[B5JMS] And So It Begins...

[b5jms at cs.columbia.edu]

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From: pelzo63 at aol.com (Pelzo63)
Date: 25 May 2003 06:50:20 GMT
Lines: 122

<< We have problems here at home, ranging from poverty, >>

a person living on the street in the USA has more access to food, water and
shelter then much of the populations of the nations of india, china, or mexico,
and of much of the continent of africa. and those are just the large nations, i
can not, in good conscious, call what we have here, poverty.  but yes, some
people here have a lot more than others, it's called capitalism, if you do not
like it, then i will be more than happy to take some of that excess off your
hands joe. or at the bare minimum, take what's needed to pay the bills for the
next year.

<<to crime,>>

unfortunately, there is no way to have no crime, and a lot of freedom.(well,
there is, it's called making absolutely everything legal).  last i checked,
england, france, russia, germany, australia, canada, and japan all had crime. 
iraq, iran, syria, china, and north korea all had rampant oppression of
freedoms. 

i can honstly say, i feel safe walking alone at night down 99.9% of the streets
in my country.  and yes, some of the countries i named have lower crime rates
than the US, they also have a massively lower population, and crime tends to
grow exponentially with population(with small villages having almost zero crime
rates, IOW, what works in denmark, or switzerland, or new zealand, won't work
in the USA, or China, or India, or Mexico, or Japan)

<< to drug abuse, >>

which no one, nowhere, has found a cure to yet.  some countries just gave up
and decided to collect taxes on it instead.  as soon as man discovered fire,
man discovered that certain types of smoke made your head feel funny.  animals
routinely feast themselves on fermented fruits, then wander into traffic, or
pass out into pools of water.  sound familiar? 

<< we've armed half the world and set the other half of the world
against them >>

so which half did the USSR have a hand in arming?  if we did both halves. the
price of victory is cleaning up the mess, some of that mess is in the form of
dictators that were "better than the alternative", some of that mess is in
weaponry that was "better pointed away from us than at us", and some of that
mess is weaponry that WAS pointed at us.  last i checked, the USA did not make
T33 tanks, Ak-47 rifles, Mig fighter jets, SCUD missiles or Mirage fighter
jets.  

<< helped to create the Taliban and arm Bin Laden, >>

to be precise joe, helped to arm the mujahadeen(sp?), to keep the soviets busy
so they didn't come after us directly, some of these then went on to become the
taliban. a taliban that existed for a couple years during the 90's without
serious negative comment from the administration at that time, despite massive
humanitarian problems. was londo not somewhat redeemed by removing the madman
he put into power?(for those who insist we're on the path of londo) 


<< So how would you feel if someone came in to redraw the map of the United
States
to solve those problems for the good of the world? >>

if they have a large population(over 100 million) and have solved the problems
of poverty, crime and drug abuse, while not resorting to the removal of civil
rights, then i wouldn't see much of a problem.

oh, btw, the map of the middle east is identical to the way it was 1 year ago.
the changes have all been with the administrations running their sections of
the map. 

unlike the map of the balkans, which was very different before and after our
last president got us involved, without UN support. 

<< We don't own that part of the world. >><BR><BR>

with great power, comes great responsibility. 
all it takes for evil to succeed, is for good people to do nothing. 

<< We are meant to be a shining beacon on a hill, to show those who believe in
the
possibility of democratic ideals that it *is* possible, and to support those
who make the attempt to change things, as we did in what was the Soviet Union,
in South Africa, in the Phillipines, and elsewhere. >>

and the USSR is the major problem here, i already went over the
political/weapon legacy of the little cold war we had with them. the mindset is
yet another legacy, and a vast many people, when faced with the 3 conflicting
stories of "you can not negotiate with unreasonable people", "the USSR is an
unreasonable nation" and "the USSR has seen the light and become democratic",
have chosen to believe that the first of these was the false statement. instead
of believing that we were being fed propoganda about the unreasonably nature of
the sov's(post-stalin), we instead chose to believe that we were so good at
reasoning, that we converted the unreasonable. there IS good and evil, the
problem is that most of us, fit into the "and" part. 

<< Changing the middle east to a more peaceful form?  Sure.  Doing it
uninvited,
 >>

who was goin to invite us joe?  the people in the mass graves in iraq? or to
mention your other post from a few days ago, the starving somalians who can
barely walk, let alone fight or protest?  luckily for the muslim peeople in the
balkans, they were near enough to a sympathetic neighbor for their oppressed
but escaping voices to be heard, how does one escape from a desert encampment
surrounded by hostile neighbors? we know what goes on in cuba, what if cuba was
900 miles from our shore instead of 90, would we then hear their voices crying
for help? 

someone once said, "the duration is going to be a lot longer than the war", the
problem here is that the war in question is not the war in afghanistan, not the
war in iraq(either one), not even the "war on terror", the war is the Cold War.
 that war may be over, now we have 50 years of mess to clean up. 
unfortunately, not enough people can see beyond themselves enough to support a
"global campaign to clean up the effects of the cold war", we had to instead
invent a euphamism "the war on terror".

<< at gunpoint and with the accompaniment of unprovoked bomb blasts when our
safety was never at risk?  No. >>

to once again pull in the parallel's from B5, what risk was there to delenn,
the IA, B5, Minbar, Earth, or the rangers by the drazi(or was it brakiri?)
continually supporting raider attacks on the enfili homeworld? 

...Chris


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From: jmsatb5 at aol.com (Jms at B5)
Date: 25 May 2003 08:40:21 GMT
Lines: 34

><< We have problems here at home, ranging from poverty, >>
>
>a person living on the street in the USA has more access to food, water and
>shelter then much of the populations of the nations of india, china, or
>mexico,
>and of much of the continent of africa. and those are just the large nations

So you exalt this by pointing to the worst cases, as opposed to looking to the
majority of industrialized nations that offer universal health care and
assistance.  So because we're not the worst, we're okay?  Odd reasoning there,
but it makes you happy....

><< So how would you feel if someone came in to redraw the map of the United
>States
>to solve those problems for the good of the world? >>
>
>if they have a large population(over 100 million) and have solved the
>problems
>of poverty, crime and drug abuse, while not resorting to the removal of civil
>rights, then i wouldn't see much of a problem.

Terrific.  If you find such a country, let me know, because at the moment it
ain't on the map I have here at home.

 jms

(jmsatb5 at aol.com)
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