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Old 08-04-2015, 07:26 AM
 
17,290 posts, read 29,354,332 times
Reputation: 8691

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Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling View Post
Everyone did in the past, including the US, killing up to 10m Africans in the context of slavery, not to mention all the abuse of millions who did not die.
Um... no. Verifiable sources show that approximately 10 million slaves TOTAL were brought to the entire western hemisphere over a period of hundreds of years. About 2-3 million died in the passage. And not just to "the United States."

And btw: most slaves brought to the Americas were not brought there by the United States," but by the British, who we can thank (or rather curse) for allowing it in the first place. Followed by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Spanish, who were leaders in slave trading.




Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
I don't think the term legal or illegal applied when there were no laws regarding immigration. Yet, the concept of stealing land from others was certainly there.
From people who had no concept of land ownership?


Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
Humans are humans, and those migrants are not bad people just because they are not welcome usually. Since many of them will eventually end up staying here one way or another, it makes sense to treat them well so they won't turn against us later on.
And history bears that formula out, where, exactly? The expansion of the Turks? The lessons learned by Natives in America and Australia? The Caliphate?

Honestly, sometimes I just don't understand the level of naivete that some people operate under!



Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
Scandinavia in a socialist slumber? Really? ^^ Turns out you are just another American with those typically distorted views of reality. There is nothing socialist about Scandinavia.
Compare Scandinavia to the US with its huge shady military industrial sector depending on massive government funding.

Scandinavia is democratic socialism. The military industrial complex is government largess.


As a side note: I have understood how Europeans don't quite seem to grasp that their entire western way of living is basically attached to the hip with the "American" military industrial complex.

It has only been about 70 years since the last time you all turned against one another and managed to slaughter tens of millions of your own (and other continents') people, and you have the gall to not see how tied-in American military presence is and has been to continued economic prosperity and lack of wars on the continent since that time.

That's ok. Ungrateful children are still loved, even if they don't deserve it.


Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
NYC and high culture? Maybe Americans get that impression as they tend to get around little and not speak foreign languages. But as I said, it is just an impression. NYC and the US in general is associated with light culture here. The only high culture the US has produced is Jazz, everything else is just ruminating and modifying European culture.

It appears your definition of "high culture" ends in the 18th century. Funny.

No, if you actually had more than a rudimentary knowledge of culture - of arts, music, fashion, you would know that the center of gravity on all of that shifted from Europe to Britain and America in the 20th century, and pretty much has stayed centered in those two countries since.

And by the way, in terms of innovation it's pretty much the same. It's why you're speaking English, on an American forum, on a mostly Anglo-American invention called "the internet."


Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling
And yes, I am a nice person. I only have to thank my parents for the sacrifices they made, just like they have to thank me for giving their lives a purpose. That's all there is.

Nice. Terribly naive and terribly affected with a cliche version of continental malaise, but nice I'm sure. Maybe too nice.

Last edited by TriMT7; 08-04-2015 at 07:50 AM..
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Old 08-05-2015, 01:18 AM
 
10,829 posts, read 5,421,103 times
Reputation: 4710
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling View Post
I don't know, I assume they think Asians are more intelligent and thus their businesses benefit from hiring Asians. That is probably why Asians dominate the Silicon Valley.
They might be a big presence now, but the high-tech revolution was created by whites -- starting as far back as Descartes and Newton, Euclid and Galileo, Copernicus and Leibniz, Kepler and Curie, Einstein and Planck, Bohr and Heisenberg, Darwin and Mendel, etc....

Quote:
Since many of them will eventually end up staying here one way or another, it makes sense to treat them well so they won't turn against us later on.
Let them stay, even though they might turn on you?

Makes sense -- not.

Quote:
Turns out you are just another American with those typically distorted views of reality.
I note here your arrogance, which has been displayed before.

Anything negative is "typical" of Americans.

Quote:
Compare Scandinavia to the US with its huge shady military industrial sector depending on massive government funding.
In spite of its "neutrality," Sweden helped Nazi Germany with iron ore shipments, etc.

Saab builds fighter jets and sells them to other countries.

Sweden is no innocent when it comes to the arms trade.

And there is hardly a villainous regime that Sweden won't support -- e.g., Hamas, Islamic Jihad.

Giving Obama a Nobel Peace Prize for exactly what? Hellfire missiles fired from drones and killing civilians?

Hilarious. They just couldn't resist kissing up to The One.

Quote:
Europe a museum? Flat wrong again, Europe is vibrant and modern. Check any rankings on innovation for instance:
Global Innovation Index 2014: Switzerland, UK and Sweden Lead Rankings with Encouraging Signs from Sub-Saharan Africa
30 Most Innovative Countries: Who Took Home the Gold? - Bloomberg
The U.S. surpassed Europe in innovation, technology, research, military power, science, engineering and math a long time ago.

Europe's innovations are entirely dependent on -- and derive from -- America's innovations.

Quote:
NYC and high culture? Maybe Americans get that impression as they tend to get around little and not speak foreign languages. But as I said, it is just an impression. NYC and the US in general is associated with light culture here. The only high culture the US has produced is Jazz, everything else is just ruminating and modifying European culture.
Europe has been culturally dead since WW II.

But go ahead and name the European novelists, playwrights, poets, painters, sculptors, composers, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians that equal the giants of the European past.

Maybe they're all unrecognized and living in starving artist garrets?

Quote:
And yes, I am a nice person. I only have to thank my parents for the sacrifices they made, just like they have to thank me for giving their lives a purpose. That's all there is.
Support for your parochialism and ingratitude is not a worthy purpose.

Last edited by dechatelet; 08-05-2015 at 01:39 AM..
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Old 08-05-2015, 02:56 AM
 
510 posts, read 429,989 times
Reputation: 440
Quote:
Originally Posted by TriMT7 View Post
the Portuguese and the Spanish, who were leaders in slave trading.
.
Yea, this fact really can't be emphasized enough.

In terms of African slavery the Spanish and the Portuguese were really monstrous. The Brits were amateurs by comparison.

90% of the entire African slave trade went to Central/South America because the Spaniards tended to castrate and work their slaves to death on sugar cane plantations. They needed CONSTANT replacements.

The slave trade in the Southern Anglo colonies of what later became the USA was tiny in comparison since they were treated much better(at least by slave standards..) and the Anglos actually fought a civil war to stop the trade once and for all. The Spanish ended up working their slaves/indians until they were forced to stop by bloody revolts which still scar these nations today.

It's all amusing since the Spaniards/Portuguese have basically zero guilt today despite their horrible history, while Anglos are crippled by guilt to the point of self-abuse.
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Old 08-05-2015, 06:03 AM
 
1,603 posts, read 1,110,542 times
Reputation: 1175
Quote:
Originally Posted by FabianS View Post
It's all amusing since the Spaniards/Portuguese have basically zero guilt today despite their horrible history, while Anglos are crippled by guilt to the point of self-abuse.
The kingdoms of Dahomey and Ashanti sent ambassadors to Britain plead that they still engage in the slave trade because it was their economic backbone.

Credit should be given where it is due, and those evil WASPs (I'm not one of them if it matters) can rightfully take credit for knocking the millennia old African slave trade down...eventually.
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Old 08-05-2015, 06:55 AM
 
17,290 posts, read 29,354,332 times
Reputation: 8691
Quote:
Originally Posted by Veneficus View Post
The kingdoms of Dahomey and Ashanti sent ambassadors to Britain plead that they still engage in the slave trade because it was their economic backbone.

Credit should be given where it is due, and those evil WASPs (I'm not one of them if it matters) can rightfully take credit for knocking the millennia old African slave trade down...eventually.

At least in western Africa. The much older eastern African slave trade persisted. Some argue, persists to this day. Only it wasn't "Europeans" driving it.

Which is why I just shake my head in disbelief when I see African Americans cast off Christianity as a slaver's religion, only to adopt the black Muslim persona, which has enslaved far, far more blacks than Europeans did over the centuries.

(Of course, I have nothing against leaving religion, but to adopt another under false assumptions is just asinine and ignorant!)
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Old 08-05-2015, 07:22 AM
 
Location: West Coast of Europe
25,956 posts, read 24,680,279 times
Reputation: 9728
Quote:
Originally Posted by TriMT7 View Post
Um... no. Verifiable sources show that approximately 10 million slaves TOTAL were brought to the entire western hemisphere over a period of hundreds of years. About 2-3 million died in the passage. And not just to "the United States."

And btw: most slaves brought to the Americas were not brought there by the United States," but by the British, who we can thank (or rather curse) for allowing it in the first place. Followed by the Dutch, the Portuguese and the Spanish, who were leaders in slave trading.






From people who had no concept of land ownership?




And history bears that formula out, where, exactly? The expansion of the Turks? The lessons learned by Natives in America and Australia? The Caliphate?

Honestly, sometimes I just don't understand the level of naivete that some people operate under!






Scandinavia is democratic socialism. The military industrial complex is government largess.


As a side note: I have understood how Europeans don't quite seem to grasp that their entire western way of living is basically attached to the hip with the "American" military industrial complex.

It has only been about 70 years since the last time you all turned against one another and managed to slaughter tens of millions of your own (and other continents') people, and you have the gall to not see how tied-in American military presence is and has been to continued economic prosperity and lack of wars on the continent since that time.

That's ok. Ungrateful children are still loved, even if they don't deserve it.





It appears your definition of "high culture" ends in the 18th century. Funny.

No, if you actually had more than a rudimentary knowledge of culture - of arts, music, fashion, you would know that the center of gravity on all of that shifted from Europe to Britain and America in the 20th century, and pretty much has stayed centered in those two countries since.

And by the way, in terms of innovation it's pretty much the same. It's why you're speaking English, on an American forum, on a mostly Anglo-American invention called "the internet."





Nice. Terribly naive and terribly affected with a cliche version of continental malaise, but nice I'm sure. Maybe too nice.
Slavery is a huge stain on US history. It was Americans that held slaves in the US, not Brits or Spaniards. And as such they are also responsible for the demand they created and the millions killed, many of which were thrown overboard alive when they got sick on the ships, which was common.

Of course Indians had a concept of land ownership.

The difference is that whites were more advanced when they stole the land from aborinal people during colonial times, while those coming to Europe today are less advanced, they are not here to take over Europe or whatever people keep suggesting.

Wrong, there is nothing socialist whatsoever about Sweden. Socialism is pretty well defined. Europe has market economies, which are very old, way older than the US.
I just don't see it that way, to the contrary, the US/Nato have made wars more likely, like currently with Russia. Had Nato stayed out of Eastern Europe as agreed upon with Russia, we would not even have to deal with a nationalist Russia, nor with Putin. Russia might even be part of the EU by now. The West wasted that historic opportunity just in order to feed the weapons industry.

I speak different languages on different boards, English is just one of them. The Internet and the whole IT world is based on technologies from various countries. All my music files for instance are mp3, which was developed by Germans if I am not mistaken. The Swiss have also played a big role with Internet protocols.

Indeed, I have a certain idea of high culture, and most American culture certainly doesn't fall in that category. High culture is indeed old culture, or based on old culture. If any culture were high culture, the term high culture would be superfluous.

From Europe to Britain and America?! Britain IS Europe as well.
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Old 08-05-2015, 07:40 AM
 
27,307 posts, read 16,182,912 times
Reputation: 12100
Quote:
Originally Posted by Neuling View Post
Slavery is a huge stain on US history. It was Americans that held slaves in the US, not Brits or Spaniards. And as such they are also responsible for the demand they created and the millions killed, many of which were thrown overboard alive when they got sick on the ships, which was common.

Of course Indians had a concept of land ownership.

The difference is that whites were more advanced when they stole the land from aborinal people during colonial times, while those coming to Europe today are less advanced, they are not here to take over Europe or whatever people keep suggesting.

Wrong, there is nothing socialist whatsoever about Sweden. Socialism is pretty well defined. Europe has market economies, which are very old, way older than the US.
I just don't see it that way, to the contrary, the US/Nato have made wars more likely, like currently with Russia. Had Nato stayed out of Eastern Europe as agreed upon with Russia, we would not even have to deal with a nationalist Russia, nor with Putin. Russia might even be part of the EU by now. The West wasted that historic opportunity just in order to feed the weapons industry.

I speak different languages on different boards, English is just one of them. The Internet and the whole IT world is based on technologies from various countries. All my music files for instance are mp3, which was developed by Germans if I am not mistaken. The Swiss have also played a big role with Internet protocols.

Indeed, I have a certain idea of high culture, and most American culture certainly doesn't fall in that category. High culture is indeed old culture, or based on old culture. If any culture were high culture, the term high culture would be superfluous.

From Europe to Britain and America?! Britain IS Europe as well.
The Portuguese and the Spaniards were the slavers and the Brits to certain extent until Britain outlawed the transportation of slaves. Black Africans enslaved other Africans. Quit trying to revise history. 90% of all slaves were destined to the island colonies of Spain and Britain.

Your logic of NATO is skewed. NATO was inceptisols to prevent the USSR from storming over from the east and to prevent another Hitler.

Scandinavia is social used. They are dependent on other peoples money to function. I know, I have a Danish passport and traveled through the region. Cost of living is so high to pay for all that socialism.

The Indians lost the war they declared on settlers and to the victor go the spoils. This "stolen land" is just so much excrement excreted from idiots.
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Old 08-05-2015, 08:01 AM
 
Location: West Coast of Europe
25,956 posts, read 24,680,279 times
Reputation: 9728
Quote:
Originally Posted by dechatelet View Post
They might be a big presence now, but the high-tech revolution was created by whites -- starting as far back as Descartes and Newton, Euclid and Galileo, Copernicus and Leibniz, Kepler and Curie, Einstein and Planck, Bohr and Heisenberg, Darwin and Mendel, etc....

Let them stay, even though they might turn on you?

Makes sense -- not.

I note here your arrogance, which has been displayed before.

Anything negative is "typical" of Americans.

In spite of its "neutrality," Sweden helped Nazi Germany with iron ore shipments, etc.

Saab builds fighter jets and sells them to other countries.

Sweden is no innocent when it comes to the arms trade.

And there is hardly a villainous regime that Sweden won't support -- e.g., Hamas, Islamic Jihad.

Giving Obama a Nobel Peace Prize for exactly what? Hellfire missiles fired from drones and killing civilians?

Hilarious. They just couldn't resist kissing up to The One.

The U.S. surpassed Europe in innovation, technology, research, military power, science, engineering and math a long time ago.

Europe's innovations are entirely dependent on -- and derive from -- America's innovations.

Europe has been culturally dead since WW II.

But go ahead and name the European novelists, playwrights, poets, painters, sculptors, composers, philosophers, scientists and mathematicians that equal the giants of the European past.

Maybe they're all unrecognized and living in starving artist garrets?

Support for your parochialism and ingratitude is not a worthy purpose.
Not only whites, the Chinese have invented a lot as well, often simultaneously to Europe. And now they are back again after a certain timeout.

Yes, it makes sense to treat them well. According to your logic, since we can't rule out that someone will turn on us later on, we would have to stop immigration altogether, which however is not only impossible, but wouldn't make sense (this is also understood in the US, which is why you have the green card lottery and other immigration paths). So yes, knowing that many of those migrants will end up staying here, we might as well treat them well so they like us. They are humans and except for a tiny fraction they will behave like any decent humans when treated right.

No, not at all. But the wrong use of terms such as socialist is typical of Americans. I don't know why that is. Maybe they are confusing social with socialist. Maybe it has to do with the McCarthy-style brainwashing Americans are exposed to from birth on.

Sure, Sweden has its skeletons in its closet as well, like almost any country. Still, there is nothing socialist about it, which is what we were talking about. They focus on egalitarianism a lot more than the US for instance, but that is something very different.

I don't know if you were being sarcastic, but I also don't think Obama deserved the Nobel Peace Prize.

I don't agree, there is a lot of innovation, technology, research, science, engineering etc. in both the US and Europe, and increasingly in China of course, and also in Japan, which is still a heavyweight in all those areas. Japanese companies are still very present in patent rankings.
The modern world of innovation is globalized, European innovations are sometimes based on American and other countries' innovations, but also the other way round. Many researchers and scientists are actually nomads who work on different continents.

The same goes for culture and its leading figures as well, by the way.

Not at all, European culture is alive and kicking, cultureS I should say. It is much more national of course as Europe is not one country. Tiny Portugal for instance (where I live) has its own high culture (with writers, poets, sculptors, composers etc.), but it is little known outside the Portuguese-speaking world. After I moved here I was surprised how much culture there is, I did not expect that. Just because it is little known does not at all mean it is inferior. Again, sales figures say nothing about quality.

The thing is, there are very few cultural heavyweights comparable to those of past centuries no matter where you go. Philosophy for instance is all but dead globally. Poetry is a luxury and faces similar problems as philosophy, namely that the human mind is only so capable, most interesting thoughts have already been thought.
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Old 08-05-2015, 08:11 AM
 
Location: West Coast of Europe
25,956 posts, read 24,680,279 times
Reputation: 9728
Quote:
Originally Posted by T-310 View Post
The Portuguese and the Spaniards were the slavers and the Brits to certain extent until Britain outlawed the transportation of slaves. Black Africans enslaved other Africans. Quit trying to revise history. 90% of all slaves were destined to the island colonies of Spain and Britain.

Your logic of NATO is skewed. NATO was inceptisols to prevent the USSR from storming over from the east and to prevent another Hitler.

Scandinavia is social used. They are dependent on other peoples money to function. I know, I have a Danish passport and traveled through the region. Cost of living is so high to pay for all that socialism.

The Indians lost the war they declared on settlers and to the victor go the spoils. This "stolen land" is just so much excrement excreted from idiots.
Again, it was Americans that held slaves, and quite a lot of them. They created the demand, so they are responsible. It is like with drugs. Drug addicts are responsible for people growing and trafficking drugs in the first place.
The same goes for Brazil as well, which also had slavery.

When Nato expanded into Eastern Europe, there was no Soviet Union anymore, it was only Russia under a very friendly president, namely Gorbachev.

The welfare state does not have anything to do with socialism. Companies are owned and run just like in Britain or the US. Every Western country has a welfare state, only the way in and degree to which wealth is redistributed varies from country to country. In the US they have food stamps for instance, which is not a popular option in Europe. Then there are Medicare and such programs, and of course there are analogous programs over here in Europe, just organized in different ways.
The West has certain common principles and values, that date back many centuries, and those principles and values don't really allow watching people starve or suffer without trying to help.
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Old 08-05-2015, 08:19 AM
 
Location: West Coast of Europe
25,956 posts, read 24,680,279 times
Reputation: 9728
By the way, what does the title even mean?
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