h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Hello,

I'm not really interested in a gun debate right now. It's so politicized at this point, it's hard to have a real dialogue.

On the other hand, the amount of apathy most people have towards the right to vote is rather troubling. I guess in most cases, elections are almost foregone conclusions thanks to telephone polls, and I wonder if that's had an effect on lowering voter turnout.

Yours,
Jake

Interesting and clearly people think that I should eat what the media says is good for me. You have a very good point. The only trouble now is how balanced the polls are. Do you remember the first telephone poll that had the rich conservatives dramatically winning over the poor (no phone). Where are all the self righteous US who pledged their alliegence to their flag?

Oh this is hilarious....

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1323000/1323541.stm

The US tries to buy it's way back onto the UN!!
What blatant arrogance?

Hello,

Actually, the conservatives want no part of the UN and are playing up the issue to try to bring the rest of the country behind them. They already owe money to the UN, but of course look for any excuse not to pay it. What's funny is that Bush has repeatedly stated he had an experienced foreign policy team, but I'm not really sure where they are...

I think that Sudan and China are poor members of the Human Rights commission, but I think people don't realize that we were booted mainly because other first world countries like Sweden have been so good about human rights. We were competing with them. The US tends to look the other way when poor human rights are in the way of other strategic interests. Case in point, the nominee for UN Ambassador repeatedly ignored evidence of death squads in Honduras, because they were our allies against Nicaragua. And of course, Pinochet again.

Yours,
Jake

Hello,

What's really absurd is that the Bush nominee for Ambassador for France apparently can't speak a word of French. Ah, political patronage continues in the Capitol.

Yours,
Jake

The UN Headquarters should not be in New York (that's blatant arrogance). For 189 other countries, being part of the UN means travel to NY-NY (city so nice they named it twice) and that tends to attract all the wrong sort of people for all the wrong sorts of reasons to participate. The UN should be offshore somewhere - maybe on an island - like oh I dunno - maybe Cuba. Then the only perks for attendance would be cheap rum and cigars - just like the good old days of good old boy politics. None of this fancy-smancy Fifth Avenue shopping and Broadway showbiz crap.

trying to buy the seat is a stupid bahhhh! I'm not even going to try. It's soooo stupid it's mindboggeling, what do they think they are trying to do? It won't get the seat, I personally don't care if we're on the panel or not! Just don't cheapen the US by trying to bribe the UN into putting us back on. What kind of @$$es are they?

Oh, goody. I get to play devil's advocate.

Jake stated, and I quote:...the lands carved up as a part of the Ottoman Empire defeat. The people who did that job really bungled.

Ah, that would be primarily the British...with the French and Italians trown in! The British created the nationalism movement in India, which eventually created Pakistan, created Iraq for Shariff Hussein's second son Faysal, so he would stop raiding villages in French created Syria, and then, as the real topper, created Afghanistan as a buffer between their crown jewel of India and the Russians. Yes, indeed, the Brits did a real number on the Middle East! Not that the US has done much better with its colonial moves, but to blame the Middle East on the US is just silly. Blame the Brits...the Balfour Declaration of 1917, the destablization of the Ottomans by promising United Arabia to Shariff Hussein in 1915...yes, the Brits did WONDERS for the area.

Okay, lets see how mad you all get at me!

Hands up I'm British and ok i did try and also blame the carve up of the middle east on the good ol' US. Sorry I apologise, but can you imagine if there was an Islamic superstate that covered the old oottomann empire!
But hasn't the US continued to destabalise the region in the interests of cheap oil, thru financing and supporting the supremecy of the Israeli right-wing?

Z.

A conservative wanders through...

The UN has it's purpose. I think it's good to have a place where the nations of the world can meet. Aside from that, I don't think the United States should have anything to do with it. If they want to keep meeting in NY, that's fine, but I think we should reduce our payments to 1/190th of the UN budget. I've never really understood why we pay so much to an anti-American institution dedicated to graft and corruption.

It's bad enough that we have to support our politicains, without having to support a bunch of foriegn politicians too.

Personally, I don't care all that much about the rest of the world. The rest of the world did okay before 1776. I think it can do jsut as well without us mucking about in their affairs. Probably better.

I'm happy to ship products overseas, and buy products in turn. I wish you all good luck. How you manage your affairs is your business, not mine (If you want to be unarmed victims of your own crimials that's your own lookout). Also, I really don't care about how the rest of the world feels about our ineternal affairs.

I may deviate some from my party in that I fully support the European Army. We defeated the Soviet empire. NATO has no real purpose any more. It's nice to have bases in other countries. It gives our GI's a way to see the world without invading anyone. However, our military is so small now that I'm not really sure we have the manpower to deploy troops all over the world.

I would just like to say... everything Two Bit just said. And I'm not even a conservative.

Except for the bit about the US military... it's still large enough to be deployed worldwide. But why bother?

In reply to two things....

First, the US does a marvelous job of destablizing the Middle East, and yes, it is for cheap oil, etc. But I don't know that we do that by supporting right-wing Israel. Frankly, Israel needs to get down off its high horse, and realize that when they are criticized for blowing up a Palastinian village, it is not anti-Semitic. The state of Israel has a HORIIBLE human rights record, and needs to own up to that. But for years, Israel called any criticism of them an assault on Judism. I guess they forgot that separation of church and state issue. By supporting them, the US had (I say this in past tense, because Bush Jr is suprisingly condemning current actions) one friend in the region. After the fall of Iran in 79, and then Saddam, Israel is the one pro-US country there. Not that it makes it okay to overlook the issues of the west bank and the Golan heights, but still.

And to the second point, about the US military. The US has run itself, based on a wartime economy, since the end of WWII. War is good for the economy, and the US is nothing if not driven to keep up economic expansion. Korea? Viet Nam? What the hell did they matter in the grand scheme of things, except that they kept the military occupied with needing supplies made by US manufacturing...since the end of Viet Nam, we have looked for something to keep that kind of economic growth going. At first, it was the Cold War, with the big bad USSR. When that fell apart, the Middle East was the next target. And it makes for a mighty fine enemy, since the whole region is so damned unstable even without foreign intervention. Right now, the focus is on the Taliban and Saddam. Which involves Syria, Iran, Pakistan...and the last brings India into the fray, and what do India and Pakistan both have? Nuclear weapons. Which makes it okay, according to the theory, for the US to build the missile defense system. I realize just how stupid this all sounds, but conservatives BUY this, lock, stock and barrel, and boom! You have good economic growth, lower taxes....
Amazing what horse puckey people will believe in, isn't it?

A former mechanized infantryman wanders through...

I have no real symnpathies in the Palestinan-Israeli Conflict. Isriel was founded by terroists just as the Palesitnan Authority was. The way their current conflict is being prosecuted seems to be a continuation of that tradition. Let them have it out I say.

As for the military, I think we might be able to do with what we have, if we restrucuted our force. It's far too top heavy and bureaucratic. We have more generals than we did during WWII. We may be able to more with less, if theycut the right people. I suspect that Bush may do that.

I only disagree with one thing that he's said about the Army that I've heard. Bush seems to favor a lighter Army with more motorized and fewer if any Armored forces. Armored are what win wars.

While I support having the strongest military on Earth, I'm not sure that it's an effective means for helping the economy. We can't tax and spend our way into a thriving economy. It won't work if we're funding the military, nor would it work if we're funding public works projects. The only reason to fund the military is to be able to fight wars.

I really wish this thing had a spell checker.

If the military can't win wars, then what good is funding them? I think some cut backs are in order but getting rid of all of the M1A2 Abrams would be VERY bad. What has been going on that I approve of is the diversification of the divisions. They are not just heavy tank, they are becoming everything combined (at least in theory).

The main problem is the loss of people. With less people in the ranks you should be training the ones that are still there better, and that is not happening.

I say we nuke the Pentagon.

I wonder if anyone would notice?

we'd probably be better off, just let NORAD run things, they at least have a sense of humor (santa claus tracking I watch it every year) and know that a hammer doesn't cost 1 million dollars (unless it's actually a new plane, then it's a different story)

The military does have a sense of humor. When I was in Desert Storm, all of our phase lines (checkpoints) were named after characters from Bloom County.

*punches low*
And you did invent the phrase friendly fire!

Z.

ahhhhhhhh (in surprise and alarm) *bad joke alert*