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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lazarus_Long who wrote (6131)	8/24/2001 5:02:38 AM
From: jttmab	Respond to of 93284

And there are holes in your statistics, I believe. For example, what is the percentage of racial minorities and new immigrants (and illegal immigrants) in your European countries? And are they all included in your statistics? It's not possible to compare murder rates, burglary, and human rights violations on a per capita basis and make some conclusions without looking at illegal immigrants? IF I came up with some comparison on the subject of illegal immigrants, wouldn't you respond with something like "It's not an exact comparison because they don't have Mexican illegals they have Algerian illegals" And are they all included in your statistics? I remember in the late '50s and early '60s the French were highly critical of the US for its racial problems. And your point is the US didn't have racial problems in the 50's and 60's, because the French had racial problems? Or is it that no one is allowed to point out that the US has racial problems unless they are completely free of racial problems themselves? How does Europe compare to the US in terms of economic opportunity open to its population? How does it compare in terms of technological and scientific innovation? Financial innovation? I'd like to see that data. Do you have it? Is "just in time" an American innovation? If Intel has an innovation is that an American innovation? [If the design engineer for Intel is in Taiwan and comes up with an innovation is that an American innovation or a Taiwan innovation?] Is Teguchi an American innovation. You claim from a previous post that the US has more scientific and financial innovations then others. Where's your proof on that one? You assert I have holes in my statistics and your points are supposed to be accepted, because it "seems"? I have to have "exact" and complete comparisons of every aspect of society, but "seems" is good enough for your point? I detect a double standard here. And are their freedoms really quite equivalent? My understanding is that Watergate would would never have seen the light of day in Britain because of the Official Secrets Act. Or the Pentagon Papers. On "Watergate": There were aspects of the Nixon Administration that were not released to the public for at least a decade, they were suppressed, i.e., classified, by the subsequent Administrations and Congress. On the Pentagon Papers. I'm not clear what your point is. The Pentagon papers were illegally released by a Pentagon employee, under something equivelent to the States Secrets Act in the UK. I was pretty familiar with both the UK and US laws on protection of State Secrets. In some small ways the UK laws are more restrictive in some ways they are looser, but they are substantively the same, IMO. One bizarre difference, by US law, is that someone holding a UK clearance can release classified information to someone not holding a clearance, if in their personal judgement it is to the benefit of national interest. In the US, if I tried that, I'd find myself in court trying to keep myself out of a federal prison. [A US security officer might assert that's a substantive difference though]. Japan has no equivelent law to the US or the UK with respect to State secrets, i.e., a Japanese citizen can publish any "state secret" and not be in violation of Japanese law. A recent Congress wanted to substantially increase the penalties associated with unauthorized release of classified information; I think there was a Presidential veto on that. So how do you want to rate the above differences in a context of public freedoms? jttmab