Daxx

Not if its nice and warm. Quiet too

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I am the one, I am the zero, I am your low resolution hero.

NothingMore.

Lmao, Spectre owns.

He's written exactly what I think, Except... In less words, I would have made it a little more poetic. Though, I don't like to respond to these threads much.

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- 52

Spectre

Exactly.

You know...I almost wish the United States would just give up...and let the Terrorists, Liberals, etc, just have their way with us.

Why not???

I mean...if people have a wallet/purse full of money, how it got there doesn't matter one damn bit. Those who kept the faith and fought the unrelenting tide of apathy don't even matter anymore.

Just by seeing some of the peoples political leanings here makes my heart heavy and my stomach sick. As no - one here, except a select few give a DAMN about keeping this nation as it was intended.

It seems that these days everyone in America only gives a damn what the "others" will think of us..."others" being the international community. We didn't get to where we are by listening to the mainstream or giving in to whats popular. Americans are SUPPOSED to be young and arrogant, we're supposed to be strong and idealistic.

Once we give that up, we cease to be what we were intended to be, what we were intended to be was a strong nation that lived free at ALL costs. We, long ago, didn't give into the fear and parinoia of the international community. However by now...most of the American people feel "embarrased" when confronted by foreigners on various issues.

We've lost our will to live free and bravely. We're no longer young.

America wasn't just a place or nation. It was an attitude, a bravado, a characteristic that was unmistakable amongst others. It wasn't classy like the French, or proper like the Brits, nor was it stern and cold like the Soviets. It was the attitude of a strong and proud young man, who had everything to believe in and still thought right and wrong could be black and white. America wasn't always perfect, or classy, however we always tried to be right. We once believed in America, when we were Americans. Now we're African-American, Italian-American, Anglo-American, etc.

It's no longer popular to blindly believe in simple right and wrong. We don't profess our faith in our nation or hold it in our hearts anymore because by and large, we are already dead.

I'm just glad I was raised when America was still proud and standing tall.


America died sometime in the latter 20th Century.

I feel like a man without a nation, my brothers are all dead. The cause is lost.

H-Hour

Every revolution that is successful becomes an institution.

fr1j0l3

I, on the other hand, count myself lucky to be alive on this cool ass floating rock, and I intend to make it a better place for myself and other regardless of race, nationality, or religion.

fr1j0l3

LinkThe White House initially demanded the closure of all Tube lines under parts of London to be visited during the trip. But British officials dismissed the idea that a suicide bomber could kill the President by blowing up a Tube train.

Geisha

Um. Wasn't America originally populated by a bunch of people who just had nowhere else to go? And by and large were deported from their source countries by force? Or left behind when the lord who funded it got rich quick? I mean, it wasn't intended as a prison colony like Australia (except for Georgia), but all you have to do is read the Jungle to see how much America was still built on false advertising in the 1900's (Greenland taken one step further). The people who came to America and succeeded at get rich quick all went BACK to Europe to cause horrible inflation and share some interesting new diseases.

I like living in the United States, and I appreciate our democracy, and I think it's a very good start. I feel lucky to have been born a United States citizen and not a North Korean citizen. But our government is not even 300 years old and we can still stand to learn from others. Plus our economy is too globally dependent to so carelessly cast aside the opinions of other countries (our suppliers). Personally I like having fresh fruit all year round. And automobile gas and heating oil are pretty cool too. And what the heck would we do with all the extra grain we produce when everyone is jumping on the stupid Atkins fad? There's a limit to how hard a line we can take in an international policy without causing serious injury to our population.

You can say "but we export more than we import" but think about this: from what I saw of small-town France (still pretty self-supporting, minus a little tourism) versus what I've seen of small-town USA (generally revolves around one large industry, e.g. a Frito-Lay plant), France wins (scary isn't it, France winning something?). This is based on limited personal observation, though, so anyone is welcome to correct me with facts.

Geisha

OK, this is a double post, but after reading the "so you want to debate" thread I realized I'm guilty of several generalizations.

Let me go back to Wintermutes original question and then respond to Spectre's unhappiness that we are not a united people in the United States.

No, I wasn't aware that the UK was demonstrating vehemently against our President. It's very interesting that the one-man representative of the Executive Branch of our government gets all the heat and all the credit for what is functionally (if not technically) a group of many people making decisions. I don't believe Bush has been particularly good or exceptionally bad, but I also don't think we'll get a reasonable examination until about 10 years of hindsight are available. The most important thing is for the media to stop linking the Executive Branch with the economy because there's really not that much a President can do, and *certainly* not by himself without the Legislative Branch. Wolfie said it: the economy is consumer-driven, not a line item on the government budget.

As for Spectre's glorious American Dream, I think he's right that we need a little more pride, a little less uninformed criticism of our government, and a little more unity of purpose (the problem is deciding on what purpose to unify behind - we're proud & individualistic as AmericaNS not as the unit America).

We can't tell the world to go hang because a lot of American jobs depend on those international relationships:
http://dataweb.usitc.gov/scripts/Regions.asp
http://www.ita.doc.gov/td/industry/o...tu/current.pdf

Turns out I was wrong in parroting an argument I used to hear in high school (that we export more than we import so the world needs us). According to everything I've seen in the last hour, we buy more than we sell:
http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/curracct.htm
Maybe this would be closer to zero if we included our global charity, instead of just the for-profit goods.

I think President-bashing is just a popular sport. In America and elsewhere. If we don't respect our President, the rest of the world certainly isn't going to either. And since saints don't sell news as well as sinners sell news, we're not likely to get any information on our Presidents worth respecting, are we?

Edits: removed some of the rambling and corrected some of the links

Wolfie

Actually, technically it wasn't President Clinton that balanced the budget. Congress created a balanced budget and Clinton kept vetoing it. However, eventually Clinton did settle on a balanced budget which surprisenly, was similar to the one initially established by Congress :P

And yes, I want to know how the Clinton's turned 1,000 into 100,000 on cattle futures alone :P

This is a bit off topic, but I wish our government would prioritize what they are suppose to be doing and only do the lower priority items when they can afford it.

In my opinion, the following should be the priority of the US government:

1) National Defense - (CIA, military, NSA, etc)
2) Homeland Security (HS, FBI, etc)
3) National Debt reduction
4) Social Programs (I know I am going to get flamed for this, but it really isn't the government's job to insure you have money to buy stuff or a retirement plan or a welfare surface)

Wolfie

Any other proof other than the Guardian?

fr1j0l3

hey, at least I got a source





source

leejo

Every successful institution keeps the revolution alive. RE: GE.

leejo

And re: the above graph. Frij, my brother, did either Bush Sr. or Clinton have someone murder 3000 people on international tv and instantaneously stop the economy for a month? Did either have a world war to fight? And make no mistake, that's what's happening. This will get bigger before it gets smaller, and we didn't start it, so don't blame Bush. Pull up a graph of the national budget from 1940-1945 and lets see what it looks like. Stop working for a month and have triplets and see how it affects your budget.

Wolfie

Right, and haven't you read the posts in the other thread that show that the President doesn't have any effect on the economy unless he messes with the tax system?

Also that graph is not correct. The economy improved before Clinton took office and was going downhill before Clinton left office. Whoever made those graphs left that information out......

_Ender_

IIRC didnt Clikton have to finish the first Gulf War?