jbg Posted March 6, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 6, 2011 But then along came Iraq! And I witnessed how a conniving clique of politicians could use fear and patriotism to make an emotional case for a war that made no logical sense! Now, I feel a little better about our subdued sense of nationalism. I think what's happening in Libya now (link) makes what the U.S. did look beneficent compared to what Saddam would have done to his own people to retain power. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 7, 2011 Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 I think what's happening in Libya now (link) makes what the U.S. did look beneficent compared to what Saddam would have done to his own people to retain power. And perhaps Lucky Luciano was preferable to the gangster that Luciano and Lansky replaced. It's not especially soothing. (And on the other hand, Luciano and Lansky ushered in the era of nationwide murderous crime syndicates.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonbox Posted March 7, 2011 Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 And perhaps Lucky Luciano was preferable to the gangster that Luciano and Lansky replaced. It's not especially soothing. (And on the other hand, Luciano and Lansky ushered in the era of nationwide murderous crime syndicates.) Analogies are bad arguments, particularly this one. Saddam was a murderous mad man who had the authority and the power to utterly suppress his people. In his case only outside force could remove him. Gadhafi, on the other hand, is a travelling road clown and his army is the joke of Africa. His people have the power, and will, to get rid of him themselves and that's exactly what's happening. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 7, 2011 Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 (edited) Analogies are bad arguments, particularly this one. Saddam was a murderous mad man who had the authority and the power to utterly suppress his people. In his case only outside force could remove him. Gadhafi, on the other hand, is a travelling road clown and his army is the joke of Africa. His people have the power, and will, to get rid of him themselves and that's exactly what's happening. Analogies are bad arguments, except when comparing dictators to travelling road clowns. It's the negative analogies to the Western nations that are simply not suitable, I take it? As for Iraq: yes, well, it's not as if the US and its obedient little coalition is responsible for hundreds of thousands dead, four million refugees (in a population smaller than Canada's), continuing sectarian violence, the diminishment of women's rights from what they had under the regime, worse poverty, worse health outcomes, and a government that continues to torture its own people, with the knowledge and consent of the invaders.... Yep, the Americans did what they had to do, yes? Good job. But we shouldn't compare them to gangsters in an analogy. That's going too far. Edited March 7, 2011 by bloodyminded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbg Posted March 7, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 As for Iraq: yes, well, it's not as if the US and its obedient little coalition is responsible for hundreds of thousands dead, four million refugees (in a population smaller than Canada's), continuing sectarian violence, the diminishment of women's rights from what they had under the regime, worse poverty, worse health outcomes, and a government that continues to torture its own people, with the knowledge and consent of the invaders....Yep, the Americans did what they had to do, yes? Good job. But we shouldn't compare them to gangsters in an analogy. That's going too far. My point is that what's happening in Libya would look like a Sunday school picnic compared to what would have happened in Iraq had Saddam remained. You would have had a three-way civil war between the Shi'ites concentrated around Basra, the Kurds, and the Tikritis/Sunnis around Baghdad. The death toll would have been truly staggering. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 7, 2011 Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 (edited) My point is that what's happening in Libya would look like a Sunday school picnic compared to what would have happened in Iraq had Saddam remained. You would have had a three-way civil war between the Shi'ites concentrated around Basra, the Kurds, and the Tikritis/Sunnis around Baghdad. The death toll would have been truly staggering. Are you speculating about what might have happened to justify what has happened? Edited March 7, 2011 by bloodyminded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PIK Posted March 7, 2011 Report Share Posted March 7, 2011 Canada was born under that same ruling Monarchy that you guys fought against. The result wasn't freedom, but more colonial rule. We are still stuck with those institutions and government aristocracies that the US liberated themselves against. As a country we are plagued with a checkered history that demonstrated that when we did start to take control of our own governance, we committed genocide, infanticide, internment, and other atrocities attributed to uncivilized nations. We even deny those things took place today citing that because it happened in the past it has less significance. The problems is that the thinking that led up to all those atrocities and the denial of rights is still present not only in the government institutions, but in the minds of ordinary Canadians. Freedom is ethereal. One cannot be free when a government imposes controls on borders, or on liberties or on speech. Yet the Canadian government has a constitution that does not protect rights and freedoms but limits them and controls them. It is not a constitution of the people compiled from the thoughts and dreams of Canadians but one that was imposed on us and countersigned by that same Monarchy that used it laws to limit our freedoms and destroy our wilderness. This is not a great country. It is one that we must be ever vigilant against falling back into the colonial elitisms that stole land from natives, and employed immigrants at low or no wagers to build our infrastructure. It is one where tyranny lies just below the surface awaiting a single minded Prime Minister who listens to no one and takes his direction from the same elitists he protects. It is one where children living in poverty is less important than an art exhibit at the National Gallery. It is a country where oil and gas are more important than renewable resources. It is a nation that is getting raped by foreign interests because the government wants to be like them. To your statement of pride I say "shame"! Canada is a myth and its goal is to subjugate its people until there is nothing left to give. Don't let the door hit you on the way out. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Moonbox Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Analogies are bad arguments, except when comparing dictators to travelling road clowns. It's the negative analogies to the Western nations that are simply not suitable, I take it? Um...with that comment I'm not really sure you understand what an analogy even is. My reference wasn't really even an analogy. Using rhetoric =/ 'analogy'. All I did was explain why your analogy was bad by supporting what jbg was trying to say. The fact that you missed all that, and the meaning of analogy, is troubling to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GostHacked Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 It is my opinion that we fly as many if not more flags than our US counterparts do. I think we dont notice them as much, hence when we travel south we do so with eyes open. As long as I can get a Canadian flag that is actually MADE IN CANADA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GostHacked Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 There are good people everywhere but that has nothing to do with the country they are from. Canada has its good days but really there are still more bad and embarrassing days than good. Canada has a shameful record in most sectors of society, from bad policing to criminal injustices, to poor child welfare, to tyrant politicians to abhorrent religious institutions, to corruption and destruction. Those you want to pound their chests like shit flinging apes spend half of their time forgetting the truth and the other half refusing to see it and hear it. The fact is that there is far too much going on in corrupt institutions and government to sit back with a smile on one's face. When we have the majority of Canadians actually back to discussing the injustices and corruption instead for hiding thier ostrich heads in the sand then we can start admiring our fortitude. However, we have a long way to go as too many Canadians are brainwashed to really understand the oppressive state we are in where we feign election successes as we rush to work at median middle income wages that haven't changed in over 20 years, while the poverty wages have dropped and the higher income earners have gotten richer. Canada is a fake - a ruse and a scam. They take our money and redistribute it to the wealthy and sell our resources to foreign interests at pennies on the dollar. Despite being an oil producing country we are sucked into paying high gasoline prices because someone in the Middle East with obscene wealth says we should. All the while the poverty level becomes so abhorrent that "Canada's New Government" has to fudge the figures that show where the poverty level begins. We think we are doing well and yet fill our homes with manufactured junk produced in foreign countries while our factories are closed because shareholder's profits are down. The truth is we live in that Matrix where government and corporations suck the life out of us and our children. You think this is life. I suggest that you should have taken the red pill but we all know that far too many of you took the blue one because you are so afraid of the truth. I don't know what else to say to this other than, thanks for this post. And thanks for being awake. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GostHacked Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 (edited) quote=eyeball: Americans are afraid of their government whereas in Canada the government is afraid of the people, as it should be. I'm not the least bit afraid of my government. That is a good thing. But now you need to get angry at your government, before it's all sold off down the road. Too late... http://www.pm.gc.ca/eng/media.asp?id=3934 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/02/04/joint-statement-president-obama-and-prime-minister-harper-canada-regul-0 Edit.... Check this out http://www.ofr.gov/(S(hyh0tzjmzziepkkgx20wqxbk))/OFRUpload/OFRData/2011-04862_PI.pdf DEPARTMENT OF COMMERCEInternational Trade Administration Request for Public Comments Concerning Regulatory Cooperation Activities that Would Help Eliminate or Reduce Unnecessary Regulatory Divergences in North America that Disrupt U.S. Exports But as I read along the document ... you can say good-bye to any kind of protectionism. Edited March 8, 2011 by GostHacked Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbg Posted March 8, 2011 Author Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 Are you speculating about what might have happened to justify what has happened? I thin you understand my post exactly and choose to dodge the obvious meaning. Just as people who obscess about the amount of "anger" the Arabs feel towards the West and Israel ignore the propensity to unrestrained bloodshed in the Arab world. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
William Ashley Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 (edited) I thin you understand my post exactly and choose to dodge the obvious meaning. Just as people who obscess about the amount of "anger" the Arabs feel towards the West and Israel ignore the propensity to unrestrained bloodshed in the Arab world. Maybe you don't get it that its not just arabs. I just happened to walk a past a pro palastinian protest today and it wasn't just all arabs, whether instigators or not (of course I was wearing my AND1 shirt (that I bought from israel while they were chanting boycott chants) today.... as I was walking by it. The point is in Canada more than 50% of people are propalastinian and less than 50% are pro israeli. See the difference. 50% of Canadians are not Arab. (of course I also knew the person leading the chants to be a pretty open minded white/waspy sorta chap - who is pseudo antheist - most everyone else looked more east indian than palastinian) http://www.and1israel.co.il/ My real question is WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH FEDERAL POLITICS.. can't you post this junk to international? Edited March 8, 2011 by William Ashley Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GostHacked Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I thin you understand my post exactly and choose to dodge the obvious meaning. Just as people who obscess about the amount of "anger" the Arabs feel towards the West and Israel ignore the propensity to unrestrained bloodshed in the Arab world. Is this thread about Canada or just another jew/israeli vrs arab/muslims thread? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PIK Posted March 8, 2011 Report Share Posted March 8, 2011 I get your point! But I still like to keep my patriotism a little more subdued than the average American does. Look at how Stephen Harper got us to dig in deeper in Afghanistan by wrapping our NATO involvement with lots of flag-waving! Why ,if people think like you ,then the olympics would have been a joke, or were you embaressed by the partriotic display at the olympics. And what we are doing in afghanistan is real peacekeeping, what we were supposed to be good at. Maybe iggy was right and our peacekeeping record is bogus. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 (edited) Um...with that comment I'm not really sure you understand what an analogy even is. Oh, your confusion is self-evident, don't worry; beginning with your assertion that "analogies are bad arguments," an assertion based on nothing whatsoever. Followed closely by your use of metaphor, distinctly related, by rhetorical usage, to analogy. My reference wasn't really even an analogy. Your reference was a metaphor. An analogy, too, is a metaphorical construct. It actually is closer to simile ("this situation is like the following hypothetical," for example), but remains under the umbrella of metaphor as the term is used and understood. Are you unaware that your statement was metaphor? And do you have a list of which sorts of metaphor are reasonable, and which aren't? We can start with "comparing the United states to gangsters is bad metaphor; but comparing Khaddaffi to a travelling clown" (why "travelling"?) is a proper use of metaphor. Why? I dunno, you haven't bothered to offer reasons. The fact that you missed all that, and the meaning of analogy, is troubling to me. Again, as I hope you now see, I understand full well what "analogy" is. However, you seem unaware of the irreducible relationship between analogy and metaphor...and even of the fact that you yourself indulged in it. Edited March 14, 2011 by bloodyminded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 I thin you understand my post exactly and choose to dodge the obvious meaning. And I think your meaning--predicated entirely on the extremely weak characteristic of stubborn patriotism--is that the United States, by killing hundreds of thousands of human beings, creating four million refugees, bringing terrorism to Iraq, setting women's rights back, torturing people, and then supporting a new torturing government, and increasing poverty, malnutrition, and death....actaully did a really good thing, because you just know it would have been worse had the noble Heroes not stepped in and done all these things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
waldo Posted March 13, 2011 Report Share Posted March 13, 2011 And I think your meaning--predicated entirely on the extremely weak characteristic of stubborn patriotism--is that the United States, by killing hundreds of thousands of human beings, creating four million refugees, bringing terrorism to Iraq, setting women's rights back, torturing people, and then supporting a new torturing government, and increasing poverty, malnutrition, and death....actaully did a really good thing, because you just know it would have been worse had the noble Heroes not stepped in and done all these things. (but... they passed their own Congressional law that said regime change was a-ok... apparently, it's in the rogue nation playbook - hoorah!) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 (edited) (but... they passed their own Congressional law that said regime change was a-ok... apparently, it's in the rogue nation playbook - hoorah!) Sure, well, if there is broad consensus within the American political class, then of course it's ok...even wars of aggression are defended haughtily as issues of "American sovereignty." Edited March 15, 2011 by bloodyminded Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bush_cheney2004 Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Sure, well, if there is broad consensus within the American political class, then of course it's ok...even wars of aggression are defended haughtily as issues of "American sovereignty." Correct...who was going to stop them? Canada's refusal without an ass covering UN resolution was just a moral speed bump on the way to Iraq. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bloodyminded Posted March 15, 2011 Report Share Posted March 15, 2011 Correct...who was going to stop them? Canada's refusal without an ass covering UN resolution was just a moral speed bump on the way to Iraq. Yes, and yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbg Posted September 3, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2017 On 5/4/2008 at 11:14 AM, nothinarian said: Wow - spewing anger and pessimism as spittle flies the corners of your snarled and frothing mouth is the visual that I get I may disagree with you but respect your passion Back to reality and lets, as adults, try to be objective Even better lets let the rest of the world be objective and judge us Ranked #1 country in the world to live in by UN based on key economic and social indicators (HD Index) from 1994 - 2000 and near the top since then Can you believe the UN findings? I couldn't make heads or tails of those posts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Argus Posted September 3, 2017 Report Share Posted September 3, 2017 (edited) 1 hour ago, jbg said: I couldn't make heads or tails of those posts. Way to necro a dead thread, jbg. Were you bored with all this year's topics? Edited September 3, 2017 by Argus Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jbg Posted September 3, 2017 Author Report Share Posted September 3, 2017 12 hours ago, Argus said: Way to necro a dead thread, jbg. Were you bored with all this year's topics? I'm having trouble with the new software and was looking for a harmless thread. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hardner Posted September 3, 2017 Report Share Posted September 3, 2017 44 minutes ago, jbg said: I'm having trouble with the new software and was looking for a harmless thread. Lesson: even 9-year olds aren't harmless. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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