>What other country has been to
>the Moon?
>Who is at the forefront of
>medicine, agriculture, manufacturing....
>

Yes there are good and bad aspects to the US system. They have done some great things, but it may be the case that the long-term cost of these great things is higher than their immediate benefit. Maybe, maybe not.

But as for your specific examples:
medecine: when pharmaceutical companies own genes, let's see how great that turns out to be.
agriculture: if we find out that the cocktail of GMOs and pesticides we eat are pretty damn unhealthy, let's see how everyone likes that
manufacturing: so you're proud that you're country works millions of South Asians to the bone?

>Who? Probably the ancient Africans who
>turned the Saharan Forest into
>a desert.

Climatic change made it a desert something like 10,000 years ago (it's been a long time since I read the figure, but I don't think it's any less than that). Do you know how big the Sahara is? I don't see how primitive axes and low population could turn it into a desert.

Or we
>could look to the Native
>Americans who changed the Great
>Forest into the Great Plains?

Don't know about that, can't comment.

> Maybe the folks on
>Easter Island who cut down
>their trees in order to
>save themselves, who ultimately killed
>themselves.

Is that equivalent to the environmental destruction caused by, say, daily automobile traffic?

Perhaps Mexico or
>Japan? Maybe Western Europe
>before the Green Party?
>

You guys need to stop talking about Europe cos you don't know the first thing about it.
And I didn't say no-one else destroys their environment.

>>The most succesful in exploiting
>>the labour of many for
>>the benefit of the few?
>
>Obviously we are talking about any
>country that has had a
>King or an Aristocracy, France,
>England, Ashanti Kingdom, ..
>Definitely not America.
>

This statement is so ridiculous. The UK had its colonies. The US highly improved that system greatly: it doesn't have to maintain colonies, simply exploit (or rather, help private companies exploit) "sovereign" countries.

>>The most succesful in raising
>>a generation of people who
>>don't care (the very people
>>you hate)?
>
>We do not have a monopoly
>on that. IN fact
>that should be something commended.
> Our country has created
>an environment where the ills
>of the rest of the
>world aren't outside our doors
>everyday. The vast majority
>of Americans do not know
>what real hunger is.

A. You didn't answer my question.
B. The vast majority of Americans do not know what real hunger is because nearly half of the world's population lives at or below the international poverty line ($1/day), because 4% of the world's population lives on 25% of its resources. Western wealth and 3rd World poverty are highly linked, but none of you seem willing to recognise that.

>No American is worried about
>mortar shells or terrorist bombings.

But a lot of them seem worried about getting shot on the street.
>
> The most succesful
>>in creating maintaining the world
>>in an unprecedented state of
>>insecurity?
>
>Who is insecure?
>

Ever heard of the Cold War?

>>I'm not saying "things were better
>>before". I'm just asking what
>>the US system (ironically, based
>>on theories developed by Brits
>>and Frogs) is the most
>>succesful at.
>
>A better question, and shorter list
>would be things that we
>are the least successful at.

>Bringing me an
>>amazing amount of pointless material
>>goods?
>
>Cheap grain and meat is definitely
>pointless.
>

Especially if it's going to kill or slowly poison me and my environment. Do you think that the extensive farming practiced in the US is actually good for the environment? That hormone-injected beef is good for humans?

>>Providing millions of people
>>with demeaning and uninteresting jobs?
>
>What does Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea,
>or Malaysia have to do
>with this?
>

See above. And millions of Americans have demeaning and uninteresting jobs. My problem is (going off on a tangent expressing my ideals) that the more technology we have, the harder people work and more alienated they feel. Somehow that doesn't seem right to me. For me, progress would be for us to spend less and less time working at uninteresting jobs (although many people have interesting jobs they love) and more time doing what can truly enrich us.

>Because most people do not know
>another way of life.

Who knows a non-social life? Mowgli?

>No one asked me to
>join this society. I
>was born into it.
>
Whether or not you had a choice is irrelevant. The fact of the matter is that your living in a society has influenced you (not determined you).

>If you're talking about the so-called
>state of nature, no one
>has lived in that either.
>
Did I mention the state of nature? And by the way, that's talking about non-social man. I'm talking about people's urge to form societies.
>
>>So the environment that is around
>>you has no influence upon
>>you?
>
>That is not his argument.
>2 kids from the worst
>ghetto in the states can
>have 2 completely different futures.
>
See above. Why do you refuse to admit that one's environment influences one's behavior?

>
> If that were the
>>case, there would be no
>>such thing as empathy, and
>>I'm not sure I would
>>be able to recognise (from
>>an emotional standpoint) other people
>>as human beings. It is
>>because we have many things
>>in common (to varying degrees
>>depending on culture, etc.) that
>>we can live together.
>
>We live together because our culture
>forces us to. From
>the very beginning of life
>we are forced to include
>other people within our lives.
>
Not because we actually need each other and because we are alike. Too bad you didn't pop out of the air fully-formed so you could live your solitary life.
>
>It is an axiom. How
>is everyone not an individual?

What does saying everyone is an indivdual mean? We all have individual traits (some are more individual than others), but we have a lot of common traits too, which we acquire from the people and information around us: society.

>What really needs to be said
>is that all individuals are
>not going to agree on
>the right course of action.

And? Are you saying we can't live together? I don't agree with my girl-friend on every single thing, yet we mysteriously manage to live together. The secret? Compromise, understanding and freedom.

>Civil War 1861-1865.

Wasn't that about two sides trying to impose their viewpoint? One side won, one side lost.

>People will always need food, shelter,
>and oxygen. That is
>only if they want to
>live.

Those aren't ideals. They're necessities. Which a lot of people around the world don't have enough of (especially clean water). But that has nothing to do with you.

>
>>Come on man. Who puts these
>>ideals on paper? Men that
>>are the product of there
>>times.
>
>So ideals always change?

They change in the sense that they are re-configured to fit in with new time-frames. For a long time those time-frames changed very, very slowly. Now they change very quickly.

>Laws are flexible and should be
>overridden by public opinion.

Finally, some common sense!

>>However, do you realise
>>that the way we (Westerners)
>>live everyday hurts and has
>>hurt millions of people around
>>the globe?
>
>How so?

This question betrays your ignorance of the world beyond the US and American influence in it. Sorry to say this, but do some reading.

>>Have you ever been forced to
>>donate to charity?
>
>It's called foreign aid, social security,
>and welfare.

On average, for every dollar of foreign aid given, about 8 or 9 are taken. Plus, foreign aid is used to control recipient countries. If that's charity... Social security ain't charity. You pay for it so you can use it when you need to.

>My tax
>dollars go to all sorts
>of things I might, or
>might not approve of.

Yeah, like financing dictatorships and buying ever more weapons.

>>Didn't think so.
>>Maybe a more relevant example of
>>what you are trying to
>>say would be: Why should
>>I (speaking of myself, as
>>a member of the middle-class)
>>be forced (through taxes) to
>>pay for a hospital in
>>some poor area of my
>>country that I will never
>>go to?
>
>Exactly. Now you're coming around.
>
I like the selective quoting of what I wrote.

>It goes both ways. Most
>people would agree with choice,
>and most would also think
>that a 7 month old
>fetus is also a person.

You can abort at 7 months?!? In France it's limited to 3. After that you can't abort. Mainly because it becomes very dangerous for the woman. But a 7 month old feotus could be made to survive if it were born then, so it should be considered a person. But aborting at 7 months is just crazy.

> Most people just do
>not want to say that
>they are okay with murder,

Abortion is a form of murder, which is why everything should be done to avoid it, but comparing aborting a one month old non-concious mass of cells to an innocent black man on death row is insulting.

>You can try and convince the
>masses, but unless you're pulling
>the strings you don't really
>have any power.

Then how do you explain that women got the vote? That apartheid ended, that desegregation happened.

>Americans wouldn't know revolution if it
>came to them in various
>forms and then were assasinated
>by the powers that be...
>
I'm not sure what statement this is referring to, but it might well be true.

>Or should you leave the uneducated
>masses with the nuclear launch
>controls?

I wouldn't trust most of our "leaders" with the nuclear launch controls in a real pressure situation.
Common sense seems to say that having weapons that can destroy our planet in minutes isn't very smart in the first place.


AIM: mke1978

"L'actualité régionale: c'est vous qui la vivez, c'est nous qui en vivons"
In English:
"Local news: you live it, we live off it"
- Jules-Edouard Moustic, 20H20

"There's no blood in my body/It's liquid soul in my veins"
- Roots Manuva (check the fantastic album "Brand New Second Hand")