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That's a ridiculous fallacy. Nationalism and Fascism are completely unrelated things, with countless countries during the 19th and early 20th centuries being nationalistic in the extreme, and never having fascist governments, and now being normal democracies today. I hope you were being sarcastic; I really, really do.weemadando wrote:Nationalism inevitably leads to fascism. Its an unfortunate truth.
I'm not. Nationalism, if allowed to continue expanding will inevitably lead to facism. France at the moment is a VERY nationalistic state. They have a strong democracy, but the nation is still right-wing simply because of the nationalism.The Duchess of Zeon wrote:That's a ridiculous fallacy. Nationalism and Fascism are completely unrelated things, with countless countries during the 19th and early 20th centuries being nationalistic in the extreme, and never having fascist governments, and now being normal democracies today. I hope you were being sarcastic; I really, really do.weemadando wrote:Nationalism inevitably leads to fascism. Its an unfortunate truth.
phongn wrote:I think I have to agree with Ando here (watches as the board faints in shock).
Steve wrote:Oh, for Christ's sake, I cannot believe this....
I, for one, am very proud of my country. Our glorious Republic, which has over two hundred years refined it's values to become the pinnacle of Western civilization, stands atop the world. And on September 11th, we were attacked. Yes, citizens from other nations were killed, but it was our property that was destroyed, the majority of the blood shed was our blood; blood shed by Islamic fundamentalists that have the Middle East and most of the Islamic world in their grip.
That's all the justification we need to see Baghdad, Damascus, and Riyadh burn. And so shall it be done. Europe and the UN can get on board or get the hell out of our way. For the peace of the world, Islamic radicalism across the globe must be confronted and crushed without mercy, their civilizations dishonored on their home soil and their spirit humiliated. We can then rebuild them as we rebuilt Japan (And perhaps better than we rebuilt Japan).
And I have to disagree vigorously, because I think that Fascism has certain psychological overtones of a mythical nature - this has been the case in every fascist government - that are impossible to gain through simple progression, but are rather the result of a complex series of factors.phongn wrote:I think I have to agree with Ando here (watches as the board faints in shock). Nationalism, left unchecked, will very likely lead to fascism.
I see little wrong with patriotism, love for country, etc. but nationalism is something else entirely.
There is a difference between patriotism and jingoism.Steve wrote:I, for one, am very proud of my country.
From a macroeconomic and military sense, yes. From a quality of life standpoint, not necessarily; there are many problems such as repressive regions, religious theocratic forces at work, and other problems such as a fucked-up health care system, fucked-up legal system, high crime rate, rap music, etc. Some of the language in the original declaration of independence was great stuff. A lot of the ideas in the constitution were great stuff. But a whole lot of shit has been piled on top since then.Our glorious Republic, which has over two hundred years refined it's values to become the pinnacle of Western civilization, stands atop the world.
The Russians tried this tactic in Chechnya. It is still a festering problem despite a decade of atrocities and brutal suppression (100,000 civilians dead and counting), and Chechnya is nothing compared to the whole of the Middle East. Complex problems are not always amenable to simple solutions, Steve.And on September 11th, we were attacked. Yes, citizens from other nations were killed, but it was our property that was destroyed, the majority of the blood shed was our blood; blood shed by Islamic fundamentalists that have the Middle East and most of the Islamic world in their grip.
That's all the justification we need to see Baghdad, Damascus, and Riyadh burn. And so shall it be done. Europe and the UN can get on board or get the hell out of our way. For the peace of the world, Islamic radicalism across the globe must be confronted and crushed without mercy, their civilizations dishonored on their home soil and their spirit humiliated. We can then rebuild them as we rebuilt Japan (And perhaps better than we rebuilt Japan).
Vympel wrote: Never have I heard such arrogant, inflated, self-important, imperialistc nonsense.
But facts are facts.being proud of your country is bullshit. if you say you´re proud of your country you say that you´re bein proud of being a citizen of this country. since you didnt do anything to be a citizen of this country you cant be proud of it becouse pride infers that you´ve accomplished something.Steve wrote:Oh, for Christ's sake, I cannot believe this....
I, for one, am very proud of my country. Our glorious Republic, which has over two hundred years refined it's values to become the pinnacle of Western civilization, stands atop the world; we are the true inheritors of the legacy of Athens, Thebes, and Rome. And on September 11th, we were attacked. Yes, citizens from other nations were killed, but it was our property that was destroyed, the majority of the blood shed was our blood; blood shed by Islamic fundamentalists that have the Middle East and most of the Islamic world in their grip.
That's all the justification we need to see Baghdad, Damascus, and Riyadh burn. And so shall it be done. Europe and the UN can get on board or get the hell out of our way. For the peace of the world, Islamic radicalism across the globe must be confronted and crushed without mercy, their civilizations dishonored on their home soil and their spirit humiliated. We can then rebuild them as we rebuilt Japan (And perhaps better than we rebuilt Japan).
And what would you define as jingoism?Darth Wong wrote: There is a difference between patriotism and jingoism.
And, so too, has developments that have spread voting rights from white men of property to all citizens, the destruction of slavery when Southern reactionaries tried to maintain it with force, and a refinement of our system.From a macroeconomic and military sense, yes. From a quality of life standpoint, not necessarily; there are many problems such as repressive regions, religious theocratic forces at work, and other problems such as a fucked-up health care system, fucked-up legal system, high crime rate, rap music, etc. Some of the language in the original declaration of independence was great stuff. A lot of the ideas in the constitution were great stuff. But a whole lot of shit has been piled on top since then.
Yes, they did. They even negotiated with Chechnya and left it alone for years. That is, until the Chechnyans invaded a neighboring province of Russia.The Russians tried this tactic in Chechnya. It is still a festering problem despite a decade of atrocities and brutal suppression (100,000 civilians dead and counting), and Chechnya is nothing compared to the whole of the Middle East. Complex problems are not always amenable to simple solutions, Steve.
I respectfully disagree. I was born here. I was raised here. I have studied my country's history, our heritage, and our ideals, and I am proud of them, the general accomplishment of the men and women who have lived on these shores, both born here and not born here.salm wrote: being proud of your country is bullshit. if you say you´re proud of your country you say that you´re bein proud of being a citizen of this country. since you didnt do anything to be a citizen of this country you cant be proud of it becouse pride infers that you´ve accomplished something.
love for something is not the same as pride for something. you can be proud of something because you´ve accomplished it and are better in something than others are, e.g you can be proud of getting a degree in somthing because you´re intelligent enough to master college or you can be proud of running 100 meters in less then 10 seconds because you´ve trained hard.Steve wrote:I respectfully disagree. I was born here. I was raised here. I have studied my country's history, our heritage, and our ideals, and I am proud of them, the general accomplishment of the men and women who have lived on these shores, both born here and not born here.salm wrote: being proud of your country is bullshit. if you say you´re proud of your country you say that you´re bein proud of being a citizen of this country. since you didnt do anything to be a citizen of this country you cant be proud of it becouse pride infers that you´ve accomplished something.
Moreover, I love my freedom, and to mee, the pinnacle of being American is to love freedom and hate tyranny. That last fact makes it hard to swallow when, for reasons of greed or realpolitik, we support vicious autocrats like the shieks.
No, but as for me, I vote, pay my taxes, stay current on current events(like there is any other way), and served my country in one of the harshest ways possible. I participate in a Democratic Republic and I am proud to be apart of it with all its failures and triumphs.salm wrote:being born and raised somewhere is not something you´ve accomplished and therfor you cant be proud of it since it happened accidently.
Patriotism is loyalty to your country (not necessarily the government that happens to be running it). Jingoism is Azeron-style "my country is better than yours" bragging.Steve wrote:And what would you define as jingoism?
You hung onto slavery and white-only voting longer than many other countries. Don't take credit for things your country had to be dragged kicking and screaming into.And, so too, has developments that have spread voting rights from white men of property to all citizens, the destruction of slavery when Southern reactionaries tried to maintain it with force, and a refinement of our system.
Western civilization and "the United States" are not synonymous. We were talking about the US, and your jingoistic claims about its superiority to all other nations.No system is perfect. But Western civilization has many advantages that I prefer over others, not the least of those the concept of citizenship and civil participation in government.
And you could kill them all without killing the problems that breed more terrorists. Worse yet, the more collateral damage you inflict during this campaign (which incidentally has little or nothing to do with Iraq), the more future terrorism you will breed.How is the problem that complex? The terrorist leadership is affluent (bin Laden himself is a millionaire) and their entire motive is a hypocritical hatred of the West fueled by religious motivation. They love our toys but hate our societies. And they have support in most of the countries that pretend to be our allies, like Saudi Arabia.
Oooh, big tough American talk. Did it occur to you that perhaps those historical precedents don't apply? People who are industrialized and comfortable wish to return to those conditions, and are capable of taking rational actions to achieve that goal. The Japanese and Germans qualify. Just enough of the Deep South qualified to make it work ... barely. But Islamic terrorists are a different breed; they are accustomed to poverty and lawlessness. Osama is wealthy, but his foot soldiers aren't. Chechnya demonstrated that even incredibly ruthless suppression won't take the fight out of people like this.The answer is simple. Brutal, but simple. The Islamic fundamentalists must be made to pay for their crimes like Imperial Japan was for their atrocities. We must dishonor their entire culture, as we did the cultures of militarist Japan, the Third Reich, and the Confederacy, and as Epaminondas and his Thebans dishonored the militarist culture of Sparta in the Great March of 370-369 B.C. By directing our wrath at the supporters of terror, and making them pay a material price for their transgressions, while taking great pains not to inflict casualties among the civilian populace (as we did in Afghanistan, despite what leftist twits claim). Sherman did the same thing in his March to the Sea and the subsequent march through Carolina; he burned the plantations and spared as much as possible the handful of poor farms he encountered, he brought the war home to those who had given it their support from afar. Just as the autocrats of the Middle East are doing today.
Yes, abandon Israel to the wolves. Fuck 'em; they haven't done a thing for you in half a century except demand aid and get you in trouble. "Racial homelands" are a degenerate social anachronism. Then, yes, you try to negotiate with Saddam. You may negotiate at gunpoint if necessary; I do not necessarily rule that out. But so far, no one is giving him an "out", so what's he supposed to do? Why dismiss the option untried? And don't tell me this is about the morality of his treatment of his own people; you're still in bed with China and Russia, remember?What is your alternative, Mike? Negotiations? Leaving Hussein alone? Abandoning Israel to the wolves? Please, enlighten us.
hnm... kind of.Steve wrote:If you want to play semantics, salm, I'm proud of the accomplishments of my fellow Americans, who embody my country.... thus I'm proud of my country.
Happy?
But how do you distinguish the context of bragging about superiority to the pointing out of simple facts? Qualitively, the US is better than Saudi Arabia, or Jordan, or Iraq.... We have higher standards of living, consensual constitutional government, civil audit of the military, and a prosperous middle class.Darth Wong wrote: Patriotism is loyalty to your country (not necessarily the government that happens to be running it). Jingoism is Azeron-style "my country is better than yours" bragging.
More like portions of our country had to be dragged kicking and screaming into. Slavery was illegal in the most prosperous regions of the United States through most of it's history. The South's planters used all of their chips to try and keep their system, and eventually they ran out of chips and had to resort to violence (And over a threat that was non-existant). We all know how that ended up: South Carolina, North Carolina, and Georgia paid the wages of their folly to Sherman and his Army of the West.You hung onto slavery and white-only voting longer than many other countries. Don't take credit for things your country had to be dragged kicking and screaming into.
The US is the most powerful Western state. That gives us an added height over the other nations of the West, many of which having now become bogged down by guilt over past misdeeds, utopian pacifism, and moral relativism.Western civilization and "the United States" are not synonymous. We were talking about the US, and your jingoistic claims about its superiority to all other nations.
So, basically, when we have ruined the terrorists' sources of income, taken their lands, and robbed them of their cannon fodder through humanitarian aid during occupation, and best of all shattered their illusion that Allah will join them in battle, they will still fight?And you could kill them all without killing the problems that breed more terrorists. Worse yet, the more collateral damage you inflict during this campaign (which incidentally has little or nothing to do with Iraq), the more future terrorism you will breed.
That sounds very... European.Oooh, big tough American talk.
Germans, yes. Japanese? No. They had some industrialization, but where still quite "Third World" in standard of living during the war.Did it occur to you that perhaps those historical precedents don't apply? People who are industrialized and comfortable wish to return to those conditions, and are capable of taking rational actions to achieve that goal. The Japanese and Germans qualify.
Because Chechnya was a half-hearted gesture that was not prosecuted fully.Just enough of the Deep South qualified to make it work ... barely. But Islamic terrorists are a different breed; they are accustomed to poverty and lawlessness. Osama is wealthy, but his foot soldiers aren't. Chechnya demonstrated that even incredibly ruthless suppression won't take the fight out of people like this.
I'd rather not. They're the one secular democracy in the Middle East, and along with the Turks, our only real ally.Yes, abandon Israel to the wolves. Fuck 'em; they haven't done a thing for you in half a century except demand aid and get you in trouble.
You seem to fail to understand that nations such as the United States and Canada (and to a lesser extent Australia) are the exceptions that prove the rule. The modern world is filled with Nation-States, Mike. Nations are groups of people, and like it or not, most of those save for the melting pot ex-colonies of Africa are "racial homelands"; for the Filipinos, the Koreans, Japanese, Vietnamese, Thai, etc."Racial homelands" are a degenerate social anachronism.
We negotiated with him already. For the last ten years we've done nothing but play a tug-of-war with him diplomatically, and where has it gotten us? Nowhere.Then, yes, you try to negotiate with Saddam. You may negotiate at gunpoint if necessary; I do not necessarily rule that out. But so far, no one is giving him an "out", so what's he supposed to do? Why dismiss the option untried? And don't tell me this is about the morality of his treatment of his own people; you're still in bed with China and Russia, remember?
Considering the shoddy record of Eastern armies against Western armies (and how Eastern armies tend to lose a war or conflict with one battle, such as Salamis or Poitiers, while Western armies can be annihilated as thoroughly as the Romans were at Cannae and still win in the end), and American anger over terrorism... I like the odds.It is difficult to foretell the future. Maybe the US will march in, the Iraqi forces will fold like a house of cards, and everything will come out smelling rosy-fresh. On the other hand, maybe the US will march in, the Iraqi forces and people will fight tooth and nail in the cities where massive aerial bombardment is not a realistic option without discarding anything remotely resembling moral imperative (not to mention losing all international support), and it will become a sinkhole of resources and men. It is easy to say that you support an action when the cost of that action is not yet known.
Just like the prosperity the Afgans are enjoying after Taliban was erased....Steve wrote:I'll laugh like hell when, within six months of the fall of Baghdad, the Iraqi people are enjoying more prosperity under American military governorship than they did at any time under Hussein.
Just because the Germans have consistenly been confused about the nature and purpose of imperialism since Bismarck and failed to realize the difference between diplomacy and blitzkrieg does not doom the U.S. to fascist subjugation.Dargos wrote: I still think the US has a damn good government system...its worked well for over 200 years, but I feel that we must be on guard against these so called Patriots useing religion and Nationalistic retoric, who seem to be comeing more and more into power these days. If it keeps going like this..I feel that we may be forced to learn a very hard lesson...just like the Germans did in the 30s and 40s. and it will happen soon...within our generation or the next.
Well I dont nessarily think this is a deliberate attack on American rights, so much as abuse of a situation to gain personal power. One need only look at one senator McCarthy and his tactics, drum up support by playing on peoples fear. Something similar happned after WW1 with the round up and deportation of people thought to be 'reds' or radicals.Pu-239 wrote:The government is slowly whittling away at our rights, using excuses like terrorism to make the people comply. The citizenry does not care because it is too ignorant.
Define "unAmerican."Enlightenment wrote:Nation building is unAmerican: you people are just going to do yet another seagull act in Iraq, just like you've done everywhere else after WWII. You're going to take over Iraq, get rid of Saddam (if you're lucky, maybe he'll be a bit slower of mind than bin Laden and you'll manage to kill/catch him) make a huge mess of the country then wash your hands of the matter and abandon everything beyond Shrubby's oil fields and perhaps a few cities. Meanwhile the rest of what used to be Iraq will degenerate into chaos and turn into yet another base/recruiting region for al Qaida.
Political scare tactics don't impress me.Pu-239 wrote:The government is slowly whittling away at our rights, using excuses like terrorism to make the people comply. The citizenry does not care because it is too ignorant.
And it is prosperity. Lawlessness, yes, but that's better than outright war, which they previously "enjoyed". Their country is recovering, aide is pouring in, and the end result may yet be good, though I am concerned with the course we took there (Namely in regard to the King). However, in Afghanistan it was probably the best.Enlightenment wrote:
Just like the prosperity the Afgans are enjoying after Taliban was erased....
We are going to be instituting a MacArthurian Regency; and it shall likely work. I have explained the reasons why it work in Iraq before, and they still stand.Nation building is unAmerican: you people are just going to do yet another seagull act in Iraq, just like you've done everywhere else after WWII. You're going to take over Iraq, get rid of Saddam (if you're lucky, maybe he'll be a bit slower of mind than bin Laden and you'll manage to kill/catch him) make a huge mess of the country then wash your hands of the matter and abandon everything beyond Shrubby's oil fields and perhaps a few cities. Meanwhile the rest of what used to be Iraq will degenerate into chaos and turn into yet another base/recruiting region for al Qaida.