"where the americans where caught completely by suprise TWO YEARS* into a global conflict" * 3 years if french, polish or english or whatever *more if you are chinese, japanese, or russian i guess * It's complicated.
1) would you mind rephrasing that? did not comprehend 2) well of course they are, i'm a genius. but also you're predisposed to like me more. the main point here is that, the way the US teaches it at least, it wasn't clear at all that there was a way to get such a diplomatic solution. again, this isn't my field- i don't know if they asked for too much, or asked the wrong way, or whatever. whatever the US asked for, they were refused it and felt that the bomb was the best option 3) the more important part to me isn't that there was a war going on, it's that regardless of whether or not the terrorists thought they could get the US to shut down or pull out or whatever by taking out the towers and hitting the pentagon, they were pretty clearly completely wrong, and the action caused a huge chain of conflicts that continue on now. 4) every group likes to think it is and has been in the right. that extends all the way up to the national level. in the US we tend to gloss over slavery and our abuse of the natives (and pretty much every other minority) as best we can when we teach our children. there's not a nation in the world that has a crime-free record, the more important thing is to learn from it. what i find interesting is that your country was on the losing end of ww2 and you have such a strong feeling about this- i'm wondering how strongly the two are linked (and i think it's a good thing, mostly. if the losers are left around to keep in check the victor's version of history, there's a bit more balance)
1) I don't know of anything I did that would someone I would consider reasonable and amicable would take as a reason to not like me, so those who don't like me don't matter to me. 2) Well, yes, thats how its taught. What is taught and what is true are two things, everywhere. 3) Well, so the ends justify the means? If its effective its okay? Not my directive. 4) Yes, every nation has its flaws, and I feel free to critisize every of it for each of them. Germany (and most of Europe) for its hypocrisy, for our secret support for torture, for our betrayal of democratic values, for our profiteering; Saudi-Arabia for its intolerance, badly veiled ultracapitalism and decadence, Vietnam for its corruption, Russia for its ruthlessness, Japan for its denial of the past, North Korea for almost everything, South Korea for its militarism and incredibly bad education culture, Nigeria for its way of handling its natural resources, Yemen for its tribal warfare, Egypt for its botched revolution, Italy for its corruption and organized crime, Venezuela for its destructive populism, Mexico for its drug cartels, Canada for its environmental policies, Australia for the nut they just elected, New Zealand for being in the little espionage pact around the US, the UK for turning right all the time .... If there's a country I really like I guess its Uruguay, and that might only be because I don't know its dark sides ...
1) it's kind of a tonal thing. 2) no doubt, but in the US, unless there's a massive Firking conspiracy going on to keep us in a huge media blackout somehow, we're also generally exposed to a variety of viewpoints as we get older. sometimes even when we're young. generally if you care to, you can sift between all the information you get blasted with to approximate the "truth" (just imagine, if everyone sees a situation a different way, what happens when it gets passed down over the years? all we end up knowing are approximate numbers, most of the casualties, and alternative possibilities. not exactly a clean system we've got) 3) i don't tend to agree with absolutes, i prefer to look at specific cases. so saying the ends always justify the means isn't something i'd agree with. the point i keep getting at is that the means in both cases were attacks on civilian targets. the ends, though, are on roughly opposite ends of the spectrum. the US and Japan are pretty decent bros now, last i heard. our teenage population certainly fetishizes them enough. but yeah, we helped them rebuild, got them dusted off, i dunno. it's, approximately, all good now. our attacks were the end, more or less. on the other end, you have 9/11. i know you're not an American, so i'm not sure if you can really understand just how much it's impacted our country. not just on the political stage, though that's a lot of it (it still gets brought up as a bogeyman). my life was personally impacted by 9/11 (i didn't lose anyone- a family member got a job offer to help manage grants for the recovery). but yeah, it's had rather far reaching effects in and outside the country. their attacks were a beginning. 4) but what about that toronto mayor guy
1) Give me some tips, should I stop cursing as much? I tend to do that. Or am I doling out the insults too liberally? I tend to not take that part very seriously, so I might go overboard now and then. 2) Arguments, stuff, words 3) Well, whether cause and effect are really connected in that manner is another question. But whatever - enough of this topic. 4) I think comedians should have stages, not political jobs :s
1) you tend to just come off as a pretentious immovable (closeminded could fit instead of immovable- it's in that general direction) ass, frankly. it's not the easiest thing to pin down, if you want i could just pop up and point out when i see it happening. the insults probably don't help with that general feel, i doubt the cursing matters that much so long as it's appropriately placed (hah, subjectivity) in general, i don't like arguing, debating, etc when from the outset i don't feel as though i'm being heard. when my arguments tend to be either ignored or spun in ways i did not intend them, ways that make the arguments look bad but aren't actually relevant to the conversation. to me, you are one of the people on this forum that historically fits this bill. not in every specific at every time, but often enough that my expectation's not high when i start trying to convince you of a thing. dno if that's the best way to put it, but it's what comes to mind and i'm not being paid for therapy so IT'S WHAT YOU GET
I guess? Well, I've hardly ever convinced anyone and hardly ever been convinced by something; for me it is pretty usual that both parties walk away with the opinion they had in the first place. Which is why I never viewed arguments as particulary constructive, I guess.
I wonder if Japan had gotten the A-bomb before we did, what their first target would have been and if they would have given fair warning. would they be questioning their decision to use it today or would they be celebrating the day their god emporer used his divine power to smite their enemies. And more importantly, would we be seeing Japanese flags flying over minecraft Denmark? (I'm all about staying on topic).
I don't know much about the story behind the bombing of Japan, all I heard is that every person associated with creating the atomic bomb advised AGAINST using it. And yet the government went ahead with it. But like I said, I don't know much about that, so correct me if I'm wrong. Also during war what is right and what is wrong can become hard to tell, so I don't think America should be crucified because they used the bomb. What really ticked me off were Baskitkase's comments about how we are jealous of America and that he is ''proud to be a part of his country''. Proud to be part of a country which is trying to erase it's shameful history instead of acknowledging it. What is common knowledge about slavery and the abuse of the natives in our country, America tries to hide under the rug and pretend it never happened. Look at Germany. The origin of nazism, which killed millions of innocents. And every year they commemorate the victims of concentration camps and the end of WW2, but not because they are proud of it. They don't want it to happen again, so they have to remember it. When do people in the US remember all the natives they exterminated(Which is still going on)? Or all the slaves they killed? Hell, Truman's grandson had to go to Japan to participate in a remembering ceremony for the victims of the bombings. From what I hear the topics of slavery and native indian abuse are tabu in the US. Also their ridiculous right which allows anyone to keep a gun stashed in their home. Their education system, which makes an average student have 100.000$ of debt whe he gets his degree. I literally listened to an exchange student, just six years older than me, telling me that she has 100.000$ of debt for getting her education, and that we are lucky to not have such a shitty system. Not to mention America's terrible, terrible healthcare system. And last I heard, America was not ''number one'' ever since the last crisis, or even before that. Now I'm sure America has good thing going for her aswell, every country has good and bad things. Hell, our country is literally run by criminals! But hearing this silly 'murrican patriotism always ticks me off the wrong way. Saying that we are jealous of Americans because they are number one is just not true. We think of Americans as close-minded, fat patriots because they mostly fit the bill, not because we would be jealous. Shoutouts to Dagda though, for being one of the few reasonable Americans I have seen on the internet.
That's why i said that I live in a first world country in the facts thread. It probably wasn't obvious enough, calling america a non first world country. Also yeah dagda is cool.
In case you haven't been paying attention, we have a black president now and every single town has a martin luther king street. its impossible not to be reminded of slavery in this country, literally impossible. As to the Indians, see the latest debate in the NFL about the Redskins. If we are trying to sweep anything under the rug, then we need a bigger broom. We weren't taught in school that Indians gave us their land because they liked casinos better and that black people liked working for free. We are taught that slavery was bad, and the Indians got screwed. true story. Basikt was pushing your buttons, and only because you display those buttons with pride and beg them to be pushed.
"I behaved stupidly! You reacted as if I behaved stupidly! I tricked you!" Did I reconstruct your train of thought correctly?
