While I don't dispute the good we do in the world, and we sure do plenty of it, we also do a lot of shitty things and reading stuff like this makes me laugh when I"M criticized as being naive.
In 36 hours last week Carrier Group 12 left the Persian Gulf, steamed 700 miles and used its Forward Projection off the Pakistani coast. Under the guise of assisting OEF, we know better. I know because my son is there.
"So, DJ, do you think the world should give thanks to America?"
Mark, you are one hypocritical asshole, aren't you?
I'm debating with myself about answering that question, or just leaving you to stew about how hypocritical it is for you to ask me a question at all. But that's a waste of thought, because you're just too pathetically stupid to understand the hypocrisy that you exhibit.
Or is that you do understand it, but all you're here for is to make noise, to provoke argument for the sake of argument, to be an asshole because doing so is a humorous diversion for you?
We'll never know, because you won't tell us. You can't be trusted to tell us the truth and we can't read your tiny little mind anyway.
Yeah, Mark, sometimes enough is enough.
Even so, I'll answer your question.
YES, the world, the whole fucking world, should give thanks to the United States of America.
The real question is, "Why?"
Well, that's pretty simple. Try imagining what the world would be like today if the last hundred years had played out without the United States of America becoming a world power and using its military and economic clout to influence that history. Try imagining what the world would be like today if the United States of America did not offer a clear example of what freedom offers to those who are willing to work for it. Try imagining the result if, at any point during that time, the United States simply pulled its Navy back to its home ports, grounded its Air Forces, downsized its Army to a few tents in Kansas, kept the Coast Guard within the three mile limit, stayed out of space or kept its satellites for its own uses only, traded only within its own borders, and just left the rest of the world to stew in its own juices.
What would be different, Mark?
Would Europe be a single Germanic Nazi state instead of a continent full of democracies? Would the Mediterranean be a Fascist Italian lake from Morocco to Eritrea? Would South Korea be a communist desert instead of an established economic dynamo? Would China be nothing more than a source of Japanese slave labor instead of an emerging economic dynamo? Would the Pacific basin be a Japanese lake serving the Emperor? Would the Arab states of the Middle East ever have emerged from seventh century religious feudalism? Would the Middle East be the toy kindgom of an Islamic dictator with his finger on a nuclear trigger and his hands at the throat of the industrialized world? Would this internet thing I'm communicating with exist at all?
This list could go on and on and on. So could a list of the errors that were committed along the way. The sickest, most twisted set of neurons in your head, Mark, are the ones that make you see only the errors and not the balance of good v. bad. You won't even recognize that there is a balance.
Lots of us don't have that problem. I see the balance, Mark. I see both the good and bad, and to me, the good outweighs the bad by several orders of magnitude. Ask the Dutch. Ask the English and the French who lived through WW I and WW II. Ask the East Germans. Hell, ask the West Germans. Ask the South Koreans. Ask the Italians. Ask the Chinese. Hell, ask the Japanese. God damnit, ask the fucking Russians. Ask the millions of immigrants who followed the rules and came here for the future that the United States has to offer. Ask the millions of immigrants who didn't follow the rules and are coming here for the same future.
Mark, if your view of reality doesn't take into account all we know of reality, then it cannot possibly be either correct or complete. You simply will not admit that a great deal of reality even exists.
I share Kevin's assessment that you don't merit respect, and I don't have any for you. You simply won't earn it.
Now, I answered your question, you hypocritical fool. It's long past time for you to go answer Unix's questions. He's still waiting.
DJ, we were a great country during some of the time you have mentioned above. Things began to change when Eisenhower was in office and it has been going downhill ever since, with all too brief moments of hope sprinkled in here and there.
I posted a longer response to this on my blog if you are interested.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
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If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2007/11/quote-of-day_18.html (9 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
While I don't dispute the good we do in the world, and we sure do plenty of it, we also do a lot of shitty things and reading stuff like this makes me laugh when I"M criticized as being naive.
So we should concentrate on the shitty things we do, and stay home because of that?
You mischaracterize what he was writing. That's not naivete, but you can't recognize it what it actually is.
Mark:
You just called Mark Steyn "naive?"
Is that what you actually meant to say?
In 36 hours last week Carrier Group 12 left the Persian Gulf, steamed 700 miles and used its Forward Projection off the Pakistani coast. Under the guise of assisting OEF, we know better. I know because my son is there.
Unix,
If he continues to say things like "the world should give thanks to America" then he is naive--or bought off and part of the problem.
Mark, if you can't understand that he isn't naive, then your filter is plugged solid and you are part of the problem.
So, DJ, do you think the world should give thanks to America?
"So, DJ, do you think the world should give thanks to America?"
Mark, you are one hypocritical asshole, aren't you?
I'm debating with myself about answering that question, or just leaving you to stew about how hypocritical it is for you to ask me a question at all. But that's a waste of thought, because you're just too pathetically stupid to understand the hypocrisy that you exhibit.
Or is that you do understand it, but all you're here for is to make noise, to provoke argument for the sake of argument, to be an asshole because doing so is a humorous diversion for you?
We'll never know, because you won't tell us. You can't be trusted to tell us the truth and we can't read your tiny little mind anyway.
Yeah, Mark, sometimes enough is enough.
Even so, I'll answer your question.
YES, the world, the whole fucking world, should give thanks to the United States of America.
The real question is, "Why?"
Well, that's pretty simple. Try imagining what the world would be like today if the last hundred years had played out without the United States of America becoming a world power and using its military and economic clout to influence that history. Try imagining what the world would be like today if the United States of America did not offer a clear example of what freedom offers to those who are willing to work for it. Try imagining the result if, at any point during that time, the United States simply pulled its Navy back to its home ports, grounded its Air Forces, downsized its Army to a few tents in Kansas, kept the Coast Guard within the three mile limit, stayed out of space or kept its satellites for its own uses only, traded only within its own borders, and just left the rest of the world to stew in its own juices.
What would be different, Mark?
Would Europe be a single Germanic Nazi state instead of a continent full of democracies? Would the Mediterranean be a Fascist Italian lake from Morocco to Eritrea? Would South Korea be a communist desert instead of an established economic dynamo? Would China be nothing more than a source of Japanese slave labor instead of an emerging economic dynamo? Would the Pacific basin be a Japanese lake serving the Emperor? Would the Arab states of the Middle East ever have emerged from seventh century religious feudalism? Would the Middle East be the toy kindgom of an Islamic dictator with his finger on a nuclear trigger and his hands at the throat of the industrialized world? Would this internet thing I'm communicating with exist at all?
This list could go on and on and on. So could a list of the errors that were committed along the way. The sickest, most twisted set of neurons in your head, Mark, are the ones that make you see only the errors and not the balance of good v. bad. You won't even recognize that there is a balance.
Lots of us don't have that problem. I see the balance, Mark. I see both the good and bad, and to me, the good outweighs the bad by several orders of magnitude. Ask the Dutch. Ask the English and the French who lived through WW I and WW II. Ask the East Germans. Hell, ask the West Germans. Ask the South Koreans. Ask the Italians. Ask the Chinese. Hell, ask the Japanese. God damnit, ask the fucking Russians. Ask the millions of immigrants who followed the rules and came here for the future that the United States has to offer. Ask the millions of immigrants who didn't follow the rules and are coming here for the same future.
Mark, if your view of reality doesn't take into account all we know of reality, then it cannot possibly be either correct or complete. You simply will not admit that a great deal of reality even exists.
I share Kevin's assessment that you don't merit respect, and I don't have any for you. You simply won't earn it.
Now, I answered your question, you hypocritical fool. It's long past time for you to go answer Unix's questions. He's still waiting.
DJ, we were a great country during some of the time you have mentioned above. Things began to change when Eisenhower was in office and it has been going downhill ever since, with all too brief moments of hope sprinkled in here and there.
I posted a longer response to this on my blog if you are interested.
http://markadelphia.blogspot.com/2007/11/thank-you-america.html
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>