After getting some rest, my headache has gone away and my drunkenness has subsided a bit. So here I go again. I warn you in advance, a wall of text lies ahead. Maybe I will be double-posting.
First things first:
NGTM-1R: It is your own ego that's been hurt, as far as I can see. In two different threads in the near past (the one about direct voting and the one about drug smuggling in Argentina), you've demonstrated you're unable to back your loud mouth with facts, theories, reasoning, or anything like that. Your most successful strategy so far has been pointing out that my grip on the English language is far from perfect. Which also leads me to think you're not the most sagacious observer around here either, as that's something to be expected from someone who warns about it in his own signature (by the way, what the hell happened to my signature?).
I think you may have a personal problem with me because you can't argue with me, and so you resort to this kind of posts wherever I go, as a way to annoy me. This means elaborating a reply to your posts is a waste of my time, as you won't answer to it anyway. As a result, I will disregard you from now on on any thread where I consider you're not worth the effort. I'll begin with the current one.
Karajorma: Ah! Karajorma. It's an honor to see you again. I regard you as an intelligent person and as a testament of reasonability.
The problem is, Argentina considers the current population was implanted after forcefully replacing the Argentinean settlement there.
Argentina happens to have a sizeable Chinese immigration. Say, if China attacked Tierra del Fuego and replaced its Argentinean population with a Chinese one, do you really expect Argentina to abide to the self-determination of this new Chinese population?
Sarafan: Ermmm...
No? Not at all? However, two interesting things can be derived from your post.
1) Inversion of the burden of proof: Isn't it interesting that you never actually asked yourself if that is true? Or that no one asked you to do it?
I could point you at the constant economic growth rate, the fulfilment of debt obligations with all the creditors who entered in negotiations about our debt, the constant surplus in export-import exchanges and the consequent growing in federal reserves, as some of the indicators that show an overall healthy economy.
You could point me at inflation, income inequality, low reliance on banks in the internal market, and unreliability of inflation indexes as indicators of problems (to which I would point out that work is already being done in all those areas, that those numbers are actually good considering Argentina's historical numbers, that hyperinflation and the corralito are historical causes that justify the formers, and that the latter is also a problem that is being addressed, since neither the government nor the private firms have been able to publish reliable numbers so far).
But none of that happened. You just said Argentina is in "deep economical trouble" (which is stretching the truth just a little too much), and everyone assumed that as true. No proof required, no numbers asked, no sources posted. It's just assumed as truth. Why is that assumed as truth? Why did you assumed it as truth without even asking yourself about it?
2) Now consider this: Brazil and Argentina share a similar (while not identical) historical background, speak mutually-intelligible languages, and have been allies and economical partners for decades by now. We can know each other far better than people in other countries can.
Now, if you just assume a lie about Argentina (or any other Spanish-speaking country for that matter) as truth without checking first, even when you're far less conditioned about your sources and your worldview than other forumites, can you imagine what people who don't even understand Spanish can do? They are at the mercy of a narrow worldview, and of the limited set of information they have access to. Now tell me: Don't you think this will condition their thinking? Limit their reasoning? Their understanding of what happens in other parts of the world?
I'm not answering those questions. I just would like you (and everyone else who reads this) to think about them.
An4ximandros: Your post is a joke, isn't it? Please, tell me you're just doing a parody of the usual layman of the world to prove a point here before my faith in humanity falls even lower than it already is.
First, no insults have been hurled so far. Which is already an accomplishment for a thread about the Malvinas on the internet. Second, your post is an incoherent, delirant mess mixing such cliches as fascism, supposed infatuation with President Fernandez, the usual scapegoat of Argentina being a broken nation (I LIVE here, it's thriving), all seasoned with the usual impartiality of Andrés Oppenheimer (and to think some people reject the Wikipedia as an unreliable source
).
Do you have any idea of how many editorials of this tone I've read in the last 10 years? How many supposedly neutral and accurate polls I've had to read? How many calls for all those things Oppenheimer wants to see, before the imminent collapse that Argentina will have NOW? (I mean NOW, for real this time, next weekend, about 3:00 pm, bring your own chair.)
Yet nothing happens.
Time and time again they keep telling us the roof will fall upon us. And yet the numbers keep denying it.
I've lost count about how many devaluations, hyperinflations, defaults, and other such catastrophes they have predicted in the last 10 years. 10 YEARS!
So far, nothing.
I wanted to believe them! I used to oppose this government. I used to live in fear that their predictions may come true. Those that sensationalistically warned us about the imminent dangers to democracy, about the danger of putting our money into banks, about the urgent need to buy dollars or euros (yeah, EUROS), about how the Kirchners will, without a doubt, loose the next election.
10 years of that kind of messages everywhere, all the time. 10 years. Not one of them has become truth.
Now, have you ever wondered, that maybe those journalists, those poll agencies, those massive medias managed from massive economic groups, may have an interest in us thinking those things are going to happen? You know, MAYBE? Just MAYBE a journalist, a poll agency, or a media group like CNN (to which Oppenheimer is an employee) isn't born neutral, pure, immaculate, blessed with the absolute truth and impartiality? Maybe, just like we don't trust our own governments all the time, we shouldn't trust everything we read in the internet or watch on television all the time?
Just MAYBE. I'm thinking in loud voice here.
