Berkeley City Council Doing Its Anti-Democracy Bit

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Arrogant. Arrogant, arrogant fool to think you are the One People who can save the world. The One People who have the answer.

I am with BigV, you don't speak for all Brits, at least we understand that.

[xoxoxoBruce]

Here's Berkeley's pinkos.

[aimeecc]

The "Travel to Exotic Lands. Meet Exciting and Unusual People -- And Kill Them" quote is a copy from 1960s anti-Vietnam posters.

Too bad the protesters haven't figured out that Marines aren't the ones that declare war. Their protest has no larger impact than annoying an office of Marines, and pissing a few people off that they are so stupid.

Again, why aren't they protesting at their state representatives office? That's the appropriate forum.

I have no problem with protesters. I do have a problem with protesters that take their frustration out on the wrong people.

[glatt]

Originally Posted by aimeecc

Again, why aren't they protesting at their state representatives office? That's the appropriate forum.

I have no problem with protesters. I do have a problem with protesters that take their frustration out on the wrong people.

They seem to be more effective at getting their message heard this way You are on the other side of the country, and you have heard their message. It's working.

[BigV]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Arrogant. Arrogant, arrogant fool to think you are the One Person who can save the world. The One Person who has the answer.

Corrected.

I'm an American too, and UG speaks for me with the same authority as he does when he speaks for Humanity. He's one guy--not America, not Humanity. Quit enabling his delusions of grandeur.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

America's cause is democracy's cause, and humanity is best served by democracy -- the more of it the better. DanaC, you cannot show the thesis to be false. Quit living in denial. Where did you ever get the idea that I only believe in America's particular take on democratic social order? I don't; I've seen plenty of workable democracies elsewhere in the world.

It is that which is not democracy against which I set my face. If it takes arrogance to win out against the idiot brutalities of less-than-democracy, by all means pile on the arrogance and make humanity's worst temporal foe extinct. No one on God's green Earth need live any other way, and usually living some other way sucks to a great or a greater degree. I've seen non-democracy, I've seen fake-democracy, and neither are worth more than the powder to blow them up. Once they are blown up, how much misery will have fled the world?

Why tolerate a political order where only one man, the dictator, has any rights? Is or is that not a recipe for maximum misery?

I tell you, arrogance is far better than the supineness you're propounding as a virtue, DanaC. Quit your complaining and devote your energy to breaking fascists so they stay broken, impotent, emasculated, and eviscerated. Fascists in one or more of these conditions are good and beautiful fascists -- for they cannot get in the way of democracy, the enlightened social order.

Orwell is one of the people who made certain the English speaking world understands socialism and totalitarianism are bad ideas, to be rejected.

I'm afraid I must reject your pleas of "please." They are the worst advice I've seen this week. You don't want to turn into the kind of nutter tw is. I hadn't considered before today that you might risk that.

[DanaC]

Bleh.

[warch]

What the Berkeley CC did was absurd.

Hey, the Marines are our guys. We need them and they are accountable to us.

Blackwater..now that I'm not so sure of. As a private contractor, they are beholden only to their stockholders. The less Marines, the more Blackwaters.
http://www.blackwaterusa.com/job_fairs/default.asp

[regular.joe]

I'm not too sure if I want anyone from Berkley in my Army.

[xoxoxoBruce]

It's the aging Hippies that are in power. They don't necessarily represent the whole population, older, younger or non-activist.

[DanaC]

I am with BigV, you don't speak for all Brits, at least we understand that.

Yeah, I know that. I wasn't accusing 'America' or 'Americans' of arrogance. I was accusing Urbane Guerilla of arrogance in thinking that his Nation is somehow uniquely placed to resolve the world's ills and bring about enlightenment. I fully realise that his view is not shared by the majority of sane Americans and that he, in reality, speaks for nobody but himself. I was meeting him at his model. He keeps telling me America's cause is humanity's cause and I say he is an arrogant fool for believing that.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by DanaC

Yeah, I know that. I wasn't accusing 'America' or 'Americans' of arrogance. I was accusing Urbane Guerilla of arrogance in thinking that his Nation is somehow uniquely placed to resolve the world's ills and bring about enlightenment. I fully realise that his view is not shared by the majority of sane Americans and that he, in reality, speaks for nobody but himself. I was meeting him at his model. He keeps telling me America's cause is humanity's cause and I say he is an arrogant fool for believing that.

Fair enough. I may have over reacted to your comments. My bad.

[piercehawkeye45]

Protesting to the president wouldn't do anything anyways. It is still going to accomplish nothing besides making one feel good about oneself. There is not enough will to create a mass protest that could do something and these protests aren't going to open anyone's eyes about the issue.

[classicman]

I find it ironic that the marines die to give them the right to bitch err protest, yet they choose to protest the very people that gave them that right to protest.

[Ibby]

When was the last time a marine died protecting our rights?
oh yeah, thats right, the 18th century. maaaaaybe 1945, if you count japan as threatening our rights.

that said, while I (for the most part) don't support military action in any situation that doesnt involve specific risk of invasion, and certain humanitarian/peacekeeping missions (and since what someone may view as a peacekeeping mission would be an invasion and occupation to someone else...), I harbor absolutely no animosity to the actual members of the military (the top brass, maybe not so much, but thats just me hating authority), coming from a military family myself and being very familiar with many, many military families and servicemembers.

Hate the organization, not the people... just like you should for any other group, movement, organization you dnt agree with.