on 7/24/02 19:09, Harry Zink at [EMAIL PROTECTED] deftly typed: >> The fact that Americans allow Nazis to march in their streets is one of many >> reasons we *do* have a free country. > > A "free" country that, nevertheless, does seem it's okay to tell other > countries who to vote for, or who to elect, and when coercion tactics don't > work, places that country's *DEMOCRATICALLY* elected President on the Black > list? > > How does that fit into the picture you just painted? > > (I'm talking about President Kurt Waldheim in the 80s, and J�rg Haider quite > recently, of Austria - albeit the 'Nazi' allegations towards President > Waldheim have been disproven multiple times, he's still on the Black List > and unable to visit the US). > > A "free" country?
So democracy requires that we agree with the judgments of foreigners? No, it's exactly the opposite: freedom means having the right and ability to think, say and do what *you* want, not what other people (or other countries) tell you to do. If we wanted to sanction Austria, or if I want to boycott Microsoft, who's business is that? I personally thought the way we treated Haider sucked, and I'm not familiar with the proofs you mention regarding Waldheim; but my way of thinking lost the vote, and our democratically-elected representatives have the right and power to sanction whom they please. Feel free to sanction us back. And anyway, it's a joke to get all upset at the Americans about this. It was your socialistic Euro buddies who lead the charge against Haider, and who demonize anyone and everyone supporting (a) the right, (b) nationalism, or (c) decentralized control. Ronald Reagan and Newt Gingrich weren't Nazis either, but you'd never know it to listen to some of those guys; and it was those guys who really nuked you. > >> After all the German people have been through in the past >> century, they shouldn't have to worry about such things either > > It's precisely BECAUSE of what they have been through that such laws exist - > maybe if America had a similar experience, it would understand, instead of > preaching from an armchair. Maybe it's because of the way we do things that we've never had such an experience. Germany didn't have a real super history of democracy before the 1950s, or perhaps you've forgotten. > >> Having laws against particular points of view is *not* a good thing, Harry. > > I don't disagree on that point, I do disagree on preaching freedom, but not > practicing it. Then since I was born in Germany, work for a native German, and am generally pro-German in nearly everything, and since my entire and only point is that the German government sucks when it suppresses the freedoms of its people in the same fashion as its predecessors (at this point at least) and that that's wrong, and since nothing I said couldn't have been said by anyone else (i.e., non-Americans) on the entire planet, why don't you get over your anti-American jihad and just agree with me? > > Harry > Rod D. Martin http://www.theVanguard.org ________ Those divines [theologians] who saw that nothing but revelation could provide man with perfect certainty were right. Human scientific inquiry cannot proceed beyond the limits drawn by the insufficiency of man�s senses and the narrowness of his mind. -� Ludwig von Mises -- To unsubscribe: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> archives: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.letterrip.com/> old-archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/entourage-talk%40lists.boingo.com/>
