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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (84379)	3/20/2003 10:35:08 PM
From: paul_philp	Respond to of 281500

We, the Sheeple, worry about all this stuff. You folks gotta stop flocking with the herd down under, Dolly and the Raelians are getting pissed off. the American Way as a bit like door to door religious bible bashers proselytizing Bush is not bible thumping crusader, he's an AmWay distributor. Paul

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (84379)	3/20/2003 10:37:57 PM
From: JohnM	Respond to of 281500

Maurice, I'm convinced you and Steven Rogers are authoring a book together. You simply interleave his heavy stuff with your rants. And you are trying all that out on us. If that's the case, could I be your agent. This is priceless material. But then I've said that before.

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (84379)	3/20/2003 10:54:57 PM
From: skinowski	Respond to of 281500

OT – Maurice, politics aside (for a moment) – thanks for the link to the Bar. I am overdue to go to Prague and will make sure I visit the place. I am glad that someone has turned my malinvestment in Globalstar into something worthwhile... g/ng. alcoholbar.cz

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (84379)	3/20/2003 11:07:33 PM
From: FaultLine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

You might be surprised to know that many people around the world look on the American Way as a bit like door to door religious bible bashers proselytizing about their great way of life and beliefs. We have our own beliefs thanks very much. We think our way is better. Overall of course. There seem to be warts everywhere, but some warts are less ugly than others and the good aspects more attractive. For example, we have a low per capita income in NZ, but a low per capita homicide rate. We have a high per capita beachfront rate but a low per capita Tomahawk cruise missile rate. There is an infinite array of compromises. Good and bad in a shifting sands of happiness. We have friends in India who far prefer their way of life to the USA way of life. They have no aspiration to live in the USA. They gave up the international lifestyle to enjoy the soft pleasures of Kerala and Cochin. We have Peruvian [he] and American [she] friends who love living in Italy. They don't want to live in the USA. If you ask people around the world where they'd like to live, contrary to conventional wisdom, they wouldn't all move to the USA if given the chance. The main attraction of the USA to we aliens is economic. We suffer the drawbacks of the American Way to earn a crust. Or a trickle down. Or a crumb. Even many Americans have forsaken the American Way to see happiness in alien lands. Here's FredonEverything for example - you can read others of his rants at this link: fredoneverything.net Americans have escaped to many nooks and crannies in New Zealand, a rich American set this up as a hideout kauricliffs.com to Prague where Sier Geoff Goodfellow set up the Alcohol Bar alcoholbar.cz which he did from Globalstar short selling profits. There are hordes of other escapees. Americans tend to be bewildered as to why the greatest and best and most marvellous, free and fantastic country the planet has ever seen isn't totally admired and treated as haven of the gods to which all earthlings should bow and they damn well will or we'll nuke them! I think it's something to do with Goedel's self-reverential mathematic theorem [I don't think Goedel was American]. We see the right to bear arms converted to mayhem. Google easily found me a reference. holysmoke.org Guns might not kill people, but there are an awful lot of dead people from bullets. It's quite an astonishing murder rate. That sort of thing makes us nervous. We wouldn't necessarily like to adopt such a marvellous way of life. Even for a higher pay rate and the joys of the freeway, Taco Bell and 'freedom' to comply with Homeland Security requirements. True enough, the way of life is vastly better than the way of life of hordes of people. Nevertheless, I believe there are even better ways of running life than is achieved in the pinnacle of human civilization to now. We could start with a reconstituted United Nations, carve up of Iraq into self-administering linguist and religious chunks, supervised by the New World Order. We the Sheeple get nervous when we see elderly civil engineers turfed into a South African prison [which isn't a luxurious place to be] because some idiot of an FBI guy gets confused and couldn't give a stuff what happens to mere aliens. We suspect that not all Guantanamo inmates are Islamic Jihadists, especially since they are held incommunicado, with no habeas corpus, right to trial or any of that boring old human rights, human freedom stuff which doesn't need to apply to the subhuman aliens. We notice that human rights aren't top of mind in King George's litany these days. In the good old days, American Presidents would lecture [rightly] China and other countries about human rights. Now, there are third party interviews of suspected Al Qaeda supporters and even the American interviewers have had a couple of captives suffer death by blunt force injury if cyberspace is to be believed. Sure, the exigencies of war mean there are mistakes made. But rampant militarism also gives authoritarian thugs the circumstances in which they thrive. We, the Sheeple, worry about all this stuff. In the absence of a United Nations which makes sense [to me] I'm happy to support the USA as the nearest thing to a global civilizing influence [I pay vastly more tax in the USA than I do in NZ so I'm putting my money where my mouth is]. But I'm keeping a weather eye on the situation and would like to see some of my taxes spent on the sorting out of the UN. I can only vote my taxes with my feet, by selling my shares - Americans are the only ones who decide by actual voting how my taxes are spent. What about that no taxation without representation stuff? I thought that was an American Way idea. Wasn't the Declaration of Independence something to do with British imposts on American property? Mqurice OK :o) --ken

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (84379)	3/21/2003 10:02:54 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

They don't want to live in the USA. Mq, I think you may have misunderstood ken. There are lots of "USAs"; the whole is infinitely complex. From the Midwest to California to New England to the South to Texas, the Rockies States, the East Coast, Alaska, Hawaii, etc., etc., there is a tremendous variation and diversity in social mores, culture, population, outlook, etc, so I find that someone who says he doesn't want to live in the USA simply hasn't looked hard enough or has a fixed preference, which is fine. About three decades ago, my aunt and her husband made an absolute killing in California real estate. They decided to retire young and took a year to find the best place in the world in which to live. After travelling around, the competition was narrowed to a few islands in the South Pacific and Kauai. After a lot of hand-wringing, they decided to settle in Kauai--thankfully, since I love visiting them. If they were more urban types, I have no doubt that they would have picked NYC, Boston, San Francisco or some other fine city. It's not the places, Mq, its the ties that bind us together that the world wants. These ties are in extremely short supply in the Mideast, South America, and elsewhere. They are, in no particular order of importance, the rule of law, freedom of expression, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures, etc.--just read the Bill of Rights, they are encapsulated there. These ties are like a magnet for the rest of the world because they actually mean something here. Why aren't we revered? A complex question. At the end of the day, I could care less. If others wish to stay put in places where they are subject to the whims of dictators and ruling elites who have only their own interests in mind, then who am I to argue with them? But it is no secret that the best and the brightest throughout the world have in their mind's eye the beacon which we are for those who want to be bound by our exceptional rules. And it's Reason No. 1 why we will continue to prosper and predominate. Our continual renewal through immigration of the rest of the world's intellectual cream is the secret, Mq., a secret I am loathe to reveal. 0: And Q plays a part in making my point. There is a poster by the name of geld who I've known for years--he is at the Q's IHub board, a German or Austrian. He was sleeping on benches in Horton Plaza in San Diego ten to fifteen years ago, then got off his feet, invested very early in Q, and has made a mint, just like you. This is not an isolated story, but one which we hear all the time.