John D. Giorgis wrote:
>At 08:02 PM 5/25/01 +1200 K.Feete wrote:
>>>Did you really want those people controlling large chunks of the world?
>>>Do you really doubt that the communists would have taken over much of the
>>>world had the United States not made efforts to resist them at every turn?
>>
>>Er, yes. Do try and remember, for a moment, when I grew up. By the
>>eighties communism was a joke.
>
>YES?!?!?!?!?!? So what if you weren't born until the 1980's - does that
>make you *incapable* of understanding what happened for 50 years in those
>places behind the iron curtain? Are you incapable of comparing what
>happened in West Germany with what happened in East Germany? Do you not
>see any difference?
I was not defending my ignorance. I was merely explaining why my
viewpoint seemed to differ so radically from yours.
>1) Above you criticize America for getting involve in Vietnam
>2) Further above, your criticize America for not fighting the French
>colonialists in Vietnam.
>
>So, which is it? Should the United States fight wars against oppression
>in other countries, or should they not?
I critiscize America for not doing *something* about the French
colonialists- but I never said we should have fought them. That would
have been dumb. We could, however, have offered some support, even
psychological, to Vietnam- say, the same sort of support we offered South
Africa, which IIRC wasn't military. Had we chosen to do that there might
not have *been* a Vietnam war.
Hindsight, I know, but I really feel that if America was actually
*consistent* in its support or lack thereof we'd avoid a lot of problems.
>Indeed, what is truly amazing, is that we admit to our mistakes,
>and attempt to correct them - without ever changing our system of
>government. Certainly, other countries, such as Germany (and others) have
>risen above truly horrific mistakes. Almost every example I can think of,
>however, required a revolution or a new Constitution before taking steps to
>correct them. At any rate, I've never known Communists to admit to
>mistakes, let alone to make ammends.
I can agree that this would be one of the greatnesses of America- if it
actually consistantly existed. We seem to have become a little too
concious of our pride and position to actually admit to mistakes on a
regular basis.
As for Communists never admitting to mistakes- I'd have to research it,
but it seems to me that their behavior during this period was pretty akin
to ours. Whether we were arrogant because they were or vice versa is up
for debate.
Kat Feete
--------------------
Certain things have to happen before other things. Gods play
games with the fates of men. But first they have to get all the
pieces on the board, and look all over the place for the dice.
-Terry Pratchett
