JimO: "Chinese space advances benefit everyone"

On Wed, 15 Oct 2003 15:16:58 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote, in part:

Isn't it comforting to know that American paranoia is still alive and
well.

You're not paranoid if you really have enemies.

That some people who don't share America's democratic values are its
enemies is borne out by September 11, 2001.

That China doesn't share America's democratic values is borne out by
the fate of Tibet. (That is, the democratic values of the America of
today and at least as far back as Woodrow Wilson, before anyone makes
wisecracks about the fate of Native Americans...)

If China were weak and helpless, Tibet would have been liberated long
ago. Therefore, for China not to be weak and helpless is bad, because
China's not being weak and helpless is contributing to innocent people
getting hurt.

Where is the flaw in that logic?

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

*follow-ups trimmed*

"John Savard" wrote ...
If China were weak and helpless, Tibet would have been liberated long
ago. Therefore, for China not to be weak and helpless is bad, because
China's not being weak and helpless is contributing to innocent people
getting hurt.

Where is the flaw in that logic?

About four lines up from your question. If China was weak and helpless
(relative to current state anyway) it does not follow that Tibet would have
been liberated.

Whether relatively weak countries, regardless of their mistreatment of those
within their (current) borders are interferred with is dependent on the whims
of the external governments involved and the politics of the moment.

Balkans style informal civil war and ethinic cleansing would be a distinct
possibility, and not necessarilly an improvement from Tibet's point of view.

In sci.space.station John Savard wrote:

: Where is the flaw in that logic?

You make the observation that there is a small group of anti-american
hot-heads (the Taliban), and conclude that all China falls into the same
category. That´s the flaw. Hope this helps.


-Tapio-

On 16 Oct 2003 13:33:37 GMT, lid
wrote, in part:

You make the observation that there is a small group of anti-american
hot-heads (the Taliban), and conclude that all China falls into the same
category. That´s the flaw. Hope this helps.

I'm concerned about the Chinese leadership.

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.
Look at all the friendly Chinese people in the Republic of China!
(Which, I suppose, will have to put a man into orbit too, now.)

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:24:43 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

On 16 Oct 2003 13:33:37 GMT, lid
wrote, in part:

You make the observation that there is a small group of anti-american
hot-heads (the Taliban), and conclude that all China falls into the same
category. That´s the flaw. Hope this helps.

I'm concerned about the Chinese leadership.

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.

France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

Look at all the friendly Chinese people in the Republic of China!
(Which, I suppose, will have to put a man into orbit too, now.)

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:10:48 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote, in part:
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:24:43 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.

France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

They gave America the Statue of Liberty!

As a Canadian...

watching France suppress nationalism in Brittany and Corsica, while
stirring up secessionism in Quebec;

dismayed at the elimination of the Atlantic cod fishery by French
fishing fleets;

remembering the death of a Canadian in New Zealand from bombs planted
by French spies...

I hardly regard France as one of Canada's friends. Its position on
Iraq was certainly not friendly to the U.S. either. (For Canada to
respectfully decline participation, due to the imminence of a crucial
election in Quebec in which the separatists were finally driven from
power, was not unreasonable, but then Chretien made indefensible
remarks later.)

Still, although France has serious disputes with American foreign
policy (the novels "Topaz" and "The Spike" were both presented with
claims that their premise was other than fictional, so there may
indeed be things wrong in France) it doesn't seem to have...
_territorial_ ambitions. It is true that they viewed TCP/IP as an
American imperialist plot which they hoped to stave off with Minitel
for a while, but they came to their senses.

France, like Italy and Mexico, has anticlerical laws, so it is not a
full First Amendment democracy. Its direct experience of Nazi
occupation has unbalanced the country in favor of the Left - and a
similar thing has happened in some Latin American countries, sometimes
for reasons for which the U. S. bears some responsibility.

France is merely confused. Red China, on the other hand, is EEEVIL!
Barring a pre-emptive nuclear strike, though, we will sadly have to
live with it, and hope the passing of time mellows it. Since the
United States outgrew Negro slavery, I suppose there is a case to be
made for patience and optimism.

But if Nazi Germany had been squashed flat the day after the
_Kristallnacht_, the world would have been spared the unpleasantness
of World War II. I don't think we really can afford to have any
dictators running around, not even in tiny countries in Africa.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

John Savard wrote:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:10:48 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote, in part:
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:24:43 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.

France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

They gave America the Statue of Liberty!


And America gave the French liberation from the Nazis. Which is more
important?


France is merely confused. Red China, on the other hand, is EEEVIL!
Barring a pre-emptive nuclear strike, though, we will sadly have to
live with it, and hope the passing of time mellows it. Since the
United States outgrew Negro slavery, I suppose there is a case to be
made for patience and optimism.

Errrmmm... the US didn't "outgrow" slavery. We fought a very big war
over it.


But if Nazi Germany had been squashed flat the day after the
_Kristallnacht_, the world would have been spared the unpleasantness
of World War II.

Yes, but... we might have gotten to experience the magic of Soviet
domination. Had the Nazis been driven out of power early, the Communists
in Germany would have been in a stronger position to take over. And of
course the Soviet Union wouldn't have been stomped flat by the Luftwaffe
and Wermacht.

--
Scott Lowther, Engineer
Remove the obvious (capitalized) anti-spam
gibberish from the reply-to e-mail address

Scott Lowther wrote:
John Savard wrote:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:10:48 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote, in part:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:24:43 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.

France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

They gave America the Statue of Liberty!



And America gave the French liberation from the Nazis. Which is more
important?

American liberation from the Nazis doesn't disprove French-American
friendship, which seemed to be what Savard was arguing the existence of.

Am not sure what argument you're trying to rebut.

--
Hop David
http://clowder.net/hop/index.html

Scott Lowther wrote:
France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

They gave America the Statue of Liberty!

And America gave the French liberation from the Nazis. Which is more
important?

Americans tend to conveniently forget that only 2 countries gave the USA
concrete intelligence with regards to 9-11 itself. France and Syria.

But once the USA ran out of "9-11" stories and felt it needed another
evil-doer, it concucted stories about Iraq at which point it lost the support
of the world. Ironic that the USA government chose to insult and turn into an
ennemy those 2 nations that cooperated so much real intelligence for 9-11.

The americans wanted to invade Iraq ? They refused to shift control to a
neutral party (UN) ? Then they should stop complaining about the 87 billion
bill their little excursion into Irak will cost them. And of the americans
were so gullible as to believe what Bush was saying about Irak, and if
Americans accused anyone who didn't believe Bush of being unpatriotic, then
let the Americans pay that $87 bill in their taxes and higher national debt
for many many years to come.

Had the american media been objective, they wouldn't have acted as a
propaganda avenue for the current Bush regime and would have blasted that "so
called evidence" and sided with the rest of the world against Bush and Bliar.
Instead of an invasion of Irak, you would have had impeachment proceedings
against bush and company.

Remember that there was a working group of inspectors who were on site in
Irak. Their intelligence was far more reliable than some fake satellite images
presented by the USA or some report written by some student about the past in
Irak which was used by the Bliar government to generate a "dossier" that
pretended that there was a clear and imminent threath. Do americans even know
about what happened to the british spoecialist who did reveal that the dossier
contained fake information ? The american media adidn't cover much the inquiry
that followed. It is a shame because it was very damning to Bliar and Bush.


The USA was unwilling to give those UN inspectors a few more weeks. But we are
expected to believe that even after 6 months on the ground, the US military
should be granted unlimited time to find (or plant) those alledged weapons.

Let this be a lesson to every country: if you cannot convince the UN of your
so called evidence, it probably means that our so called evidence is not good
enough to proceed with war. And if you still go ahead with unilateral invasion
of another nation, then expect to pay 100% of the bill.


Perhaps the next time, taxpayers will think twice about supporting such an
invasion. And perhaps the opposition will do its job and oppose such invasion
instead of blindly supporting it because they didn't want to be called unpatriotic.

The germans too were highly patriotic during WW-II and blindly supported their
government because they had been told that what their government was doing was
the right thing. They didn't quite believe some of the horror stories that
were coming from outside germany and prefered to believe what their own
government was telling them.

And once the USA media starts to show all the horror stories of illegally
detained without any charges, illegally deported to countries where they were
tortured for one year, people with valid visas being detained into cells
containing 12 people with lights constantly on as a method of torture in the
hopes that some of them would come forth and admit some sort of crime, then
perhaps the americans will be just as ashamed of what their country has done
as germans are of what their country has done.

Interesting that outside of the USA, we do see all the stories of human right
abuses inside the USA but american media don't carry those. How many americans
were aware that Amnisty International had setup booths in front of INS offices
after so many people disapeared after a visit to INS office to have paperwork
updated/checked ? Their role was to take down names/numbers of relatives so
that those could be contacted by AI in case the person entering the INS office
didn't come out. The INS didn't bother advising family members that the father
had been illegally arrested, and moved to a prison in a different city without
any right to call a lawyer.

We are not talking about individual cases, here, we are talking about 10s of
thousands of cases of illegal arrests.

In the soviet days, most russians were unaware of what was really going on in
the siberian camps etc. In the current days, most americans are unaware of
what is really going on in american prisons, airports, and streets.

On Sat, 18 Oct 2003 04:44:19 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 10:10:48 GMT, (Christopher)
wrote, in part:
On Fri, 17 Oct 2003 00:24:43 GMT, lid
(John Savard) wrote:

Under democratic rule, the Chinese people would be America's friends.

France is a demoracy, yet is France one of 'America's friends'?

They gave America the Statue of Liberty!

They probably thought it was to vulgar for a French port, and decided
it was perferct for an American one.

As a Canadian...

watching France suppress nationalism in Brittany and Corsica, while
stirring up secessionism in Quebec;

dismayed at the elimination of the Atlantic cod fishery by French
fishing fleets;

remembering the death of a Canadian in New Zealand from bombs planted
by French spies...

I hardly regard France as one of Canada's friends. Its position on
Iraq was certainly not friendly to the U.S. either. (For Canada to
respectfully decline participation, due to the imminence of a crucial
election in Quebec in which the separatists were finally driven from
power, was not unreasonable, but then Chretien made indefensible
remarks later.)

Still, although France has serious disputes with American foreign
policy (the novels "Topaz" and "The Spike" were both presented with
claims that their premise was other than fictional, so there may
indeed be things wrong in France) it doesn't seem to have...
_territorial_ ambitions. It is true that they viewed TCP/IP as an
American imperialist plot which they hoped to stave off with Minitel
for a while, but they came to their senses.

France, like Italy and Mexico, has anticlerical laws, so it is not a
full First Amendment democracy. Its direct experience of Nazi
occupation has unbalanced the country in favor of the Left - and a
similar thing has happened in some Latin American countries, sometimes
for reasons for which the U. S. bears some responsibility.

France is merely confused. Red China, on the other hand, is EEEVIL!
Barring a pre-emptive nuclear strike, though, we will sadly have to
live with it, and hope the passing of time mellows it. Since the
United States outgrew Negro slavery, I suppose there is a case to be
made for patience and optimism.

But if Nazi Germany had been squashed flat the day after the
_Kristallnacht_, the world would have been spared the unpleasantness
of World War II. I don't think we really can afford to have any
dictators running around, not even in tiny countries in Africa.

John Savard
http://home.ecn.ab.ca/~jsavard/index.html

Christopher
+++++++++++++++++++++++++
"Kites rise highest against
the wind - not with it."
Winston Churchill