Well Obama got the nobel peace prize.
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this is pretty pathetic if you ask me. regardless of his position of power and potential ability to carry out said acts of peace. you can always give him the award then. but to do it based on whatever it is he says he "would like to do" is a stretch.
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Trafik Jamz;291136 wrote:
But, none of them are in a position to do anything about it. Like/dislike Obama, he is still the most powerful man in the world (politically)Well then by this reasoning, Bush definitely should have gotten it because he sent troops out to destroy terrorists, which in effect makes the world a safer place...right? Even if it didn't make it safer or more peaceful, he WANTED to and THOUGHT it would, therefore, he should have won!
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StangerBanger96;291164 wrote:
Well then by this reasoning, Bush definitely should have gotten it because he sent troops out to destroy terrorists, which in effect makes the world a safer place...right? Even if it didn't make it safer or more peaceful, he WANTED to and THOUGHT it would, therefore, he should have won!it doesnt matter what HE thinks... it matters what the voting body thinks.
i dont think it is a secret that the rest of the world was not impressed with out previous president. unfortunately for him AMERICA doesnt decide who gets the prize.
hate obama or love obama you people should be impressed (or at least not outraged) that the rest of the world just recognized the united states as less of a pile of shit.
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24valvenotak;291167 wrote:
hate obama or love obama you people should be impressed (or at least not outraged) that the rest of the world just recognized the united states as less of a pile of shit.No, no, no Mitch....all this award proves is that Obama (and the country he represents) are a bunch of pussies that will back down from every challenge thrown their way and will achieve peace at the expense of every single civil liberty that you and I hold dear. Hasn't Fox news taught you anything?
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Trafik Jamz;291169 wrote:
No, no, no Mitch....all this award proves is that Obama (and the country he represents) are a bunch of pussies that will back down from every challenge thrown their way and will achieve peace at the expense of every single civil liberty that you and I hold dear. Hasn't Fox news taught you anything?oh yea, i forgot that being a socialist joker is waay worse then an uneducated coke face who wiped his ass with our civil liberties. i hope glen beck can forgive me. if i were unemployed and dropped out of school i could have payed more attention to the greatest media outlet the world has ever known. my bad. my bad.
The Glenn Beck Program - The Fusion of Entertainment and Enlightenment riiiiight.
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I do not recognize the right of the rest of the world to pass judgement on the United States; it's sanction is irrelevant.
Bush, for all his faults, to the extent he was able to wrap his head around the problem of 9/11, put America first, and anyone that thought his job was anything besides that doesn't understand Americans or America's unique role in world politics. The GWB whitehouse view might be thought of as "when Europe outsourced its securty needs to the US 60 years ago, it lost a lot of its management oversight in how the world gets run, and right now we have a mess to take care of. People that aren't interested in helping simply do not matter and will get fucking steamrolled if that's what it takes."
Stratfor has a pretty interesting analysis of the reactions of Europeans to American policy and presidents in the post WW2 timeframe.
The short version is: Western Europeans tend to like American presidents that don't rock the boat, and give Europe "veto power" over US foreign policy. The reason for this is that Europe stands to lose big in any blowback over US foreign policy disasters. Every cold-war scenario involved all of europe turning into a glass bowl, and Europe had no real say in the matter.
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Copypaste
"We simply disagree that he has done nothing," committee chairman Thorbjoern Jagland told the AP on Tuesday. "He got the prize for what he has done."
Jagland singled out Obama's efforts to heal the divide between the West and the Muslim world and scale down a Bush-era proposal for an anti-missile shield in Europe.
"All these things have contributed to — I wouldn't say a safer world — but a world with less tension," Jagland said by phone from the French city of Strasbourg, where he was attending meetings in his other role as secretary-general of the Council of Europe.
He said most world leaders were positive about the award and that most of the criticism was coming from the media and from Obama's political rivals.
"I take note of it. My response is only the judgment of the committee, which was unanimous," he said, adding that the award to Obama followed the guidelines set forth by Alfred Nobel, the Swedish industrialist and inventor of dynamite, who established the Nobel Prizes in his 1895 will.
"Alfred Nobel wrote that the prize should go to the person who has contributed most to the development of peace in the previous year," Jagland said. "Who has done more for that than Barack Obama?"
Aagot Valle, a left-wing Norwegian politician who joined the Nobel panel this year, also dismissed suggestions that the decision to award Obama was without merit.
"Don't you think that comments like that patronize Obama? Where do these people come from?" Valle said by phone from the western coastal city of Bergen. "Well, of course, all arguments have to be considered seriously. I'm not afraid of a debate on the peace prize decision. That's fine."
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thrash;291344 wrote:
I do not recognize the right of the rest of the world to pass judgement on the United States; it's sanction is irrelevant.really? seriously?
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Absolutely. Why would I?
I absolutely beleive in American exceptionalism. This is the only nation or political entity, I beleive in the history of time, that has formed its government on the sole premise of limiting the power of government to impugn on the intrinsic rights of its individual citizens.
That's important. Everyone else in the whole world is a subject. Americans are citizens. We rule ourselves, and we (and only we) retain the same force and authority as individuals that in all other nations have been delegated and reserved only for governors: individual Americans retain their natural-born right to retain the instruments of murder, destruction, and warfare, because ultimately it is only by these means that a man born free can long retain his freedom. Everywhere (here included), are men who fancy themselves your betters and would love nothing more than to make you their slaves.
Free for the sake of being free; that is the basis of American exceptionalism.
I don't rally against us going into pointless wars because I care about other countries. Other countries and other places do not meet the high bar set in our foundational documents [neither do we, lately sigh]. Some of these other places are nice to visit; none of them beleive an individual owns herself. All position the ruling class ahead of the individual.
If we go to war with Iran and I say I'm against it, it's not because I am super upset about the idea of us blowing up Iranians: to the extent that we have an open immigration policy [we don't any more, but I'd repair that], people choosing to stay in Iran have made their bed and can lie in it. Who would choose to live in a country that executes women who have "the nerve" to get raped? Should I shed a tear if we get into some kind of conflict with that government, culture, society, etc, and some of them get knocked off?
No, what would give me pause about going to war with Iran is the cost to us, in lives, dollars, and our sense of self respect. Is whatever issue we might have with them worth a single of our dollars or of our lives?
My idea of an America is the bully that wasn't. The strength and fortitude to do as we see fit, the wisdom to do only what is necessary. Necessary by who's standards? The only standard that matters -- our own.
America should have a passing interest in the rest of the world thinks, but it's merely an appeal to our national vanity, not something that matters. We shouldn't be out to piss people off, but some people will get butt hurt no matter what. Not our problem, but when someone makes it our problem, we should be sure to give them reason to think a bit more carefully in the future.
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thrash;291418 wrote:
All position the ruling class ahead of the individual.welcome to america.
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24valvenotak;291426 wrote:
welcome to america.That does seem to be the direction we are heading, the ruling class (government) seemingly wants to take over, or at least be involved in, every little day to day item in our lives. Our day to day lives are not THEIR responsibility, it is OURS.
DaveH
'94 Supra- 7.77 @ 176mph -
DaveH;291427 wrote:
That does seem to be the direction we are heading, the ruling class (government) seemingly wants to take over, or at least be involved in, every little day to day item in our lives. Our day to day lives are not THEIR responsibility, it is OURS.
the ruling class is big business. they have been in power since the 50s but more dramatically the 90s and now.try as the they might (govt) corporations dictate your day to day.
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24valvenotak;291440 wrote:
the ruling class is big business. they have been in power since the 50s but more dramatically the 90s and now.try as the they might (govt) corporations dictate your day to day.
you fail so hard.
"big business", as it were, could not control anyone or anything because as far as i know, its still illegal for a business to break into your house, put a gun to your head, or steal money from you. To do these things, one needs the help of government.
Big Business isn't stupid: they certainly want to control you, but the entity that they collude with to do this is where the problem really lies: an overbearing government that has overstepped its constitutional bounds.
"Big Business" and Government put the nails in the coffin in 1913 with the creation of the Federal Reserve System and legal tender laws. The wink-wink agreement was that private banks got to control the money, as long as they would make more anytime uncle sam needed some. Everyone else has lost, ever since.
In the Soviet Union there was no "big business". There was still violence, corruption, murder, graft, and the people's lives were still controlled.
The key is government. It's the entity that is always on the other side of the gun.
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Not disagreeing with you just too much here thrash, you are right in that gov't should stay the fuck out of our lives (generally speaking).
As for big business not controlling our lives, I'd say they do to a pretty large extent. If I want to start a store to compete with Walmart/Target/Kmart how could I possibly do it? For one I would need HUUUUUUGE capitol/investor money and second I need to be able to order at the same quantities as them to be competitive. How is a single store proprietor/start up business supposed to be able to "make it" in that environment? Short answer: You can't. Not at their level anyway. Same goes for insurance companies. It's not extremely hard to get your company licensed to do business in ND. There are tons of supplemental companies here already (Conseco, Combined, AFLAC, American Heritage, etc....) but nobody is really applying to be a major medical provider here because BC/BS makes it virtually impossible to do so by offering HUGE discounts to schools/large businesses/etc... at below their cost of insurance. So what they do is pick up the large accounts at a loss and then pass that loss on to the consumer in the form of higher premiums. By doing that they add a ton of people to their risk pool (making it slightly cheaper to do business) AND make it hard for anyone else to come in and do the same thing. Without the large accounts, it becomes extremely hard in a state the size of ND to pick up the smaller customers because you don't have the large businesses to spread the risk. IOW, it isn't worth it to another company to come in here. It's not like major medical insurance companies are knocking down the doors to do business in ND.
The point to all this griping is that these are effective businesses that don't and won't have a true competitor which is bad for the general public and local economy (less so w/ BCBS than walmart as BCBS employees at least have adequate pay and good benefits).
I personally have less problem w/ gov't regulating businesses (not controlling, but setting some guidelines/rules) than I do with them getting involved in my private life. In my opinion, small businesses built this country and big (huge) businesses are ruining it.
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Trafik Jamz;291501 wrote:
In my opinion, small businesses built this country and big (huge) businesses are ruining it.Bingo. We benefit from corporations, but would benefit from a large network of smaller businesses working together. Sort of like the DHL model, although that might be a bad example because that obviously didn't work too well.
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This post is deleted!
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thrash;291471 wrote:
you fail so hard."big business", as it were, could not control anyone or anything because as far as i know, its still illegal for a business to break into your house, put a gun to your head, or steal money from you. To do these things, one needs the help of government.
i need the help of the govt to break into your house, steal your money, or put a gun to your head?
what department do i call and who do i speak to for help in these matters? are you saying that oj contacted his local rep and had help driving the bronco?
thats my whole damn point! big business OWNS the govt. the govt caters to them in every single way imaginable.
by extension, big business owns you.
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PSiedTSi;291505 wrote:
Bingo. We benefit from corporations, but would benefit from a large network of smaller businesses working together. Sort of like the DHL model, although that might be a bad example because that obviously didn't work too well.double posting jewb, as it were
a network of small business would be great if the vast majority of people had any sort of moral code...
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