America's Drinking Laws (1 Viewer)

[Jenn]

I've had many people say that it was up to the Iraqi people to "rise up" against Saddam. People like Saddam, Castro, Stalin, etc, etc, ETC, ONLY keep power by having a network of snitches to protect from organized uprisings. The mass graves of Iraq are full of patriots who tried to do what our own patriots did in our country. The only difference is that we're just lucky that ours succeeded.

Those Iraqi patriots did what I know many of us would do were the United States a dictatorship. We would try to organize and it would grow until it got to the one wrong person. Then, people and their families are tortured until the names are given up. Then those people and their families are tortured until more names are given up, etc.

I've often wondered if the technology of today hasn't HURT the attempts at uprising. I mean, if you have money you can afford body gaurds, bribes, surveilence that can cover more street corners than a bunch of gaurds could. I see those videos shot from camera phones from over there that display the brutality and I see there civilians have access to some of it, but who's to say they don't have the technology to send the text messages, e-mails etc, that can be scanned through firewalls.

Back then people could put the word out, organize quick enough to conduct a meeting in a manner where it might take a spy days to get back to his superior to support something like that, and unless the spy knew each individual, there would have taken time to get to each one, deal with them, etc. By that time the message could have spread further. Now with information spread within a matter of seconds, it's probably much easier to stamp these uprisings out before they even get alot of speed.

 

[Jon C]

I have read this thread with some interest, and there is some very interesting rhetoric on both sides regarding the justification for the current 'war against terror' (to the poster above, many good, hard working innocent british civilians perished at the hands of so-called 'suicide bombers' on the streets of london on the 7th July, so we do have experience of this). We have also looked at the moral minefield that is the discrepant ages of legal responsibility for various activities across the free world. We have also clearly established that to assume an entire nation holds a view, just because a vocal minority has access to the media, is indeed a folly.

However, my most fervent hope is that readers of this thread can take one nugget of information away with them, if nothing else.





























'Bum' is not just a noun, it can also be a verb too!

 

[willy]

LOL..welcome to the Mater, Jon!!

 

[Nitrohaulic]

LOL, I believe "Bum a fag" is one phrase that might have a slightly different meaning over here than in England! I also understand that I would be a lorrie driver over there. Had two balogna sarnies here just last week!

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Well said, Mike. I, too, tend to be slightly left of center in my leanings, but I do try not to condemn any idea from the right just because it is from the right. I hope Jackee will agree with me on this--I believe that EITHER extreme-extreme right or extreme left is a dangerous place to be, but as you said, hopefully the extremes will lead to a place somewhere in the middle where we can lay some differences aside and work for the common good of the country. Just for the record, I am a registered independent, which precludes my voting in primaries in my state, but over the years I have voted for Republicans and Democrats based on what in my own poor fashion I percieve as policies that will be good for the country AND for me. Does that make any sense? Mike, you are certainly insightful beyond your years, and Jackee, do you see what I am getting at here? I don't agree with all of your stands, but I certainly do agree with some of them. That's ok with you, isn't it?

I heard it said once that if you go too far to the left OR right that it pretty much makes a circle in that you end up with the same thing. A minority telling the majority what to do.

That's why I focus on what I believe would elevate more individuals financially, because I equate that directly with freedom. The elitists on the liberal side who preach the "nobody has more than anyone else" socialism won't be part of the party.

 

[Nitrohaulic]

Interesting you should say that, Jackee! Being a child of the 60s and a college student during the early 70s during the Viet Nam conflict, that rather polarized a lot of my political leanings. But as you said, the older I get, the more conservative I seem to become. I doubt I ever will become a Rush devotee, but as the years go by, the pendulum certainly doesn't swing as far to the left in its arc as it did say 30 years ago! Glad you were just messin' with me also!

The radio talk show host, Michael Medved, says he was a protestor during Viet Nam. He says that after we pulled out, when approximately two million people were slaughtered, and the Jane Fondas of the world didn't seem to care, is when his eyes started to open.

I definitely fit Winston Churchhill's "If you're twenty and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you're forty and not a conservative, you have no brain."