Anti American sentiment

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Not in America. People will always be people and hate each other for one reason or another. And since the Bush administration has undeniable heavy ties to the fundamentalist Xtians, the government is therefore now biased in their direction. They use fundamentalist beliefs as platforms for election (and re-election).

The passing of Intelligent Design in some schools is a good example of this bias. It should be in a world religions class, not a science class.

That doesn't mean Iraq will always be a mess if the lines remain the same.
Iraq is not really any more phony a creation than Belgium, where the Walloons and the Flemish have been forced to live together, and the Belgians have a pretty decent standard of life.

Good point.
Also, we don't hear much from the mainstream media about the difficulties that UN troops are having in Kosovo!

I've enjoyed going into the chat for several months. but it got a bit to much when I was attacked for being American and called names as a result. These situations had nothing to do with politics and yet I've been blasted for being American. Ive gone on when others were in the process of being called names as a result of being American. So this is what this thread was originally started up, Americans felt we were not welcomed in the chat room, PERIOD. politics aside we been treated maliciously and I don't understand why. I mention that my daughter would never date a guy who would sit in his car and honk his horn for her to come running, nor is my son allowed to do that for his dates, and I'm called stupid American. What does that have to do with my nation? I teach my kids to demand and give respect and I'm a stupid American? Oh you should have heard it when I told someone in the chat that I went to see my son graduate from Air Force bootcamp(He's in the Reserves) Or that my daughter's fiancee is in the Army. Rediculous......

I can't help wondering, if like some people in depressed countries, that some people here are just venting frustrations about their lives in general. The president may not be perfect, but he does not make laws either. He is a part of the government, he is NOT the government. To say he is responsible for everything bad in the world is odd enough, let alone to say that of him in the US. As much as people hate military action, dont forget Clinton holds the record for the most times US troops were deployed in action by a president. Clinton also severely handicapped the US intelligence services. The Democrats started getting the US in debt during and after WWII, and the US has not exactly ever come out in the green since then. FDR wanted to reform social security with investment options, so the one on the table now is not the first time this idea has been brought up. No the president may not be perfect, but neither was Clinton, Gore, or Kerry. The Dems might have had a shot if the Dem blacksheep were not hogging the Dem spotlight all the time and they stopped infighting. Thats one problem, they seem less cohesive and organized, i have even heard rumors of a Dem party splitup, between Southern and Rural Dems and Urban Dems. Gore had a problem, he went from having a mild personality in the late '80s, to being associated as a robot or a stone statue when he ran, plus he was comming off a corrupt Clinton scandal, well one of many Clinton scandals, where Clinton became a sitting president and a prosecutable criminal offender. Kerry had about as much reliability as a WIND CHIME, he blew where ever the wind or percieved popular support took him, a president, though voted, is supposed to LEAD, not be LEAD. Forget third parties, they never have a chance.

If blame must be placed for problems with our nation, its not productive to POINT at any one party or president. Its the system, it needs updated. When a person can be a politician for 20 or 30 years, thats a career, a professional, and they tend to want to keep their jobs. They give themselves raises and lay off government workers (re: Congress, aka both parties). They spend more time away from their constistuency then around it. They maybe more suseptable to bribes to keep a high lifestyle and support their party with outrageous campaign funding. I think the party system shoiuld be eliminated altogether. Reason, both parties have a tendency to vote inline with their party, and not with their own conscience. While i might expect maybe more than half doing that, i dont like seeing all but say one or two on opposing sides of a bill. That can only mean they are being swayed by party peer pressure, not their voters or their own minds. We need term limits on every office, and accumulated offices. We need a random system to select candidates for offices, eliminate the powerful lobbyists that are undermining the system and the gratiutous campaign funding. The process should be lower costing and more equal.

The purpose of the electoral college, is not solely to stem popular vote, but to spread out popular vote, so all areas get a more equal sway. Granted Gore may or may not have had more votes, its hard to say if one's source is either Dan Rather or Tom Brokaw, but if one looks at the election map. One would see that most all the Gore votes are concentrated in a few large cities and alon the West Coast and some of the East Coast. While i can see the purpose of strict popular voting, i can also see the problem if the some 95% of the area of the Country and all the smaller towns, middle states and such would get left out. I dont see a president winning an election because he won only say, the 10 largest cities in the country while most of the rest voted the other way as being fair either. Thats rather Carthagenian, and we all know that system worked so well....NOT, Rome crushed them because they were concerned about money and the city and trade, not the army or their outlaying territories, nor was nearly as much developement put into those areas. Would it be anymore fair, if a candidate could win the election just by winning, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and San Francisco??

He may have gotten the popular vote, but was it a representative vote? did it fairly represent the whole nation? What about accusations of votes of dead people, convicts, and even pets?? This supposedly happened in Florida.

Just a few things to think about. And the Electoral College may not be perfect, but neither is the direct popular vote, since straight popular vote is obviously more prone to SELECTIVE processes. If the system was uniform, and the population spread out more evenly, then perhaps it would work well, but a candidate can nearly win with just one or two states. So clearly the college is not perfect either, but even that is more spread out than just a hand ful of cities selecting the president.

This is what i think makes a good president!

Sex scandals.

Because that keeps him so preoccupied trying to deflect the blame that he doesn't get a chance to establish an agenda.

Ever since FDR, America has moved away from power of the States (which represents the individual alot closer) to a very powerful centralized government. If you would consider how the origional system was set up, you would note that the framers of the constitution had a radical idea, that a king (president) should not wield so much power. Origionally the president had the power of veto, he was the commander in chief (of the armed forces) and he was a foriegn dignitary (attend funerals and balls).

The notion of the executive branch of our government having so much power is in direct contrast to what the framers had in mind. (left ambigious for a reason)

A sex scandal leaves the people in a free society to operate freely without government intervention. In economics we all learned about the invisible hand of the economy. Well politicians think they need to show results by enacting new laws. That it had gotten to the point where they felt the need to legislate common sense. Now it seems that, that avenue has been exhausted , now it seems everytime i turn around, new laws are being written in favor of big business, and anti labor. Don't they realize that people gotta work, and have decent paying jobs too. If that doesn't happen then who's gonna buy all that crap at wal-mart which is made in China.

Say all you wan't about the liberals, but their infighting is what works best for the American people.

Sex scandlals keep new laws from being written. New laws and excessive restrictions keep forward progress from happening.
God Bless Clinton and his affinity for hummers and cigars.

Epimonandas wrote,

Have you seen fehreniet 911?

What if someones brother was the governor of a swing vote state?

What if someones cousin was head of FOX News. the only one of the four networks who refused to give Florida to Gore.

Being from the West Coast i am even prouder today after read your post.

Thanks for the compliment.

I suppose then, that even though the other networkds show '0%' of the votes reporting that they were psychic, which i always thought was stupid. How can one kow with 0% of the votes in?

yes my good fellow, how can they?
i suppose that they are psychic?

it is the first time that i remember them being wrong.
and it is highly suspicious, the players involved.
the first time that i remember them being wrong.
highly suspicious
the players involved.


ii do not need the dewey defeats truman argument either.

technology and the instantaneous exchange of information makes it an apples and oranges comparison

in reply to what you said

I agree with Paula...we weren't even discussing politics, and we got called "stupid Americans." It's ignorant to stereotype an entire country if you've never been there...you don't see me stereotyping any of the other countries...there may be some things I don't like, but I chalk it up to cultural differences.

I hate American politicians as much as anyone else. I wish the rest of the world would "get" that I'm on their side. Insulting me only makes me defensive and angry.

Why, I'm willing and happy to bash US politicians ANY day of the week. But when people generalize that "all Americans are this" or "all Americans are that," it's completely unfair and gets my goat if I truly feel like I'm included in that.

Sophist,
you seem ripe for the picken.

How would you like to join my anti-incumbant party.

Teach the civil servants that they will not be career special interrest politicians until they begin to honor their campaign promises, and refuse the agenda that they keep a secret during the campaign.

I am an American and I often feel like saying that. Americans are apathetic about bullying and even physical damage being done to their persons. "We" kill ourselves slowly with tobacco and alcohol by the millions and then want to deny people the right to own "dangerous animals" because they've killed a couple of dozen people in the last decade. We are not only apathetic about the development of a police state, it's a sweet dream in lollipop land for a lot of us. We're more concerned with finding people to punish for causing a problem, a lot more, than with growing up and doing something about it.

First of all let me stat that i love this phrase,

may i borrow it sometime?

Second,
let me take a stab in the dark. i don't have much to go on, but, do you take care of either pit-bulls or rottweillers?

By the word US, do you mean to state that you welcome a police state, here, in America?

I would if I could. I prefer Rottweilers. They are more mellow than black Labradors. I hope to be able to soon. Fortunately they are not banning dogs, but they are banning almost anything that could be called a "wild" animal due to an unfortunate death that was caused by an animal that was not considered to be domesticated livestock. One tiger kills one girl, and now it's a drive against all ownership of big cats everywhere and against ownership of a bunch of species that never did anyone any harm. It's sickening and it seems like I'm the only one who is firmly protesting this. One place I read about this on said it the way I want to say it, that they want to make Kansas a "killing field" for exotic pets. It's exactly as if a lot of people are looking hard for a way out of this freedom thing.

The same kinds of douchebags get pitbulls banned. They banned pitbulls in Denver and then had the police answering calls from "concerned citizens" and going after any animal that they thought was a "pitbull." As far as I am concerned anyone who would call in their neighbor for owning a dog whose looks they don't like is someone who needs to move to Saudi Arabia or Singapore for the rest of their life. This kind of thing is helping to tear our freedoms down. It's the "any excuse" thing plus the thing of having people's neighbors run/ruin their lives for them.

Something to throw in here is the reminder that the principle of personal freedom is supposed to be the thing about America that we can most count on. From what I've seen, we can't count on it. Anyone with a grudge can take more freedoms away and it's a lot harder to get them back than it was to take them away. There's some anti-American sentiment for you, in the acts of those people and in the way we let it happen.