Bro Deal said:
What is it with right wingers and racism? Is it a membership requirement or something? Since it's no longer viable in modern America to hate the jews or blacks, what are you bigots going to do when it's no longer okay to hate the arabs? Which group is next on the hate list? Inquiring minds want to know.
The middle east, by and large, is culturally retarded. Blacks under apartheid had more rights than women in most Muslim countries. Oil has subsidized this way of life. And yet, some of these places are incredibly poor, the slums of the world, completely lawless. Democracy? Forget it. There are some places where government of any sort can't get a foothold unless it's ruthless. Sometimes the only way to govern is to trot people out of their homes, line them up against a wall and shoot them.
Now, I can barely believe I wrote that last line, but I have seen these places. I have walked through them, albeit armed to teeth, and I know these ****ed up scenarios exist. But I don't believe they have to. I'd like to believe that the best thinkers in the western world can figure these things out, but it's going to take many more 9/11s and a couple environmental 9/11s before any of that happens. It's a shame, but my belief is, humans will have to be faced with their own extinction before we act on issues like this.
Healthcare and other social welfare issues breakdown like this. You can pay up front and take care of the helpless and those who don't want to work, or you can build prisons and lock them up after they rape, steal or fly jetliners into your downtown. Seems easier to address the problem before it starts. Doesn't mean you endorse laziness or backwards thinking. Just means you're being a realist.
We're spending billions on a war in Iraq. We went in and wrecked the place. From what I'm hearing, Iraq, with a few exceptions in the north, is a giant Mogadishu. We should have never went in, but pulling troops out
now is immoral. Democracy was unrealistic. Iraq will be partitioned and, in place of Saddam Hussein, there will be a half dozen Saddam Husseins. Not the shining beacon of anything that GW envisioned but at least it's under control enough for America to address its own issues, like immigration, healthcare, rebuilding New Orleans, global warming, our dependancy on oil foreign or domestic, and terrorism.
I heard on NPR this morning that last month in New Orleans there were something like 52 murders and three arrests. As an American, I find that to be embarrassing.
I don't know. What will it take? Right wing/left wing extremism is nothing more than emotionally based ********. It's what politicians and pundits use to make a living. Anyone taking stock in Air America or Rush Limbaugh has turned their brains off. If it's not emotionally based, people want nothing to do with it. These issues are complex, but they are solvable. They pale in comparison to some of the great physics and medical discoveries solved in our time. Pale in comparison.
I'm sure everything will work itself out. I'm going lobster diving in the Keys this weekend. Last week I got six keepers and speared two black groupers. One 20lbs, the other about 15. Free diving from a kayak. Quite a day. My wife can hold her breath for 2 1/2 minutes. I hope our grandchildren get to experience the Keys. You know, they have these endangered deer down there that grow no bigger than a greyhound. In fact, they look like dogs when you see them from afar. These little deer have stymied big development on the two biggest islands in the Keys because of their endangered status. Two big islands, perfect weather, crystal clear water, sea trout, cobia, king mackerel, stone crab, lobster (!)... perfect for hi-rise development, but of the almost 200 homes there, none are more than three stories because of a couple hundred deer, some smaller than a greyhound.
Now that's progress.