Troops are the most important because they are the ones fighting for Iraq's liberation(I haven't seen any support the Iraqis ribbons, lol) and very important because we don't have enough of them.
Iraqi's are more important as it's pointless fighting for Iraq's liberation if the Iraqi's are dead. American troops are very important in there right now, but that doesn't mean the Iraqi's should be looking up to them in any way. It was (mostly) the US' decision to enter Iraq, so the US solders can damn right look after the Iraqi's they've come to "liberate". Same for the other nationalities.
I'm quite certain it is, why do you think they hate us?
Let's make a clear distinction between president Bush, and the American population here.
Why do people hate Bush? Because he seems to have a thing about invading countries with false intelligence. His "invade first, question the intelligence later" attitude certainly doesn't make me comfortable with that wally in office. He wants to reduce terrorism, but terrorism has actually increased globally with him in charge, and seeing as how Al Qaeda are probably getting plenty of recruitment in Iraq, it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to consider him partially responsible, despite his intentions. His willingness to interfere with other countries' political processes is also annoying; he could do well learning to keep his nose outside of other countries' busniesses unless asked. Then he likes to do things such as happily endorse
illegal steel tariffs, until sanctions against the US are threatened, of course. It would also be nice if the US bothered to do good things for the environment. Considering other countries are putting lots of effort into reducing carbon dioxide emissions and following the Kyoto protocol, Bush not even bothering to join in certainly doesn't help make him more popular. Well, it makes him more popular with oil companies, I suppose.
Why do people hate Americans? Not many people hate Americans
as a whole. The ones who claim all Americans are stupid are quite stupid themselves for making such a silly generalization. However, it doesn't take much to realize that there are many Americans who are quite simply clueless about anything relating to politics, that it's quite frightning knowing that the most powerful country in the world is being run by a group of people elected by people - many of which have no idea what is happening in the world.
Even I was surprised when I saw this - it doesn't say that
all Bush supporters are dumb, or all Kerry supporters are not, but it certainly doesn't fill me with happiness, or leave a good impression about Americans. You'd think that people would put
some effort into knowing about world events, especially with Bush's foreign policies, but sadly many couldn't care less, or as you say, "don't give a flying fig about their politics and elections."
Then, there is another issue of there being very little questioning of the people in charge. When the leader of the most powerful country in the world says "let's go invade Iraq," it wouldn't be a bad thing if the public showed some concern over it. One could argue that it could even be the responsibility of the public to question the policies of the leader, whether you agree with them or not, but sadly many American's can't be arsed to do that either. Instead, it would seem they would entrust news organizations to tell them the truth. Sadly, this responsibility seems to land in the incapable hands of Fox News, a complete joke of a news channel. Despite the only "balance" going for them is that they chant their "we are fair and balanced" line every couple of minutes, at the same time moaning about this "liberal media" (i.e. every other news organization in the world, it would seem), I have to wonder how anyone could possibly even consider this channel being fair or balanced. 5 minutes of research online would allow them to find example upon example of how they have failed to live up to their pledge of fair and balanced reporting. Then they say "they report, you decide," despite giving many - clearly very opinionated and biased - reporting. For one, John Gibson's "My Word" is nothing other than his opinion, and if he didn't want his personal opinion to influence the viewer's, that part of his show wouldn't even be broadcast, but noooooo. Anyway, this organization can be as stupid as it wants, that doesn't bother me. Hell, I watch it in the evenings for pure entertainment value, John Gibson and Bill O'Reilly are so full of it that it's actually funny; but it bothers me that many American's think this channel has some credability to it. Since many Americans like to listen to Fox News without ever questioning their nonsense, the situation gets worse that Fox can't report to save their lives. Not only were many Americans completely un-critical to Bush and his friends in office, but neither was Fox News. So when you have a situation with Bush saying "Iraq has weapons of mass destruction!!!", quickly echoed by Fox News, it's sad that many Americans fail to flick their brain's "on" switch, and just assume "ooh look, Iraq
must have weapons of mass destruction, then." Just because some news organizations are reporting things that people don't want to hear, it doesn't mean that dismissing them as "liberal bias," then quickly turning your attention to one of the most biased news organizations in the country is necessarily the best thing to do. I also heard quite a few reports of some American's thinking it is unpatriotic to question the president, as though patriotism is nothing more than saying yes and agreeing to your country's policies. That doesn't even need explaining, that's just plain stupidity on its face. It doesn't help when people say that foreign people's lives are not "as important as American lives to Americans," as though Americans are some special, God-blessed sub-set of the human race, and following "we don't give a flying fig about their politics and elections" and "they're not relevant" philosophies are not brilliant ways to learn more about the world. Saying "I'm better than you" is not a clever way to make friends, and then wonder why this friend of yours looks at you funny. Obviously being completely incapable of understanding, stupid reasons are quickly resorted to, like "ooh look at just how damn free we are over here, they must really envy us!"
As for your reasons for us envying you, that you're "more free, rich and the least socialist," well they're just even dumber. Firstly all this bullcrap "freedom" thing. Many nations in the world are free as they are, they don't need a tagline saying "land of the free" below them before the population feel free. I mentioned this before in another topic, but it definately seems that I would
feel more free here than in America. Why? Well for one, with the introduction with "moral values" imposed on the population, clearly they are too stupid to have any moral values of their own, right? Then there's the fascists that want to kick people out of the country because of their religion, well, that's just stinks of freedom doesn't it? As for America being rich, well, as a whole it is very rich; it's one of the economic superpowers of the world. But how rich each member of the population is is somewhat dependant on the economy, and judging on how well other countries' economies are doing, we certainly aren't that unhappy with our own, ya know. Considering that Britain had been enjoying the longest period of economic growth in its industrial history, I'm quite happy where I am. And on top of that, many of us here aren't under the impression that you have to be mentally retarded to be poor or have a lack of income, hence why we are more socialistic than America. If we wanted to be more capitalistic, we would be, there's a reason we aren't trying to follow in America's footsteps, and envying America is
not it, despite however much you may want it to be.
Has that helped clarify things?
I know this thread is about Vinny and why take the spotlight off him? He seems to love it.
I was just making a statement about basic, human nature.
Gee, let's deny basic sociology 101 and pretend that we wouldn't feel more personally touched by a disaster that happened in our own city than one half a world a way.
I saw something you posted that I disagreed with, so I posted, questioning it. I could have made a new topic in an attempt to make everything compeltely unorganized, but you know.
But I don't know how you managed to change it from people of one nationally being more important than others, to how a disaster occuring in one place is more touching than if it occurred elsewhere. If a disaster happens in your own city, of course it's going to be more touching, as you realize you - and people you care about - are vulnerable. If a tsunami floods your own city, you're thoughts are quicky turned to your own survival, and that of your friends and family.
How caring about someone more than someone else can be compared to someone being more important than someone else is rather strange...
The fact that there are so many foreigners coming to this American political web site is proof that we're relevant, they're not. I know I don't give a flying fig about their politics and elections.
what constitutes as "proof" nowadays?
Good on ya. I can't help but think all this money (not just the US' lot) is just an attempt to look good on the world stage infront of everyone else, but hey, the more relief money, the better.
