So, Ron Paul is the pro-Peace candidate for US President

[charlou]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

Wasn't the US built on internal conflict?

[Hermit]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

Wasn't the US built on internal conflict?

As well as external? Mexico just kept shrinking for decades while the aboriginal population of what is now covered by the USA was driven into ever smaller reservations. This is a map of the US of A circa 1830:

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

Wasn't the US built on internal conflict?

Very few countries weren't.

[charlou]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

Wasn't the US built on internal conflict?

Very few countries weren't.

True.

What I find interesting is that this 'survival of the fittest culture' is still being waged ... We are a part of history.

[charlou]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

Wasn't the US built on internal conflict?

As well as external? Mexico just kept shrinking for decades while the aboriginal population of what is now covered by the USA was driven into ever smaller reservations. This is a map of the US of A circa 1830:

Yep, this too.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

True.

What I find interesting is that this 'survival of the fittest culture' is still being waged ... We are a part of history.

Good myths are hard to kill.

[charlou]

True.

What I find interesting is that this 'survival of the fittest culture' is still being waged ... We are a part of history.

Good myths are hard to kill.

I know you've been there ... what do you make of it, zilla?

[Gawdzilla Sama]

True.

What I find interesting is that this 'survival of the fittest culture' is still being waged ... We are a part of history.

Good myths are hard to kill.

I know you've been there ... what do you make of it, zilla?

Better if you ask a question, so I don't wind up all over the map.

[charlou]

True.

What I find interesting is that this 'survival of the fittest culture' is still being waged ... We are a part of history.

Good myths are hard to kill.

I know you've been there ... what do you make of it, zilla?

Better if you ask a question, so I don't wind up all over the map.

What are the myths? is part of the question ... and why they're hard to kill? is part of the question ... and what brought you to this understanding? is the part I won't ask, because it's something only you can volunteer.

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Ah, the myths of the pioneering spirit. If you put the right spin on it the transportees were going to Australia to "open it up". They were involuntary, of course, but to the myth, they were just playing along to get a free ticket to Oz, and thereby "putting one over on the man". (Fanciful adaptation, but the gist is essentially correct.) Almost any country "settled" by Europeans since 1492 considers itself to be a "pioneering society" to greater or lesser extent. The myth is ubiquitous. And the source nation for these "settlers" gets a piece of the action for providing the means and people. As for why they're hard to kill, they're entertaining. "Waltzing Matilda" tells of a wild, free man living close to nature and not under the thumb of anybody.

[charlou]

Well, we seem to be thinking at cross purposes, and perhaps not in the way you thought.


I don't think I have romantic misconceptions of Australia. Certainly include it among the societies who are engaged in the cultural battle for moral superiority (material rewards notwithstanding, of course ).

[Gawdzilla Sama]

Well, we seem to be thinking at cross purposes, and perhaps not in the way you thought.


I don't think I have romantic misconceptions of Australia. Certainly include it among the societies who are engaged in the cultural battle for moral superiority (material rewards notwithstanding, of course ).

I didn't say you, personally, did, I was using Oz as an example of how the mythology might have developed. We're almost always blindest about our own country's history.

[Seth]

Flippancy aside, there are enlightened, peaceful cultures who mind their own business .... I try to imagine America in this light and it's a case of I'll believe it when I see it.

This is not a reflection of my thoughts on the appropriateness of intervention, btw.

The US used to be before we got dragged into WWI. Hardly a surprise the Germans would see to it that we get dragged into the sequel. That just set the stage for everything afterwards.

We didn't get "dragged in" to WWI, we were thrown into it by Woodrow Wilson, the fucking Progressive liar who ran his campaign on the promise NOT to get involved in the European conflict, and then, as soon as he was elected, promptly instituted conscription and sent our boys off to war, and arrested and imprisoned anyone who spoke out against his warmongering under the Sedition Act.

[Robert_S]

Wasn't there something about someone sinking US ships?

[Seth]

Wasn't there something about someone sinking US ships?

Not really. The sinking of the Lusitania was used by the propagandists at Wilson's Committee for Public Information to whip up public sentiment, but the US did not enter the war until 22 months after the Lusitania was sunk. Far more pertinent was the Zimmerman telegraph, which was a proposition of an alliance between German and Mexico from the German government, which proposed to support Mexico attacking the US to distract us from the European war should we decide to enter, and it promised a "reconquista" of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona with German assistance.