Subject:
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Re: More throwbacks to Hitler...
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.off-topic.debate
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Date:
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Sat, 5 Jul 2003 20:27:10 GMT
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Viewed:
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234 times
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In lugnet.off-topic.debate, David Koudys wrote:
> Oh those crazy 'Mericans with their ill thought and ill conceived ideas.
Hm, yeah, like freedom? Gosh-darn those silly Yanks and their
ill-conceived idea that the world should be free of oppression...
> How about something new and radical for y'all--think something thru instead
> of being 'reactionary' all the time.
There are times when being "reactionary" is the only way to prevent great
evil. Think how much bloodshed and oppression could have been prevented if the
US had been more "reactionary" at the start of WWII instead of sitting back and
waiting until large parts of Europe and Asia had been devastated by Axis forces,
and only getting involved when we'd been attacked on our home soil.
> "Look how great we are because we're always reacting to everything! We
> reacted to the damn Brits and had our little 'revolution'! Look how great
> that was and look how great we are now!"
Correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't we the only 1st-world free democratic
one-time-British-colony that isn't required by law to put the Queen's face on
our currency? Last time I checked, Elizabeth is still Canada's official
head-of-state, while the US owes no fealty to any royalty. Canada sought to be
the equal of the UK. The US sought to be greater.
What makes the US great is not what we've done in the past, but what we're
willing and capable of doing in the present. No single nation comes close to
providing the level of humanitarian and economic aid that the US provides each
year. And the mere existence of the US military is probably one of the biggest
peace-keeping measures in the world. Do you think India and Pakistan would care
if Canada came alone and told them not to pursue nuclear weapons programs?
Probably not one tiny bit, without a UN mandate to back you up. The US,
however, is the world's last superpower, and the world knows we'll step up to
the plate even without a UN mandate, if the situation warrants it. Is it the
best system? Certainly not, but when UN Security Council member nations can be
bribed by petty thug dictators to veto the enforcement of mandates against them,
can you honestly say that the UN is?
> Well, a few other countries that were under the "tyranny" of the Brits have
> virtually the same 'democracy' and captialism as y'all, and they are, as far
> as I'm concerned, better off.
Very few. How about India and Pakistan? Or Ireland? How about Scotland,
which not only isn't free, but also hasn't been allowed to fly its own national
flag for centuries? Maybe you'd like to look to most of Africa? Perhaps you'd
like to reexamine Australia's oppression of the Australian Aborigines and Torres
Strait Islanders (which was fully in effect a few decades ago), or New Zealand's
oppression of the Maori tribes? Both of these British ex-colonies have
sponsored oppressive measures that rivaled (and perhaps exceeded) anything that
the US did to the Native American peoples, and they continued to do so for far
longer than the US did. Perhaps you're forgetting that Israel/Palestine, Iraq,
Kuwait, Egypt, and Afghanistan are all former British colonies?
And perhaps you're forgetting that in 1837, Canada _did_ try to forcibly
gain independance from Britain...and failed. Or that in 1840 they were given a
limited self-government, the denial of which is the main reason why the US
ousted the British from New England. Have you considered the possibility that
as they moved towards giving Canada nominal freedom in 1867, they might have
been thinking of how costly it was to refuse to give America its freedom a
century earlier?
> I'd rather live in Austrailia or, well, hey how 'bout where I live now-
> Canada, than live in the US--my life expectancy is longer, my health care is
> better, and I have less chance of getting shot.
Your health _insurance_ is universal. Our health _care_ is the best in the
world. There's a reason why rich people come here from countries that have
universal health insurance when they need major surgery performed. You can
either provide excellent health care to most of the population, or adequate
health care to all of the population, but you can't provide excellent health
care to everyone without the system breaking down for one reason or another.
It's just too expensive. Speaking as someone who has good health insurance, I'd
prefer to stick with the US plan so my health care doesn't get diluted. Yes,
it's a bit self-centered, but very few people do very few things for purely
altruistic reasons.
Oh yeah, and our dollar is bigger. And we don't have to have laws imposing
quotas on what percentage of songs played on the radio have to be from native
groups just so they can get some airtime. And have you ever stopped to think
about why our two countries share the world's longest unpatrolled border? It's
because we don't see you as a threat and you don't want us to change our minds.
> We will continue to grow and be proactive. The best you can possibly aspire
> to is to be reactive.
And we will continue to shelter you with our military presence so you can
spend money on universal health insurance instead of wartoys and continue to
pretend that you'd be better off without us. After all, the potential gains of
launching a war on Canadian soil are positively dwarfed by the fact that you
sleep next to the biggest dog on the block.
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Message has 2 Replies:
 | | Re: More throwbacks to Hitler...
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| (...) I'm being preciosist here, but what exactly was the status of Hawaii in 1941? AFAIK it only became a state in 1959, and until the late 1800's it was a kingdom. Honest, I got curious when I read this! :-) (...) You may be wrong. The Republic of (...) (21 years ago, 6-Jul-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
| | | Re: More throwbacks to Hitler...
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| (...) <snip> Funny you should mention one of the biggest 'reactionary measures' your country ever had as your example. WWII was going on well before Dec 1941, and yet the bombing of Pearl Harbour is the day that will 'live in infamy'. Not the (...) (21 years ago, 7-Jul-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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Message is in Reply To:
| | More throwbacks to Hitler...
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| (URL) that America - Ashcroft's America - is where we now live. We have plunged headlong into the past. America cringes under the shadow of a militant Homeland Security Act - a ghostly doppleganger of Adolph Hitler's 1933 "Enabling Act," which, to (...) (21 years ago, 30-Jun-03, to lugnet.off-topic.debate)
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