RANT: No one has taken America away from anyone

Blicero · Post by **Blicero** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:32 am

PhoneLobster wrote: Australia is a seriously better place to live than the USA, and we stayed under British rule, and technically still ARE under British rule.

I do have to say, PL, that this thread is quite possibly the first time I have heard you say anything good about your country.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 4:38 am

Just because there are great gapping flaws in our country doesn't mean we aren't better than the USA, which is pretty much the bottom of the developed Western nations when it comes to "places it would be good to live in".

I mean we have horrid embarrassing shit like the Cronulla race riots.

But I so totally would prefer to have OUR race riots rather than USA style race riots.

For many reasons.

It's another shades of gray deal. Even when Australia as a nation is off abusing itself and generally not being good, it's less bad than what the USA gets up to.

Count Arioch the 28th · Thu Jan 20, 2011 5:45 pm

Plus, living in Australia means that there are cooler spiders to play with. However, I have that whole "complete loser" thing going on right now, and I wouldn't be able to leave America for any length of time.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 9:11 pm

But Count, in Australia the toilets flush in the other direction!

Blasted · Post by **Blasted** » Thu Jan 20, 2011 10:24 pm

Count Arioch the 28th wrote:Plus, living in Australia means that there are cooler spiders to play with.

And I really, really wish that the 2nd and 3rd most cool spiders would stay out of my house.
That is, if cool == deadly.
And if I could get the more poisonous snake out of my garage, that would be nice too.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 1:21 pm

My theory, PL, is that America is shit because of the right-wing/conservative/religious groups. If England ruled over America still, my uneducated guess is America would just have less money/money worth less (even less than it is now, ooh BURN!), less actual stuff... and that's the kind of breeding ground for rural groups of religious, conservative hicks.

So there'd be more of the problem of America. Though you could argue "They wouldn't influence the rest of the world though, so it'd just be another shit-hole with no influence".

And the bit where these days, the English no longer believe they ever deserved an Empire, no longer feel that Britain is Great, accept that their ___ is the second-worst ___ in the world, and have no respect for the royal family... that's good.

But the bit where as much as I hate Australia, at least it's not the US, okay, I'll grudgingly pay that.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Jan 21, 2011 5:15 pm

Personally, I’m still of the opinion that America is “Great.” If I had a while I could probably work on my ideas of why things are “Mediocre” in the UK (Ironically because of the differences in style cross pond ventures where the US guys come up with bright ideas and the UK guys set up the organizational structure actually can be quite effective, even if madding at times).

But let’s drop this whole “England” crap. The problem never was leadership, but how the colonies were maintained. The simple summary is that a colony is a resource, supplying raw resources to the homeland where manufacturing is done sending the finished products back to the colony for purchase. Back in the 18th century, that arrangement simply sucked, and in general we always got the short end of the stick. The moment we declared independence, manufacturing began in earnest in the states of New York and Massachusetts turning them into powerhouses almost overnight.

That and the “Can Do” attitude created by western expansion and the general industrial age created an attitude of invention and bold projects designed to improve the industrial base (the Erie Canal being a good example). I may be wrong, but I think the US still exceeds in out of the box (as in how the hell did they think of that) inventions, even though some of them aren’t actually made in the US.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 10:12 am

People who are busy giving a shit about being forced to vote can just not mark the ballot paper. If thats too much work for you then you don't deserve to live in a democracy.

US free speech is heading toiletwards, you can expect to lose that bragging right within a few years.

The UK has a fucked up legal system, libel tourism seriously shits on science debates world wide. You know theres a problem when parts of the US are drwaing up laws that basically tell UK libel suits to piss off.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 4:06 pm

Mandatory voting would be a lot like mandatory insurance, you look at the penalty fee and just consider it another damn tax. Voting is a lot like whitewashing a fence ... you just need someone to convince others that it's something they would actually enjoy doing. You need to make them give a damn.

It all starts at your local town.

(OK now that you heard my official "rant" for 2011 ... in a condensed form ... I'm a committee person in the local town Republican committee. We didn't really break our backs last year because Congress was "the county's job." The election of the congressman was close and for the first time the incumbent from the other party only won by a couple hundred votes. A big effort could have made the difference, but we will never know.)

...

Free Speech is alive and well, and the current nuclear handgrenade lobbed by the progressive liberal mainstream media will simply backfire on the progressive liberal mainstream media. (CNN will, before 2013 put so many words on the "naughty" list that it will be unable to report any piece of news whatsoever ... which is not really a problem becasuse it will have zero viewers by then anyway.)

OK time for a song

Do you hear the people twit?
Twitting the text of angry men.
It is a twitting of a people,
Who will not be slaves again.
When the Twit Pics from the heart
Echo the Re tweets of the drum
It will be on your face book page
When tomorrow comes!

Yes I can do a crappy parody on the dropnof a hat. Some people are punsters, I parody lyrics.

...

To be fair (NEWSFLASH TZOR DEFENDS UK) the problem is a difference of opinion of what libel is all about. Remember that the original notion of libel was a way for the King to eliminate opposing points by soving their faces into a court of law. The "truth" defense was invented in the US, along with a number of other elements of modern US libel law.

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sat Jan 22, 2011 8:54 pm

Well. That's it. He has gone entirely off the rocking horse this time.

What amazes me is how he is completely lacking in shame, I mean a post like that would embarrass me no end.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 2:39 am

People who are busy giving a shit about being forced to vote can just not mark the ballot paper. If thats too much work for you then you don't deserve to live in a democracy.

Liberal ideology in a paragraph: fuck y'all, do what I say.

Neeeek · Post by **Neeeek** » Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:56 pm

tzor wrote: The "truth" defense was invented in the US, along with a number of other elements of modern US libel law.

You are aware that the "truth" defense is almost never used because proving truth is actually insanely hard to do about most things that are libel, right?

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:22 pm

Draco_Argentum wrote:US free speech is heading toiletwards, you can expect to lose that bragging right within a few years.

The Future is Yesterday

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:26 pm

I was talking about how the libel laws started diverting ... this process started in 1735, when we were still a colony.

New York printer John Peter Zenger is tried on charges of seditious libel for publishing criticism of the royal governor. English law – asserting that the greater the truth, the greater the libel – prohibits any published criticism of the government that would incite public dissatisfaction with it. Zenger’s lawyer, Alexander Hamilton, convinces the jury that Zenger should be acquitted because the articles were, in fact, true, and that New York libel law should not be the same as English law. The Zenger case is a landmark in the development of protection of freedom of speech and the press.

Truth is still a defense, it is just not an absolute one.

Count Arioch the 28th · Mon Jan 24, 2011 4:54 pm

Psychic Robot wrote:
People who are busy giving a shit about being forced to vote can just not mark the ballot paper. If thats too much work for you then you don't deserve to live in a democracy.
Liberal ideology in a paragraph: fuck y'all, do what I say.

That's everyone's ideology when they get in charge. That's the only reason why a leader is elected, so we have someone to say "Fuck y'all, do what I say". If we didn't want someone to tell us to fuck ourselves do what someone else says, society would collapse and we'd be picking lice out of each other's hair in the jungle like apes. Three seconds later, someone would establish themselves as an alpha then take all the females and start bossing people around, possibly while saying that we should fuck ourselves (I don't know).

I'm not saying you're wrong about liberals, I'm saying you're wrong in assuming that is somehow a trait dedicated to them.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 3:53 am

Psychic Robot wrote:
People who are busy giving a shit about being forced to vote can just not mark the ballot paper. If thats too much work for you then you don't deserve to live in a democracy.
Liberal ideology in a paragraph: fuck y'all, do what I say.

A democracy only works when the people feel that they have a stake in government. The way apathy is going this will cease being true and violent revolution becomes more likely. So yes, either the people must be forced to take part in governance or they will wait until they're super pissed then burn a bunch of shit down as collateral damage.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:50 am

At this point, I firmly believe a violent revolution is the only thing that can save us. Too many wicked men have wealth and power. Just look at what happened with Obama--hope and change swallowed up by the corporatist machinery running America. I do not believe he is a bad man despite disagreeing with his policies (which is remarkably similar to how I feel about his predecessor), but the evils born of greed and a desire for power have firmly corrupted our society's inner workings.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:56 am

Psychic Robot wrote:At this point, I firmly believe a violent revolution is the only thing that can save us. Too many wicked men have wealth and power. Just look at what happened with Obama--hope and change swallowed up by the corporatist machinery running America. I do not believe he is a bad man despite disagreeing with his policies (which is remarkably similar to how I feel about his predecessor), but the evils born of greed and a desire for power have firmly corrupted our society's inner workings.

I remember having a conversation like this with someone before Obama was elected when I was explaining why I wasn't going to vote. While I believed, and still do believe, that Obama entered office with good intentions there was, and is, no way that he alone would be able to turn over the government and make true change with so many asshats in power. I was also very confused as to why so many people were quick to point their finger at Bush for the problems the country faced and not so much at the elected officials (Representatives and Senate members). I don't believe that Bush was by any means an effective leader (I always felt he was incompetent) but he wasn't the sole or even really a big reason that I felt his administration failed.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:54 am

Well, there is a difference is the amount of apparent top-down administration between Bush and Obama. One never (rarely?) got the impression that Bush and/or his handlers in the White House weren't the top dogs calling the shots for the Republican party, while Obama is constantly fighting with the legislature.

So, when things got fucked under Bush it was much easier to flag him as the figurehead, while with Obama the public tension between him administration and Congress tends to mute that a little.

And Bush certainly was the reason why his administration failed. He was intellectually weak and therefore unwilling to challenge the ideological madmen that surrounded him and put him in power, and he was always willing to rah-rah-rah for whatever was put in front of him. He sold his office.

mean_liar · Post by **mean_liar** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 11:59 am

...and I currently don't buy that Obama was anything other than a corporatist centrist from the get-go, and Hope and Change were just anything other than marketing campaigns.

MGuy · Post by **MGuy** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:10 pm

I don't think Bush "sold" his office. I mean it seems more like he was put there specifically to BE a puppet. Had he actually been someone intellectually capable of challenging his party they probably wouldn't've shoe horned him in. The office was practically "given" to him with the intent that he'd just be a figurehead.

As for Obama I can't really say. I would like to think that he just doesn't have the teeth to pull off any kind of change but with the way things have rolled out I wouldn't be surprised to find that he just doesn't want to do anything.

Calibron · Post by **Calibron** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:11 am

Sorry to drag the conversation back a bit, but I was wondering about

PhoneLobster wrote:Just because there are great gapping flaws in our country doesn't mean we aren't better than the USA, which is pretty much the bottom of the developed Western nations when it comes to "places it would be good to live in".

Yes the U.S. is much worse for the globe than Australia, but from everything I've read, especially from you, indicates to me that Australia, all of it, is horrific; whereas, in the U.S., there are plenty of acceptable and even quite nice places to live scattered all over the country; places pretty good regardless of rich or poor, majority or minority(racial, political, sexual orientational, religious, or otherwise), often with low crime-rates and police relaxed about victimless crimes such as pot and pill dealing(not pushing, at least where I live).

Basically I'd like you to expand upon why you say that all of Australia is better to live in than all of America. I've come to largely respect your opinions and am interested to hear your argument; perhaps in separate thread?

PhoneLobster · Post by **PhoneLobster** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 12:58 pm

I don't think it's a big enough topic for a thread.

Much of the "Lookout Australia is terrible!" stuff I've posted before was in the thread where I talked up Australia as a Horror RPG setting. And really that's not going to focus on the good stuff.

We ARE a developed western nation, in ways the USA certainly is not, we have a less corrupt democratic system, a more functional form of government, real welfare and public health, nice weather and great beaches. SOME of the people are even really nice.

That's not much but it beats dying of curable diseases while being shot with automatic weapons in the slums of a snow ridden American hell hole miles away from any kind of reasonable surfing beach.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 2:26 pm

And apparently, if you like beer, Australia has good beer. That said, one of my friends recently went through Europe and, from his account, drank the place dry. He speaks ill of most Australian beer, especially now, and feels that England is better than Australia because their weather is more mild and they have good beer. And that Germany should consider becoming the official representative of Earth, because of their beer.

Interestingly, he loved Czech Republica. Maybe the TRUE TERRORS OF THE KAFKAESQUE NIGHTMARE only reveal themselves if you try to live there.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 3:54 pm

Koumei wrote:And apparently, if you like beer, Australia has good beer. That said, one of my friends recently went through Europe and, from his account, drank the place dry. He speaks ill of most Australian beer, especially now, and feels that England is better than Australia because their weather is more mild and they have good beer. And that Germany should consider becoming the official representative of Earth, because of their beer.

Interestingly, he loved Czech Republica. Maybe the TRUE TERRORS OF THE KAFKAESQUE NIGHTMARE only reveal themselves if you try to live there.

Or possibly because the Czech Republic is known for making some of the best beer on earth.