Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: Primus on September 27, 2006, 01:13:58 pm
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And didn't know that Star Wars was based on a true story. :lol:
http://video.google.co.uk/videoplay?docid=7962124216164013157&hl=en-GB
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Lmao :lol:
Those people are just too stupid to make me feel bad about being American :D
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I can't even watch clips like those. It's too painful.
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You notice the one guy who was quizzed about Al Queda talked in some sort of accent...one that sounded like it's in that region. You'd think he'd know that stuff :D
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That's the beauty of America really. Because everyone's a well fed cattle, they're exempt from knowing anything about the world. Why should they anyway? They eat, they sleep, they ****, both for fun and procreation. They're never going to amount to anything higher than that so... what's the point of knowing anyway? All of you who know the answers are in the same soup anyway, taking it up the ass from people who've decided that they're going to butt **** you.
Mooooooooooooooo.
God bless America (and all other countries sporting the copy systems too - US may be prevalent in things like this, but it sure as hell isn't the only one with stupid, powerless citizens).
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That's the beauty of America really. Because everyone's a well fed cattle, they're exempt from knowing anything about the world. Why should they anyway? They eat, they sleep, they ****, both for fun and procreation. They're never going to amount to anything higher than that so... what's the point of knowing anyway? All of you who know the answers are in the same soup anyway, taking it up the ass from people who've decided that they're going to butt **** you.
Mooooooooooooooo.
God bless America (and all other countries sporting the copy systems too - US may be prevalent in things like this, but it sure as hell isn't the only one with stupid, powerless citizens).
But there are idiots everywhere. I could send a camera crew to any part of the globe, stand on a street corner in a big city, and get enough stupid answers to these questions to make a segment that makes them look stupid.
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I don't know bfobar...a Canadian comedian (Rick Mercer) went down to the States and did exactly the same thing there except that he made a 1 hour special of it. His list included people such as G.W. Bush on the election trail. Quizzed people about things in Canada and the results were hilarious...there were so many people that he interviewed I was just scared. Some of them you could see were catching on ...but some were totally oblivious. He was feeding them stuff like how our parliament buildings are built out of ice and they are melting, that we just commissioned our first naval vessel (in 2000), and that our Prime Ministers name was Poutine.
And my own personal experience in the states when people ask us questions about Canada. I keep a straight face and try and just be nice about it...but wow. I find Americans in general to be very regional. They don't know about whats going on in the next town or even how to get there. But it is a large country and I haven't seen all of it yet and some places are very different (and much more aware) than others.
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While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.
On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.
Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.
Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.
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You'd almost swear people didn't really mind all that much about other countries.
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The only smart idiots are the ones who know they're idiots
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I don't know bfobar...a Canadian comedian (Rick Mercer) went down to the States and did exactly the same thing there except that he made a 1 hour special of it. His list included people such as G.W. Bush on the election trail. Quizzed people about things in Canada and the results were hilarious...there were so many people that he interviewed I was just scared. Some of them you could see were catching on ...but some were totally oblivious. He was feeding them stuff like how our parliament buildings are built out of ice and they are melting, that we just commissioned our first naval vessel (in 2000), and that our Prime Ministers name was Poutine.
And my own personal experience in the states when people ask us questions about Canada. I keep a straight face and try and just be nice about it...but wow. I find Americans in general to be very regional. They don't know about whats going on in the next town or even how to get there. But it is a large country and I haven't seen all of it yet and some places are very different (and much more aware) than others.
But I thought canadian parliment WAS held in an ice sculpture with candy cane columns, and the streets are cleaned at night by immigrant helper elves from the north pole!
I'm not saying that america isn't filled with a LOT of idiots, I'm just saying that if I were to send a comedian to Montreal, London, Moscow, or anywhere else, he'd find no shortage of material.
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I agree with bfobar. Its so easy to bash on the US, but Ive spoken with people online from various places in Europe who knew just as little, or less about their environments.
Threads like these are ****ing annoying.
Its not enough that you all drove away the V staff after the Columbia accident... Nico with the France attacks...
You sometimes make it hard for an american to want to stay here.
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While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.
On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.
Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.
Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.
I do understand your point of view. In light that I have a number of friends with American roots and of whom one I have even had much the same discussion with its true that there are idiots in any country and that American bashing is in. Please don't take my comments as American bashing either (I'm not sure if you did or not) because that wasn't my intention. There are plenty of friendly, helpful, well informed, and genuine individuals in the states. In traveling the country in a fairly significant way (I've been to something like 16 different states and stayed in all sorts of places from Wisconsin to Florida and South Carolina to Vermont) I've met many of them. But it seems like the idiots, for whatever technological/socio economic/societal/political reason seem to scream so much louder than any of our idiots up here.
And we've got idiots coming out of our ears up here. But I don't know if we just marginalize them more (although we're supposed to be the country of tolerance) or if they just don't scream as loud. I don't know. The impression generated by the American public using American media outlets and non-American media outlets paints as "dumb, happy go lucky" impression that I think is picked up on. Its a stereotype just as the French "are arrogant and surrender all the time" and Canadians "say eh and live in igloos" all the time or the British "have bad food and bad teeth". Its all just as hurtful...but I guess we see more American TV and more things about the US than we do other countries.
Perhaps its just that exposure that breeds that opinion and if you spotlighted another country in the same way then the same impressions would be formed. I don't know.
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Perhaps its just that exposure that breeds that opinion and if you spotlighted another country in the same way then the same impressions would be formed. I don't know.
On the other side of that double edged sword, when I traveled overseas, I realized that most everyone could understand my accent with no problems because I assume that american media had paved the way. As an example, in Australia, no locals had any problems with me, but they did complain to me that they couldn't figure out WTF the Irish tourists were saying, ever.
I'm sure a lot of the flaming comes from the rest of the world looking at the US and wondering why the hell we're so special that we get the biggest GDP etc when we have so many outspoken idiots. I do agree with you that American idiots talk more and more loudly than other idiots I've met. I would like to trade other countries for some quiet foreign idiots.
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There are plenty of dumbasses in here, and the countries around here. But they mind their own business, and don't spread their stupidity around.
American assholes are loud. They are noticed around the world, because the media around the world thinks that any story from america interests people. US goverment does generally stupid things. Not that the goverments of other countries are too smart, but they don't get to be in worldwide news so often, because media thinks america is more interesting. All this causes the sane people of america to be buried beneath the idiocity. And when amazing stories from america are being fed to us 24/7, it gets pretty damn ****ing annoying.
So, most of the stuff we hear from america is of questionable sanity. And we hear it too often. Hence people tend to bash america. Because we heard from the hollywood movies that america is the greatest country in the world.
My suggestion to solve this: Please, the sane people of america. Will you be louder and start speakin for your country instead of letting the dumbasses to do it for you?
:)
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Please don't take my comments as American bashing either (I'm not sure if you did or not) because that wasn't my intention.
Of course he did. Say anything that puts America in a negative light, and it is automatically called America bashing by Americans. Too many people in America believe their country does everything right, that is the problem.
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My suggestion to solve this: Please, the sane people of america. Will you be louder and start speakin for your country instead of letting the dumbasses to do it for you?
Impossible.
There are more of them then there are of us; we'd have to shut a significant number of them up first, and we're legally prohibited from doing that. That's the problem: our dumbasses have discovered free speech. Yours haven't.
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Yours haven't.
Hey! Are you bashing our dumbasses? Stop it. Racist! :p
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People who who gave correct answers didn't make it into the video. I bet this is the case with most of the interviews where the goal is to show stupidity of americans, or any other nation for that matter.
In most countries the majority of people think that their country is doing everything right, IMHO. But that's just generalizing (I don't if that's the right word).
:)
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While that's true, I'm kind of sick of the rampant American bashing. Americans typically are very friendly, and you hardly see any of them (especially on these forums) actively bashing other countries as actively as other ones attack them.
On top of that, go stand on a London street corner. Or a Berlin corner. Or anywhere. Like bfobar said, there are idiots everywhere, people just love to make fun of the US because, admitantly (spelling?) we assume to be better than everyone else (in some cases we are, in some we are not), so we sometimes deserve what's coming to us.
Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.
Sorry for that off-topic rant, but I've been dying to put it somewhere.
People 'bash' (although often this ends up just being pointing out problems) the US because the US has cultural hegemony; the US is on a pedestal, and things on a pedestal get shat on by pigeons more than the things below.
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The only smart idiots are the ones who know they're idiots
Acceptance is the first step,....
Who watches the today show with John Stewart, That epitomises American attitude for me. For any yanks wanting a dig at the UK, The friday night project catches street-idiots out all the time, And the 11 o'clock (featuring daisy donovan) was the best at making UK politicians look stupid.... :D
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Please don't take my comments as American bashing either (I'm not sure if you did or not) because that wasn't my intention.
Of course he did. Say anything that puts America in a negative light, and it is automatically called America bashing by Americans. Too many people in America believe their country does everything right, that is the problem.
I sincerely hope that's a joke.
Otherwise, you basically proved my point for me. You're generalizing well over - what is it, over 5 million people? And you're playing the typical "foreigner who hates America because it's America." Do you have any proof for the clame you just made? I don't think America does everything right, and I'm American. In your world and view of America, how can someone like that possibly exist?
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America, thanks to its cultural insularity and self-absorption, in addition to its focus on individualism, free market economics and mass consumerism, simply has a tendency to produce more idiots than other countries.
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Apart from france............... ;7
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All countries have stupid people and try to serve their own interests.
Every one.
There, I said it. Witness and grovel before my revelation.
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France moreso.......... :lol:
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As a music student I must disagree.
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Still, it both makes me laugh and makes me angry when people bash on the US film companies for making films about American heros, or US politicians for servering US interests. Your country does the same thing, but America-bashing is the fad, so let's hate America and be hypocritical. Do you really expect America to make a WWII movie about some Norwegian hero that most Americans would know nothing about? No, because you target your home audience; Americans. Americans love to see heroic Americans, so stop *****ing when your country doesn't get featured. If you want your heroes put on the silver screen, make your own goddamn movie.
See this is where you start to lose the plot.
No one has said that you can't make movies about American heroes but when Hollywood makes a film about the D-Day landings and America is the only country involved or when they make a movie where the American are singlehandedly responsible for the capture of the Enigma code then something needs to be said about Hollywood rewriting history.
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I sincerely hope that's a joke.
Otherwise, you basically proved my point for me. You're generalizing well over - what is it, over 5 million people? And you're playing the typical "foreigner who hates America because it's America." Do you have any proof for the clame you just made? I don't think America does everything right, and I'm American. In your world and view of America, how can someone like that possibly exist?
Granted it was an overgeneralization, but there is still some elements of truth, more so than you realize. Have you ever had an American tell you to stop saying bad things about America? No? Well I have (even though I was simply pointing out things that they did, it obviously didn't matter those assholes)
Aldo summed it up quite well, but I am not so sure you understood.
And find it very interesting that you would call me a foreigner.........
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Just some friendly reminders:
1. :v: is american.
2. You're on a forum dedicated to a game made by said americans.
you're allowed to make all sorts of comments about the stupidity of America, you can call most americans stupid (and I'm likely to agree with you.)
but if you call ALL americans stupid, you just reveal yourself as an idiot because you happen to adore a game made by those stupid americans.
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but if you call ALL americans stupid, you just reveal yourself as an idiot because you happen to adore a game made by those stupid americans
Of course not all Americans are stupid, only the majority are. Of course there are a few :v:'s, but there are a lot more Interplays out there.
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Of course not all Americans are stupid, only the majority are.
I think it's more like minority of them are crazy. But the still make three times more noise than the sane decent folk. That is however debatable since most of the time it's hard to tell what the hell is going on in there... :)
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The majority of EVERY country are imbeciles.
America is just simply a big country, so you notice it more.
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I'm going to agree with BlackDove on that one.
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Much of the percieved hatred of America is likely just hatred of the american government and not of the country as such. At least that's how I feel (though hate is a bit too strong a word in my case), I think America is a great country, it's just that you happen to have picked the worst possible guy to run the place. Stuff like Abu Ghraib and the like does not make me hate America, it just makes me want to see Bush and his gang locked up in a small dirty cell and the key thrown away. But at least he'll be gone after this term.
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I honestly think that's the problem too - people hate America's government, not really Americans so much (or the country). The problem is that Bush represents the country, which makes people hate the country by proxy.
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Well, as long as he isn't representative of the country, there's still hope. The best part of US law is the part where presidents can only serve two terms. So even the biggest dimwit only has at most 8 years to mess things up.
The worst part is probably the ridiculous censorship on TV and radio - If a more or less standard TV show from around here was aired in the US, angry mobs of conservatives and religious zealots would raze the offending station to the ground :p But that's a different story.
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Much of the percieved hatred of America is likely just hatred of the american government and not of the country as such.
Perhaps, but then again who elected the government? Who is ultimately responsible for putting those people in power?
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A relative minority, actually.
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Irrelevent. There are enough Americans eligable to vote to have not elected him even if we discard the 55m who did vote for him.
As I've said previously anyone who doesn't vote in an election as important as the last one automatically gets lumped into the stupid category.
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If they had better candidates other than twiddle de dee and twiddle de dum then maybe we would have. It would not have mattered, my state would have voted for Kerry anyway.
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Again it doesn't matter. Go in and spoil your ballot in protest if need be. Sitting on your arse and calling it a protest vote is indistinguishable from simply sitting on your arse cause you don't care.
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Irrelevent. There are enough Americans eligable to vote to have not elected him even if we discard the 55m who did vote for him.
As I've said previously anyone who doesn't vote in an election as important as the last one automatically gets lumped into the stupid category.
Theres many who felt that Kerry was no better a choice. When it comes down to two horrible candidates, then what?
Spoil our vote eh? Thats useful. Real useful. Its easy to throw stones from the other side of the fence. If we vote for a third party candidate it's a waste of a vote. If we dont vote, its a waste of a vote. How does it do any good?
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Third party candidates are only a wasted vote because no one wants to waste their vote. It's one of the stupidities inherent in democracy. A poll published shortly before the last election over here showed that the Liberal Democrats would win 40% of the vote if the people who didn't want to waste their vote by voting for them actually voted for them instead of playing it safe.
The Lib Dems came third. :rolleyes:
At least by spoiling your ballot papers you show people from 3rd parties that there IS a potential vote out there and maybe pursuade some of them to actually run. By not voting you do nothing at all. Actually voting for someone is better than spoiling your paper but for ****'s sake is it that hard for people to grasp the concept that you have to actually vote in order to make a protest vote? :D
And if you think I'm casting stones from the other side of the fence you're dead wrong. I was just as scathing of the Brits who didn't vote. Even more so in light of the above in fact.
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On the subject of the last election, it's worth noting that IIRC Labour won a majority with less votes than the Tories did under John Major when losing the election.
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Thats cause most of the country wanted shot of the Tories and voted Labout to get rid of them. This time no one liked either party and thus didn't bother to vote.
Which sort of proves my point about why they're all idiots too because it was the perfect time to vote for a third party.
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I think you're a little confused. The problem the third parties have here goes much deeper than that. If you've ever listened to Nader speak, for example, you know he has all the charisma of dead fish.
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I still think it's a pity we don't see punch-ups and massive flame-wars in the Houses of Commons any more, at least then you knew your MP was passionate about their beliefs. Screw all this 'Decorum' ****, I want to see some good old fashioned 'Flame and Fury' politics in the UK again.
Edit : That's why I love the Scottish Parliament, they're still new, and still have that Fire. You wouldn't see an English MP resisting arrest at rallies because he believed that passionately in what he was doing.
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I still think it's a pity we don't see punch-ups and massive flame-wars in the Houses of Commons any more, at least then you knew your MP was passionate about their beliefs. Screw all this 'Decorum' ****, I want to see some good old fashioned 'Flame and Fury' politics in the UK again.
Australian parliament can get pretty riled up in flame-wars, more so as of late. Quite amusing when I first witnessed one erupt, as we got to see adult politicians acting like 12-year-old forum n00bs.
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I think you're a little confused. The problem the third parties have here goes much deeper than that. If you've ever listened to Nader speak, for example, you know he has all the charisma of dead fish.
First I was talking about a British third party. I can't imagine the Lib Dems doing a worse job than either the Conservatives or Labour so it would have been an improvement to have given both of those parties a kick in the arse and made them realise that it wasn't a two horse race.
Secondly and more generally though how many candidates do you think there are who don't run because they don't think anyone other than the Dems and Reps can get votes? Now how many of them do you think might try it if they election result had been 55m Bush, 50m Kerry, 20m spoilt ballot?
The thing is if you don't advertise the fact that you are available as a voter no one will cater to you. You simply don't exist on the political landscape because there is no distinction between you and the lazy sod who doesn't vote cause he can't be bothered to tear himself away from the TV.
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I think you're a little confused. The problem the third parties have here goes much deeper than that. If you've ever listened to Nader speak, for example, you know he has all the charisma of dead fish.
First I was talking about a British third party. I can't imagine the Lib Dems doing a worse job than either the Conservatives or Labour so it would have been an improvement to have given both of those parties a kick in the arse and made them realise that it wasn't a two horse race.
Secondly and more generally though how many candidates do you think there are who don't run because they don't think anyone other than the Dems and Reps can get votes? Now how many of them do you think might try it if they election result had been 55m Bush, 50m Kerry, 20m spoilt ballot?
Surely it's 55m Bush, 70m spoilt ballot nowadays?
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Not really. I think we should count those who voted Bush as being the ones who don't understand how to mark a ballot paper.
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No, actually there's more to it then that.
Consider for a moment: politics has very little meaning to the average person's life. Much as we scream pure bloody blue murder over RFID passports, how many people actually use their passports, even HAVE passports? A minority.
The point here is that there is no real reason for people to get out and vote. They have no desire and no need. Whether the next president is a Democrat, a Republican, or from the Communist Party of America has no real bearing on their lives. They have no personal stake in things. All the damage one can do in eight years isn't much, and if you pursue too liberal or conservative agenda then your successor will almost certainly be from the other party and undo everything you did, then get blamed for not doing enough positive things for their party and it starts over.
As much as I hate to say it, voter turnout died with the abolition of machine politics. People voted then because they had a stake in things, because they felt they owed the party support: it had supported them. Not anymore. We have regressed to the day of post-Civil War politics, where nothing really mattered. All the people of intelligence, of stature, involved in public service today are in the courts. That's where the ability to make a lasting mark lies. Politicians are regarded as do-nothings and of little account. And in the end, they are for the most part.
And perhaps it's better this way. If nothing else it is indicative of there being no truly severe, far-reaching problems within the country. (Please note the within.) Otherwise people would care.
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And perhaps it's better this way. If nothing else it is indicative of there being no truly severe, far-reaching problems within the country. (Please note the within.) Otherwise people would care.
You are right about politics not having any bearing on people's lives, perhaps the biggest reason for this is the damn special interests both parties placate to.
But to say that this means the US is not headed for a major internal crisis. Such stagnation only leads to trouble.