simmen that was possibly the most relevant youtube post ever made on the battledawn forum. Most of the time videos will have a vague reference to the topic. That one was right on target, and friggin hilarious.

So once again, I say...

You can't debate something that is so obvious as this.

So if anyone really wants a debate or something like that about the US being bad, why don't you actually bring up something that is debatable.

Look, in the United States of America there are so many wonderful things. Don't believe me? Go to a Texas Barbecue.

Or maybe you should buy a car. Or take a ride in an Airplane. Or maybe if you look at the computer that you are on right now to read this. Even if your computer isn't physically made in the USA (although believe it or not it may be, not everything is made in China, Taiwan, or Japan) I'm willing to bet you that most of the software is.

In fact, have you ever done a Google search?

Or maybe you have seen a Hollywood movie.

Or possibly you have used the Internet. (Al Gore invented that one, right? pfffft)

Country music is pretty uniquely American as well, as is Jazz and the Blues.

And the point about the American Dream... that is huge... And while this dream is being taken away by the government as of late, the values behind it are still quite great, and they are still very prevalent.

Is the government doing bad things? Yes. Is that unique to us? No.

So when anyone says that the US is bad, I am not offended, I just laugh at their ignorance.

i would cover east timor but i cbs doing it properly. if you care about USA you should find out what the government has been doing.

the timorese people were probably one of the most democratic people on earth, they had a simple life in small villages it was pretty equal for most with many living with subsistence lifestyle just fine.

then indonesia hit. now why is this USA's fault?

90% of arms that were used in the genocidal like killing of people from dili (this included rape, forced starvation. forced abortion, killing (obviously) were from USA.
there was nothing in the newspaper in USA about the genocide of the timorese people, everything was "pol pot is a communist monster" "communism is bad" with an obvious enemy, the people of USA didnt know. when media were presented with East Timor, they generally white washed it over and printed the "horror" of cambodia with heavy use of negative connotations instead.
because of this, whatshisface who was president at the time actually managed to ship MORE arms over when the militants ran out of ammunition to fire at civilians. you see, east timor is a resource rich area, it has an abundant amount of oil. Indonesia would build there, use it as a cash crop and sell it to USA, USA could get the oil at a premium price.

the fact that the media didnt report of Timor is quite depressing especially when they were spastic at a similiar genocide on a larger scale in cambodia.

i wouldnt call upon USA to intervene, Australia was closer and it was actually broadcasted.
i just wouldnt think shipping them arms was the correct thing to do in foreign policy.

Do you have a problem with realizing when there is no opposing argument? I don't know if you realize this or not, but now you are just ranting at an imagined opposing side.

First things first though, what you mention (I don't know much of anything about it, so just calm down right now) is not caused by the USA.

Did the USA contribute to the problem? Yes.

But seriously, if you are going to argue that the USA is bad, get off of the foreign relations topic... we all know that the USA foreign relations are horrible and its all because of the government's stupidity and lack of understanding when it comes to how... well, anything... works.

Now if the USA were to do the smart thing and return to the fundamental ideas which formed it, we wouldn't have any of those foreign relations problems.

If you look at those problems though, when did it really start?

I would have to say WWII (Atomic bomb usage,) but once again, I am no scholar of history.

When did the welfare state begin? FDR, 1930's, Great Depression time frame. Which was just before WWII, in case you didn't know that.

This is around the time of the progressive movement, the "new deal," the construction of the Fed. It is also when the Dollar's Gold Standard was beginning to be taken off by the politicians.

----

Also, do not dare preach about if I, or anyone else, care about the USA or not. You are just proving yourself to be ignorant, arrogant, and quite oblivious to the (I believe) quite apparent care that I have for my country.

That would be like me saying you don't care about your country, Australia, right? I'm not the type to remember those things perfectly.

err, read the first post which pritty much set the discussion ground, it's about foreighn policy, so that is the topic plz don't go off topic *use mod voice*

what he said, this topic is me ranting about foreign politics.

USA has a slip up? that is understandable.

USA maintaining an annual tradition of completely setting some random country on fire?
that, is a problem.

a majority of these actual problems DONT stem from WWII

it stems from the cold war, and the deficits after WWII that resulted in USA being a super power while Europe was crippled by war.
USA foreign politics during the cold war was totalitarian, perhaps they depicted their actions as the greater good, for democracy, but 10 countries messed over arent good enough, 20? 30? We (nato) just swept through iraq because the world had to kiss G.W. Bush's butt to maintain trade and good relations.

Afghanistan would be legitimate in a combat sense because of it being taliban run with their leader declaring a holy war also they are the highest exporter of heroin so stamping on them should help, but Iraq shows how little USA has progressed in terms of actually maintaining peace.

my rant will continue, as it is unopposed and people posting here means i can rant without it being a double post.

USA was a major contributing factor to the Timor conflict, -90% of weapons, they would only have roughly 20% of the arms they had after buying some more elsewhere. they wouldnt have been able to go through with the genocide of the Timorese and Indonesian militants wouldnt have been able to leave it in such a mess that Aust had to clean up after it. a Channel 7 news presenter was killed in Timor ensuring that the story got out.

instead, New york times cut out 60% of a scathing artical that was published in London. it became white wash, it was hidden away so USA's "war on communism" could direct publicity to Cambodia.

i didnt say USA was bad because 40 years ago they had bad foreign policy.
i didnt say USA was bad because 20 years ago they had bad foreign policy.
im saying that even TODAY, USA is the craps because of the politicians negligence to the rest of the world, because the hippies got eaten up and spat out, all options of peace are ignored and the path of peace through superior firepower is taken with heavy losses burdened by civilians. everyone has heard me rant on iraq. i decided i should go back in history cause we all know that if we dont learn from history, it is bound to repeat itself.

- Ducky

So basically you saying the US is bad because It sold one of its main exports? (Fire Arms) Then made even more profit out of crap situation. Sounds like the perfect country. Existing for the sake of it's people. The US doesn't have many exports so we take what we can get. Had we not sold to them, chances are another arms dealing country would.

Your own China, and Australia are major arms dealers. China with a total of 49.5 billion, and Australia with a total of 13.8 billion.

I'm gonna stick to the NRA here. Guns don't kill people. They're inanimate objects. People kill people. When there's a will there's a way. Even if we didn't provide the arms, someone else would have. Or they would've gone "Hotel Rwandan" style with machetes.

I dont actually agree with anything I've said. However, ducky saying the same thing over and over again was getting annoying.

thats the problem it is the same thing over and over again. no purpose other then the gain of the few at the suffering of the many.

would USA openly sell his missiles and its arms to the taliban today? even if the taliban offered to pay a good sum for the latest weaponry?

the US has plenty of exports, you dont become the strongest economic nation based purely off fire arms trading. they have hollywood where lone movies can turn out half a bil, they have silicon valley, they have government funded medical research, their walmarts and costcos and whatevers generate enough. coca cola, although international still headquarters in USA, microsoft, apple... etc.

Selling arms to Indonesia? thats all well and good, selling arms to indonesia knowing what they are doing with them and knowing it is somewhat completely immoral... thats the problem.

Well you've made good points save the fact that your naming companies well known for outsourcing. If jobs are outsourced all we've done is send American money out of america.

If the taliban weren't a threat to the US then yes, I believe we would sell to them. Again, countries think of themselves first and others second.

The US has very few exports, were clinging to cars but nobody wants them, movies count as domestic revenue, and are often filmed in Canada due to the cheaper taxes. (More american money leaving america.) Walmart, Cosco, Medical Research, all examples of big business. Money gets stuck at the top and rarely comes back down.

outsourcing still directs most of the profits back at USA, you do know that right?


so selling to known terrorist groups is fine? even in the world of capitalism that is ill advised especially if you end up mopping up after inadvertedly

US cars suck, europe has the good ones.

the filming of movies isnt that costly, the revenue made from box office tickets, dvd and merchandise is where it all counts. and that goes to USA.

either way, my point remains, you dont get to no. 1 relying purely on selling arms.