Posted on 08/10/2008 6:28:43 AM PDT by Mobile Vulgus
They rock man, what a silly question, politics ain’t everything, many things are more important, hell, almost everything is. If you’re skipping the olympics because China is evil that is just plain silly.
YEA all the way.
What could be better for America right now than to have two weeks to root for our amazing (and gracious) athletes and this awesome country they represent?? My patriotism SOARS during the Olympics and I’m sure I’m not alone.
Politics is a big interest of mine but during these games I put it all aside and just enjoy myself. Life is too short, this campaign season has been too long, and I’m relaxing for a change.
I don’t care about the Olympics because I simply find them boring beyond belief. China has nothing to do with it.
I’m watching the swimming right now.
McCain has really been running a lot of commercials during the whole day!
A good idea, IMHO.
That 400 Free Relay might have been the most exciting race I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen world records broken from the pool deck. Un-frickin-believable!!! Lezak’s the man!
Count one more “Yea.”
It’s great seeing President Bush there, enjoying himself and supporting the athletes.
Go America!
That was a super finish, after the French had been talking about “crushing the Americans”!
Phelps gets another gold! Sweet!
I’m going to try to stay up to watch archery at 2 AM. That’s my favorite individual sport!
They won by 8/100th of a second!!!
....Well the Chinesse went crazy yesterday for the American men’s basketball “Redeemed Team USA” or what I call the redeemed the dream team men’s basketball team. They ate it up.
These same Chinesse you say are our enemies cheered Team USA when it made its appearance in the bird’s nest Friday night. Take issue with the government, not the people.
I’m proud to say that I haven’t watched a second of these Olympics. And it’s going to stay that way.
People have trained their whole lives for this moment in time. And that is what it is about.
Absolutely.
The thread poster may not realize they are espousing jimmah carter think.
Carter boycotted the Russian Olympics - which went on just fine without our wonderful American athletes, many of whom were forever cheated out of the goal they had worked/trained for all their lives.
That's called cutting off your nose to spite our face - or, in this scenario, in true Marxist mode, cutting off everyone ELSES noses ...
LOL
Hate to break this to you - but - we never have been.
America is a REPUBLIC
Your reasoning is specious. The olympics were not and are not designed to stop wars. In a political sense, they are simply propaganda stages.
I’m not certain what your real complaint is. The choice of venue is not an American decision, and is in just about every sense a political decision fraught with IOC corruptibility. If the point is that we should not participate whenever the olympics is held in a place we disapprove of, I must ask the question “Should we punish our athletes because of matters outside their control?”
Frankly, I ignore the television coverage of the olympics because of the “human interest” crap that the networks likes to push so hard. But that does not lessen my support for our athletes, who have worked their tails off to make it to the largest and most prestigious amateur athletic stage in the world.
I harbor no illusions that the olympic games can do anything to stop war or human suffering.
You gotta be kidding.
Your sarcasm aside, thanks for reminding FR of the SUCCESSFUL 1980 Olympics boycott that led to the downfall of the now EXICTINT communist soviet union. Far from making Carter look like a lone idiot, no less than 62 OTHER nations FULLY joined the U.S. in that effort, and many others national skipped the opening ceremony and sent smaller delegations through partial boycotts. Only 81 nations participated that year, the lowest since 1956.
As a result, there were a few ceremonies where three Olympic Flags were raised. I'm proud to say the combined effort was a huge embarrassment for the Soviet police state and caused the world to reject their sham attempts at self-publicity. The athletics of freedom-loving nations fully participated at the alternative Liberty Bell Classic held the University of Pennsylvania that year to the applaud of people worldwide.
Americans KNEW how to deal with ruthless commie dictatorships back in the 1980s. Too bad they lack the spine to even boycott the opening ceremony of Red China's propaganda fest this year.
The soviet union was dead only 11 years after the Olympics boycott in 1980, thanks to the leadership of men like Ronald Reagan. Sadly, thanks to suck-ups like Clinton and Bush, Red China's human rights tyranny shows no signs of slowing.
Hate to break this to you, but we are a DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC. We have a little thing in this country called free elections and REPRESENTATIVE Democracy that I wouldn't want to live here without.
You seem to have a difficult time understanding that a country can be both a democratic state AND a soviegn republic.
Feel free to visit THE PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC OF CHINA if you want to see an example of a soviegn Republic that has NO democracy. They've been a proud UNDEMOCRATIC Republic since 1949!
Wow! I'm glad you straightened me out, I was under the impression the Soviet's desire to be a military superpower and it's Arm's Race with the US was the single-most contributing factor for bankrupting the old communist state?
Thank God we DIDN'T have Jimmy Carter & Ronald Reagan taking a first class flight to Red Square in 1980, turning a blind eye to the russian human rights abuses and whole-heartily embracing the communist propaganda fest, even grinning and shaking hands with the head of the KGB, so they can ogle attractive scandinity clad cheerleaders prancing around the banners of Lenin and Stalin in all the all-out tribute to "successful" Marxism. (if the USSR had the "world community" hailing their olympics and pumping zillions into their economy in 1980, I have no doubt they would have still been in buisness post-1990)
You know, UNLIKE the leaders we have today.
Glad I could set the record straight. In was our actions in the 80s, NOT the 40s, that caused the USSR to implode.
An acquaintance of mine told me he and his wife had just returned from a month in China teaching children English. They are retired NY City schoolteachers who vacation there.
When I asked him what he thought of having the Olympics in China, he said he thought it was wonderful. I pressed him further, “but we are endorsing a totalitarian regime with no human rights.”
“The Chinese people want it that way” he answered. “They like the structure.”
I was floored and mumbled that famous Musollini quote about the trains running on time. Then I questioned how he knew this to be so. “They tell me,” he said. I responded, “but they aren’t free to talk.”
He shrugged and did not respond.
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