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Originally posted by Arbiter Regrettably it wouldn't surprise me. I was forced to take an introductory course in Sociology to fulfill a requirement at one point, and in order to pass the class you essentially had to pretend to be a devout Marxist...

Marxist ... how horrid . Was it at least taught with intelligence?

Oh well off to bed.

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Originally posted by occrider Was it at least taught with intelligence?

Quite the opposite, I'm afraid. At first I tried to pose questions that would challenge the professor's assumptions, but since my questions were always dismissed quickly with a vague generality and the professor was clearly annoyed by my confrontational queries, I quickly gave up and simply regurgitated what was expected.

A pretty good example would be that if I were to ask:

"Upon what basis do you formulate the claim that everyone should have equal access to resources in a society?"

I could expect a response along the lines of:

"When there's an inequality in society, it's a strong indicator of unfair treatment to certain social groups."

To make matters worse, the professor was also a feminist. It's the only class I've ever taken where I felt like I was losing rather than gaining intelligence by attending.

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Originally posted by Arbiter It's hard to see how this could be anything but a troll topic. Vague claims that America is "bad" backed up by little or no facts other than obscure references to one's personal experiences isn't a very good starting point for a political discussion. If you have specific greivances backed up by empirical evidence, then perhaps a discourse on the matter would be possible. There are plenty of things I think are wrong with America. However, broad claims such as "most Americans have their heads up their asses", (be that as it may) offers little insight into the nature of the problem at hand, how it might be solved, etc... To those interested in truth rather than merely in rhetoric, I can't see what this topic has to offer.

You are right ....this is a troll topic and it was meant to be one and vauge refrences????? I have put forward quite afew vaild points that some of my opponents have aggreed with. The reason why this is a troll topic is becasue there is no solution ? What are you going to about the problems in the states. The rich control the policticans and the "americans that have their heads up there asses"" are influenced by powerful lobby groups. So yes I am saying just that becasue I think it has gottn to the point that nothing is being done and it is getting worse and to having a starting point to some sort of revelotion you have to have a grassroots anger of some sort.which is happening by the way.....

Where is the empirical eveidence that the US has truly had a good influence with their foriegn policies? I know you are going to come up with something....You know guys you remind of that Blond hair guy in Good Will Hunting...the one that comes across like he knows a whole lot..which he may but in the real world it means nothing because like I keep saying America is the world bully! People are pissed and that's all there is too it!

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I don't hate USA, actually i think it's a great country so don't get me wrong. But there is A LOT of downsides in US that i hate and in a way i can agree with 2hardcore4u. Seriously there cannot be any other rich country in this world that care so little about their poor population and there is no other well developed country in this world where companies has such great power, nor do i know any western country in this world that is so much controlled by money.

I do also think that there is hard to find any other country where its people know so little about the rest of the world and its history. Guess to many americans shouldn't even be able to point out where in the world iraq is. I also guess that too few americans has ever been outside the USA, which also contribute to the people's stupidness when it comes to world politics / ignorance of other people.

One more thing that annoy me (amongst many other people) is that you don't seem to see a solution to problems without using violence, all you wars, death penalty etc.

You can't blame the people for all this though. IMO there is something basically wrong with the political / school system in the USA.

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Furthermore, simply because American corporate scandals are overly publisized in the western media, don't let that paint you an inaccurate picture of world affairs

OK this one is still bothering me. I'd like to know how you think that there isn't a problem here. I mean if a certain city has a really low murder rate and another city has a high murder rate wouldn't you think there is some sort of rooted problems in that city??? I mean ofcoarse frequency has something to do with it? If one or two people or doing something then it our of the oridnary but when many corporations are screwing people over then I tend to think there is a a bigger problem???

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Sigh ... instead of paying attention to the frequency or prominence that each scandal is given by the media, why don't you look at the actual AMOUNT of money that is defrauded to consumers or the damage rendered upon that particular market. Each is in the BILLIONS.

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QUOTE]You can't blame the people for all this though. IMO there is something basically wrong with the political / school system in the USA.[/QUOTE]

Thats is what I say from the start...that there is something wrong with the school and political system such as these quotes:

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Don;t get me wrong I have met some cool americans ....but I have met more asshole americans than anyone...something has to change down there...ther way people are taught to think

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But they control the world with their corporate greed. 10 % of the people in America own 90% of the wealth....90% of the people own 10% of the wealth how is that free..the richer ger richer...it's so messed up it's unbelievable.

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There are some deeply rooted problems in your society

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Originally posted by 2hardcore4u yes I know all about that too.....but you see Russia does something about it's corrupt oil companies> Unlike america keeps them around so they help politicans win elections

The leader of that oil company was giving millions to the opposition party of president Putin. It's widely speculated that his incarceration is a politically motivated act by the Putin government.

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Originally posted by 2hardcore4u yes I know these replies are scttered but I have 10 min breaks inbetween teaching classes

If I were a parent with a student in one of your "classes" I'd pull them out immediately. Please don't tell me you "teach" at the college level?!?

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Originally posted by 2hardcore4u You are right ....this is a troll topic and it was meant to be one

At least you admit it.

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Last edited by DaveSZ on Oct-30-2003 at 15:46

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Originally posted by 2hardcore4u OK this one is still bothering me. I'd like to know how you think that there isn't a problem here. I mean if a certain city has a really low murder rate and another city has a high murder rate wouldn't you think there is some sort of rooted problems in that city??? I mean ofcoarse frequency has something to do with it? If one or two people or doing something then it our of the oridnary but when many corporations are screwing people over then I tend to think there is a a bigger problem???

Of course there's a problem there! THat's why there have been a SIGNIFICANT amount of legislative initiatives attempting to increase transparency SINCE the scandals. However, you attempted to insinuate that this is an issue that only occurs in the US:

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Do you see all over the news every few months of another company being investigated for corruption? Or companies like Enron Etc....No because goverments in ohter countries do not infact let companies run amokquite like they do in the US.

To which I replied there are PLENTY of foreign companies LIKE Enron who defrauded the market out of BILLIONS of dollars and provided a healthy list of examples of which, I'm sure if I looked hard enough, I could find many more. However, for whatever reason, these examples of corporate corruption are not given the same limelight in the media. Actually, I'm guessing part of the reason why enron and worldcom received such intense scrutiny is because they occured at a time of a bust economy, many of the public had to subsist on lean times, and the corporate higher-ups blatantly scammed investors with accounting foolery.

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Last edited by occrider on Oct-30-2003 at 15:42

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Originally posted by St_Andrew I do also think that there is hard to find any other country where its people know so little about the rest of the world and its history. Guess to many americans shouldn't even be able to point out where in the world iraq is. I also guess that too few americans has ever been outside the USA, which also contribute to the people's stupidness when it comes to world politics / ignorance of other people.

There's not really an excuse for this, and I'd tend to agree with you that US born citizens tend to fall into this catagory more often than their European counterparts.

However, this is true partially because of the geographic location of the US in relation to the rest of the worlds' countries. For example if I lived in France, it would be easy and cost effective for me to take the train (or a very cheap flight) and visit surrounding countries, thus hopefully infusing me with a cultural understanding of those countires. A person living in the USA has to pay quite a bit more to visit European and Asian countries, thus those without much money to spare are out of luck in terms of gaining understanding of different cultures based on visiting and experiencing those cultures. People in the US unfortunately also tend to recieve less time off for vacation than Europeans, thus further limiting their chances for expansion of their knowledge of other countires and cultures. We all know that being saturated in a different culture is the best way to learn about different cultures instead of reading about them in a textbook. To be honest though in my high school's foreign language program we were often offered the chance to take trips to other countries and experience the languages first hand. The only limiting factor in those cases was of course money.

The few exceptions that I can think of to this rule, are flights to the UK (thanks to British Airways), and flights to areas in the same general region as the US, i.e. Mexico, the Carribean, Central and S. America etc.

The entirety of the United States states and territories (and also Canada) contain a vast array of vacation offerings from beaches to mountains, and some of the most beautiful natural places on the planet i.e. Yellowstone, Yosimite, Hawaii Volcanoes Nat. Park etc etc. Many Americans recognize this, and tend to just vacation within the US for this reason. It also makes for a much more cost-effective vacation than say flying to Europe or East Asia. I'm not the only one who shares this view apparently, because if you've ever been to a US or Canadian national park, you are often in the minority as a predominately English speaking person.

The current US administration however has more or less waged war on the future of these natural places with severe cuts in funding, and essentially planning for these areas to be turned over to big industry (including mining, clear-cutting, and oil extraction). We can't afford another 4 years of this administration as far as the national parks and national forrests etc are concerned.

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Last edited by DaveSZ on Oct-30-2003 at 15:54

Alright Im going to do this in as simple a way as possible. I think their are two divisions of issues I contest when it comes to America: Foreign policies and Domestic issues. To make this easier Im just goign to list policies or events, and not go into great detail. If anyone wants clarification of the issues, or to debate them we can get more into detail after.


Foreign policy:

Nicaragua - Contra War
Chile - Pinochets coup
Vietnam - invasion
Cuba - Invasion/embargo
Panama - Noreaga government
Iraq - Invasion/embargo/invasion
Rwanda - inaction/blocking action (?)
Israel - funding
Afghanistan - invasion
Columbia - funding


Domestic issues

Justice system - level of incarceration (especially of minorities)
Patriot act - taking away of fundamental civil rights
Taxation policy - low corporate and high bracket taxes
allowing people the "right to bear arms"
huge growing gap between rich and poor
Illegal ellection of George Bush
Low voter turnout
lack of medicare
problems with the school systems
huge consumption which is potentially destroying the world
lack of controls on how U.S. companies can behave in other countries
large religious influence on government policy (eg not teaching evolution in a couple of states, only teaching abstinence in Texas)
Low minimum wage
Lack of government legislation protecing workers rights
Overfunding of the military, while other departments suffer

I could keep going but I think thats enough for now and I have some reading to do before class.

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Ummm ok this thread is getting out of hand. I'm starting to get the sense of a childish "here's why I'm better than you ... " mentality. What is this, a list of grievances over the course of US history? In that case I have problems with the British colony of Canada attacking Washington DC. Also, I'm very upset that Canada did nothing to intervene in Rwanda as well . Or how they didn't base 20 or 30 divisions of troops in West Germany for several decades to thwart Soviet aggression into Europe. So if you would like to intelligentely discuss an issue (and each one of these issues can warrant healthy discussion/debate) then bring up a specific issue in an individual thread rather than giving us a list of why you hate america. So unless you want me to delve into each topic in one massive post...

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