In article <BzM8u5.JM3@unix.amherst.edu>, pdchapin@unix.amherst.edu (PAUL D CHAPIN) writes:
|> Jyrki Kuoppala (jkp@cs.HUT.FI) wrote:
|>
|> : I hear reports of kids trained to inform to the officials about their
|> : parents.
|>
|> That's plan silly.
|>
|> : I hear reports of a war being declared and fought in USA - a war
|> : against "drugs", with the Bill of Rights being the major casualty.
|> :
|> Bullshit. The Bill of Rights is alive and well. There are individual
|> cases of overzealous enforcement, but the courts usually strike them down.
|>
|> : I see people talking about a "moral imperative" for the U.S.
|> : government to be "world police".
|>
|> An unfortunate reaction common to people with power. It comes and goes
|> depending on how successful the last action was. Gulf War went well so
|> we're on a temporary activist binge. Vietnam ended the last such period. I
|> fear that Bosnia will end this one. You also wouldn't see much of that
|> kind of talk from the Clinton administration.
|> :
|> : I see the U.S. vice president saying "No I don't know that atheists
|> : should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered
|> : patriots. This is one nation under God." This during his campaign,
|> : and he is later elected president.
|>
|> A comment almost no one here ever heard of. He is also about to become
|> a former President.
|> :
I just had to say that I disagree with virtually everything in the above
response. As for the last quote, it was from President George Herbert Walker Bush, and the conversation was with a reporter from an Atheist organization.
It is well documented. I can provide info, or you can look through some of the last few weeks messages on the atheist newsgroup.
Many of the original comments are some of my same concerns. US citizens just can't and don't want to believe that the government could do anything deliberately wrong, and many will justify recent events.
Of course not everyone will agree with me. The invasion of Panama was "to protect the canal treaty". If so, why was that not the focus of Noriega's
trial or the media coverage?
As for foreign involvement, I don't hear the Cubans yelling for the US to harrass their country. I don't hear the Puerto Ricans asking to remain a territory.
I know the Somali's are happy we are there, but I suggest two things: (1) why did we wait so long, and wouldn't the Bosnian's be happy to see us too? and (2) let's see how long the US remains and what they do afterwards.
It's amazing to me that citizens of the US will not doubt that crimes occurring
in other countries are wrong, but when someone tries to tell them of questionable activities in their own country, they shrug it off, ignore it, or tell someone they must be lying or have false information. The 'sense of security and trust' here is sometimes scary.
