Quo Vadis, America?

[Azi Tohak]

The USA has its problems. So? Every country has its own difficulties. I believe ours are magnified both by the attention received because of our status in the world, combined with a faction in our own country hell-bent on using whatever means they can to discredit Bush and by extension Republicans.

I point out the riots in France, the home-grown terrorism in Britain (or UK, England... I don't even know what to call that country. Which is it?), the fear of the immigrant workers in Germany, and the beach race-riots of Australia. Every nation has its own problems, what makes you think the USA is any worse than the rest of the west?

Franconius, what do you mean by return to a normal mode? The mode under Clinton? Bush Sr.? Reagan? Roosevelt? Clinton had the same intel structure as GW. The same European CIA camps. The same domestic wire-tapping (Patriot Act comes from his Presidency), and did he not squabble with the UN?

Torture has been used for... longer than can be remembered. This is not the thread to question its morality (I'm sure there are hundreds of posts around here on THAT somewhere around here), and I simply don't see what the big deal is. You don't think MI6, the Mossad and whatever the German and French, and South African, and Indonesian, and Japanese, and Chinese, and Brazilian equivalents don't all use the same techniques?

I think this country is more divided than before, but I think much of that divide is simply made up. Like Red vs Blue. Even the most extreme Liberals I know (and being a college student, even in the mid-west, introduces you to some wackos) don't advocate rebellion, or anything else to damage the structure of the US. Sure, they might hate Bush (even though they don't know why [which I find delightful]), but they won't seriously try to install a Cult of Reason to completely remove all Christianity from anything and anyone. The most extreme conservatives I know don't advocate the killing of all brown people, or the killing of all gays as some would have you believe. Christian 'Fundamentalists' (I hate that term so much) that I know don't disagree with science, they are just not sold fully on evolution (drop a bunch of chemicals in a sterile bucket, and see what happens. Nothing living!).

I think our biggest problem is the philosophy that it is always someone else's fault. Passing the buck (yup, even at the top of the Nation) is a big problem. I don't know what it would take to fix it (a new President? Please. Politicians make their living from shifting blame).

I don't think this country is as unified or morally stable as it should be, but I think we are doing fine.

Azi

[Sheep]

Even the most extreme Liberals I know (and being a college student, even in the mid-west, introduces you to some wackos) don't advocate rebellion, or anything else to damage the structure of the US. Sure, they might hate Bush (even though they don't know why [which I find delightful]), but they won't seriously try to install a Cult of Reason to completely remove all Christianity from anything and anyone. The most extreme conservatives I know don't advocate the killing of all brown people, or the killing of all gays as some would have you believe.

Not that it detracts from your point, but I know people who advocate all of these things (not all the same people, of course).