Non-Americans can be sooo gullible

[Equus]

Yup...talking politics on a lot of forums is like lighting off a powder keg. I\'ve been on a few where they had to ban religious and political discussions outright.

Has politics in America always been so divisive? Maybe it\'s just that I\'m more aware of the different sides and know people who have much stronger opinions than before.

Honestly, I\'m not sure about politics being divorced from morality. Moral \"implies conformity to established sanctioned codes or accepted notions of right and wrong.\" Given that, taking care of our senior citizens, not killing each other in the street, and many other things are enforced as actions sanctioned by our culture. Granted, most cultures would advocate many morals as somewhat universal, but I think we run into the meat grinder when we hit those that are not as cut and dry or universal, like abortion or contraceptives.

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Originally posted by darthfoley

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
I find it kinda funny though that people are dogging Cali for electing an actor for govenor, but not dogging Minnesota for electing Jesse Ventura who was a former wrestler, govenor.

Jesse had already \'proven\' himself in public office, though (as mayor of Brooklyn Park).

Ah-nuld hasn\'t proven anything except that he can make a lot of really, really bad movies (and an occasional good one).

Ah I did not know he was a Mayor 1st. That makes him a little more \'proven\' then Arnold.

So what was his occasional good one? Kindergarten Cop? lol

 

[darthfoley]

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
So what was his occasional good one? Kindergarten Cop? lol

I\'d take either of the first two Terminators over that one, but I actually do find that one funny.

 

[vincegamer]

Twins weren\'t too bad either.

Of course there\'s no AhNold without
\"Herculese takes Manhattan\"lol

 

[Drake Farstrider]

Originally posted by darthfoley

Originally posted by Drake Farstrider
So what was his occasional good one? Kindergarten Cop? lol

I\'d take either of the first two Terminators over that one, but I actually do find that one funny.

Well of course T1 &T2 are better, but he is SO robotic in those movies. lol In Kindergarten Cop he is so sensitive, except in the begining of the movie.

Twins was a fun movie as well.

 

[finn17]

Separated at birth???

Originally posted by Astorderire
The whole topic starded to spiral because of your xenophobic sounding title,

The only Frenchman I have ever, always agreed with....Astorderire (God that is hard to spell!)..I salute you

I have to admit Vince..you made my \'knee jerk\'. :flip:

 

[Trevor]

To kill somthing it would have to be living. Bilogicaly it is not possible to define \'living\'. It is possible though to determine when somthing is dead. An embryon with a brain not fully constructed is just a mass of cells beeing organised. Abortion occurs BEFORE the brain is finnished, thus you\'re not killing anything. As to my view on the subject, I\'d rather prevent a child coming into this world (condom, abortion,whatever) then knowing I doomed sombody to have a life of misery because he is unwanted.

I\'m not sure I agree with this. Its easy to define \"living\" (just look in the dictionary), whats harder is determining IF something is alive (viruses are a good example).

As for abortion, you don\'t need a brain to be alive, an ameoba doesn\'t have a brain, but its alive. I\'ve thought about this a lot and discussed at length with various people and I think the only logical conclusion is that \"life\" begins at conception, although with 2 important caveats

1) The embryo is only a \"potential\" human, at the point of conception it is 100% potential, as time goes by potential is replaced by \"actual\" (interestingly some people never seem to replace their potential with actual ), seriously though, I don\'t think you can work out when you become 100% human, I don\'t really see a baby as 100%, I mean I can\'t have a decent conversation with a 1 year old can I?

anyway I digress...

2) Embryo\'s are dependant, this is the parasite argument. This one is rather complicated and I can\'t be bothered going into it, but it basically says that if a mother doesn\'t want the baby, then the baby is a parasite, and you get into an interesting debate about which individual\'s rights (mother or baby) take precedence. Given 1 above I believe the mother comes 1st (although what about fathers rights? see I told you it was complicated).

So I\'m left with the following 1) life begins at conception, 2) thus abortion is murder, 3) however, mothers rights outweigh embryo\'s, thus 4) I\'m pro-choice.

I basically see abortion as destroying potential.

In refernce to 2 and 3, it is quite obvious that life is not sacrosant and societies place different \"values\" on its members, otherwise we would not have either death penalties nor wars, because it would be impossible to sanction either. (Psycopaths killing people is a different matter).

 

[MarkusTay]

I apologize.

Originally posted by finn17
I have seen all sorts debated on this site, religion, politics...abortion???

I have never, ever, seen such good natured dialogue.

Even when things get heated. I think we all show a remarkable degree of tolerance of each other\'s views and more importantly, respect each other\'s right to have those views.

We all go \'off on one\' occasionally and it\'s nice to think that this is a place where one can have a rant (or three) and only get mildly ribbed for it the next day

I am sorry to anyone I might have offended. Shawn is quite correct in calling me to task on my intolerant tirade. It wasn\'t aimed at him per se, but to a group I have had many head-butting incidents in the past. Hence, the rather aggressive post. It was late, I was annoyed, I shouldn\'t have even posted. I was HEAVILY involved in politics throughout the 70\'s and early 80\'s, and if people knew just how things REALLY worked I think they would be quite shocked. But I shouldn\'t let my own past conflicts affect the way I \"come-off\" here.

@E-Arkham - Brilliant! I couldn\'t have said it better myself (and, unfortunately didn\'t)

@Shawn - Once again, you are entitled to your opinion and your choices, I am sorry. Having four boys (two teenagers) I get very upset when people vote for a \"WAR\" president. I do not look forward to my child having his head cut off. On personnel note, I am actually anti-abortion. My wife had to terminate an atopic pregnancy because it could have killed her. The doctors were quite upset with me because I made her wait as long as possible, hoping something would change. The memory still sickens me to this day. On the other hand, I do not feel I have the right to tell hundreds of millions of women what to do with their body. That is between them and God.

@Dauber - I am glad you didn\'t take that out of context. Having lived in both places you know EXACTLY what I was saying. BTW I knew you were a commie pinko hippie by your post in the \"Bono\" thread. lol

@finn - Once again, the voice of reason. You\'re starting to scare me.


:innocent::innocent::innocent:

 

[philologus]

More Good Natured Dialogue.

Quote by E-Arkham: When judging an issue, I request -- no, I beg people to detach themselves from knee-jerk emotional and religious responses and ask themselves, \"Does this work in a practical sense? Do I favor or oppose this only because of personal belief?\"

Well put; however some very (in hindsight) important political decisions have been made based solely on moral
grounds. For example the Christian business men (I believe led by Granville Sharp) in England who took an anti-slavery stance in commerce and effectively started the abolitionist movement worldwide. They took their fight to Parliament and eventually the British govt. (to their own economic detriment) began to patrol the coasts of Africa to repel slavers from other countries. It would have been more practical to tolerate slavery worldwide and would have cost much less.

@Trevor: I see your point and have one to add. Many states in the US will try a drunk driver who kills a pregnant woman for two counts of vehicular homicide. But, if the mother doesn\'t want the child then it becomes an inconvenience rather than a victim.?.?

Lastly: I too am pro-choice; one may always choose:
1. Not to have sex (known to result in pregnancy) until in a committed relationship e.g. marriage.
2. use contraceptives (available free from local health officials).

 

[Evil Dave]

Originally posted by MarkusTay
I don\'t know about Arnold, he just won \'cause he\'s cool.

But as far as that other lame @ss goes, I still haven\'t found one person who voted for him. I\'ve come to the conclusion that we don\'t actually elect our officials, the republicans just make a big show of it every four years to make us feel like we do.

You found one.

And I\'ll give you the exact reason why I voted for him.

Iraq

I\'ve been there, twice.
I\'ve witnessed the poverty of the masses, while the just 3 miles away there were palaces filled with incalcuable wealth.
I\'ve seen the fear in the eyes of the people.
I\'ve seen the horrible atrocities comitted against the women of the land.

If you believe in human rights in any way, shape or form, then you have to agree that Saddam Hussein and his cronies had to be taken out of power.

Whether he had WMD\'s or not is moot, he was a monster that had to be taken down.

Go to Iraq and look at the mass gravesites that have been found, go see the skeletons of the children, the old, men and women.

Do that and then tell me Bush is a mass murderer, and that you too truly cared about the plight of the Iraqi people, or do you care but don\'t want your children involved.
Tough crap, their children are involved in it every day of their lives.

Whatever the reason oil, WMD\'s, whatever.
It needed to be done, and the UN was making too much money off the Food for Oil program to do anything.

 

[MarkusTay]

Originally posted by philologus
@Trevor: I see your point and have one to add. Many states in the US will try a drunk driver who kills a pregnant woman for two counts of vehicular homicide. But, if the mother doesn\'t want the child then it becomes an inconvenience rather than a victim.?.?

Interesting point, I was unaware of that duel standard.

abstinence until a monogamous relationship? That a lot to ask of a normal human male (or female for that matter). Contraceptives I can see, but perhaps not a real-world solution. It is usually the poor who suffer the most from unwanted pregnancies, so it isn\'t realistic for them to spend what little money they have on birth control. I understand there are plenty of ways of obtaining free contraceptives, but those methods are not readily available in the middle of the night.

And the most important point I have to make: If you make something illegal it doesn\'t make it go away, it just puts it into the hands of criminals. We will go back to the old days of back-alley butchers and rusty scalpels.

Learn from Prohibition, making something illegal just puts money in the pockets of organized crime, that will in turn further drugs, prostitution, and racketeering. You can\'t stop people from doing what they want, but you can apply a certain amount of control to a bad situation.

Just my (calm) two cents worth.

 

[philologus]

@ MarkusTay:
Quote: abstinance until a monogamous relationship? That a lot to ask of a normal human male (or female for that matter).


Higher standards and our adherence to them sets us apart as Human. Our most ennobling trait is the capability to believe in something higher than ourselves and to exercise rational governance of our physical drives.

@EvilDave: Excellent response. Thank you for your service. I spent 7 years in the Army but was never called to combat ops.

 

[G-nome]

I agree with Evil dave that SH was a despot who inflicted terrible things on the people of Iraq and it was for that given reason that the US went in. (after the other reasons given were found to be faulty or wrong etc.)
On this basis North Korea needs to be liberated, and many african countries too. Iran possibly and a whole host of other countries that are suffering the rule of tyranical dictators. I guess they are next on the list?
It seems to me that that was given as a plausible justification for invasion after the decision to go in was made. Not as a general foreign policy with other countries to be liberated at a later date.

 

[Shawn R. L.]

If you look back to the 90\'s there was almost unanamous agreement , world wide , including Clinton, Kerry, and many nations that are eger to throw stones at the US now, that Hussien had a weapons program and was close to getting nukes. Their testomony is a matter of public record. Now that none have been found this is all conviently forgotten.

 

[frenchkid]

Originally posted by philologus
@ MarkusTay:
Quote: abstinance until a monogamous relationship? That a lot to ask of a normal human male (or female for that matter).


Higher standards and our adherence to them sets us apart as Human. Our most ennobling trait is the capability to believe in something higher than ourselves and to exercise rational governance of our physical drives.

No, our ability to resist our pultion does. Wich by the way, makes human a non-natural animal.

As for the evil tyrant thing ...... please don\'t tell me you truly believe that. It wasn\'t said once before the war. And there are a lof of other tyrant on the world closer to america. I\'ll even go further, there are despotique gov. that are suported by the american gov. Not as much now then during the cold war, but still a couple. Plus if you take bush\'s \'black list\', there are 6 countries on there, first of all there are a lot more despotique state then 6. And secondly nearly all of them have a relation to ..... oil There is one african country on that list and it is one of the bigest oil producer in africa. North Korea beeing a case appart, but the main reason for wanting to attaque/invade north korea was to stop them developing nuclear weapons.... too late now.

 

[leopardpixie]

Originally posted by Spacemunkie
And less of the gullible.....

You\'re the bunch of f***wits who elected him!

And Bush jnr.....

... Ummm No, I strongly dislike them both. But who was/is worse.... the govanator, or Davis? Well it comes down to who was the lesser evil... now we know
:flame: And well for bush+dick=screwed!!!!!!

 

[philologus]

@Frenchkid: Please define \"pultion\". I\'m not familiar with this term.

 

[Infidel Castro]

Hang on, it\'s the UK who are having an Election tomorrow...this is a good smoke-screen!

Bless you all, you crazy moral pugilists.

 

[Trevor]

Lastly: I too am pro-choice; one may always choose.

What about rape victims and what if you don\'t ever want babies but do want sex and have an accident?

But, if the mother doesn\'t want the child then it becomes an inconvenience rather than a victim.?.?

Yes, unless the father wanted it.

Do that and then tell me Bush is a mass murderer

Estimates put the civilian death toll well over 20,000, I think that counts as mass. I\'m with G-nome, if having a murdering dictator in an oppressive regime as a leader is a reason to invade a country then when will China be invaded? They annexed Tibet after all, but I\'ve not seen any sign of the US/UK leaping in to save Tibet. Also why wasn\'t Rwanda invaded to stop the massive genocide there?

Sorry its a bullshit war, started for a bunch of wrong reasons (and to be fair a couple of good ones), but its simply not acheiving any of the good aims due a serious miscalculation by the US and UK on how the Iraqi people would react.

I would say we\'ve made a bad situation far worse and its not showing any sign of getting better.

 

[Astorderire]

Message original : finn17
The only Frenchman I have ever, always agreed with....Astorderire (God that is hard to spell!)..I salute you

I\'m flattered to be so highly regarded by such an honorable member of such a noble assembly.

@Frenchkid -Many appologies to those unable to read french but I can\'t write this in english- Le caractere non naturel de l\'Homme parait bien moins evident si l\'on cesse de le considerer de façon individuel: je trouve des similitudes troublantes entre les comportements de larges groupes d\'être-humains et ceux d\'animaux vivant en colonie ( genre termites ) et j\'ai bien peur que tout ce que nous considerons comme extraordinaire et \"hors nature\" chez nous ne soit finalement que la dérivée ( au sens mathematique ) dénuée de sens d\'un Tout intégré vachement naturel et darwiniste à l\'extreme. Sans parler du fait qu\'il est difficile d\'être objectif lors qu\'on est à la fois observateur et observé, petrit de sa superiorité supposée sur le reste de la création ( encore qu\'une discution intime avec un trypanosome ou deux oblige à une certaine humilité ). En bref, à mon avis, nous sommes des animaux tristement naturels et notre libre arbitre n\'est qu\'une illusion d\'echelle. Chais pas si c\'est tres clair ,mais je l\'ai dis!