less principled politician. Was it that Mr Blair, did not hate Jews and Americans enough? Is the Labour Party now defined by negative sentiment and Hatred towards certain groups for political conveniance? Bush Hatred has gotten way out of control, it has caused Labourites to cut loose Jews because George Bush has supported them, and has caused a certain fondness for "terror babies" because George Bush has fought them, never mind the London bombings.
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A short time before the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden was visited by a CIA operatives while undergoing treatment in a US hospital in Dubai:
http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/RIC111B.html
Imediately following 9/11, Osama bin Laden denied responsibility for the attacks. He claimed the Afghan leadership would not allow him to carry out such operations while staying under their protection, even had he got the ability to do so. I even think he actually condemned them on the basis of murdering innocent civilians (which might sound odd given his track record).
Shortly before the invasion, the Taliban caved in and claimed they were willing to negotiate the extradition of bin Laden. The US alliance went ahead with the invasion anyway.
Repeatedly after 9/11, bin Laden denied responsibility for the attacks. This pattern only changed after several months, when a video was released claiming to show bin Laden boasting about the destruction of the twin towers in front of a number of close associates. However, it is disputed whether the video tape in question actually depicts bin Laden at all, and not some imposter.
That the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq subsequently engendered a lot of terrorist acts or whether al Qaida has later changed its stance on 9/11 in order to benefit from the situation is not really that strange.
The 9/11 attacks have never been subjected to a criminal investigation. Therefore it is far from proven that al Qaida had anything to do with it. The US government simply claimed a number of people as guilty hours after the attacks and then went on to proclaim a "war against terror". As far as we currently are aware it could have been anyone. Leads pointing in the direction of parties inside the United States have consistently been disregarded.
It's now been years since bin Laden was heard of since. Personally I guess he is dead.
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However, it is disputed whether the video tape in question actually depicts bin Laden at all, and not some imposter.
"It was also disputed that the United States ever landed any men on the Moon, and it was disputed that humans evolved from apes, and that the world is much older that 6000 years, it is all a conspiracy by evolutionists to make people think they evoved from apes and to abandon their christian faith." You know I got alot of conspiracy theories for you, their is the NASA cover up of the face and the Pyramids of Mars, they could easily doctor the later photos to make them look like natural formations, couldn't they? No doubt there is a secret world wide conspiracy run by the United States to cover up all evidence of intelligent aliens on Mars and that they are secretly controlling our politicians through mind-waves to make them hide their presence by altering pictures received by our space probes, why aren't these theories given equal credence to the one's that their was no intelligent life on Mars. And you heard the one about the hole in the North pole which opens up into a hollow Earth with an internal sun and whose inner surface is inhabited by dinosaurs?
Making up these theories about the US attacking itself doesn't bring you any brownie points with the Muslim World. The Muslim Radicals will still attack Sweden, France, and Germany no matter how much such countries kow tow to their demands and condemn US "Imperialism" and Israeli "Racism". The Muslim World doesn't care because you are not muslim, if the West divides and attacks itself at their urging, they just smile and say what dumb people these westerners are, they are so easily fooled and divided, and they'll attack and condemn the United States, our greatest enemy out of fear of our little bombs. Obviously Western Europe is right for conquest, they'll say to themselves.
I don't buy all your little theories that assign blame to the United States for the 9/11 attack because of how unlikely it really is. Europeans just need to make up the US as an Imperial Bogieman because they are not up to the task of facing up to the real enemies of western civilization. Kind of like the washed up professional boxer who looks for a 90-year old man as an opponent, and then tries to build him up before the audience as a worthy adversary so the fans will be impressed when he beats him. Politicians in Western Europe are really charitans when they go into the whole anti-US act, they build the US up as a formidable Imperialist opponent and then they defy said imperialist opponent, and since the US let him have his freedom of speech and doesn't send the CIA out to assassinate him, his hand pick audience then applauds him for such bravery and defiance in the face of the US Imperialist aggressor. Then he says he must have the US cowed and afraid since they haven't sent the CIA goon squads out to assassinate him, then the dumb dumb left wingers elect him for such "bravery", and they fall for it everytime.
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However, it is disputed whether the video tape in question actually depicts bin Laden at all, and not some imposter.
"It was also disputed that the United States ever landed any men on the Moon, and it was disputed that humans evolved from apes...
Blah, blah, blah... Face of Mars, Hollow Earth etc... it's not the same thing. Real conspiracies do happen, it's just a matter of following the evidence. Sometimes we historians unearth this sort of thing just like proving any other historical point, and you can't make it go away just by shouting "conspiracy, you're nuts!". One such episode from the top of my head is FDR:s fakery map, showing false Nazi conquest plans in America, as part of his efforts to drag the US into WWII. Germany, quite naturally, entertained no such ambitions:
FDR's policy of deception and deliberate provocation is here chronicled in detail, from the Gulf of Tonkin-like incident of the sinking of the Greer – supposedly on a "mail run," but actually involved in targeting German subs for the Brits – to the fake map of the alleged Nazi master plan for the conquest of the Americas, cited by the lying Roosevelt in one of his "fireside chats." The map the President spoke of was a forgery cooked up in the dirty tricks laboratory maintained by British intelligence in the US, which purported to show the reorganization of Central and South America under "five vassal states" under German dominion. Buchanan cites Nicholas John Crull, author of Selling War: The British Propaganda Campaign Against American Neutrality in World War II, as saying that "the most striking feature of the episode was the complicity of the President of the United States in perpetrating the fraud."
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j092099.html
Making up these theories about the US attacking itself doesn't bring you any brownie points with the Muslim World. The Muslim Radicals will still attack Sweden, France, and Germany no matter how much such countries kow tow to their demands and condemn US "Imperialism" and Israeli "Racism".
You really believe I'm after "brownie points" with the Muslims? Man, you're off tangent here. I hate Islam. I hate the literal invasion of Muslim immigrants into Europe that is going to destroy European culture and eradicate Sweden by simple demographics, yet I detest even more the ideological forces that have pushed this upon us. For over 50 years the chant has been "if you're against immigration and multiculturalism, you want to rebuild the ovens of Auschwitz".
And guess who's promulgated this verbal poison? Mostly stupid liberals, but the ideas came in large part from, yes, I'm saying it, certain Jewish intellectual circles. Like in the US they and their ideas dominate the entire culture, academia and media sector, only you mostly have it in the Neocon/Zionist variety, creating ways of seeing, deciding what is allowed to think and say. You really believe Europe would commit collective suicide in this way, with politicians so terrified to be branded Nazi, racist and bigot they don't even contemplate protest, if it wasn't for 1945?
Also, in the perspective of total racial and cultural disintegration, do you really think I fear a single Islamist bomb or two? That's like chasing a mouse with a flamethrower while your house is on fire.
I don't buy all your little theories that assign blame to the United States for the 9/11 attack because of how unlikely it really is.
The way I see it, when you dig into the grit of things, it appears more likely than the official story. But no one really knows until an actual investigation into the 9/11 events takes place.
Europeans just need to make up the US as an Imperial Bogieman because they are not up to the task of facing up to the real enemies of western civilization.
I'd love to stop beating the anti-US drum, but it requires that you stop being so intolerably obnoxious, imperialistic and full of yourselves while in reality you're just a tail wagged dog (so are we, but in different ways). We are all prisoners of the same fate, but war in the Middle East won't solve any problems, because the problems those try to solve, don't even exist, or at least didn't exist prior to 9/11. There is only one party benefitting, and they are riding your back, and they don't care how many US soldiers come home in boxes or if it makes you the laughingstock of the world.
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Islamo-facism existed way before 9/11. Ever hear Munich Olympics? But before it was only given a moment's notice and then got ignored after the immediate crisis was resolved. I remember the Iran Hostage Crisis in 1979, day after day they gave coverage of those bearded men holding blindfolded US diplomats hostage, and Jimmy Carter doing nothing. I think we was focusing too much on getting the hostages free and not enough on deterring the Iranians, by showing the world that you pay a price if you take US diplomats hostage, but Jimmy Carter did nothing but talk, and that ended his Presidency. Also some of the Jewish Media elites run Hollywood and the Mainstream Press, and they are not giving the War good coverage at all. I guess the Liberal Jews have not connected with the fact that the Terrorists want to kill them in particular for being Jewish.
I for one am not going to condemn Israel for defending itself when attacked, and you have no right to condemn Israel for defending itself when you do not find yourself under attack by those same groups. Then their is the general suppression of free speech that goes on in Europe, the latest episode occured when the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor for criticising the Muslims for spreading Islam with a sword, if I recall my history right, the Byzantines were being attacked by the Islamic Turks. Yet these muslims are ever so sensitive to being criticised for violence that they object by burning churches in Gaza that aren't even Catholic.
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Then their is the general suppression of free speech that goes on in Europe, the latest episode occured when the Pope quoted a 14th century Byzantine Emperor for criticising the Muslims for spreading Islam with a sword, if I recall my history right, the Byzantines were being attacked by the Islamic Turks. Yet these muslims are ever so sensitive to being criticised for violence that they object by burning churches in Gaza that aren't even Catholic.
I agree this is very shameful. You must understand that I, or any given European in particular, do not necessarily support our spineless governments or the twisted conformist views of the establishment. In fact, if the opportunity existed, I would have supported a revolution against the so called democratically elected regime of my country.
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The Best way to change your government is to convince your fellow countrymen to change the government. The Strength of the West is its democracy. I am convinced that we wouldn't be as rich if it weren't for our democratic traditions. Their is a good reason why Russia is poor, and that is because it has been in the thrall of dictators and monarchs for most of its history, and the interests of the people were not addressed, and I think they are still not being addressed. I don't think its in the Russian peoples interest to get into a war with the US or western civilization, I don't think it is in their interests to support Islamic radicalism, terrorism, or Iran's attempt to get the nuclear bomb, the only reason they are doing this is to get our goat, but it also puts the Russian people in danger of getting in a conflict with us over matters of national pride only, and who is the cock that rules the roost. the Russians would like to be number one, and their is only one number one, and at the moment it is the United States. It is easier to destroy than to build, and so the Russians are putting in the greater effort in trying to knock us down from our perch than to build themselves up, that is the tragidy that is Russia today. I'm a believer in positive competition and positive national rivalry, wear each country strives to be great rather than to try amd tear each other down. There is only one number one, but number two isn't so bad, and as long as their is peace in the world, it doesn't matter, what matters is how each individual lives in his own country.
I think the West's greatest weakness is a lack of unity, and the negative national rivalry where each country seeks to tear into each other and everyone tears into the country that is on top, and while they are all fighting to see who is "King of the Hill", the West pays no attention to external threats to western civilization that terrorism represents. Do you know what MoveOn.org is all about? It is about a group of people who think the United States shouldn't be on top, and their primary concern is removing the US from the leadership position in the West, they don't care what the terrorists are doing, as far as they are concerned, they are just tools to drive the US from its preeminent position. I think the main reason the US is the most powerful nation of the West is because of its population, there are 300 million of us. Europe has more people, but they are divided among many nations. The United States is 300 million middle class individuals, some countries have higher per capita incomes than we do, but their populations are small. Some countries have more people than we do, but their people are poor. The United States is a large population country with a relatively high wealth and income level, that is why we are a superpower. The other countries in the high income category are China, India, and I think the United States is the Third most populaous country, and I think Indonesia is the fourth.
Therefore if someone doesn't want us to be the leading super power in the world, he has to do one of two things either:
1) he must reduce of population, it must be cut down significantly, tens to hundreds of millions of Americans must be killed to make us a small country, I don't see how this can happen without inviting our wrath and loosing our nuclear arsenal on the perpetrators of this genocide.
2) The other is to make us poor, many countries have tried to make us poor, the latest is Venuzualia by trying to raise the price of oil. the price of oil is mostly an irritant to us, we don't live and die by the price of oil. I think if the price of oil was high enough for long enough we would develop alternatives to it and our enemies would no longer have that level to manipulate. Another way to make us poor is to try to get us to become excessively socialistic, if we spend too much on social programs that are inefficient and weigh down the economy, then our economy would not grow as fast or might shrink if taxes were too high. I think a low tax regime has positive effects on growth and over the long term has greater positive effect on tax revenue raised than raising taxes will have. Their is an optimum tax level where economic efficiency is the highest, and generally that number is closer to 0% taxation than it is to 100% taxation. I do not think it is the business of government to tax people so high that they do not get rich; I think if you let people get rich, then they'll generate more income for the tax coffers. I don't blame Capitalism for the fact that some people are poor, I blame the fact that poor people do not have marketable skills and so cannot get higher paying jobs. Government can train people and provide for education so people can find better jobs, and I think that's a legitimate thing for governments to do, but they should not interfere with capitalism while doing so, because doing so will make the country poor, and that is just what our enemies want.
I understand that individual Europeans aren't always supporters of their governments, and neigther are Americans for that matter, it just seems that in my case at least, if I were President of my country, the policies of my country would not be so different from George W. Bush. I believe that action speaks louder than words and apparently George Bush shares this sentiment, maybe he depends too much on his actions speaking for themselves. George BUsh ought to realize that in politics talk does matter, its just that talk alone is no substitute for action. Terrorists in the middle east are plotting against us, Iran's trying to get the bomb, and the UN is filled with hot air and nothing but hot air. If you want to stop Iran from getting the bomb, the only thing that will stop them is action. The UN can be used as an excuse for inaction, if we try to get all the countries onboard to stop Iran, they never will, so all that is left is only talk and inaction. The Iranians want us to talk and negotiate until we are blue in the face while they build an atomic bomb. Russia, it seems would like Iran to get the atomic bomb, so it will let nothing occur in the Security council other than talk, because of its negative agenda with the United States and its concern over who is "king of the hill".
George Bush cannot wait forever, and their comes a point where he must shut his mouth, walk away from the UN and take some action against our enemies, that is what the Iraq war was all about as far as I'm concerned, a dictator was taken out, and we will never know what would have happened were he left in place as a consequence, that is the thankless task of preemption. Hitler could have been simularly preempted, and the World would never know about World War II as a consequence, and nobody would ever thank the man who would have deposed Hitler except for a few Jews perhaps, I say the same goes for Saddam. We can never see into the World of what might have been, it is all conjecture. I'm glad we don't have to deal with Saddam as a World leader anymore, the price we paid for getting rid of him was high and were still paying it, but it is our sacrifice, and the World should not look a gift horse in the mouth. Nothing is perfect of course and terrorism may or may not be a side effect of our policy to get rid of Saddam. You see people only see the problems we have, they don't see the problems we've avoided through our actions. Those who complain about out involvement in Iraq, don't want to know about the 500 chemical canisters we discovered there, and they want to ignore the history Saddam had in destabilizing the Middle East and Invading Kuwait, as it doesn't serve their purpose in opposing the Iraq war.
I respect all your opinions, and I will listen to them, and your arguments for them if I don't always agree with them. I am generally prospace, I want humans to go into space and expand into the Solar System, if national pride can be hitched to this wagon, then I would hitch it. I prefer positive competition in the race into space. I want to see all our nations striving to mine the asteroids and settle their people into space, there is plenty of resources for every one. What I don't want is society putting space and the rest of the Universe into a little box and having them focus entirely on terrestrial concerns only, in this respect I find the War on terrorism a distraction on our drive to get into space. I believe in space travel for the everyman, and not just for the elite. By getting most people to live in space, we relieve the Earth of the burden of supporting us. I think Mars is a good first start in our effort to live in space, it is an easily reachable stepping stone, but I think people will eventually live all over the Solar System, not just on Mars. I think Mars is a good benchmark to get us going on the right technological path toward space travel for the masses, and maybe we can leave the petty concerns of Earth in the dirt where it belongs.
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What a lot of words, to say so little that is relevant to current events. Two more years of Bush is a dreadful prospect, but not impossible to survive before all liberty has been usurped by so-called security legislation. So okay, I agree with most of your verbiage. But when you own up to being only "generally prospace" I have to react: How can you toss off what this Society is all about? I get the impression that you are simply a spectator, but not a contributor of ideas regarding specifics. For instance, to imagine populating the Solar System to relieve Earth of overcrowding isn't practical. Limiting population growth is, through education and social reforms not the least of which is the eventual elimination of faith motivated politcal heads of state. Oh, you are so ... so self rightous, as to preclude objective commentary. And don't get me started on that little creep, Hitler, either. He was really capable of world domination, through his home-grown evil philosophy and personal magnetism. Fortunately he was too dumb technically to capitalize on German ability to innovate. Sadam Hassam merely a thuggish bully, with no such capablity. Osama bin Laden is (or was--his rumoured death still not confirmed today) something new: A world disorganizer, relying on impossible-to-counter brainwashed suicidal human weapons to disrupt entire defence estalishments....
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How much have we really spent on developing the technology to get off Earth. As far as I can tell, not a whole lot. I have a number of ideas that could be tried to get off Earth, one of them is Lunar Pellets. Most such schemes require an intial investment is space infrastructure and once in place, that should bring down the cost of going into space substantially. I'd rather expand into space than fight over stuff on Earth. I think part of the problem is engineers who encounter engineering problems and then throw up their hands and say it is impossible to solve rather than solving them. the only reason I support the Iraq War is that we live on the same planet as these dementos that blow themselves up and threaten our liberty. I would actually prefer isolationism if we could in fact physically isolate ourselves from the rest of humanity. This "stick your head in the sand of North America" brand of isolationism simply won't work as were are not physically isolated from the rest of the World anymore, the oceans are't big enough to keep the world's problems from our shores. I don't like spending my money to solve the world's problems and have the ungrateful scum of humanity revile us for it. We are not doing it for them, but for ourselves, that is why we got involved in World War I and II.
You don't know what the future has to offer, you are not a seer. I prefer to work on the technology to get us off this planet. Population reduction if led to its logical comclusion will reduce the population to zero and result in the extinction of humanity. I think population growth is slowing anyway, because as we get wealthier, we generally have fewer children, but I'd prefer to reduce population on Earth while expanding it in space, that means transporting people off the planet. The Earth already has too many people. It is hard to sustain a global natural ecosystem with this many people. I think if the Human population on Earth were reduced to 10 million, we'd have a more natural environment, instead of having to devote much of the Earth's surface to agriculture in order to feed ourselves, or perhaps to produce ethenol to run our vehicles. if our vehicles are in space, then global warming is no longer a problem, a natural Earth will find its own balance and will devepo new species over time, which we can mine to feed our artificial habitats in space. Large wild species are disappearing from our planet. the best way to stop this is to get most of us off this planet. We don't have another Earth after all, and new species take millions of years to develop naturally.
I'm not one who believes in a single world society or a global village. I think space allows us the freedom to develop our own societies without getting in each other's way as we do so often here on Earth. if someone want to experiment with communism, let him do so with like-minded people on an isolate space settlement rather than disruptiong other societies through exporting revolution. I don't think all of humanity need to live this way or that, nor does it need to be reformed with everyone being told how to live. Space gives us space and that is the most important thing that is out there.
I just don't like crowded city cultures and global villages, I'd rather be a frontiersman and todays world doesn't allow me this. Everybody has to compete with everybody else for jobs and with the third world, which has suddenly gotten too close for my comfort. I don't like being bothered by third world problems such as religious fanatacism and terrorism. I also don't like buying oil from far away places and weird people who dress funny, worship funny and have a tendency to become suddenly violent when other people don't worship as they do.
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