How the world views the USA.

namelessfly wrote:You obviously have the United States confused with Latin America. It was the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors who were engaged in systematic, forcible conversions of the native Americans. The Latin conquerers were also very eager to convert the survivors so they could impregnate native Americans.

I do not have the United States confused with Central and South America at all. Forced conversions and butchery did occur here in the US and still does with forced assimilation's, children being taken from tribal members by force and adopted out or ahem "fostered" out where the children are not allowed to learn their history and language. There are many cases of diseases being introduced to the heathen indians on purpose and land being seized, historical items being destroyed on a wide scale basis. Look in the correct history fact books not the ones that are heavily doctored fly. You might get some very unpleasant surprises if you do.

viciokie wrote:

namelessfly wrote:You obviously have the United States confused with Latin America. It was the Spanish and Portuguese conquistadors who were engaged in systematic, forcible conversions of the native Americans. The Latin conquerers were also very eager to convert the survivors so they could impregnate native Americans.

I do not have the United States confused with Central and South America at all. Forced conversions and butchery did occur here in the US and still does with forced assimilation's, children being taken from tribal members by force and adopted out or ahem "fostered" out where the children are not allowed to learn their history and language. There are many cases of diseases being introduced to the heathen indians on purpose and land being seized, historical items being destroyed on a wide scale basis. Look in the correct history fact books not the ones that are heavily doctored fly. You might get some very unpleasant surprises if you do.

Some of those schools operated right up until the tribes sued the government in the 60's and 70's and won the right of self-rule. Only then were they booted off the reservations. At least a couple of them are part of the current sexual abuse of children scandal the Catholic Church is dealing with. The entire purpose of these schools, from the founding in the 1890's was to separate native children from their families, teach them Christianity and suppress their native beliefs. Education in the 3 R's was of strictly secondary importance.

There is precedent for a Muslim majority to refrain from imposing Sharia law. I recently saw a graduation class photo dating back to the 1950s. There was no shortage of women and they were wearing western style clothing rather than Burkas. The Islamic fundamentalism that we see today is a recent phenomenon. It is possible that an Islamacised Europe might not be so bad.

Not all of Europe is at immediate risk. Only a few countries are more than 10% Muslim. However; the differential in birth rates combined with continued immigration can increase that 10% to 20% rather quickly. Given the differential in age distribution, a youthful Muslim majority can impose it's will on a geriatric native European population.

Daryl wrote:Funny how different people can see the same facts and come to totally different conclusions. I agree that fundamentalist islam is not a good thing, and I too worry about them getting nuclear weapons. I don't see the likelihood "that the demographic transition from a secularized, native European population to dominance by a radicalized Islamic minority will become intensely violent, even genocidal. It is probable that the nuclear armed Islamic states will intervene in Europe's transformation" is remotely plausible. Travel around Europe and you will see that this Caliphate is only really in the minds of two groups; the relatively small number of fundamentalist muslims, and the Christian right conspiracy theorists. In Australia only 2.2% of people identify as muslims, with most being excellent citizens, yet our right wing shock jocks would have us believe that sharia law is imminent. In the continent of Europe the percentage is 6%, while in the European Union it is 3.8%. Of those I'm sure that the very much greater percentage are normal decent people who just want to get through life without hassle as we all do. Impossible to know what the percentage of hard line muslims in the EU is, but it has to be miniscule. A miniscule percentage of that many people could still be thousands, who could well commit significant terrorism atrocities, but a long way from making an impact at the ballot box.

I'd like to suggest a two pronged attack on Islamofacism, by cutting off their funding.

Firstly embrace the Climate Change philosophy even if you don't believe in it. This will drive the development of new energy technologies. An example may be hydrogen fuel celled cars using hydrogen produced from electricity generated by nuclear, solar, wind, or all three. The oil and gas reserves in the western world would be quite sufficient to supply feedstocks for chemical factories, and for lubricants. Let OPEC go back to camel breeding, and the Saudi "Royal Family" revert four generations to nomadic life.

Secondly develop a biological weapon that destroys poppy plants. When the Afghanis have to spend all their time on subsistence farming they won't have any energy left to export terrorism. Medical poppies are legally grown under strict government supervision in isolated places like Tasmania, so that should be able to continue. Later on do a number on the coca plants to eliminate cocaine. That would leave marijuana and designer drugs, but I don't have a problem with drugs as such, just the large scale production of the big two, and the subsequent money that is used for harm.

Firstly embrace the Climate Change philosophy even if you don't believe in it. This will drive the development of new energy technologies. An example may be hydrogen fuel celled cars using hydrogen produced from electricity generated by nuclear, solar, wind, or all three. The oil and gas reserves in the western world would be quite sufficient to supply feedstocks for chemical factories, and for lubricants. Let OPEC go back to camel breeding, and the Saudi "Royal Family" revert four generations to nomadic life.

This certainly works as a long term solution. Especially since the Saudi's have been very foolish about spending their oil money. They haven't been investing in building their economy at all. They have just been building palaces for the royals and an unsustainable welfare state for every one else. Take away the oil money and their whole house of cards collapses.

The problem is that the oil replacement technology is decades away from commercial reality. A short term solution would be to go for fracking in a big way. It's already having a massive impact on world oil prices and could result in oil independence for the western world NOW. It can be done with minimal environmental impact if it is done correctly. Regulations need to catch up with the technology, right now the discussion seems to be between the no regulation is working just fine don't break it crowd vs the it's oil drilling ban it crowd. There is a middle ground which no one seems to be discussing which is reasonable regulation. Most drillers seem to be doing a pretty good job of self regulating probably because they don't want to wind up liable for the expense of a superfund cleanup. Which may be a good way of addressing the minority of drillers who are not being conscious of the environment, just amend the superfund laws to make sure there are no loopholes that fracking companies can slip through and you may have a simple regulatory solution.

Secondly develop a biological weapon that destroys poppy plants. When the Afghanis have to spend all their time on subsistence farming they won't have any energy left to export terrorism. Medical poppies are legally grown under strict government supervision in isolated places like Tasmania, so that should be able to continue. Later on do a number on the coca plants to eliminate cocaine. That would leave marijuana and designer drugs, but I don't have a problem with drugs as such, just the large scale production of the big two, and the subsequent money that is used for harm.

I'm not in favor of this one. Biological weapons have a habit of mutating and attacking hosts other than the intended one. So what may start as an attack on poppies may wind up completely different.

How about legalising opium/marijuana and other less damaging drugs for a short wile, but restrict them like cigarettes and alcohol are restricted. legal growth and selling of US/Eu grown poppies might cause a modern end of prohibition, that could reduce demand for the middle eastern plants, affecting the taliban and other extremist groups profits and ability to fight.

Spacekiwi wrote:How about legalising opium/marijuana and other less damaging drugs for a short wile, but restrict them like cigarettes and alcohol are restricted. legal growth and selling of US/Eu grown poppies might cause a modern end of prohibition, that could reduce demand for the middle eastern plants, affecting the taliban and other extremist groups profits and ability to fight.

The problem with legalizing opium in any form is that once it is available, it is a couple of fairly easy steps to heroin. Marijuana, on the other hand, would probably be OK, even long term. However, once something is legalized, it is very hard to make it illegal again. See the history of Prohibition in the US. On the other hand, just think of the tax revenue that would be generated.

Well, on my more cynical days I view the USA as kind of a Solarian League, with the states being the core worlds.

Ummm, quite a bit of my view of America came from the film "Team America: World Police".
My two holidays in America didn't disabuse me of quite a few of those beliefs, especially when I got asked if we had cars in England.

On the other hand, since I managed to fool the questioner into believing that America was behind the times having only the to-them-new PS3 while England had the PS7 with ctystalline circuitry and semi-holographic control pads (plus a whole load of other technobabble I made up on the spot), I find myself wondering how much of the apparent ignorance is down to education and how much is due to simple geographically-induced apathy regarding the rest of the world.
After all, America is a rather large country...

Annachie wrote:Well, on my more cynical days I view the USA as kind of a Solarian League, with the states being the core worlds.

At least I'm not the only one.