well then, have i got a deal for you?!?:D

Wow. Aretha's Doctor. Mature, spirited discussion is one thing, being mean is another. Actually being malicious is what it seems you are being.

I want to do this with out insulting you. If that's possible. It's not my intention to insult you.

Perhaps you could take a step back and evaluate your intentions, and actions here in this community.

If someone offers me a gift, and I don't accept it, who's gift is it?

Damn AD. How about getting lost?

Here's a bit of a sweet story from Iraq.

Yo AD, a few things. One, you can't come up to anyone in any country and start giving non-constructive criticism and expect to be taken seriously. Look up past threads started by duck_duck and see how irrational she got. Instead of just insulting people, try to look at these issues from our point of view and then hopefully you will see just how complicated they are. Bring up points that you disagree with and give suggestions on how to solve it and then we will respond with why we either disagree with those solutions or why they can not work in the United States. Most of the critical European folks I've debated had very little idea how the United States works and I have a feeling that you might be in that group even though you aren't nearly as extreme as some I've met.

Second, stop with the nationalistic bullshit and pretending that the United States is evil while Sweden (or wherever) is all good. All the Western nations have blood on their hands, including yours, and even if you don't actually do the killing, you benefit from it. As I said earlier in other threads, the United States is just protecting its interests, which are more extreme than your country's, but we do mostly share the same interests, so you still benefit from what we do. All the Western European countries are liberal, not progressive.

Other than recovering from a recent canal root job at the dentist, I feel fine. Thank you for asking

As for our friend and her medical condition - if she is touchy about her self (and I wouldn't fault her if she is) then she ought to hang a sign around her neck telling everyone, "I have cancer! Any reply to me must be made upon egg shells!"

Sorry, Mr. Zen but I can't oblige you. The fact that she has cancer is completely irrelevant to the coments I made about her "sig". You have no idea of the life I've endured either because i don't think it is really anyone's business or anyone's responsibilty but mine. That's the way that I deal with my difficulties but it certainly must not be everyone's way to deal with life. I respect everyone on that point. In any case, if you (or anyone else) happen to say something that strikes a nerve then I'll have to make my own decision whether to ignore it or stay away from the fourm. Calling someone out on the carpet for something he/she could not have possibly known is not my style and I would have hoped that it is not the practice of anyone else either. It's interesting that it is YOU who thinks it's so important to point out her personal problems - not she. She might have informed me on the personal messages, if she thought it would be a good idea, but I'm guessing that she's more in tune with reality than you and is better prepared to get on with life.

How do you feel now?

*shakes head* Have you considered employing the strategy of tact once in a while?

Let this be a lesson to everyone .... Never, never, never, never, ever make a sensitive reply if you're in a rush and about to shut down your computer! Think it through, be sure it's complete and that it states EXACTLY what you want to say with all the loopholes plugged.

I may not win any friends (despite this addition) but what I left out of my message was thoughtless. I don't even know how to apologise sufficiently. Anyway, what I carelesly failed to say was this .....

Every dead American will be one more small step in bringing the Americans home again. We're witnessing a carbon copy of Vietnam on that point. It is when the mothers and fathers of dead American soldiers take to the streets in the thousands and DEMAND the end to U.S. involvment in Irak that a retreat will take place. But probably not before then.

yup, I'll second that

U R DUM

http://cellar.org/2008/1iraqVietnamGraph.gif

drawn before the latest, and very striking reduction in casualties per month for the last six months. 23 casualties in December.

U R DUM

And here I though the odds of a US 'victory' in Iraq was a snowball's chance in hell.

Now that we actually have snowballs in hell, I need to come up with a new analogy.

How about "An apology's chance from Bush".

Griff you responded to the argument by implying that there are countries which are far worse than the U.S. I don't think anyone here disagrees with this.

As for democratic principles, this census shows that in recent presidential, not off-year elections, of potential voters only 70-72 percent are registered and 58-64 percent vote.

Even in some countries where compulsory voting is not or is no longer practiced, they manage better turnouts.

IDEA places the US 139 out of 172. I am still trying to figure out if countries which exclude women from voting are penalized or rewarded in the counting, but in any case based on voter turnout alone, the US is not the most democratic country in the world.

Is voter turnout the sole criteria? No, but turnout can be an indicator of apathy, which can be either a cause of, or effect from, the failure of governments to truly represent the majority of citizens above special interests.

Are we the worst? No. In general, in terms of safety, wealth, and freedom, the US is better than most countries in the world. We are also not the world's most populous. A child be born in the world today has (I'm guessing) about a 1 in 20 chance of being born a U.S. citizen. The child would be 4 times more likely to be born Chinese, 3 times more likely to be born Indian, and 2/3 to 1/2 as likely to be born in Indonesia, Brazil, Pakistan, or Bangladesh.

If I were given a choice from that list, knowing what I know now (to quote a famous politician), I would still choose to be born here.

Right now the system is a bit f***d up. However, our founding fathers gave us a self-correcting and non-violent system to effect change if we choose to use it. Personally, I think we will simply because deep down we all know things can't go on this way much longer.

Those are all French instances of anti-democratic and / or poor international acting. Through several threads we've seen commentary from A D about our poor record which I readily admit and questions about our stability which I also have. Assuming he's French, I just want to be sure he isn't holding France up as a model for stable democracies.

What? How dare they interfere with the free travel of Swedish citizens. Outrageous.