I promise I will be brief. I just checked into Facebook and saw this under the status of a number of people on my friend's list.
"If you cross the North Korean border illegally, you get 12 years hard labor. If you cross the Afghanistan border illegally, you get shot. If you cross the U.S. border illegally you get: a job, a drivers license, a place to live, housing benefit, health care, education, child benefit, tax free business for 7yrs. Need I carry on? Put this in your status if you agree...no wonder we are a country in debt. So true"
I can't tell you how stupid this is. At least not in one sentence. Is the suggestion that these people would rather live in North Korea or Afghanistan? That those places are somehow role models we should emulate. It is akin to when Newt Gingrich was droning on about the Ground Zero mosque nonsense and asked if they would let a church or synagogue be built in Mecca. It is easy to be a nation of back water, intolerant bastards; it is quite another to accept those things that make us different from any old third rate dictatorship as a glowing example of what a great nation can be.
That is all!!!
You must factor in their perspective. Most people making and reiterating ignorant statements do so from the stand point of never having been there themselves.
ReplyDeleteUsually though their perspective is clouded by whether or not their guy won last time. People who had kept their mouth shut about the national debt and gas prices under Bush are now running around like the sky is falling, meanwhile those that were complaining about Guantanamo Bay a few years ago and military tribunals are now quiet as they same old thing is going on under their guy. The general landscape hasn't changed all that much, just those that are complaining about it.
ReplyDeleteI don't follow politics at all. It bores me to no end, but I will say I have heard that Obama is behaving somewhat like a conservative? I could be wrong as I have not invested any energy into the matter at all. I am merely reiterating what I've heard in passing.
ReplyDeleteI will say that he is too conservative for the far left of his party, by the same token he isn't nearly conserative enough to appeal to most Republicans.
ReplyDeleteNeither party impresses me. I have no idea where my politics align. I disagree with tenants and practices of both sides.
ReplyDeleteAs a general rule I wouldn't consider myself nin lock step with either side, though I am a registered Democrat (in Pittsburgh it is the only way to get to vote in this one party town). I just tend to try as much as possible to have a consistent world view, regardless of who is in power. I would like to think that I am right more often than wrong, but once your thinking gets freed of the ideological constraints adopting the talking points of your party life is just a lot better. If I believe Obama is wrong on something, I'll call him on it, rather than try some verbal gymnastics to defend every word he utters. I believe I did just that thing a couple of weeks back when the Administration was using ye olde doublespeak in referring to the events in Libya as a "kinetic military action".
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