Posted by AuntieMel on November 3, 2005, at 9:25:16
In reply to Re: ?? » AuntieMel, posted by alexandra_k on November 2, 2005, at 16:18:06
>> "Because schools have been inundated with American creationist literature being sent to them."
> "Oh no, I just meant that the literature is coming from America. "And the point? Lots of things come from America. Some good, some bad. But calling something "American" seems to me to imply that it either has the support of the majority of the people, or it has been done by the government.
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"Ah. So when Americans die then that is because other people *intend* innocent people die.""I think we are more inclined to be charitable to our own"
"The noble and honourable intentions of the US, for example. "
"I don't believe... We get anything like an objective (or an appropriately inter-subjective) take on things."
Do you think it's hard to discern the intentions of someone who flies a plane into a building? Or bombs a school bus or a restaraunt? Or a subway system? Do you think it's possible that the target was something *other* than civilians and their deaths were collateral?
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"Because... The cycle has to stop somewhere. "
But we also know that appeasement doesn't work. And if you would like some verification of that I'll give you the email addresses of some of my friends in Poland.
I agree that war is a tragic waste. And I personally never believed the hype of WMD. *AND* I've never been a supporter of Bush.
But for this particular conflict? I've had mixed feelings since the beginning. Not because I was worried about WMD, but because I am horrified by a leader who will use chemical gas on his own people, and by many other things that this particular leader did. The rape, the murder, the torture....
Yes, sometimes war can be noble. Is this one? I don't know yet.
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"I don't believe... We get anything like an objective (or an appropriately inter-subjective) take on things."
"LOL! You don't know what sites I have been looking at. We get a variety of news sources in NZ. British, American, Australian, increasingly New Zealand sources too... I think... Us New Zealanders are considered 'neutral' rather than 'friendly' towards the US for a reason..."
I don't look at my country through rose-colored glasses, believe me. I purposely read web sites that are *not* friendly to us, AlJazeera, Pravda, one in Pakistan, and so on. I try to (not always successfully) find the truth, which is usually somewhere in between the positive and the negative.
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> Not the way we spend money? About NASA:
> "i think its all pretty interesting
> but... i'm sure people won't have too much of a hard time thinking of better uses for the $$$"Yup. Do you disagree?
Well, yes I do disagree. If not for NASA then I would probably not have gone into the sciences. I wouldn't have known to follow dreams. And before you say 'that was then' my youngest went to Space Camp twice - and she became fired up about sciences herself.
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I think the one thing you don't understand about us is that we are not the government, we are the people. All individuals. Sure, it's good to have some safety net, but most here rely on each other more than the govt. in times of trouble. At least in my neck of the woods.
It's the PEOPLE that make me love this country.
People like my eldest who worked every day at the Astrodome, from the day before it was opened as a Katrina center until the day it closed.
Like my youngest who worked there when she was in town.
Like the complete strangers who went to the dome to adopt families and take them home with them.
Like the hundreds and thousands who donated their time to help.
Like, when the roads were deadlocked before Rita, the hundreds who drove to them and passed out food and water and ice and gasoline to the stranded.
Like the nurse my daughter talked to who risked her life at a New Orleans nursing home trying to save the elderly from drowning.
This is just MY personal experience of *only* the last couple of months. It's not extraordinary - these things happen on different scales all the time.
And they are happening in Iraq. Not by the government, but by soldiers and citizens. I've read dozens of stories of people being brought over here for medical treatment that wasn't available to them before.
But - that's not newsworthy, is it?
poster:AuntieMel
thread:574039
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050924/msgs/574904.html