Posted on 09/28/2005 9:02:14 PM PDT by manny613
After the 2000 elections, George W. Bush became president without a majority vote. Many Europeans snickered at the sorry spectacle of the world's oldest continuous democracy devolving into Third-World election chaos. Few critics cared to hear about the nature of America's two-century-old Electoral College.
(Excerpt) Read more at jewishworldreview.com ...
Dumbass Euro's. Clinton never had a majority in two elections.
Neither did JFK
Even the British don't like the lessons from VDH's articles. I have seen very few praises for him from the other side of the pond. As people still say "The Channel is far wider than the Atlantic" you can imagine how much more the Euros hate VDH's arguments.
Oh well, their loss.
VDH is being nice here - and inaccurate. At this point in history most Americans who know anything about it are wondering just how badly the Europeans will screw up the incredible historical opportunity they were handed, and why. I agree with him, though, in that it's time for a little disengagement.
That does not address the issue at hand, which is the realization by the American public after 9/11 of the magnitude and universality of the anti-American rhetoric in the continent, its venality, mendacity, and reverence for the comfortable lie. The sneering, unreasoning contempt in which the United States is held by the high majority of European intellectuals, politicians, cultural critics, media figures, and nearly anyone with more microphone than brain is simply overwhelming. That part of Europe is not worth saving and will not be missed.
Military matters especially seem to bring out our differences. In Iraq, Americans are caricatured by Europeans as Neanderthals bashing heads in the Sunni Triangle while the refined British patrol without helmets or sunglasses in the calmer Shiite south. Yet Basra is becoming lawless due to the British's laxity. Lately, an exasperated British military resorted to crashing a tank into an Iraqi detention center to try to rescue its own kidnapped soldiers.
The Poms won't be pleased to read this part of the article.
Another great one ...
IOW: Joose.
You know there's something wrong with Britain and Europe when you see routine denouncement of "American imperialism and world haegemony" by students attending the Imperial College, or politicians with titles such as OBE (Order of the British Empire), and when they sneer at the American Christians and the seemingly unsecular approach to things when, hello, there is one big Church of England as an established church.
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There is a similar irony of the Democrats who fight against the exploitation of Minorities by exploiting them. And the anit-war protestors who think war GW is evil then share a tent with George Galloway of Al Sharpton.
I think most people, in most countries are idiots. Percentage wise it is easier to calculate in the US as they have only two parties. In the UK is a little bit more different as we half 3 major parties (Lab, Lib and Con) and three minor parties (Green, UKIP, BNP). Most of our politicians are idiots, most of the people who vote for them are idiots.
And thanks to that Perot puke, we suffered.
Post them then.
VDH is being nice here - and inaccurate. At this point in history most Americans who know anything about it are wondering just how badly the Europeans will screw up the incredible historical opportunity they were handed, and why. I agree with him, though, in that it's time for a little disengagement.
From an historical point of view the Europeans have been a war culture for at least 2,000 years. If you want to count Alexander the Macedon and the early Roman era, the Europeans have been fighting 'civilized' wars for about 2,250 years. What exists as a present day European citizen, is the end result of warring cultures mixing on the continent for over 2,000 years. Europeans have achieved numerous advances in the science and the arts, but at the end of The European 2,000 Year Reich, one must begin to question, at just what price ?
From an historical point of view the Europeans have been a war culture for at least 2,000 years. If you want to count Alexander the Macedon and the early Roman era, the Europeans have been fighting 'civilized' wars for about 2,250 years. What exists as a present day European citizen, is the end result of warring cultures mixing on the continent for over 2,000 years. Europeans have achieved numerous advances in the science and the arts, but at the end of The European 2,000 Year Reich, one must begin to question, at just what price ?
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Most of the world has been in a state of barbarity for 2,000 years plus. The US has an interesting past also (Native Americans, Slavery, Civil Rights etc etc).
But the past means very little compared to modern day US or Europe. Both places have "civilised".
The US has led the world on Civil rights. We were not the last great Slave Traders. Portugal and Spain were. Both European. And since I have about 1/16 American Indian in me, perhaps I might suggest that American Indians were actually one of the first conquerers to travel east from the high steeps of Central Asia. They have many similarities to Mongolians.
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The UK led the world on stopping slavery, the US took a long time to follow.
The US only started getting invovled in civil rights in the 1960's. You had segregation for a heck of a long time.
M<y point is not to claim one country is worse than another but that in the last 2,000 years ALL "modern and civilised" countries have done barbarous things, the US included.
In fact many of the modern European critics of how Americans treated Indians convenient cite "historical evolution of justice" when they are questioned back about their own countries' historical colonial records. For instance, the official position of the modern Federal Republic of Germany declares that all human rights abuses done under the name of Kaiser Wilhelm II during the German Reich could not be compensated by the modern FRG because they were "not in violation of the rights and legal conditions of the times." So it is all glossed off.
But they refuse to apply the same standards when it came to things like the Siuox tribes etc.
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Not sure about glossing things off. In the UK we are still apologising for the empire. My point to the other freeper is that for the last 2,000 years every country has done some dubious things.
The past 50 years many countries have done a lot better things for the world. My country fought WW2, gave up its Empire in favour of independant democracies and then became a chief force in the cold war. The US also did many good things.
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