164 replies to this topic

[Triton]

What have I said that was so provocative?  If you were so sure that I am wrong in stating my arguments, then you would be motivated enough to tell me why.

[DakaSha]

ok i owe you more of a reason for my last post.

fact is... and this isnt meant as an insult either. you guys are brainwashed. not as bad as many other nations on the planet but you are. ill give you an example and this is also the reason why i am so agressive when it comes to this kinda stuff.. its personal

ok i grew up in the states till i was nine. i moved here and when i got a little older i started noticing how the states had affected me.

i was raised by mother as a "free thinker" is the best way i can describe it. not an america hater but also not a patriot. anyways the school system, tv, the church. they all have thier hand in it. if i would have stayed in america i would not have grew into this "free thinker" that my mother wanted me to be(something i really think was great about the way she raised me). i prob wouldnt have been a true patriot either but listen to this:

when i hear the pledge of alliegence... i shudder. i ACTUALLY JUST NOW SHUDDERD WHILE WRITING IT. that is MESSED UP. when i see the american flag... i get goose bumps. when i hear the term: "declaration of independance" something clicks in my head. any country that uses such a subtle but affective form of indoctrination is close to evil in my eyes.

and i hate the fact that it has affected people like you. even the most liberal friggin americans are still brainwashed... if you come from europe and listen to an american anarchist (no im not one...not at all ) or even a friggin hippie(!) you will hear the brainwashing he gone through if you listen close enough. Micheal friggin Moore... is brainwashed!

what pisses me off is that if i had stayed in america i would belong to this group of "free" zombies. i mean really imagine how it is to KNOW that something has been hooked in your brain since childhood and there is no way to get it out... it sucks.

this all sounds alot worse than it is but im putting alot of effort into recreating the scenario

[Triton]

DakaSha, on Jul 9 2005, 04:00 AM, said:

ok i owe you more of a reason for my last post.

fact is... and this isnt meant as an insult either. you guys are brainwashed. not as bad as many other nations on the planet but you are. ill give you an example and this is also the reason why i am so agressive when it comes to this kinda stuff.. its personal

ok i grew up in the states till i was nine. i moved here and when i got a little older i started noticing how the states had affected me.

i was raised by mother as a "free thinker" is the best way i can describe it. not an america hater but also not a patriot. anyways the school system, tv, the church. they all have thier hand in it. if i would have stayed in america i would not have grew into this "free thinker" that my mother wanted me to be(something i really think was great about the way she raised me). i prob wouldnt have been a true patriot either but listen to this:

when i hear the pledge of alliegence... i shudder. i ACTUALLY JUST NOW SHUDDERD WHILE WRITING IT. that is MESSED UP. when i see the american flag... i get goose bumps. when i hear the term: "declaration of independance" something clicks in my head. any country that uses such a subtle but affective form of indoctrination is close to evil in my eyes.

and i hate the fact that it has affected people like you. even the most liberal friggin americans are still brainwashed... if you come from europe and listen to an american anarchist (no im not one...not at all ) or even a friggin hippie(!) you will hear the brainwashing he gone through if you listen close enough. Micheal friggin Moore... is brainwashed!

what pisses me off is that if i had stayed in america i would belong to this group of "free" zombies. i mean really imagine how it is to KNOW that something has been hooked in your brain since childhood and there is no way to get it out... it sucks.

this all sounds alot worse than it is but im putting alot of effort into recreating the scenario

And what are Americans allegedly brainwashed to think?

[DakaSha]

thats a good question really.

i dont really have an answer. i mean its not like i think a couple people got together and said:"Hey! i got an idea! lets brainwash the suckers!"

no i think that america really was founded on some great ideas and the first americans did some amazing things and what happend is it went to thier heads. americans started to think they were better than everybody else... which they pretty much were at first. that thinking has been passed on for generations though and many many americans remind me of fundamentalists.

you know you send your child into school and he is not *forced* to do that pledge of alliagence crap but he will be automatically looked at different by the others. then some kid asks his patriot father why your kid doesnt have to do it and said father will prob say something like: Because his father is a liberal pansy, because he is un-american, because he is a communist or here is my faveroute one: "Because the Devil got a hold of him"(or something in that direction... believe me I KNOW... one half of my family belong to a big church organization in the states and they are SICK...no im not going to say which organization... you all know anyways )
THAT is a form of bigotry. And its so wide spread in america its disgusting.

For all who dont know what the pledge of alliagence is.... EVERY morning the first thing you do in american school is... you stand with your right hand on your heart and STARE at that red white and blue flag and say these words with PRIDE and FORCE:

I pledge allegiance to the Flag
of the United States of America,
and to the Republic for which it stands:
one Nation under God, indivisible,
With Liberty and Justice for all.




now like i said... i dont think american people want to brainwash your children. because in thier heads this is all normal. its been done for generations and generations. but it DOES brainwash you.

[A. J. Raffles]

Triton, on Jul 8 2005, 11:12 PM, said:

AJ Raffles said:

Incidentally, that post proves that your knowledge of Europe is not quite perfect either, so let's agree that both sides should try not to be judgemental, shall we?

Do a little studying; Europe has had a long history of exploitation for its own profit, even though when they were exploiting and getting away with it they just small countries on the same continent.  Once Europe becomes one country, how do you know they won't go back to the status quo?  I'm sure a unified Europe would defy the UN in its own best interests.

Suit yourself. I'm not going to argue with you, my friend.

[PrejudiceSucks]

@Daka

Eh? The people who founded America were persecuted Dutch and English puritans. They they wiped out the native people.

Not very noble if you ask me... but you were probably taught in school that it was great.

It's a shame that they can do that so young...

Oh by the way, do you get taught that you won Vietnam?

Or that 'Freeing' yourselves from Britain was the right thing to do?

[Doubler]

Don't get me wrong Triton, but you seem a bit scared (anxious?) to me.
It's my guess that such a feeling would only be natural in this case. America HAS been in a very powerful position for many years, but now the political winds seem to start blowing away from your country.
Most Europeans are anxious about this too, I'd think. However sitting stagnant and afread of change will not help the world. Uniting Europe may eventually only better the world, you know.

As a final note, I ask you not to celebrate your own unity, and deny us ours. That would be a bit strange, wouldn't it

And please do not judge people by their past. If everybody does this, nobody would ever be able to trust each other. Now that would be sad

[taikara]

PrejudiceSucks, on Jul 9 2005, 07:16 AM, said:

Eh? The people who founded America were persecuted Dutch and English puritans. They they wiped out the native people.

Not very noble if you ask me... but you were probably taught in school that it was great.

It's a shame that they can do that so young...

Actually, one of the biggest factors in wiping out the natives (early on in our colonial history) was diseases brought over by the colonists from Europe. But truthfully, the Indians weren't wiped out until much later, in the American drive westward.

Quote

Oh by the way, do you get taught that you won Vietnam?

I can't speak for other schools, but in my studies of history, I was taught that Vietnam was a miserable flop of a "military action" that should never have been prolongued as it was. Nobody won that war, nobody could have won it. It was a matter of American militaristic pride that kept the politicians sending troops, though it was hopeless, and they should have stopped when they reached their original goals in the country.

But won Vietnam? No way.

The scary thing is that we're now considering reinstating the draft. Possibly for women as well as men. It seems to me that if they reinstate the draft, they didn't learn their lesson in Vietnam.

Quote

Or that 'Freeing' yourselves from Britain was the right thing to do?

Ehh... it's likely that we're taught it was the "right" thing to do.

My personal opinion isn't so much that it was the "right" thing to do, but the sensible thing. At that point in time, Britain was so far stretched in its colonial imperialism that its political functions weren't the most efficient, or necessarily good for the areas they imperialized. Furthermore, the mistake was made of treating the colonists (who were at one point European themselves) more like they treated natives with a non-European background. Ridiculously high taxes and tariffs on goods, an extreme gap in class structure between the ruling British and the colonists, and all sort of other factors led to the American rift with Britain.

[DakaSha]

PrejudiceSucks, on Jul 9 2005, 07:16 AM, said:

@Daka

Eh? The people who founded America were persecuted Dutch and English puritans. They they wiped out the native people.

Not very noble if you ask me... but you were probably taught in school that it was great.

It's a shame that they can do that so young...

Oh by the way, do you get taught that you won Vietnam?

Or that 'Freeing' yourselves from Britain was the right thing to do?

@ predsucks

i meant in the very beginning. and as tai already pointed out. the indian crap (which was wrong by all means) happend years later.(well the spanish pretty much started right away but we are speking about america here)

i dont remember learning that we won the vietnam war... but i only went to school till 3rd grade. they arnt that bad yet

they would prob say something like: it was a victory in the long run and all that bull.

when it comes to becomeing independant... i dont know enough about the time period but from what i DO know yes IMO it was the right thing to do. (and we whooped your behinds too    ..... just joking man. please dont take it seriously)

[PrejudiceSucks]

You've... ummm.... you've hurt my pride. And country... *sobs*...

Fair enough.

So what if the EU gets strong. Fine it's not unlikely that we'd invade the USA, but then your leader brung it upon himself.

TTFN.

[Microprose Veteran]

Military invasions are useless.

Look at the last 50 years. How many invasions were actually succesful? The Americans failed in Vietnam. The Russians failed in Afghanistan. Even WW II was over in 4-6 years (depending on which country you were in).

[taikara]

Not to mention, I think anyone would have a rough time invading America.

First of all, you'd have to wage war on what basically amounts to a huge freaking island, which strategically amounts to a snowball's chance in hell. Unless, of course, you can manage to get Canada or one of the South American countries to support you.

Canada just wouldn't do it. Mess with the South Americans, and in many cases, you're messing with gang/drug territory there, and they get a lot of money from the US in that trade. The more likely nations to support such a thing in South America are too small, too far away, or too poor to help you with such a large scale invasion.

But assuming you do get support, and manage to mount an invasion... you still have to deal with both our military and our in many cases armed-to-the-teeth civilians. Let's just say I think several sections of our populace would be highly resistant, even if you did manage to break military lines. Not to mention you would need a massive force to be able to hold and control your territorial gains.

Hell, America would probably be a thousand times more hellish to invade than Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam put together. When we're killing each other, we're still formidable. Imagine what it would be like when the more aggressive sections of our society turned to fire at a common enemy?

In short, I honestly believe the only way that you could invade and hold America would be if the EU allied with almost every other country (with a military) in the world to invade us (which is highly unlikely), and you didn't mind torturing/killing most of us (because the current American attitude is extremely resistant). Which really sort of amounts to genocide, and that isn't extremely civilized.

Which brings me to my final point:

PrejudiceSucks said:

So what if the EU gets strong. Fine it's not unlikely that we'd invade the USA, but then your leader brung it upon himself.

Our leader might be an evil, evil jerk, and he might have brought it upon us, but does that really make it the right thing to do? IMHO, that would make the EU no better than George W. Bush going after Saddam Hussein and the "terrorists"

[Microprose Veteran]

Know what, let's quit this foolish business of invading America!

Let's watch Red Dawn instead!  

[Triton]

PrejudiceSucks, on Jul 9 2005, 07:16 AM, said:

Oh by the way, do you get taught that you won Vietnam?

Or that 'Freeing' yourselves from Britain was the right thing to do?

We were taught that the Frenchies dumped Vietnam in our lap and wouldn't try to help out.  It was really France's problem, not America's, and that's one reason there was so much resistance among the youth in that period.  If the Americans were much more supportive of the war, America could have focused its full attention to Vietnam and would have had the manpower and home front support to win.

Breaking from Britain was the right thing to do given the circumstances.  Britain's priorities for centuries was profit, first and foremost.  The colonists and the natives were not as high on the food chain.  Had Britain been more fair to the colonists in America, we would still have not crossed the Apalacians, and we'd have funny accents.  I understand that the Brits were taught for many years that George V "graciously" granted America its independence of his own free will, and America became a country without a single shot fired.

Doubler said:

Don't get me wrong Triton, but you seem a bit scared (anxious?) to me.
It's my guess that such a feeling would only be natural in this case. America HAS been in a very powerful position for many years, but now the political winds seem to start blowing away from your country.
Most Europeans are anxious about this too, I'd think. However sitting stagnant and afread of change will not help the world. Uniting Europe may eventually only better the world, you know.

Everything I argue about on this subject boils down to one thing.  Back on 9/12/01, world leaders had an attitude that could be expressed in the phrase "We are all Americans now."  Why can't it be the same now?  Why can't America and Europe unite and form a new supercountry devoted to keeping the peace and helping the third world countries flourish?  Forming the EU would only ultimately drive a wedge between America and Europe.

PrejudiceSucks said:

So what if the EU gets strong. Fine it's not unlikely that we'd invade the USA, but then your leader brung it upon himself.

Considering a president may have office for no more than eight years, there's really no reason to invade America because the rest of the world doesn't like the president.  The government here could be MUCH worse.

[Microprose Veteran]

Triton, on Jul 10 2005, 01:23 AM, said:

Back on 9/12/01, world leaders had an attitude that could be expressed in the phrase "We are all Americans now."  Why can't it be the same now?

Well, America had almost universal support and goodwill at that moment in history.

Then something called "George W. Bush" happened.

Edit: Ur either with us or with the terrorists.