Originally posted by tEAbAG
Sorry guys, but you'd all be slaving away under a real facist state if it wasn't for the Americans.
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Nope. Sorry. Try again. (hint: the answer involves Russia, and the fact that they were practically storming the gates of Berlin around the time the Merkins were futzing around the French countryside)
I'd be the first to say that America has got quite a few problems, but this almost irrational bashing has got to stop.
No you wouldn't. And how is it "irrational"?
Nobody here is going off on some rant about how "UsA Iz teh SUXXORZ!" or anything, they've mostly got legitimate gripes. Quite good ones, considering the current situation. Don't like it? Go start a pro-US thread, don't tell people to shut up about their own opinions.
You like that computer of yours? How 'bout your television or your freedom of speach? For most of the world, like it or not, american intervention brings progress.
Freedom of speech, and all that comes with it, were pioneered by French philosophers. A handful of what amounted to the landed aristocracy in the colonies decided it sounded like a pretty good idea to get the support of the masses (whose only real gripe was that they didn't want to pay taxes for military support; all around they resembled the modern-day Freemen), and America was born. However, the
people of America have never been big fans of freedom of speech, equality under the law, or much of any of those other damn hippie sentiments, and we have a government that unfortunately reflects the desires of the people. If you look into US history,
we've been far less supportive of the whole concept of free elections, speech, or rights for all than, say, most of Europe, the democratic South American and African nations we overthrew and installed dictatorships in, or our slightly chilly neighbor to the north. America was Hitler's second biggest fan before Pearl Harbor (Austria came first, and then they stopped counting in short order); we've almsot always opted for wiretapping, arrests without warrant, and stringing up dissidents; and we've historically done just about everything we can to be sure that no third-world nation gets a government that's representative so much of its own people as our own Machiavellian aims.
Don't make silly claims, at least unless you note that you don't expect them to be taken and responded to seriously. It's
so tiresome.
As for computers, etc.- so? The first weapons and tools were invented in one of those little poverty-stricken East African nations, by all rights you should be thanking, say, Somalia every time you use any equipment at all.
Bleeding ingrate, how
dare you criticise the Ethiopian warlords! Without them, you wouldn't have the Wheel!
Shrike: True, and it's often unfair. But who do you blame but the guy who's in charge? If you're in a bus and it runs over a fire hydrant, are you more likely to blame the driver or the little old lady towards the back? If a corporation collapses, do you blame the CEO who's stuffing his pockets, or the janitor? For all you know, ol' Jim-Bob's been stealing corporate secrets from your manager's desk and selling them every night after he mops the floor, but the likelihood is more that something ****ed up higher in the chain.
