2007-04-26
Anti-Americanism
Well, the BBC, normally giving a fairly mild left-wing slant to things (I think the right-wing's criticism of the BBC is grossly overstated), has come up with a series on anti-Americanism. And actually points out that it is completely unjustified. Part one of this says the following:
"In the Abbey Churchyard in the lovely English city of Bath, groups of demonstrators, many - though not all - of them Quakers, regularly gather to protest against the iniquities of the world.
My dear mother Gloria Webb, who died last year, was one of the protesters. In her day, she was an energetic duffle-coated figure who wanted to ban the bomb, stop wars of all kinds and suffering anywhere.
She was a wonderful person, my mum, and so were her friends. Yet it always struck me, when she told me about these protests (and when, I freely confess, I attended them with enthusiasm as a youngster) that there was an odd one-sidedness to the game.
The protests against nuclear weapons, for instance, concentrated on American weapons. The anti-war rallies were against American-led wars. The anti death penalty campaign focused on Texas.
A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered. A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion - or to magnify those indiscretions - while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched."
What more needs to be said to show up the gross hypocrisy of the left? They don't just condemn tiny indiscretions, or magnify tiny indiscretions, when they can't find even the tiniest thing wrong, because America has actually responded to the bulk of the criticism and is now incredibly squeaky-clean, they have resorted to completely fabricating things. They found that so much less stressful on their pea-brains.
It is something that struck me in Australia too. I could see the demos against US nukes. I didn't see any demos saying "how about the Soviet Union give up its nukes, and its horrible dictatorship, then we can kindly ask the Americans to give up their nukes, now that the threat of communist dictatorship has passed?". Nope. What they were after was the Soviet dictatorship to take over the world. Communism had done nothing but produce gross human rights abuses so far, but surely if we try it in enough countries, ONE of them is bound to turn out for the better - right??? Surely Marx can't have been TOTALLY WRONG about just about everything, could he? Could one man be so stupid? Could all those hippies all be stupid? Surely stupid hippy is a contradiction in terms, right? Yeah, well. Not everyone bought into the hype, Mr Clinton. Some of us actually started investigating this strange phenomenon. It took a couple of decades to complete the investigation, but the results are now in.
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"In the Abbey Churchyard in the lovely English city of Bath, groups of demonstrators, many - though not all - of them Quakers, regularly gather to protest against the iniquities of the world.
My dear mother Gloria Webb, who died last year, was one of the protesters. In her day, she was an energetic duffle-coated figure who wanted to ban the bomb, stop wars of all kinds and suffering anywhere.
She was a wonderful person, my mum, and so were her friends. Yet it always struck me, when she told me about these protests (and when, I freely confess, I attended them with enthusiasm as a youngster) that there was an odd one-sidedness to the game.
The protests against nuclear weapons, for instance, concentrated on American weapons. The anti-war rallies were against American-led wars. The anti death penalty campaign focused on Texas.
A pattern was emerging and has never seriously been altered. A pattern of willingness to condemn America for the tiniest indiscretion - or to magnify those indiscretions - while leaving the murderers, dictators, and thieves who run other nations oddly untouched."
What more needs to be said to show up the gross hypocrisy of the left? They don't just condemn tiny indiscretions, or magnify tiny indiscretions, when they can't find even the tiniest thing wrong, because America has actually responded to the bulk of the criticism and is now incredibly squeaky-clean, they have resorted to completely fabricating things. They found that so much less stressful on their pea-brains.
It is something that struck me in Australia too. I could see the demos against US nukes. I didn't see any demos saying "how about the Soviet Union give up its nukes, and its horrible dictatorship, then we can kindly ask the Americans to give up their nukes, now that the threat of communist dictatorship has passed?". Nope. What they were after was the Soviet dictatorship to take over the world. Communism had done nothing but produce gross human rights abuses so far, but surely if we try it in enough countries, ONE of them is bound to turn out for the better - right??? Surely Marx can't have been TOTALLY WRONG about just about everything, could he? Could one man be so stupid? Could all those hippies all be stupid? Surely stupid hippy is a contradiction in terms, right? Yeah, well. Not everyone bought into the hype, Mr Clinton. Some of us actually started investigating this strange phenomenon. It took a couple of decades to complete the investigation, but the results are now in.
2007-04-24
Gun Control
Time to rip into the right, who are at times like this as bad as the left.
Here is the LGF article that shows Penn & Teller's "Bullshit!" link. The clip at least doesn't give much time to the anti-gun point of view. Doesn't bother comparing it to any other country in the world, to see if their whacky theories actually stand up to reality.
Let's start with something really basic. If owning guns is a human right, then why do the Americans not allow American children to carry guns? Instead, American children are expected to face down armed adults. In a country like Australia, children never need to face a gun, and always have the option of running away screaming. In America, they have no options against an armed adult. So in Australia, 13 year old girls can walk to the library to return their library books. In America, if they don't want to face guns, they need an armed escort. What a wonderful country.
By the way, I'm not particularly against guns. Those same children have more chance of being killed in a car crash than being shot. No-one seems to give a damn about that - when was the last time you heard someone say "I'm not going to buy a car, I'm going to go in public transport everywhere, because the road toll is so high"? And if you don't give a damn about being killed in a car crash, there's no particular reason why you should be concerned about guns. You need to be consistent. However, what's even lower is the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq. No-one should be complaining about one month's worth of road toll being lost in FOUR YEARS in Iraq when they don't give a damn about the MONTHLY road toll in America. I've never seen any rally saying "ban the cars". However, in fairness, at least cars do something useful. Guns in the hands of civilians don't. The US soldiers in Iraq are doing something useful too.
Now let's move on to Penn & Teller's fallacy you can see at the end of the clip - about guns in the hands of civilians being able to overthrow the government. This is a common myth in America. And it's complete crap. Modern wars are actually won in the air, by whoever has the best air-to-air missiles. They are not won by goons with pea-shooters. Even if Americans were armed with RPGs (which they're not allowed to have), they would STILL be unable to beat the US military. Here is what happens when the military goes up against goons. Americans like to look at other countries and say "oh, look at those people who aren't allowed to defend themselves from tyranny". We are allowed to defend ourselves. And knives aren't banned. And knives are just as useless against the government forces as American guns are. The thing that keeps Australians safe IS the government forces. Those forces are loyal to the people, not the government, and will not obey illegal orders. THAT is what keeps us safe. Not knives. Not pea-shooters. Professional military with the RIGHT IDEOLOGY. The rights of Australians are protected by the state police, the federal police, the Australian military, and via the ANZUS treaty, the US military. THAT is what keeps us safe at night. Not pea-shooters in the hands of goons.
Finally, we get on to the fallacy that if guns are banned, there will be a free-for-all as criminals now know they don't have to face guns. First of all, almost no criminals in Australia use guns. They simply don't exist. At least not that individuals encounter. They're still used in bank robberies. Here is what happened when Australia introduced tougher gun laws in 1996. Do you see a big spike as all hell broke loose in a field day for criminals? Nope. What about other crime? Surely it took off? Nope. The crime statistics are a mixed bag though, e.g. in this one, crime went up in 1998, but the murder rate was the lowest in 6 years. Is that what you would have predicted from gun control? Nope. Here and here are some more statistics.
Banning firearms in Australia was expected to have minimal effect on the crime rate, which is exactly what happened. There is no evidence that banning guns helped or hindered crime. It is only lies from the gun lobby that say that banning guns will create a criminal free-for-all, or that it will usher in dictatorship. Reality is that guns were a minor problem, and remain a minor problem after being banned. However, the objective was never to change the crime rate. Australians simply wanted to stop those mass killings. And those appear to have been stopped, although it's hard to tell, because they're so rare anyway. It has been made more difficult for these mass murderers to obtain a gun. Was it worth the cost of the gun buyback? I have no opinion on that. I didn't care about the occasional mass murder, and I didn't care about the extra tax that I had to pay to buy those guns back so that they could be destroyed. I'm happy to let Australians do whatever they want in that area. What I don't want is the American right to spread lies about crime in Australia. And I don't want them to make up lies about what happens when citizens don't have guns.
If you want to find a low crime rate, go and learn from somewhere like Taiwan or Singapore. America is the last place you want to go. I was highly impressed when I was in Singapore. However, I can't stand their farce of a democracy. I want to see the same laws they already have, but with a proper democracy. So, yet again we need America's help. Whatever America's faults may be, they are the greatest force for freedom in the world today. And quite frankly, that trumps all other concerns. I think Taiwan is probably the closest we have to an end-objective. Taiwan or Australia. Taiwan is free. It is listed as "1, 1" at www.freedomhouse.org. And that freedom is combined with good government, and a low crime rate (at least from my understanding of it, I haven't seen the figures). However, they don't appear to have Australia's habit of going overseas to liberate others. So that is why I'm torn between these 2 countries for the best model. And given that America's desire to liberate others appears to be even higher than Australia's, it is up there too. I look forward to the day when liberating people is par for the course instead of being controversial, and then we can start copying the Taiwanese. I certainly wouldn't want to lose the spirit of freedom-loving. That is the most precious commodity on earth. But let's do it without the right-wing crap that only Americans are truly free because 18 year old males have the God-given right to shoot unarmed 13 year old girls returning books to the library. That is not freedom. That is just bad policy built on right-wing lies. It is disgusting that some Americans say that Australia is not free just because we democratically choose to ban one particular sort of weapon (much like the US bans RPGs). Lies. All lies.
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Here is the LGF article that shows Penn & Teller's "Bullshit!" link. The clip at least doesn't give much time to the anti-gun point of view. Doesn't bother comparing it to any other country in the world, to see if their whacky theories actually stand up to reality.
Let's start with something really basic. If owning guns is a human right, then why do the Americans not allow American children to carry guns? Instead, American children are expected to face down armed adults. In a country like Australia, children never need to face a gun, and always have the option of running away screaming. In America, they have no options against an armed adult. So in Australia, 13 year old girls can walk to the library to return their library books. In America, if they don't want to face guns, they need an armed escort. What a wonderful country.
By the way, I'm not particularly against guns. Those same children have more chance of being killed in a car crash than being shot. No-one seems to give a damn about that - when was the last time you heard someone say "I'm not going to buy a car, I'm going to go in public transport everywhere, because the road toll is so high"? And if you don't give a damn about being killed in a car crash, there's no particular reason why you should be concerned about guns. You need to be consistent. However, what's even lower is the number of US soldiers killed in Iraq. No-one should be complaining about one month's worth of road toll being lost in FOUR YEARS in Iraq when they don't give a damn about the MONTHLY road toll in America. I've never seen any rally saying "ban the cars". However, in fairness, at least cars do something useful. Guns in the hands of civilians don't. The US soldiers in Iraq are doing something useful too.
Now let's move on to Penn & Teller's fallacy you can see at the end of the clip - about guns in the hands of civilians being able to overthrow the government. This is a common myth in America. And it's complete crap. Modern wars are actually won in the air, by whoever has the best air-to-air missiles. They are not won by goons with pea-shooters. Even if Americans were armed with RPGs (which they're not allowed to have), they would STILL be unable to beat the US military. Here is what happens when the military goes up against goons. Americans like to look at other countries and say "oh, look at those people who aren't allowed to defend themselves from tyranny". We are allowed to defend ourselves. And knives aren't banned. And knives are just as useless against the government forces as American guns are. The thing that keeps Australians safe IS the government forces. Those forces are loyal to the people, not the government, and will not obey illegal orders. THAT is what keeps us safe. Not knives. Not pea-shooters. Professional military with the RIGHT IDEOLOGY. The rights of Australians are protected by the state police, the federal police, the Australian military, and via the ANZUS treaty, the US military. THAT is what keeps us safe at night. Not pea-shooters in the hands of goons.
Finally, we get on to the fallacy that if guns are banned, there will be a free-for-all as criminals now know they don't have to face guns. First of all, almost no criminals in Australia use guns. They simply don't exist. At least not that individuals encounter. They're still used in bank robberies. Here is what happened when Australia introduced tougher gun laws in 1996. Do you see a big spike as all hell broke loose in a field day for criminals? Nope. What about other crime? Surely it took off? Nope. The crime statistics are a mixed bag though, e.g. in this one, crime went up in 1998, but the murder rate was the lowest in 6 years. Is that what you would have predicted from gun control? Nope. Here and here are some more statistics.
Banning firearms in Australia was expected to have minimal effect on the crime rate, which is exactly what happened. There is no evidence that banning guns helped or hindered crime. It is only lies from the gun lobby that say that banning guns will create a criminal free-for-all, or that it will usher in dictatorship. Reality is that guns were a minor problem, and remain a minor problem after being banned. However, the objective was never to change the crime rate. Australians simply wanted to stop those mass killings. And those appear to have been stopped, although it's hard to tell, because they're so rare anyway. It has been made more difficult for these mass murderers to obtain a gun. Was it worth the cost of the gun buyback? I have no opinion on that. I didn't care about the occasional mass murder, and I didn't care about the extra tax that I had to pay to buy those guns back so that they could be destroyed. I'm happy to let Australians do whatever they want in that area. What I don't want is the American right to spread lies about crime in Australia. And I don't want them to make up lies about what happens when citizens don't have guns.
If you want to find a low crime rate, go and learn from somewhere like Taiwan or Singapore. America is the last place you want to go. I was highly impressed when I was in Singapore. However, I can't stand their farce of a democracy. I want to see the same laws they already have, but with a proper democracy. So, yet again we need America's help. Whatever America's faults may be, they are the greatest force for freedom in the world today. And quite frankly, that trumps all other concerns. I think Taiwan is probably the closest we have to an end-objective. Taiwan or Australia. Taiwan is free. It is listed as "1, 1" at www.freedomhouse.org. And that freedom is combined with good government, and a low crime rate (at least from my understanding of it, I haven't seen the figures). However, they don't appear to have Australia's habit of going overseas to liberate others. So that is why I'm torn between these 2 countries for the best model. And given that America's desire to liberate others appears to be even higher than Australia's, it is up there too. I look forward to the day when liberating people is par for the course instead of being controversial, and then we can start copying the Taiwanese. I certainly wouldn't want to lose the spirit of freedom-loving. That is the most precious commodity on earth. But let's do it without the right-wing crap that only Americans are truly free because 18 year old males have the God-given right to shoot unarmed 13 year old girls returning books to the library. That is not freedom. That is just bad policy built on right-wing lies. It is disgusting that some Americans say that Australia is not free just because we democratically choose to ban one particular sort of weapon (much like the US bans RPGs). Lies. All lies.
2007-04-22
Fiji
Last year there was a military coup in Fiji. Before the coup, Fiji had a democratically-elected government. Unfortunately, it was a racist government, voted in by racist ethnic Fijians. The situation is pretty bleak for ethnic Indians (a minority). They basically can't buy land and are at the mercy of the ethnic Fijian landowners. The military coup (by a non-racist ethnic Fijian) has prevented the racist democratic government implementing any more racist policies.
Since I value a humanist government above democracy, I more-or-less support the coup (despite Australia condemning it). If I were the Australian government, I probably would have condemned it too. Now is not the time to let people know that we're going to install humanist governments, against the will of the majority if necessary. In this "first round" we should just be installing democracies. Democracies essentially require no resources to maintain, because by definition the majority support the government. If the people democratically elect a humanist government, that is wonderful. If the people elect a non-humanist government, then we should probably just live with it for now, and come back for them in a "second round", as that will essentially require us to maintain a military presence to teach these people to not be non-humanist (e.g. racist/sexist/religious bigots).
At the moment we do not want to waste our troops on such endeavours. Simply concentrating on installing democracies is the way to go. See what emerges out of that, and then decide on the best way to deploy our troops.
The one concern I have with the military coup in Fiji is that it now means one man gets to choose whether Fijians have human rights or not. He could change his mind at a moment's notice (or get overthrown by someone else in the military), and it becomes unpredictable what policy in Fiji will be. It would be more predictable and safer if someone like Paul Bremer were installed instead. Paul Bremer had constraints on his power. There is nothing constraining the head of the Fijian military except his own personal ideology (which seems to be better than what Fijian democracy produced).
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Since I value a humanist government above democracy, I more-or-less support the coup (despite Australia condemning it). If I were the Australian government, I probably would have condemned it too. Now is not the time to let people know that we're going to install humanist governments, against the will of the majority if necessary. In this "first round" we should just be installing democracies. Democracies essentially require no resources to maintain, because by definition the majority support the government. If the people democratically elect a humanist government, that is wonderful. If the people elect a non-humanist government, then we should probably just live with it for now, and come back for them in a "second round", as that will essentially require us to maintain a military presence to teach these people to not be non-humanist (e.g. racist/sexist/religious bigots).
At the moment we do not want to waste our troops on such endeavours. Simply concentrating on installing democracies is the way to go. See what emerges out of that, and then decide on the best way to deploy our troops.
The one concern I have with the military coup in Fiji is that it now means one man gets to choose whether Fijians have human rights or not. He could change his mind at a moment's notice (or get overthrown by someone else in the military), and it becomes unpredictable what policy in Fiji will be. It would be more predictable and safer if someone like Paul Bremer were installed instead. Paul Bremer had constraints on his power. There is nothing constraining the head of the Fijian military except his own personal ideology (which seems to be better than what Fijian democracy produced).
2007-04-18
One Billion Problems
Someone made a post in a comment at The Mesopotomian recently. Here it is:
"Long term success in the GWOT depends upon either killing millions (billions?) of Muslims or bringing them into our camp as allies. I agree with the decision to try the latter before resorting to the former."
This is EXACTLY the problem and EXACTLY the solution and EXACTLY the reasoning. Whether Bush has the same reasoning we can only guess. It is not strategic for him to spell it out like this. You can only find this sort of frank talking in the blogs, and this is the first time I've seen someone actually even lay it out.
Well, when I say it's exactly the problem, it's more complicated than that. "Muslim" is an insufficient description of the problem, just as "communist" was. The real enemy is spelled out in message 666 on Sept 11, 2004. But let's stick with "Muslim" for now. Note the dichtomy between either killing them or bringing them into our camp. Even that is more complicated. They don't necessarily need to be killed - jailing is one obvious alternative. Although I think that anyone being sent to jail should have the option of being killed painlessly via lethal injection rather than being locked up, which is almost a form of torture.
And bringing them into our camp is not strictly necessary either. Even if they are neutral I don't see that as causing a threat to the free world. But note that protecting the free world is the absolute highest priority.
Now look at how decent the poster is. He has been taught not to hate his enemy, but instead to love his enemy. This is brilliant western ideology in force. He's not trying to torture or slaughter his enemy. He's trying to avoid unnecessary killing. Just as he would not slaughter all lions. He wants to sit down with the enemy, explain what the problem is, ask them to look at the problem from our perspective and ask them what they would do in our shoes and only THEN, after having found who it is we can't reconcile with, to start the killing. Afghanistan and Iraq are just stepping stones in that process.
Also note that he said "billions?", meaning he knows that the scope of the problem is huge, and that total eradication is required, although he's unsure exactly how many of the enemy there actually are. This is the big problem the free world faced on 9/11. Do we respond by killing all Arabs, or all Muslims, or all Arab Muslims, or all Arabs and all Muslims, or something else? The answer was "something else", which I finally determined in message 666.
And does no-one think that it's a hell of a coincidence, that in a 13.7 billion year history of the universe, this final ideological clash between good and evil should occur JUST as the internet has been invented so that we can actually communicate with our opponents in an environment of total freedom that has produced the free marketplace of ideas? Even when I was an atheist I thought that that was one hell of a coincidence.
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"Long term success in the GWOT depends upon either killing millions (billions?) of Muslims or bringing them into our camp as allies. I agree with the decision to try the latter before resorting to the former."
This is EXACTLY the problem and EXACTLY the solution and EXACTLY the reasoning. Whether Bush has the same reasoning we can only guess. It is not strategic for him to spell it out like this. You can only find this sort of frank talking in the blogs, and this is the first time I've seen someone actually even lay it out.
Well, when I say it's exactly the problem, it's more complicated than that. "Muslim" is an insufficient description of the problem, just as "communist" was. The real enemy is spelled out in message 666 on Sept 11, 2004. But let's stick with "Muslim" for now. Note the dichtomy between either killing them or bringing them into our camp. Even that is more complicated. They don't necessarily need to be killed - jailing is one obvious alternative. Although I think that anyone being sent to jail should have the option of being killed painlessly via lethal injection rather than being locked up, which is almost a form of torture.
And bringing them into our camp is not strictly necessary either. Even if they are neutral I don't see that as causing a threat to the free world. But note that protecting the free world is the absolute highest priority.
Now look at how decent the poster is. He has been taught not to hate his enemy, but instead to love his enemy. This is brilliant western ideology in force. He's not trying to torture or slaughter his enemy. He's trying to avoid unnecessary killing. Just as he would not slaughter all lions. He wants to sit down with the enemy, explain what the problem is, ask them to look at the problem from our perspective and ask them what they would do in our shoes and only THEN, after having found who it is we can't reconcile with, to start the killing. Afghanistan and Iraq are just stepping stones in that process.
Also note that he said "billions?", meaning he knows that the scope of the problem is huge, and that total eradication is required, although he's unsure exactly how many of the enemy there actually are. This is the big problem the free world faced on 9/11. Do we respond by killing all Arabs, or all Muslims, or all Arab Muslims, or all Arabs and all Muslims, or something else? The answer was "something else", which I finally determined in message 666.
And does no-one think that it's a hell of a coincidence, that in a 13.7 billion year history of the universe, this final ideological clash between good and evil should occur JUST as the internet has been invented so that we can actually communicate with our opponents in an environment of total freedom that has produced the free marketplace of ideas? Even when I was an atheist I thought that that was one hell of a coincidence.
2007-04-17
Logical Bloodshed
Here is a quote from the mindset of the Iraqi insurgents which says an awful lot:
"6) Al-Qaeda in Iraq is intentionally targeting members of the Iraqi Army and police forces, who al-Jabouri and other insurgents believe are acting in the best interest of Iraqis."
What we have here is insurgents who support the Iraqi security forces, while risking their lives to kill American "occupiers" who are doing nothing more than helping those exact same Iraqi security forces! If this was a work of fiction, it would be a flop, because it has an unbelievable story line. The insurgents may as well be targetting members of the Iraqi security forces whose surname starts with a vowel, while supporting those whose surname begins with a consonant. That scenario is not one iota more absurd than the real life scenario.
And the equivalent of this weird "logic" is present in the West as well. Saddam's security forces were legitimate, but the democratic Iraq's security forces are illegitimate. That Orwellian world raising its head again. How do people with "logic" like this actually manage to survive? Why don't we find them trapped on escalators, continuing to try to walk up the "down" escalator? Our societies would be much healthier if all these dingbats could queue up at their local escalator instead of preventing us from freeing millions upon millions of slaves.
Illogical people, like children, are normally harmless, but they have become a threat in the West by voting for and being the Democrats, and are directly causing bloodshed in Iraq. Mostly their own, but American as well. It's phenomenal. I am hoping to see some of this "logic" clash in a debate between Waheed and a Pakistani Taliban fighter soon, as I may have just got a link to the latter. Really, where else can you see a debate like that? The actual protagonists debating why there appears to be no other logical course of action than to shoot each other. I'm not sure it will be any different to the debates we have already witnessed between supporters of Iraqi freedom and supporters of Iraqi slavery, but this would have the people who are actually risking their lives in these endeavours, which would take it to another level.
Maybe at some point I can interject and say "you appear to have different definitions of freedom - 'not occupied' vs 'not subjugated'". I'm pretty sure this is the core problem, coupled with bizarre conspiracy theories where Bush is the puppeteer of most of the world, but the only people who can "see" this are those who wear tinfoil hats. But when the Taliban hears Waheed saying "listen up morons, I PERSONALLY support Karzai's policies and voted for him", maybe, just maybe, the rusted cogs will break free and the Taliban supporters will desist. Those precious rusted cogs. If only I could figure out how to oil them. I've been ensuring every last cog in my brain is well-oiled since I was a child, but it seems very few people have made a similar effort (ie, become a rationalist). I even went so far as to try to ditch this whole "care about others" thing that I had been brought up with. Was it an invalid thing that I had been indoctrinated with that I should discard? That one thing - empathy - is the only bit that I was left with, as I set about to derive everything myself. The empathy is probably in my genes in much the same way that I also like chocolate, and is thus not a dogma that needs to be challenged and discarded as baseless.
Now if we can just get one more bit of experimental data - what the liberation of Iran looks like. I want to have absolute proof that we can be in and out of a country in 4 weeks, with all objectives accomplished (meaning the process we are looking for being kickstarted so that the end objectives will also be accomplished). And the only way I can ever get that data is right now, via Bush. My expected results for Iraq were wrong - I was expecting a 95% approval rating and instead we only got 50% - why was the approval rating higher in Afghanistan when Saddam arguably had the crueler government? Anyway, I hope Bush is doing the same countdown to full Iraqi control due in November that I am. We could actually have this last bit of data within a year, when the Iranian opinion polls come out in an environment of freedom. It'll take longer than that to get them validated via secret ballot though. But preliminary data would still be great. Just as the Iraqi data was.
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"6) Al-Qaeda in Iraq is intentionally targeting members of the Iraqi Army and police forces, who al-Jabouri and other insurgents believe are acting in the best interest of Iraqis."
What we have here is insurgents who support the Iraqi security forces, while risking their lives to kill American "occupiers" who are doing nothing more than helping those exact same Iraqi security forces! If this was a work of fiction, it would be a flop, because it has an unbelievable story line. The insurgents may as well be targetting members of the Iraqi security forces whose surname starts with a vowel, while supporting those whose surname begins with a consonant. That scenario is not one iota more absurd than the real life scenario.
And the equivalent of this weird "logic" is present in the West as well. Saddam's security forces were legitimate, but the democratic Iraq's security forces are illegitimate. That Orwellian world raising its head again. How do people with "logic" like this actually manage to survive? Why don't we find them trapped on escalators, continuing to try to walk up the "down" escalator? Our societies would be much healthier if all these dingbats could queue up at their local escalator instead of preventing us from freeing millions upon millions of slaves.
Illogical people, like children, are normally harmless, but they have become a threat in the West by voting for and being the Democrats, and are directly causing bloodshed in Iraq. Mostly their own, but American as well. It's phenomenal. I am hoping to see some of this "logic" clash in a debate between Waheed and a Pakistani Taliban fighter soon, as I may have just got a link to the latter. Really, where else can you see a debate like that? The actual protagonists debating why there appears to be no other logical course of action than to shoot each other. I'm not sure it will be any different to the debates we have already witnessed between supporters of Iraqi freedom and supporters of Iraqi slavery, but this would have the people who are actually risking their lives in these endeavours, which would take it to another level.
Maybe at some point I can interject and say "you appear to have different definitions of freedom - 'not occupied' vs 'not subjugated'". I'm pretty sure this is the core problem, coupled with bizarre conspiracy theories where Bush is the puppeteer of most of the world, but the only people who can "see" this are those who wear tinfoil hats. But when the Taliban hears Waheed saying "listen up morons, I PERSONALLY support Karzai's policies and voted for him", maybe, just maybe, the rusted cogs will break free and the Taliban supporters will desist. Those precious rusted cogs. If only I could figure out how to oil them. I've been ensuring every last cog in my brain is well-oiled since I was a child, but it seems very few people have made a similar effort (ie, become a rationalist). I even went so far as to try to ditch this whole "care about others" thing that I had been brought up with. Was it an invalid thing that I had been indoctrinated with that I should discard? That one thing - empathy - is the only bit that I was left with, as I set about to derive everything myself. The empathy is probably in my genes in much the same way that I also like chocolate, and is thus not a dogma that needs to be challenged and discarded as baseless.
Now if we can just get one more bit of experimental data - what the liberation of Iran looks like. I want to have absolute proof that we can be in and out of a country in 4 weeks, with all objectives accomplished (meaning the process we are looking for being kickstarted so that the end objectives will also be accomplished). And the only way I can ever get that data is right now, via Bush. My expected results for Iraq were wrong - I was expecting a 95% approval rating and instead we only got 50% - why was the approval rating higher in Afghanistan when Saddam arguably had the crueler government? Anyway, I hope Bush is doing the same countdown to full Iraqi control due in November that I am. We could actually have this last bit of data within a year, when the Iranian opinion polls come out in an environment of freedom. It'll take longer than that to get them validated via secret ballot though. But preliminary data would still be great. Just as the Iraqi data was.
2007-04-16
Al Hurra
Unbelievable really. But then so many unbelievable things happen that it's no longer really unbelievable. Because the Arab airwaves were filled with vile anti-Semitic propaganda, the US create a new satellite TV stations called Al Hurra, which means "The Free One" (as in, free person, not a slave). What a great move. It's exactly what the doctor ordered. It is part of the War on Terror, to get these alternative opinions out into the marketplace.
Now look what has happened. Al Hurra is being turned into a clone of Al Jazeera (ie Jihad TV). And who should complain? Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi politician who believes in making peace with Israel, being part of the free world etc. I would have thought the solution was obvious. Just get a link from al-Alusi and maybe the Iraqi bloggers to someone in the US government and then to Al Hurra, so that basically these decent Iraqis get to choose exactly what is broadcast on Al Hurra. It should be THEIR station. The US should just provide the muscle to get THEIR voice out into the Arab world. Basically, via the US government, these Iraqis should be able to get people sacked.
I'm disinclined to let the Iraqis go direct to Al Hurra, because I do think that it should remain a US station. So anything that is broadcast should officially have come from the US. The Iraqis give suggestions, and the US implements those suggestions. Much the same way as the Iraqi government currently sets Iraqi law, and the coalition merely helps enforce those laws. But the US is free to give suggestions to the Iraqi government. But ultimately the buck stops at Maliki and the US's hands are clean. This is very important. And the buck for Al Hurra should stop at Bush, not al-Alusi. But the US should take al-Alusi's suggestions seriously, in the same way that Maliki hopefully takes the US's suggestions seriously.
Now why doesn't the US do this very obvious thing???
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Now look what has happened. Al Hurra is being turned into a clone of Al Jazeera (ie Jihad TV). And who should complain? Mithal al-Alusi, an Iraqi politician who believes in making peace with Israel, being part of the free world etc. I would have thought the solution was obvious. Just get a link from al-Alusi and maybe the Iraqi bloggers to someone in the US government and then to Al Hurra, so that basically these decent Iraqis get to choose exactly what is broadcast on Al Hurra. It should be THEIR station. The US should just provide the muscle to get THEIR voice out into the Arab world. Basically, via the US government, these Iraqis should be able to get people sacked.
I'm disinclined to let the Iraqis go direct to Al Hurra, because I do think that it should remain a US station. So anything that is broadcast should officially have come from the US. The Iraqis give suggestions, and the US implements those suggestions. Much the same way as the Iraqi government currently sets Iraqi law, and the coalition merely helps enforce those laws. But the US is free to give suggestions to the Iraqi government. But ultimately the buck stops at Maliki and the US's hands are clean. This is very important. And the buck for Al Hurra should stop at Bush, not al-Alusi. But the US should take al-Alusi's suggestions seriously, in the same way that Maliki hopefully takes the US's suggestions seriously.
Now why doesn't the US do this very obvious thing???
2007-04-09
Nuclear Fusion - Our Last Chance
I was going through my folder looking for something and I found this article, which I wrote in September 1982, Year 10, which would have made me 15 years old. I was living in Fiji at the time, and I used to listen to shortwave radio from all over the world. This letter was written to Radio Moscow World Service. It was typed. The political thought was of course in a very different world where we had the threat of the Soviet Union hanging over our heads. But it shows my first attempt to try to solve this problem. It was titled "NUCLEAR FUSION : OUR LAST CHANCE" and here it is:
In the westernised world (I am Australian), the general opinion of Russia (we all call the U.S.S.R. this) is that they are the "bad guys". Very few of us know much about the government system in U.S.S.R. except that it differs from our own and therefore wrong. However, I have gained knowledge about communism from Radio Moscow's broadcasts. I think there are some points about this system that should be taken up by our own governments but others than should be ommitted in the communism government.
Leaving this topic for the moment, I shall talk about peace and harmony within a country. How can we expect to have world peace when we cannot even have peace within a country? In the U.S.S.R. there is peace between all her people regardless of culture or race. However, in the U.S.A. there is discrimination between the whites and the Negroes, the same as in the U.K. What is it that determines which countries have peace and which have discrimination?
I think that it depends on the joining together of two parties to defeat a third, common enemy. In U.S.S.R., all the people had to join together as one to overthrow the marxist government. This is what I feel united them. In U.S.A. the fighting was between the people and not against someone else. In the American War of Independence it was the whites vs England and not the whites and the Negroes against England. Of course, this is not their fault. They had no reason to want to fight against the English because they had nothing to gain. They would be made slaves regardless of who won. The American Revolution made them free from slavery but not from discrimination. There was nothing to unite them.
So how can we have world peace? It is very well for the countries to say "let's be friends" but there has to be some common drive to unite them. Otherwise there is no reason they should be friends. The drive that the people and governments are trying to use at the moment is the preservation of the human race. Both U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. fear for the drastic loss of life that would be the result of a nuclear war. I do not think that this common drive is enough. I do not think there will ever be a nuclear war. Everybody is too scared to start one. If there was one no-one would win. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. will be destroyed. The more nuclear bombs there are, the more people become scared resulting in world peace. I do not mind the nuclear arms race for the danger it imposes. However, I feel that too much money is wasted in this race.
What could be a common drive that would result in U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. joining forces? If we were subjected to attack from a planet in another solar system, I am fairly sure that U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. would immediately join forces. However the chances of an attack by "U.F.O.'s" is so improbable that it can be considered as negligible.
A better drive would be that of the energy crisis. In another thirty years it is expected that our supply of oil will be finished. Cars will have to be run by batteries, this being inefficient. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. - indeed the whole world - is trying to perform nuclear fusion. If the leading scientists of all the countries (or at least the five superpowers) were to work at this problem together there is at least a chance of success.
With success, there will be unification of the countries - if success was achieved by joint effort. If the leading scientists do not work together, one of the other of the countries will be the first to perform nuclear fusion. If this was U.S.A. then U.S.S.R. would lose no time in stealing the secret at any costs and vice versa. This would result in further severing relations between the involved countries which could never be patched. Nuclear fusion must be performed by a joint effort between the countries if we are to have world peace. Otherwise relations will be severed forever. This is our last chance. The leading scientists must work together immediately. It all depends on our governments.
It should be noted that it is only the scientists that need to combine knowledge. The governments may remain different although it would be desirable to have the one government system throughout the world. This could be gradually achieved through smaller ties binding together to produce the complete combination. The smaller ties begin with scientists working together. The United Nations is trying this already in their scheme "Atoms for Peace" but this is so far a failure. Another gradual binding tie is that of the language barrier. The world would be better if there was a universal language. Esperanto is the obvious solution. However no-one seems to be trying to introduce this language. It requires world co-operation to introduce this language. I feel that by starting with English-speaking countries Esperanto should be made compulsory for a certain length of time in high school (e.g. the first year at least).
For complete stabilisation of governments, a new, perfect government should be made. The good points of communism and democracy should be used and the bad points omitted. Pretend democracy is blue and communism is yellow. If you mix the two you will get a new, green government. The blue government (democracy) can never become yellow and vice versa. This is true because no-one is willing to leave their own system just as no-one wants to leave their own language.
In a new government, I think some of the following things should be noted. Concerning communism, U.S.S.R. says that this is the government its people want. If the government is so sure of this, why don't they let the people have the right to elect their own government and see if the present members get re-elected? Also human rights should be observed. I believe in freedom of speech. This also applies to writing. At this moment I am writing this essay without any fear of prosecution. In fact it only occurred to me in the middle of the essay that people in U.S.S.R. are not allowed to speak against their government. It shocked me to read that Russians were not allowed to form rock-bands and play western music. It cannot be said that they do not wish to listen to such music as I also read that they formed secret rock-bands for their music. There are definitely faults in communism.
On the other hand, there is no unemployment in the U.S.S.R.. Also there are no strikes and wages and prices are also fixed. This could or could not prevent inflation. I do not pretend to know about this field. However I do know that inflation is a world-wide problem especially in such places as the U.K.. Most democratic countries have their fair share of inflation. Maybe this can be stopped using wage and price control.
Concerning free trade, I think that there should be restrictions to prevent having too many people in the one line of business. However, I think that people should be able to choose their own occupation, unless they are unemployed. If they are unemployed they should have to find another line of work until there is job opportunity.
I hope my essay has been of interest to somebody. I doubt anyone will take much notice of it though because I am just a nobody. If I were President Reagan I might be able to do something but since I am not I shall just sit back and watch what happens when nuclear fusion is discovered. It will be through no fault of mine when relations become severed. I have done my bit by writing this essay. I just hope someone reads it and agrees with me. Now I shall be content to leave the matter in someone else's hands. At least I have tried.
THE END
Now, with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, let me fisk my own writing.
"In the westernised world (I am Australian), the general opinion of Russia (we all call the U.S.S.R. this) is that they are the "bad guys"."
And? What makes you think this is not an accurate assessment of the Soviet dictatorship? If they're willing to put their own people in gulags, what do you think they will do with you?
"Very few of us know much about the government system in U.S.S.R. except that it differs from our own and therefore wrong."
No, it is wrong because the Soviet government totally violates the Golden Rule, whereas our governments are based on the Golden Rule. This Golden Rule, invented by Aristotle, amongst others, has been around for literally millenia. This is not new technology.
"However, I have gained knowledge about communism from Radio Moscow's broadcasts."
Yep, that's where I would go for fair and balanced reporting on communism too.
"I think there are some points about this system that should be taken up by our own governments but others than should be ommitted in the communism government."
Well, you should start from the basis that our governments are the best known to mankind, and get the whole world up to our standards first, and then we can start some experiments to see if we can improve on what we've already got. Preferably experiment on some small islands so that we can bail them out when it all goes horribly wrong. And leave out the human rights abuses when engaging in these experiments.
"Leaving this topic for the moment, I shall talk about peace and harmony within a country. How can we expect to have world peace when we cannot even have peace within a country?"
Yes, that is true. It annoys the hell out of me to see people talking about world peace when they engage in violence at a personal level.
"In the U.S.S.R. there is peace between all her people regardless of culture or race."
Really? Well, if locking people in chains so that they can't move and engage in violence is considered to be "peace", then is that actually a good thing?
"However, in the U.S.A. there is discrimination between the whites and the Negroes, the same as in the U.K.."
Aya aya aya. How stupid are you that you fell for that left-wing crap from the media? I assume you're implying that the Negroes are the ones being discriminated against? Have you bothered to look at the statistics for black on white crime vs white on black crime? You should do a google search before parrotting this rubbish. Don't you have google in Fiji? BTW, is there any specific American law that you don't like? The only ones I have heard of around that timeframe are the ones that give blacks preference because of the colour of their skin. "affirmative action". ie racism. Of course under the wonderful communist system, everyone is discriminated against equally. Is that what you're after?
"What is it that determines which countries have peace and which have discrimination?"
You seem to be defining "peace" as "lack of crime". Where did you get the figures of the Soviet crime rate from? The ever-reliable Radio Moscow??? What are their statistics for the number of people thrown into gulags? And as far as "discrimination" is concerned, you'll need to start by naming the law you disapprove on and then we can debate the merits of it. I'm against the discrimination against whites due to "affirmative action", are you? Or are you one of these filthy racist hippies?
"I think that it depends on the joining together of two parties to defeat a third, common enemy. In U.S.S.R., all the people had to join together as one to overthrow the marxist government."
You're really off with the fairies here. First of all, marxist=communist. They had a "revolution" to INSTALL the current Marxist dictatorship. And the people did not rise as one in a glorious revolution. That's just propaganda. It always comes down to what the military chooses to do.
"This is what I feel united them."
No group of people is "united". The word you're looking for is "enslaved", or if you want to be technical, "subjugated". You want people to be united in slavery???
"In U.S.A. the fighting was between the people and not against someone else."
Not sure what you're talking about here. Are you talking about the American Civil War? Or the racist American laws against whites? What "fighting"? Crime? Je suis non comprehendo.
"In the American War of Independence it was the whites vs England and not the whites and the Negroes against England."
Well, it was far more complicated than that. You do realise that the American "revolutionaries" were just a militia, not some spontaneous glorious uprising, don't you? And you know that they only had the support of about 1/3 of the US population? And they only succeeded thanks to French heavy-lifting in what was essentially a military vs military clash, with the French being victorious at the end? And EVEN THEN, the English could have easily returned, but simply chose to let America be independent, much as they chose to let Australia be independent too?
"Of course, this is not their fault. They had no reason to want to fight against the English because they had nothing to gain. They would be made slaves regardless of who won. The American Revolution made them free from slavery but not from discrimination. There was nothing to unite them."
Sorry, I got lost there. Did you mean the American Civil War? Yes, that freed them from slavery. And yes, they were still discriminated against after that, although at the time you wrote this essay the discrimination had been reversed. How come I didn't hear you railing against the anti-white discrimination? Or do you only care about discrimination against blacks? If you do, you're a racist. There's no other word for it. However, the general concept of "what unites people?" is certainly worth exploring. What makes people friends and allies? Is there something that transcends race? If so, what is that elusive substance? We need to bottle it when we find it.
"So how can we have world peace? It is very well for the countries to say "let's be friends" but there has to be some common drive to unite them. Otherwise there is no reason they should be friends. The drive that the people and governments are trying to use at the moment is the preservation of the human race. Both U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. fear for the drastic loss of life that would be the result of a nuclear war. I do not think that this common drive is enough."
Why not? Why isn't being human enough reason to unite? However, to be fair, you are basically correct. Being human is not enough. Do you really want a rape victim to unite with her rapist because he's a fellow human? Wouldn't it be more sensible to divide people up into good/neutral/evil, and then unite the good to go and vanquish the evil? ie unite the (good) HUMANISTS. Perhaps do this quietly though, as we don't want the non-humanists to know that we're gearing up to vanquish them. The Soviet Union is far too dangerous. We shouldn't alienate other evil people who would otherwise be willing to help us against the Soviet Union. Much the same way as we allied with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. You need to learn about geostrategy. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the Americans actually know what they're doing?
"I do not think there will ever be a nuclear war. Everybody is too scared to start one. If there was one no-one would win. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. will be destroyed. The more nuclear bombs there are, the more people become scared resulting in world peace. I do not mind the nuclear arms race for the danger it imposes. However, I feel that too much money is wasted in this race."
Ok, I can agree with all that. Yes, we should not be squandering limited resources on these things. But the blame for this squandering belongs solely on the shoulders of the Soviet Union. If you have any complaints, tell them to at a minimum get out of Eastern Europe. While ever there is an existential threat to Western Europe, the correct thing to do is to fight the Soviet dictatorship at every juncture across the globe. Defeat them first, then we can discuss standing down our militaries and using those resources for something more useful.
"What could be a common drive that would result in U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. joining forces? If we were subjected to attack from a planet in another solar system, I am fairly sure that U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. would immediately join forces. However the chances of an attack by "U.F.O.'s" is so improbable that it can be considered as negligible."
Ok, I can agree with the general concept of wanting to unite the world, but it should be united under the banner of freedom. We shouldn't meet evil half-way and morph into some nihilistic mindset. If you do that for long enough you'll end up being a US Democrat.
"A better drive would be that of the energy crisis. In another thirty years it is expected that our supply of oil will be finished."
That's just propaganda put out by idiots with nothing better to do.
"Cars will have to be run by batteries, this being inefficient. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. - indeed the whole world - is trying to perform nuclear fusion. If the leading scientists of all the countries (or at least the five superpowers) were to work at this problem together there is at least a chance of success."
Well I certainly like the idea of the best minds in the world working together on this problem.
"With success, there will be unification of the countries - if success was achieved by joint effort."
Again, you're trying to unify with evil. Also, I don't know where you get the idea that inventing nuclear fusion will magically get everyone joining together. Why wouldn't that simply result in an alternative energy source? How would the fundamentals be any different? The Soviets would still be evil monsters enslaving Eastern Europe, and the Russian people themselves for that matter. Sure, I want unification too - ON OUR TERMS. ie FREEDOM.
"If the leading scientists do not work together, one of the other of the countries will be the first to perform nuclear fusion. If this was U.S.A. then U.S.S.R. would lose no time in stealing the secret at any costs and vice versa. This would result in further severing relations between the involved countries which could never be patched."
Is that what your crystal ball told you?
"Nuclear fusion must be performed by a joint effort between the countries if we are to have world peace. Otherwise relations will be severed forever. This is our last chance. The leading scientists must work together immediately. It all depends on our governments."
It all depends on the Soviets being held at bay so that our successful capitalist societies are not destroyed in an instant. And that is a problem our governments are already working on. I guess you're trying to look at things from the Soviet dictator's point of view and trying to make them see reason. Good luck with that one. Dictators wouldn't be dictators if they were reasonable people with morals.
"It should be noted that it is only the scientists that need to combine knowledge. The governments may remain different although it would be desirable to have the one government system throughout the world."
We don't even have one government system within a country. But yeah, common standards would be good. But you need to be very careful that "one size fits all" is actually beneficial to the people. I'm not so clear on that myself. Having multiple choices available means that if you can't stand the morons around you, you can emigrate. NSW has banned X-rated movies, while the ACT hasn't. Do you want to lose the option of moving to the ACT to get your human rights back which NSW voters took away from you?
"This could be gradually achieved through smaller ties binding together to produce the complete combination. The smaller ties begin with scientists working together. The United Nations is trying this already in their scheme "Atoms for Peace" but this is so far a failure. Another gradual binding tie is that of the language barrier. The world would be better if there was a universal language. Esperanto is the obvious solution. However no-one seems to be trying to introduce this language. It requires world co-operation to introduce this language. I feel that by starting with English-speaking countries Esperanto should be made compulsory for a certain length of time in high school (e.g. the first year at least)."
It takes a lot longer than a year to learn a language. What's the point in wasting people's time by making them not fluent in their second language? If you're going to do that, you need to do it properly. Also, the English language, while certainly flawed, and while it wouldn't be designed like that from scratch again, is extremely rich. You will likely lose all that richness by moving to Esperanto. Besides which, a Turk once complained to me that Esperanto was designed by Westerners with no input from the East. So if it's already dead in the water, then it's dead dead dead. However, having said that, I've read that a second language has other benefits, changing the brain. And since there is no obvious second-language for an English-speaker to learn, it may as well be something like Esperanto. But it is probably too late. English is rapidly becoming the world lingua franca. Maybe when the world has mastered English we can talk about morphing into Esperanto etc. Until then, English is ubiquitous. Do you have that word in Esperanto???
"For complete stabilisation of governments, a new, perfect government should be made."
Uh oh. "perfect"? How about "best practice that we know of"? And we pretty much have that already, if you look at a common subset amongst western countries, rather than trying to mix in evil dictatorships.
"The good points of communism"
Uh oh. Communism has good points? What would that be? Free food down at the local gulag? Free funerals for those killed in Stalin's purges?
"and democracy should be used and the bad points omitted."
Sometimes you have the situation where one system is the best we know of, and the other is pure evil. What do you do then?
"Pretend democracy is blue and communism is yellow. If you mix the two you will get a new, green government. The blue government (democracy) can never become yellow and vice versa."
Now ask those blue people if they want to be green or whether they are perfectly happy being blue and don't want you to destroy what their ancestors have built up over centuries.
"This is true because no-one is willing to leave their own system just as no-one wants to leave their own language."
I'm sure the occupants of the Soviet gulags are willing to leave their system. You're probably talking about the Soviet dictators being unwilling to leave. That's basically true. You need to somehow get a nice guy to work his way through the evil system and reach the top. And what are the chances of Gorbachev pulling that one off? Regarding language, I'm happy to switch from British English to American English, which has now swamped the internet and become the new standard because English is defined by common usage. How about you?
"In a new government, I think some of the following things should be noted. Concerning communism, U.S.S.R. says that this is the government its people want. If the government is so sure of this, why don't they let the people have the right to elect their own government and see if the present members get re-elected? Also human rights should be observed. I believe in freedom of speech. This also applies to writing. At this moment I am writing this essay without any fear of prosecution. In fact it only occurred to me in the middle of the essay that people in U.S.S.R. are not allowed to speak against their government. It shocked me to read that Russians were not allowed to form rock-bands and play western music. It cannot be said that they do not wish to listen to such music as I also read that they formed secret rock-bands for their music. There are definitely faults in communism."
FINALLY you said something sensible!!! Why didn't you just say this in the first place? If it were me, I would have just written to Radio Moscow and said "after having listened to your sick propaganda for a while, I now understand how truly evil you are, and I look forward to seeing your sick society collapse". None of this crap about nuclear fusion. Direct and to the point. Guaranteed to make them give up their evil ways.
"On the other hand, there is no unemployment in the U.S.S.R.. Also there are no strikes and wages and prices are also fixed. This could or could not prevent inflation. I do not pretend to know about this field. However I do know that inflation is a world-wide problem especially in such places as the U.K.. Most democratic countries have their fair share of inflation. Maybe this can be stopped using wage and price control."
Ok, let's go through this mess. First of all, you can have no unemployment in our democracies too, if you just want to employ people to breathe air and pay them the dole. That is effectively what the Soviets have done. They employ people to do nothing, or do little. And it has a corresponding effect on their standard of living. No strikes because slaves don't strike. Good one. Wages are fixed to a low standard for everyone. Good one. Prices are fixed and the result is interminable queues for food, and then a market opens up to pay old people to queue for you. What a great idea. As for the world-wide problem with inflation, how about you give me the figures for how many people died of inflation in the year prior to you writing your essay, and we'll take it from there? Perhaps there's something else you could burn your bra over instead? Like the road toll maybe? How about a campaign to ban cars? Do you want to save lives or do you just want to get to Granny's quickly? What's more important to you in your list of priorities?
"Concerning free trade, I think that there should be restrictions to prevent having too many people in the one line of business."
So far no-one has come up with a better method of sorting that out than letting the free market decide. It's OK to try new experiments though, so long as you don't violate human rights in the process.
"However, I think that people should be able to choose their own occupation, unless they are unemployed. If they are unemployed they should have to find another line of work until there is job opportunity."
I assume you're just saying that our existing system is better than communism? If so, I can agree with that.
"I hope my essay has been of interest to somebody. I doubt anyone will take much notice of it though because I am just a nobody."
That is correct. Fortunately Gorbachev was working his way through the system and managed to solve the problem anyway. And Yeltsin. Two wonderful men. I've got both of their books.
"If I were President Reagan I might be able to do something"
Reagan was already doing something - using America's kick-arse capitalist economy to fund military projects which the Russians were simply unable to afford to match, and totally wrecking their economy. Modern wars are actually economic.
"but since I am not I shall just sit back and watch what happens when nuclear fusion is discovered."
You'll probably find that communism will collapse before that happens, and that even if it didn't, it wouldn't make any difference anyway.
"It will be through no fault of mine when relations become severed."
Severing relations with an evil dictatorship has a lot going for it.
"I have done my bit by writing this essay. I just hope someone reads it and agrees with me. Now I shall be content to leave the matter in someone else's hands. At least I have tried."
Ok, I'll grant you that you tried, but you're barking up the wrong tree by giving some sort of moral equivalence between the US and the USSR and trying to find common ground between them. Christians and Muslims have had the same problems trying to find common ground between a pretty nice guy like Jesus and an evil mass-murdering pedophile rapist like Mohammed, and similarly failing. There is a way to do it, but it's beyond both of their capabilities.
Regardless, from the time you wrote this up until the time of the 2003 Iraq war, the US seemed to be following a strategy which was working just fine to defeat evil in this world. I wouldn't want it any other way. Thankfully there were more sensible people than you working on the geostrategic problem of toppling all these enemies. It is only in the last few years that some doubts have been raised as we suddenly found that not everyone in our democracies has been working on defeating evil. A huge number, a majority even, seem to have this quaint idea of "equal rights for evil dictators". I hope it wasn't because of something you said! Something about mixing paint? Good grief. Where do you people come from? Get with the program already!
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In the westernised world (I am Australian), the general opinion of Russia (we all call the U.S.S.R. this) is that they are the "bad guys". Very few of us know much about the government system in U.S.S.R. except that it differs from our own and therefore wrong. However, I have gained knowledge about communism from Radio Moscow's broadcasts. I think there are some points about this system that should be taken up by our own governments but others than should be ommitted in the communism government.
Leaving this topic for the moment, I shall talk about peace and harmony within a country. How can we expect to have world peace when we cannot even have peace within a country? In the U.S.S.R. there is peace between all her people regardless of culture or race. However, in the U.S.A. there is discrimination between the whites and the Negroes, the same as in the U.K. What is it that determines which countries have peace and which have discrimination?
I think that it depends on the joining together of two parties to defeat a third, common enemy. In U.S.S.R., all the people had to join together as one to overthrow the marxist government. This is what I feel united them. In U.S.A. the fighting was between the people and not against someone else. In the American War of Independence it was the whites vs England and not the whites and the Negroes against England. Of course, this is not their fault. They had no reason to want to fight against the English because they had nothing to gain. They would be made slaves regardless of who won. The American Revolution made them free from slavery but not from discrimination. There was nothing to unite them.
So how can we have world peace? It is very well for the countries to say "let's be friends" but there has to be some common drive to unite them. Otherwise there is no reason they should be friends. The drive that the people and governments are trying to use at the moment is the preservation of the human race. Both U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. fear for the drastic loss of life that would be the result of a nuclear war. I do not think that this common drive is enough. I do not think there will ever be a nuclear war. Everybody is too scared to start one. If there was one no-one would win. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. will be destroyed. The more nuclear bombs there are, the more people become scared resulting in world peace. I do not mind the nuclear arms race for the danger it imposes. However, I feel that too much money is wasted in this race.
What could be a common drive that would result in U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. joining forces? If we were subjected to attack from a planet in another solar system, I am fairly sure that U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. would immediately join forces. However the chances of an attack by "U.F.O.'s" is so improbable that it can be considered as negligible.
A better drive would be that of the energy crisis. In another thirty years it is expected that our supply of oil will be finished. Cars will have to be run by batteries, this being inefficient. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. - indeed the whole world - is trying to perform nuclear fusion. If the leading scientists of all the countries (or at least the five superpowers) were to work at this problem together there is at least a chance of success.
With success, there will be unification of the countries - if success was achieved by joint effort. If the leading scientists do not work together, one of the other of the countries will be the first to perform nuclear fusion. If this was U.S.A. then U.S.S.R. would lose no time in stealing the secret at any costs and vice versa. This would result in further severing relations between the involved countries which could never be patched. Nuclear fusion must be performed by a joint effort between the countries if we are to have world peace. Otherwise relations will be severed forever. This is our last chance. The leading scientists must work together immediately. It all depends on our governments.
It should be noted that it is only the scientists that need to combine knowledge. The governments may remain different although it would be desirable to have the one government system throughout the world. This could be gradually achieved through smaller ties binding together to produce the complete combination. The smaller ties begin with scientists working together. The United Nations is trying this already in their scheme "Atoms for Peace" but this is so far a failure. Another gradual binding tie is that of the language barrier. The world would be better if there was a universal language. Esperanto is the obvious solution. However no-one seems to be trying to introduce this language. It requires world co-operation to introduce this language. I feel that by starting with English-speaking countries Esperanto should be made compulsory for a certain length of time in high school (e.g. the first year at least).
For complete stabilisation of governments, a new, perfect government should be made. The good points of communism and democracy should be used and the bad points omitted. Pretend democracy is blue and communism is yellow. If you mix the two you will get a new, green government. The blue government (democracy) can never become yellow and vice versa. This is true because no-one is willing to leave their own system just as no-one wants to leave their own language.
In a new government, I think some of the following things should be noted. Concerning communism, U.S.S.R. says that this is the government its people want. If the government is so sure of this, why don't they let the people have the right to elect their own government and see if the present members get re-elected? Also human rights should be observed. I believe in freedom of speech. This also applies to writing. At this moment I am writing this essay without any fear of prosecution. In fact it only occurred to me in the middle of the essay that people in U.S.S.R. are not allowed to speak against their government. It shocked me to read that Russians were not allowed to form rock-bands and play western music. It cannot be said that they do not wish to listen to such music as I also read that they formed secret rock-bands for their music. There are definitely faults in communism.
On the other hand, there is no unemployment in the U.S.S.R.. Also there are no strikes and wages and prices are also fixed. This could or could not prevent inflation. I do not pretend to know about this field. However I do know that inflation is a world-wide problem especially in such places as the U.K.. Most democratic countries have their fair share of inflation. Maybe this can be stopped using wage and price control.
Concerning free trade, I think that there should be restrictions to prevent having too many people in the one line of business. However, I think that people should be able to choose their own occupation, unless they are unemployed. If they are unemployed they should have to find another line of work until there is job opportunity.
I hope my essay has been of interest to somebody. I doubt anyone will take much notice of it though because I am just a nobody. If I were President Reagan I might be able to do something but since I am not I shall just sit back and watch what happens when nuclear fusion is discovered. It will be through no fault of mine when relations become severed. I have done my bit by writing this essay. I just hope someone reads it and agrees with me. Now I shall be content to leave the matter in someone else's hands. At least I have tried.
THE END
Now, with the benefit of 25 years of hindsight, let me fisk my own writing.
"In the westernised world (I am Australian), the general opinion of Russia (we all call the U.S.S.R. this) is that they are the "bad guys"."
And? What makes you think this is not an accurate assessment of the Soviet dictatorship? If they're willing to put their own people in gulags, what do you think they will do with you?
"Very few of us know much about the government system in U.S.S.R. except that it differs from our own and therefore wrong."
No, it is wrong because the Soviet government totally violates the Golden Rule, whereas our governments are based on the Golden Rule. This Golden Rule, invented by Aristotle, amongst others, has been around for literally millenia. This is not new technology.
"However, I have gained knowledge about communism from Radio Moscow's broadcasts."
Yep, that's where I would go for fair and balanced reporting on communism too.
"I think there are some points about this system that should be taken up by our own governments but others than should be ommitted in the communism government."
Well, you should start from the basis that our governments are the best known to mankind, and get the whole world up to our standards first, and then we can start some experiments to see if we can improve on what we've already got. Preferably experiment on some small islands so that we can bail them out when it all goes horribly wrong. And leave out the human rights abuses when engaging in these experiments.
"Leaving this topic for the moment, I shall talk about peace and harmony within a country. How can we expect to have world peace when we cannot even have peace within a country?"
Yes, that is true. It annoys the hell out of me to see people talking about world peace when they engage in violence at a personal level.
"In the U.S.S.R. there is peace between all her people regardless of culture or race."
Really? Well, if locking people in chains so that they can't move and engage in violence is considered to be "peace", then is that actually a good thing?
"However, in the U.S.A. there is discrimination between the whites and the Negroes, the same as in the U.K.."
Aya aya aya. How stupid are you that you fell for that left-wing crap from the media? I assume you're implying that the Negroes are the ones being discriminated against? Have you bothered to look at the statistics for black on white crime vs white on black crime? You should do a google search before parrotting this rubbish. Don't you have google in Fiji? BTW, is there any specific American law that you don't like? The only ones I have heard of around that timeframe are the ones that give blacks preference because of the colour of their skin. "affirmative action". ie racism. Of course under the wonderful communist system, everyone is discriminated against equally. Is that what you're after?
"What is it that determines which countries have peace and which have discrimination?"
You seem to be defining "peace" as "lack of crime". Where did you get the figures of the Soviet crime rate from? The ever-reliable Radio Moscow??? What are their statistics for the number of people thrown into gulags? And as far as "discrimination" is concerned, you'll need to start by naming the law you disapprove on and then we can debate the merits of it. I'm against the discrimination against whites due to "affirmative action", are you? Or are you one of these filthy racist hippies?
"I think that it depends on the joining together of two parties to defeat a third, common enemy. In U.S.S.R., all the people had to join together as one to overthrow the marxist government."
You're really off with the fairies here. First of all, marxist=communist. They had a "revolution" to INSTALL the current Marxist dictatorship. And the people did not rise as one in a glorious revolution. That's just propaganda. It always comes down to what the military chooses to do.
"This is what I feel united them."
No group of people is "united". The word you're looking for is "enslaved", or if you want to be technical, "subjugated". You want people to be united in slavery???
"In U.S.A. the fighting was between the people and not against someone else."
Not sure what you're talking about here. Are you talking about the American Civil War? Or the racist American laws against whites? What "fighting"? Crime? Je suis non comprehendo.
"In the American War of Independence it was the whites vs England and not the whites and the Negroes against England."
Well, it was far more complicated than that. You do realise that the American "revolutionaries" were just a militia, not some spontaneous glorious uprising, don't you? And you know that they only had the support of about 1/3 of the US population? And they only succeeded thanks to French heavy-lifting in what was essentially a military vs military clash, with the French being victorious at the end? And EVEN THEN, the English could have easily returned, but simply chose to let America be independent, much as they chose to let Australia be independent too?
"Of course, this is not their fault. They had no reason to want to fight against the English because they had nothing to gain. They would be made slaves regardless of who won. The American Revolution made them free from slavery but not from discrimination. There was nothing to unite them."
Sorry, I got lost there. Did you mean the American Civil War? Yes, that freed them from slavery. And yes, they were still discriminated against after that, although at the time you wrote this essay the discrimination had been reversed. How come I didn't hear you railing against the anti-white discrimination? Or do you only care about discrimination against blacks? If you do, you're a racist. There's no other word for it. However, the general concept of "what unites people?" is certainly worth exploring. What makes people friends and allies? Is there something that transcends race? If so, what is that elusive substance? We need to bottle it when we find it.
"So how can we have world peace? It is very well for the countries to say "let's be friends" but there has to be some common drive to unite them. Otherwise there is no reason they should be friends. The drive that the people and governments are trying to use at the moment is the preservation of the human race. Both U.S.A. and the U.S.S.R. fear for the drastic loss of life that would be the result of a nuclear war. I do not think that this common drive is enough."
Why not? Why isn't being human enough reason to unite? However, to be fair, you are basically correct. Being human is not enough. Do you really want a rape victim to unite with her rapist because he's a fellow human? Wouldn't it be more sensible to divide people up into good/neutral/evil, and then unite the good to go and vanquish the evil? ie unite the (good) HUMANISTS. Perhaps do this quietly though, as we don't want the non-humanists to know that we're gearing up to vanquish them. The Soviet Union is far too dangerous. We shouldn't alienate other evil people who would otherwise be willing to help us against the Soviet Union. Much the same way as we allied with the Soviet Union against the Nazis. You need to learn about geostrategy. Did you ever stop to think that maybe the Americans actually know what they're doing?
"I do not think there will ever be a nuclear war. Everybody is too scared to start one. If there was one no-one would win. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. will be destroyed. The more nuclear bombs there are, the more people become scared resulting in world peace. I do not mind the nuclear arms race for the danger it imposes. However, I feel that too much money is wasted in this race."
Ok, I can agree with all that. Yes, we should not be squandering limited resources on these things. But the blame for this squandering belongs solely on the shoulders of the Soviet Union. If you have any complaints, tell them to at a minimum get out of Eastern Europe. While ever there is an existential threat to Western Europe, the correct thing to do is to fight the Soviet dictatorship at every juncture across the globe. Defeat them first, then we can discuss standing down our militaries and using those resources for something more useful.
"What could be a common drive that would result in U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. joining forces? If we were subjected to attack from a planet in another solar system, I am fairly sure that U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. would immediately join forces. However the chances of an attack by "U.F.O.'s" is so improbable that it can be considered as negligible."
Ok, I can agree with the general concept of wanting to unite the world, but it should be united under the banner of freedom. We shouldn't meet evil half-way and morph into some nihilistic mindset. If you do that for long enough you'll end up being a US Democrat.
"A better drive would be that of the energy crisis. In another thirty years it is expected that our supply of oil will be finished."
That's just propaganda put out by idiots with nothing better to do.
"Cars will have to be run by batteries, this being inefficient. Both U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. - indeed the whole world - is trying to perform nuclear fusion. If the leading scientists of all the countries (or at least the five superpowers) were to work at this problem together there is at least a chance of success."
Well I certainly like the idea of the best minds in the world working together on this problem.
"With success, there will be unification of the countries - if success was achieved by joint effort."
Again, you're trying to unify with evil. Also, I don't know where you get the idea that inventing nuclear fusion will magically get everyone joining together. Why wouldn't that simply result in an alternative energy source? How would the fundamentals be any different? The Soviets would still be evil monsters enslaving Eastern Europe, and the Russian people themselves for that matter. Sure, I want unification too - ON OUR TERMS. ie FREEDOM.
"If the leading scientists do not work together, one of the other of the countries will be the first to perform nuclear fusion. If this was U.S.A. then U.S.S.R. would lose no time in stealing the secret at any costs and vice versa. This would result in further severing relations between the involved countries which could never be patched."
Is that what your crystal ball told you?
"Nuclear fusion must be performed by a joint effort between the countries if we are to have world peace. Otherwise relations will be severed forever. This is our last chance. The leading scientists must work together immediately. It all depends on our governments."
It all depends on the Soviets being held at bay so that our successful capitalist societies are not destroyed in an instant. And that is a problem our governments are already working on. I guess you're trying to look at things from the Soviet dictator's point of view and trying to make them see reason. Good luck with that one. Dictators wouldn't be dictators if they were reasonable people with morals.
"It should be noted that it is only the scientists that need to combine knowledge. The governments may remain different although it would be desirable to have the one government system throughout the world."
We don't even have one government system within a country. But yeah, common standards would be good. But you need to be very careful that "one size fits all" is actually beneficial to the people. I'm not so clear on that myself. Having multiple choices available means that if you can't stand the morons around you, you can emigrate. NSW has banned X-rated movies, while the ACT hasn't. Do you want to lose the option of moving to the ACT to get your human rights back which NSW voters took away from you?
"This could be gradually achieved through smaller ties binding together to produce the complete combination. The smaller ties begin with scientists working together. The United Nations is trying this already in their scheme "Atoms for Peace" but this is so far a failure. Another gradual binding tie is that of the language barrier. The world would be better if there was a universal language. Esperanto is the obvious solution. However no-one seems to be trying to introduce this language. It requires world co-operation to introduce this language. I feel that by starting with English-speaking countries Esperanto should be made compulsory for a certain length of time in high school (e.g. the first year at least)."
It takes a lot longer than a year to learn a language. What's the point in wasting people's time by making them not fluent in their second language? If you're going to do that, you need to do it properly. Also, the English language, while certainly flawed, and while it wouldn't be designed like that from scratch again, is extremely rich. You will likely lose all that richness by moving to Esperanto. Besides which, a Turk once complained to me that Esperanto was designed by Westerners with no input from the East. So if it's already dead in the water, then it's dead dead dead. However, having said that, I've read that a second language has other benefits, changing the brain. And since there is no obvious second-language for an English-speaker to learn, it may as well be something like Esperanto. But it is probably too late. English is rapidly becoming the world lingua franca. Maybe when the world has mastered English we can talk about morphing into Esperanto etc. Until then, English is ubiquitous. Do you have that word in Esperanto???
"For complete stabilisation of governments, a new, perfect government should be made."
Uh oh. "perfect"? How about "best practice that we know of"? And we pretty much have that already, if you look at a common subset amongst western countries, rather than trying to mix in evil dictatorships.
"The good points of communism"
Uh oh. Communism has good points? What would that be? Free food down at the local gulag? Free funerals for those killed in Stalin's purges?
"and democracy should be used and the bad points omitted."
Sometimes you have the situation where one system is the best we know of, and the other is pure evil. What do you do then?
"Pretend democracy is blue and communism is yellow. If you mix the two you will get a new, green government. The blue government (democracy) can never become yellow and vice versa."
Now ask those blue people if they want to be green or whether they are perfectly happy being blue and don't want you to destroy what their ancestors have built up over centuries.
"This is true because no-one is willing to leave their own system just as no-one wants to leave their own language."
I'm sure the occupants of the Soviet gulags are willing to leave their system. You're probably talking about the Soviet dictators being unwilling to leave. That's basically true. You need to somehow get a nice guy to work his way through the evil system and reach the top. And what are the chances of Gorbachev pulling that one off? Regarding language, I'm happy to switch from British English to American English, which has now swamped the internet and become the new standard because English is defined by common usage. How about you?
"In a new government, I think some of the following things should be noted. Concerning communism, U.S.S.R. says that this is the government its people want. If the government is so sure of this, why don't they let the people have the right to elect their own government and see if the present members get re-elected? Also human rights should be observed. I believe in freedom of speech. This also applies to writing. At this moment I am writing this essay without any fear of prosecution. In fact it only occurred to me in the middle of the essay that people in U.S.S.R. are not allowed to speak against their government. It shocked me to read that Russians were not allowed to form rock-bands and play western music. It cannot be said that they do not wish to listen to such music as I also read that they formed secret rock-bands for their music. There are definitely faults in communism."
FINALLY you said something sensible!!! Why didn't you just say this in the first place? If it were me, I would have just written to Radio Moscow and said "after having listened to your sick propaganda for a while, I now understand how truly evil you are, and I look forward to seeing your sick society collapse". None of this crap about nuclear fusion. Direct and to the point. Guaranteed to make them give up their evil ways.
"On the other hand, there is no unemployment in the U.S.S.R.. Also there are no strikes and wages and prices are also fixed. This could or could not prevent inflation. I do not pretend to know about this field. However I do know that inflation is a world-wide problem especially in such places as the U.K.. Most democratic countries have their fair share of inflation. Maybe this can be stopped using wage and price control."
Ok, let's go through this mess. First of all, you can have no unemployment in our democracies too, if you just want to employ people to breathe air and pay them the dole. That is effectively what the Soviets have done. They employ people to do nothing, or do little. And it has a corresponding effect on their standard of living. No strikes because slaves don't strike. Good one. Wages are fixed to a low standard for everyone. Good one. Prices are fixed and the result is interminable queues for food, and then a market opens up to pay old people to queue for you. What a great idea. As for the world-wide problem with inflation, how about you give me the figures for how many people died of inflation in the year prior to you writing your essay, and we'll take it from there? Perhaps there's something else you could burn your bra over instead? Like the road toll maybe? How about a campaign to ban cars? Do you want to save lives or do you just want to get to Granny's quickly? What's more important to you in your list of priorities?
"Concerning free trade, I think that there should be restrictions to prevent having too many people in the one line of business."
So far no-one has come up with a better method of sorting that out than letting the free market decide. It's OK to try new experiments though, so long as you don't violate human rights in the process.
"However, I think that people should be able to choose their own occupation, unless they are unemployed. If they are unemployed they should have to find another line of work until there is job opportunity."
I assume you're just saying that our existing system is better than communism? If so, I can agree with that.
"I hope my essay has been of interest to somebody. I doubt anyone will take much notice of it though because I am just a nobody."
That is correct. Fortunately Gorbachev was working his way through the system and managed to solve the problem anyway. And Yeltsin. Two wonderful men. I've got both of their books.
"If I were President Reagan I might be able to do something"
Reagan was already doing something - using America's kick-arse capitalist economy to fund military projects which the Russians were simply unable to afford to match, and totally wrecking their economy. Modern wars are actually economic.
"but since I am not I shall just sit back and watch what happens when nuclear fusion is discovered."
You'll probably find that communism will collapse before that happens, and that even if it didn't, it wouldn't make any difference anyway.
"It will be through no fault of mine when relations become severed."
Severing relations with an evil dictatorship has a lot going for it.
"I have done my bit by writing this essay. I just hope someone reads it and agrees with me. Now I shall be content to leave the matter in someone else's hands. At least I have tried."
Ok, I'll grant you that you tried, but you're barking up the wrong tree by giving some sort of moral equivalence between the US and the USSR and trying to find common ground between them. Christians and Muslims have had the same problems trying to find common ground between a pretty nice guy like Jesus and an evil mass-murdering pedophile rapist like Mohammed, and similarly failing. There is a way to do it, but it's beyond both of their capabilities.
Regardless, from the time you wrote this up until the time of the 2003 Iraq war, the US seemed to be following a strategy which was working just fine to defeat evil in this world. I wouldn't want it any other way. Thankfully there were more sensible people than you working on the geostrategic problem of toppling all these enemies. It is only in the last few years that some doubts have been raised as we suddenly found that not everyone in our democracies has been working on defeating evil. A huge number, a majority even, seem to have this quaint idea of "equal rights for evil dictators". I hope it wasn't because of something you said! Something about mixing paint? Good grief. Where do you people come from? Get with the program already!
2007-04-07
Left-Wing Mindset
There is a great video here (45 minutes long) containing analysis of the left-wing mindset. Maybe a transcript will eventually appear here. It is stuff like this that interests me the most. I try to bring it all together when I find it. These things all contain snippets of the answer, but I haven't found a single narrative that I actually agree with. This one is no different. Some great ideas, but he spoils it with anti-abortion and pro-abstinence rants. I wish Republicans would refrain from that. All it does is scare people to vote for the Left.
He brings up a great point that on 9/11 he found out that these anti-Americans really were sincere that they hated America. But personally I think he missed it. It was the Iraq war that showed that, not 9/11. I don't remember Australians opposing the Afghan war, except for the usual ratbags that come out. It was the Iraq war that brought the left-wing out. And I was shocked to see ordinary Australians spewing vitriol about America and not a word against Saddam, or China or Russia.
Yes, Yank-bashing and indeed Pom-bashing is par for the course in Australia. I can especially remember the America's Cup. After Australia broke the longest winning streak in sporting history, the America's Cup was held in Australia. The US won the right to challenge, and the other countries involved tried to help Australia beat off the challenge. The Americans actually complained about this, saying that it was breaking with tradition, and that traditionally the challengers united against the current cup holder. As an Australian, I thought this was bizarre logic from the American team - the tradition has ALWAYS been EVERYONE AGAINST AMERICA!!! America, due to its size, keeps winning all these things like the Olympics due to sheer weight, and quite frankly, everyone's sick of it. So any chance to stop America from winning a game is welcome. However, I never expected, when it came down to the wire, for anyone to have any other response to an attack on America other than to fiercely defend it. They're not just friends, not just innocents, they're our MATES. Our ALLIES. An attack on one of our allies is a direct attack upon us. Or so I thought.
His theory is that the left-wing are locked into a 5 year old mentality about how wonderful the world would be with the UN looking after everything and no more war. Actually I can understand that mindset too. And unlike my Republican allies, I actually do want to reach something similar to a One World Government - along the lines of the European Union. Actually in those political tests, I come out as a centrist, not right-wing. I share the left's dream. Hell, I even share MARX's dream of "from each according to their ability". The difference is that I recognize that that can be done in the capitalist environment, and that it shouldn't be forced on people, and that we should lead by example instead. I have spent my life trying to lead by example. I have spent enormous amounts of time writing no-strings-attached public domain software, to try to lower the cost to business. Quite frankly, I believe I have succeeded in being a better communist than any communist, and a better Christian than any Christian.
One point he brings up is that the left has taken anti-discrimination to mean we can no longer discriminate between good and bad, and that all viewpoints are equally valid. An example is "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter". So the media won't even call the head-choppers terrorists. Even though they clearly aren't fighting for freedom - they're fighting to install some sort of theocratic dictatorship.
And once again, we find that the split is even within a family. He is complaining about his own sister and his cousin! I would like to see much more analysis along these lines though. What causes people from the same family to go down these diametrically opposite directions on such a fundamental issue?
One point I think he makes is that the left-wing hold their positions not because of some critical analysis that they have done, but via some other process. And because of this, it is not possible to reason them out of it. They will instead keep their closely-held opinions, and even when they make a feeble attempt at justifying them, or providing a counter-argument, they don't really care if they lose. They have no intention of letting their worldview shatter. There's bound to be a good reason to justify their position, even if they can't think of it themselves, and even if they've never heard of it from someone else. He didn't say all that, that's just my extension of some stuff he did say.
But where the hell are the professional psychologists that should be doing this stuff? I really want to get a discussion going between this guy, and Second Draft, plus I wish I could get some of the old commenters from the Iraqi blogs back, and I want to be able to stop them from coming up with American-specific crap and anti-abortion crap. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't anti-abortion either and gave a great speech at the last Republican convention. In fact, all those speeches were astounding. You can find the transcripts here but it would be good if the video were made available on youtube. I saw the videos when they were on C-Span.
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He brings up a great point that on 9/11 he found out that these anti-Americans really were sincere that they hated America. But personally I think he missed it. It was the Iraq war that showed that, not 9/11. I don't remember Australians opposing the Afghan war, except for the usual ratbags that come out. It was the Iraq war that brought the left-wing out. And I was shocked to see ordinary Australians spewing vitriol about America and not a word against Saddam, or China or Russia.
Yes, Yank-bashing and indeed Pom-bashing is par for the course in Australia. I can especially remember the America's Cup. After Australia broke the longest winning streak in sporting history, the America's Cup was held in Australia. The US won the right to challenge, and the other countries involved tried to help Australia beat off the challenge. The Americans actually complained about this, saying that it was breaking with tradition, and that traditionally the challengers united against the current cup holder. As an Australian, I thought this was bizarre logic from the American team - the tradition has ALWAYS been EVERYONE AGAINST AMERICA!!! America, due to its size, keeps winning all these things like the Olympics due to sheer weight, and quite frankly, everyone's sick of it. So any chance to stop America from winning a game is welcome. However, I never expected, when it came down to the wire, for anyone to have any other response to an attack on America other than to fiercely defend it. They're not just friends, not just innocents, they're our MATES. Our ALLIES. An attack on one of our allies is a direct attack upon us. Or so I thought.
His theory is that the left-wing are locked into a 5 year old mentality about how wonderful the world would be with the UN looking after everything and no more war. Actually I can understand that mindset too. And unlike my Republican allies, I actually do want to reach something similar to a One World Government - along the lines of the European Union. Actually in those political tests, I come out as a centrist, not right-wing. I share the left's dream. Hell, I even share MARX's dream of "from each according to their ability". The difference is that I recognize that that can be done in the capitalist environment, and that it shouldn't be forced on people, and that we should lead by example instead. I have spent my life trying to lead by example. I have spent enormous amounts of time writing no-strings-attached public domain software, to try to lower the cost to business. Quite frankly, I believe I have succeeded in being a better communist than any communist, and a better Christian than any Christian.
One point he brings up is that the left has taken anti-discrimination to mean we can no longer discriminate between good and bad, and that all viewpoints are equally valid. An example is "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom-fighter". So the media won't even call the head-choppers terrorists. Even though they clearly aren't fighting for freedom - they're fighting to install some sort of theocratic dictatorship.
And once again, we find that the split is even within a family. He is complaining about his own sister and his cousin! I would like to see much more analysis along these lines though. What causes people from the same family to go down these diametrically opposite directions on such a fundamental issue?
One point I think he makes is that the left-wing hold their positions not because of some critical analysis that they have done, but via some other process. And because of this, it is not possible to reason them out of it. They will instead keep their closely-held opinions, and even when they make a feeble attempt at justifying them, or providing a counter-argument, they don't really care if they lose. They have no intention of letting their worldview shatter. There's bound to be a good reason to justify their position, even if they can't think of it themselves, and even if they've never heard of it from someone else. He didn't say all that, that's just my extension of some stuff he did say.
But where the hell are the professional psychologists that should be doing this stuff? I really want to get a discussion going between this guy, and Second Draft, plus I wish I could get some of the old commenters from the Iraqi blogs back, and I want to be able to stop them from coming up with American-specific crap and anti-abortion crap. Arnold Schwarzenegger isn't anti-abortion either and gave a great speech at the last Republican convention. In fact, all those speeches were astounding. You can find the transcripts here but it would be good if the video were made available on youtube. I saw the videos when they were on C-Span.
2007-04-01
English Language
Ok, time to give away the REAL secret. This so-called War on Terror is just a front. I'm surprised no-one has been able to figure it out. Everyone wants to know what Bush's "real reason" for going to Iraq was. Well, here it is. It's not just Bush's real reason, it is the real reason of EVERY native English speaker. Even the ones who deny it are just part of the conspiracy. They'll swear blind that they're not, and it just goes to show what excellent actors we all are.
There is only one thing that the Anglophones really care about. It's not human rights. It's not democracy. It's just one thing - we want to be able to travel around the world without requiring those bloody annoying "translation books". They wouldn't be so bad if the foreigners could get organized so that we only have to buy one of them. But instead, the foreigners seem to expect us to buy a different book for every damn country! It'd be so much simpler if people just learnt to speak English. And that, my friends, is exactly what the "master plan" is.
Actually we really don't have anything against Osama Bin Laden. That whole 9/11 thing was just a misunderstanding between friends. No-one cares if Osama says "slay the infidels" on his videotapes. Why? Because the guy is decent enough to provide English subtitles when he does so. The man cares about us. He really cares. He's a nice guy. I've yet to hear of an Arab who is unhappy or unwilling to learn English. Ditto for Muslims. These people are NOT our enemies. This whole "War on Terror" thing is just designed to get us closer to our REAL target. The one people standing in the way of us being able to forget about those darn translation books. And that, my friends, is FRANCE. Yep, France. You can look at Anglophone history for centuries and centuries, and it all goes back to the one target - getting the French to learn English.
China is not our enemy. That whole "reds under the bed" thing was another misunderstanding. The fact is you can find schools in China with signs that say "Please speak English when you enter our school". Here is one which my Chinese wife took:
No-one forced them to do this. The fact is the Chinese of their own free will chose to join with us against the French. We're just wanting to make sure that the Chinese policy is predictable, so we need them to be democratic. That is why the war against France hasn't started yet. We're still trying to clear up these misunderstandings prior to the final onslaught. A Chinese dictator could potentially force the Chinese people to learn French, and that would be unthinkable. So, we need to get the Chinese properly on board first. And so for the moment we pretend that France is our ally.
When my wife was a receptionist in a hotel in China, there was a French woman who was trying to order breakfast in Mandarin. My wife tried speaking to her in English, and she snapped back "I'm French, not English". This is the face of the true enemy. Just imagine a world where everyone has a common language, and you can travel anywhere and be understood. The European Union could actually use English as their working language, and not have to waste resources to translate documents. Only one country stands in the way of Utopia, and the name is France.
Us Anglophones have gone to a lot of effort to get the French to let down their guard. There were a couple of UK vs US wars and a US vs US war, which were fought purely so that the French would think we were divided. We're not. We are united in purpose. Every class, every race, every nationality, both sexes. And here's something I've never revealed before. And I swear I'm not making this up. This ganging up against France was actually one of the revelations I received in Sept 2004 - God let me know what the big picture was. We're not stopping at just turning every country into a rational, humanist, non-subjugating government. That's just a minor stepping stone towards the ultimate goal.
I can reveal all of this to you now because it is too late for the French to do anything. The French could have tried to form some sort of anti-Anglophone alliance, but they were unable to convince anyone to join their side. Instead, everyone joined us. And before you say "is this actually legal?", well, we've thought of that too. When the French conquered England in 1066, technically England became France. So for legal purposes, when we invade continental France, all we'll be doing is "returning home". The dumbest thing France ever did was to be the last people to conquer England. Real dumb. And all this "forgive and forget" stuff doesn't actually apply to France. Nope. Every Anglophone remembers 1066 like it happened yesterday. We can forgive Japan for that whole "death march" thing, because the Japanese turned around and started learning English. So they became our friends and allies. No grudges there.
So, if you really want to understand how the world works, here you have it in a nutshell. All actions can be explained if you consider the ulterior motive of making English the global lingua franca and putting an end to the "le" and "la" insanity. Not one action the Anglophones have taken contradicts this basic goal. For centuries. So join with us brother Arabs, brother Muslims, and all the brothers and sisters in China, and together let's put France out of its misery. Au revoir, Froggy, au revoir.
UPDATE: Here is the scope of the problem in figures. Only 71.9% of the French are learning English as their second language in primary school. There's the enemy, folks.
UPDATE 2: Yet more.
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There is only one thing that the Anglophones really care about. It's not human rights. It's not democracy. It's just one thing - we want to be able to travel around the world without requiring those bloody annoying "translation books". They wouldn't be so bad if the foreigners could get organized so that we only have to buy one of them. But instead, the foreigners seem to expect us to buy a different book for every damn country! It'd be so much simpler if people just learnt to speak English. And that, my friends, is exactly what the "master plan" is.
Actually we really don't have anything against Osama Bin Laden. That whole 9/11 thing was just a misunderstanding between friends. No-one cares if Osama says "slay the infidels" on his videotapes. Why? Because the guy is decent enough to provide English subtitles when he does so. The man cares about us. He really cares. He's a nice guy. I've yet to hear of an Arab who is unhappy or unwilling to learn English. Ditto for Muslims. These people are NOT our enemies. This whole "War on Terror" thing is just designed to get us closer to our REAL target. The one people standing in the way of us being able to forget about those darn translation books. And that, my friends, is FRANCE. Yep, France. You can look at Anglophone history for centuries and centuries, and it all goes back to the one target - getting the French to learn English.
China is not our enemy. That whole "reds under the bed" thing was another misunderstanding. The fact is you can find schools in China with signs that say "Please speak English when you enter our school". Here is one which my Chinese wife took:
No-one forced them to do this. The fact is the Chinese of their own free will chose to join with us against the French. We're just wanting to make sure that the Chinese policy is predictable, so we need them to be democratic. That is why the war against France hasn't started yet. We're still trying to clear up these misunderstandings prior to the final onslaught. A Chinese dictator could potentially force the Chinese people to learn French, and that would be unthinkable. So, we need to get the Chinese properly on board first. And so for the moment we pretend that France is our ally.
When my wife was a receptionist in a hotel in China, there was a French woman who was trying to order breakfast in Mandarin. My wife tried speaking to her in English, and she snapped back "I'm French, not English". This is the face of the true enemy. Just imagine a world where everyone has a common language, and you can travel anywhere and be understood. The European Union could actually use English as their working language, and not have to waste resources to translate documents. Only one country stands in the way of Utopia, and the name is France.
Us Anglophones have gone to a lot of effort to get the French to let down their guard. There were a couple of UK vs US wars and a US vs US war, which were fought purely so that the French would think we were divided. We're not. We are united in purpose. Every class, every race, every nationality, both sexes. And here's something I've never revealed before. And I swear I'm not making this up. This ganging up against France was actually one of the revelations I received in Sept 2004 - God let me know what the big picture was. We're not stopping at just turning every country into a rational, humanist, non-subjugating government. That's just a minor stepping stone towards the ultimate goal.
I can reveal all of this to you now because it is too late for the French to do anything. The French could have tried to form some sort of anti-Anglophone alliance, but they were unable to convince anyone to join their side. Instead, everyone joined us. And before you say "is this actually legal?", well, we've thought of that too. When the French conquered England in 1066, technically England became France. So for legal purposes, when we invade continental France, all we'll be doing is "returning home". The dumbest thing France ever did was to be the last people to conquer England. Real dumb. And all this "forgive and forget" stuff doesn't actually apply to France. Nope. Every Anglophone remembers 1066 like it happened yesterday. We can forgive Japan for that whole "death march" thing, because the Japanese turned around and started learning English. So they became our friends and allies. No grudges there.
So, if you really want to understand how the world works, here you have it in a nutshell. All actions can be explained if you consider the ulterior motive of making English the global lingua franca and putting an end to the "le" and "la" insanity. Not one action the Anglophones have taken contradicts this basic goal. For centuries. So join with us brother Arabs, brother Muslims, and all the brothers and sisters in China, and together let's put France out of its misery. Au revoir, Froggy, au revoir.
UPDATE: Here is the scope of the problem in figures. Only 71.9% of the French are learning English as their second language in primary school. There's the enemy, folks.
UPDATE 2: Yet more.