Mahmoud Ahmadinejad murders gay people!
POSTED BY: CrevanReaver
UPDATED: Sunday, September 30, 2007 10:14
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Not meaning to take anything from either men I must say that Neville Chamberlain was naive and Churchill had the benefit of hind sight. Both responded to a dictator who left his own borders in the need to expand his empire. You're right though, when it came to eloquence, Churchill was difficult to top.
Had Hitler stayed within the borders of Germany, I don't think anyone would have bothered with him - until he started to annex his neighbors.
Signym- thanks for the suggestions! Can we keep this going?
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Originally posted by Hero:Quote:
Originally posted by Fletch2:
Your history is different from mine then. I don't know that anyone on the "liberal" side in Europe actually trusted Hitler for a moment.
Hmmm...lets see what the Right Honorable Prime Minister had to say:
"The peoples of the British Empire were at one with those of Germany, of France and of Italy, and their anxiety, their intense desire for peace... The path which leads to appeasement is long and bristles with obstacles. The question of Czechoslovakia is the latest and perhaps the most dangerous. Now that we have got past it, I feel that it may be possible to make further progress along the road to sanity." Neville Chamberlain,Parliamentary Debates, Commons, Vol. 339 (October 3, 1938)
You mean this Neville Chamberlain?
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Arthur Neville Chamberlain, known as Neville Chamberlain (18 March 1869 – 9 November 1940), was a British Conservative politician and Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1937 to 1940.
Great liberal conspiracy that. Nobody wanted war, not the people, not the ruling classes. American casualties in WW1 while horrific were a drop in the water compared to European Allied losses, for us the war was twice as long and infinately more deadly.
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Nobody wanted to confront Hitler in 1933,
Actually there was one person. Winston Churchill. And he was right, from the very begining:
But at the time people did think him a nut. Here's the thing about history, it's writen from the point of view of the winner and with 20/20 hindsight. Had Chamberlain's plan worked, had Hitler blinked, old Neville would probably be remembered today as a great statesman instead of an appeaser and Winston would have seen out his days in political exile doing watercolours and writing essays. The irony is that the way this played out wasn't decided by either of them but by the actions of Hitler.
But back to the main thrust. The mainstream Conservatives in England did not want war, which was ok because with the exception of folks like Nye Bevan the left didn't want it either. In the US the Republican party campaigned against taking the US into war in 1940
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Quote:Well, as long as he stayed within the borders of countries the other powers didn’t care about. Germany annexed two neighbors before anyone got up in arms about it.
Originally posted by Judith:
Had Hitler stayed within the borders of Germany, I don't think anyone would have bothered with him - until he started to annex his neighbors.
I think it’s fair to say that Europeans were traumatized following World War I. It was such a stupid war to begin with and ended with little to show for it except the death of millions. Before WWI Europeans were dancing in the streets at the prospect of war – so it’s probably safe to say that the population in Europe at the time was on the direct polar opposite they would be after the war. I don’t think that this is unusual – throughout history the populous has often been easily inspired to the call of arms, because in the absence of communication, the tragedy of the aftermath was never transmitted fully to the next generation. The Napoleonic wars might not have been as destructive as World War I, but the devastation was far greater than was remembered in 1914.
By 1933, the population of Europe had learned, again, how devastating war can be, but this time they wouldn’t be allowed to forget it. The problem was the while the masses had figured out that wars are not all glory and flags, the Napoleons were still around and ready to take advantage of this new European mindset. People like Churchill had a difficult job convincing a nation newly convinced of the hell of war, that war also had the virtue of being the only real tool against militant totalitarian states. The irony is that had the other powers put their foot down early World War II would likely not have happened, simply because Hitler was relying on a Europe that was so traumatized they were unwilling to act in their own preservation.
You would think that after WWII, Europe would have learned both lessons – the hell of war, and the necessity of it, and while many have, I think there is still many that remain traumatized. This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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Quote:What do you mean: "Acting in favor of rhetoric"?? On the face of it, that doesn't sound like a good idea.
This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric
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Always look upstream.
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:What do you mean: "Acting in favor of rhetoric"?? On the face of it, that doesn't sound like a good idea.
This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric
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Always look upstream.
You know your misquoting folks is part of the reason people stop talking to you.
Finn: I think you mis-interpret the current Eurpoean position. Europe has been at war on and off for close to 2000 years. The last 100 of which were especially bloody. I think Europe has finally started to do the math, work out the costs and benefits of conflicts according to a fairly complex formula. That is why Iraq was not on the European radar but Iran is, that's why there are European troops in Afghanistan. I don't know that the average modern European is less inclined to go to war, I just think you have to make a better case that it's in his best interest.
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Quote:Fletch2- I'm not misquoting, I really don't understand what Finn meant. That's why I asked. But if you know what Finn meant please enlighten me.
This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric- Finn
What do you mean: "Acting in favor of rhetoric"?? On the face of it, that doesn't sound like a good idea.-Signy
You know your misquoting folks is part of the reason people stop talking to you.-Fletch2
---------------------------------
Always look upstream.
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look Jong,
yeah, in that first post, I felt like being a little rude. You probably don't see that your own words were arrogant, superior, insulting and publically judgemental to a whole lifestyle...
you condemned them for their sexuality. You said something to the effect of them being an affront to everything good and decent. Now you demand respect.
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Did I cherry pick? Was that sentence taken out of context? If so, then I'll give you a pass. Hell, you've got a pass anyway. I posted a pretty confrontational response, I agree, but my attitude in general when dealing with people who have some stored up bigotry is not to try to alienate them, but to try to rationally bring them over, so for not doing that, I apologize.
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You don't want homosexuality rammed down your throat, (that does sound unappealing), but you don't mind if you turn on the T.V and see a male and female couple kissing, or animals mating on animal planet..etc. I think you're making too big a deal out of it. You've built it up as so disgusting, so revolting, that it probably literally effects you when you see it.
It took me a long time to get over that kind of stigma, myself. I never had anything against gays, but because I hadn't known any I was still creeped out a little by being around them, I was actually disturbed by kissing scenes on TV between two men. When I found out a friend of mine was gay...and I should have known...(the dude had steel magnolias in his movie collection and he was a big fan of Diana Ross), I got the heebeejeebies...it was a world I wasn't comfortable with, and I thought he might be trying to hit on mee.
There's a lot of stigma in the world, and I was a product of that too. 10 years later I can watch through all the graphic gay sex scenes in Six Feet Under and not bat an eye. It doesn't arouse me, but it doesn't bother me either.
I'm just saying, maybe you don't want to get jaded to it, maybe you like affirming your own sexuality by tasting bile when you see two men holding hands, but if you ever were to become jaded to it, guess what...it wouldn't make you gay...it wouldn't make your kids gay. It just wouldn't bother you any more.
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Slight difference friend.....I write about "groups"...you & your pals here attack individual Browncoats.
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so the difference is, you're here to present your case and defend yourself, and to attack back if you feel it's appropriate?
On the other hand you expect your comments to go unmolested, more general hatred seeping into common everyday conversation as if its the norm, because you're attacking groups after all, not individuals?
What the hell makes that better?
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Quote:
Originally posted by SignyM:Quote:Fletch2- I'm not misquoting, I really don't understand what Finn meant. That's why I asked. But if you know what Finn meant please enlighten me.
This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric- Finn
What do you mean: "Acting in favor of rhetoric"?? On the face of it, that doesn't sound like a good idea.-Signy
You know your misquoting folks is part of the reason people stop talking to you.-Fletch2
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Always look upstream.
Well I don't speak for Finn, or even agree with his analysis but what he said was pretty clear.
Quote:
This has led European foreign policy to be defined heavily by supranationalism, which is basically an excuse not to act in favor of rhetoric.
Finn's contention is that Europe favours action via multinational entities such as the UN as an excuse for inaction. Ie, they can CLAIM to be against something, do all the posturing and sabre rattling they need to do to look tough, safe in the knowledge that bodies like the UN will never agree to authorise anything.
The crucial thing is to look at the complete sentence, it is not "Acting in favor of rhetoric." It is the failier to act, and instead to favour rhetoric.
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