vtsnowedin wrote:
Now first off doesn't China and Russia's participation in the Korean and Vietnam wars give them some blame to share?
I blame anybody involved in any way in the production and supply of weapons and many of the guns used by the Vietnamese were made in Russia and China, but those countries' involvement bears no comparison with the death and destruction rained down by the USA.
As for numbers, are you actually defending killing people on the basis that lots of people die naturally so it doesn't matter. I struggle to believe that even an American can be so bonkers.
It was Chinese troops that crossed the Yalu river and pushed American and South Korean forces to the southern tip of the peninsula. That is a lot more then just selling them guns.
I also think the numbers they quote are grossly exaggerated but even if you accepted them it comes to about a half million a year and sadly something on that order are trying to kill Americans and need to be killed.
Is it really hard to fathom why many people despise the US?
Yes Biff there are the Stalin and Mao Tse tunge's of this world and their minions that truly "Need to be killed" else we would all be living under their heel. Those of us they hadn't slaughtered that is.
biffvernon wrote:Fortunately there are many Americans who hold a very different view, so we have to be careful not to generalise when we speak of despising the US.
It might be interesting to run a poll to see how many PowerSwitch members think I ,and then You, are spot on or out to lunch the majority of the time.
biffvernon wrote:Because it happens does not make it right. We seek to improve the world not accept the wrongs.
Biff you fail to recognize that it is not a clear cut decision between right and wrong but more often then not a choice of the lesser of two evils.
I am quite aware that some of my positions can be read as "Let them die" and that that is morally wrong, but that is due to the fact that I have thought it through to the final outcome and see that my position should result in the least number of deaths in the end. You on the other hand even though you can see the lifeboat is full to the gunwales insist on pulling in one more survivor thereby sinking the lifeboat and condemning all to drowning.
Your insistence on morality in all cases and at all times is in fact immoral.
biffvernon wrote:Ah but all too often it is a clear cut decision between right and wrong (e.g. the Vietnam War and the Iraq War were wrong).
Straw man arguments about lifeboats don't help.
The live boat argument is an analogy not a straw man.
Vietnam was wrong? For who? Those killed by the communist when they prevailed? How about the population that now lives with a per capita GDP of just $1077/ year? Vs, the USA's $56,421
Several prominent US Senators and mayors have been outed as members of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK) and other racist groups by the hacktivist collective Anonymous, and the group hints that more politicians and public figures will be named in the near future.
In a new post on document-dumping site pastebin, Anonymous names US Senators Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), John Cornyn (R-Tx.), Dan Coats (R-In.) and Johnny Isakson (R-Ga.) as members of the KKK. Anonymous also outed several mayors of major US cities, including Madeline Rogero of Knoxville, Tennessee; Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky; Paul D. Fraim of Norfolk, Virginia; Kent Guinn of Ocala, Florida; and Tom Henry of Fort Wayne, Indiana.
Thom Tillis, who is listed as a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in Thornton, was North Carolina’s Speaker of the House before being elected to the US Senate in 2014. Tillis was behind the implementation of numerous far-right policies in the Tar Heel State including voter ID laws, public education cuts, restrictions on abortion that were later struck down by federal judges, tax hikes on low-income earners to pay for tax cuts for the wealthy, among others.
John Cornyn, who Anonymous claims is affililiated with the United White Knights of the KKK, is the current Majority Whip, making him one of the most powerful members of the US Senate. Johnny Isakson is listed as a member of the Original Knight Riders of the KKK. Isakson served as a U.S. Congressman for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District between 1999 and 2005. He currently serves as Georgia’s senior US Senator, and is up for re-election in 2016. Dan Coats is Indiana’s senior US Senator, and is listed as a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK — along with Thom Tillis.
Jim Gray of Lexington, Kentucky, who Anonymous says is a member of the United Northern and Southern Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, is openly gay.
This bit at the end about what happened to the losing South Vietnamese must have slipped by you.
Including Vietnam's foreign democide, Rummel estimates that a minimum of 400,000 and a maximum of slightly less than 2.5 million people died of political violence from 1975–87 at the hands of Hanoi.[84] In 1988, Vietnam suffered a famine that afflicted millions.[87]
I suppose you blame those deaths on the USA as well.
Yes of course. They would not have happened had it not been for the US intervention. Vietnam was never part of the USA. Why did they ever go there? The French, who also should never have been there, at least had the wisdom to get out in a fairly timely manner.
Meanwhile, back in what really is the USA, we find curiously alarming data revealing a sick core to society.
A sharp rise in death rates among white middle-aged Americans has claimed nearly as many lives in the past 15 years as the spread of Aids in the US, researchers have said.
The alarming trend, overlooked until now, has hit less-educated 45- to 54-year-olds the hardest, with no other groups in the US as affected and no similar declines seen in other rich countries.
