Fun facts about the United States

Bullshit. Real patriots do what they feel is best for their country. Being "for" or "against" isn't the point.

Being "for" the facist state we've become isn't exactly doing what you feel is best for your country. The best that can be said for people who do is that they're probably completely ignorant of what they're helping along.

Oh?

You make two assumptions:

One, that everyone agrees with your position that the US is becomming a facist state.

Two, that the person doesn't want America to become a fascist state.

Honestly, Rei, I'm at a loss to understand why the OP upset anyone. While the facts may be iffy and their presentation is obviously intended to convey a particular message, what it conveys is true... Americans overconsume, eat too much unhealthy crap served in ridiculously huge portions, waste enormous amounts of fuel and resources, watch too much television, and are frighteningly uneducated. Putting our collective heads in the sand or getting pissy when these things are pointed out is part of the problem. Sometimes the truth hurts?

Among other reasons.

Do you deny the points being made?

Some of them, yes, in the context they are being presented in, and some of them, yes, in the conclusions being drawn, and many others until I see actual citations for them.

Like I said. America has problems. But crucify us on the problems. Don't copy-paste uncited lists aranged to present the worst possible interperation, taken out of context.

If anyone is interested in where a lot of these results came from, the survey was conducted by National Geographic. If you would like to try out the questions yourself, click here:

http://geosurvey.nationalgeographic.com/geosurvey/templates/question_1.html

Here is the first question:

"Which of the following ranges contains the correct population of the United States today?"
- 10 million - 50 million
- 150 million - 350 million
- 500 million - 750 million
- 1 billion - 2 billion

I have not gone through the whole survey yet, but here are the results for this answer.

Percentage of adults aged 18-24 who chose the correct answer in each country polled:

Canada: 47%
France: 43%
Germany: 40%
Great Britain: 37%
Italy: 35%
Japan: 45%
Mexico: 35%
Sweden: 55%
United States: 25%

It's quite interesting that the U.S. scored the lowest when asked about the population of their own country.

Factually, it is. Your agreement or lack thereof is largely irrelevant.



There is that. I'm giving people the benefit of the doubt on that point, but it's true that some in general may wish it, and many in position to benefit from it obviously definitely do.

Factually, it has a hell of a long way to go before it's what I would classify as a fascist state. The fact that Cindy Sheehan is alive and well today speaks against it pretty heavily, for one thing.

The thing about fascism is, it means different things to everyone. Try reading, say, the wikipedia artical on it - the artical reads like a person with multiple personality disorder when it tries to describe fascism, and in the end manages to include just about everything under the sun as a possible indicator of fascism.

Even without getting into FEMA (which I did go into in another thread) ...

http://oldamericancentury.org/14pts.htm

Of course, you can still disagree. But I say, confidently, that you are wrong.

As I say, confidently, that you are.

I've seen that list before. Without going into a point by point breakdown (I've already done that once in this thread, and I think we're drifting slightly off topic ), I find most of it's points to be quite refuteable for one reason or another, and no, by "refute" I do not mean "ignore". Not all of them, but, as I've said like half a dozen times in this thread, I admit the US has problems. Every country does. That's not the same as agreeing that we're a fascist state.

Jesus Wept... Thats Scandalous

Oh, gosh. I didn't know there was an Internet site that said the US was a fascist state. That means it MUST be true, right?

I wonder what their meta data says.
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ned=us&q=oldamericancentury.org


Oops! That's an aw-shite!

Geesh.

1. I am not familiar with the OP and I find her avalanche of BS just as vapid and insidious as a few others who post here frequently with a right-leaning agenda. What the OP did was post some fabricated statistics she found in a book in order to spark a reaction -- perhaps an emotional one. That's called trolling.

2. I am a card-carrying member of the U.S. Democratic Party, NOW, the WWF, the ACLU and Amnesty International. I think my liberalness is pretty well assured into the next ice age, which, as I understand it, is right around the corner. I am not some right-wing, gun-totting, rednecked OMFG you cannot criticize the US flag waving idiot patriot.

3. Yes I am an American. I recognize that my country is far from perfect. However if you are going to criticize it, and by all means feel free to do so, at least be intelligent about it and please don't, if you are not from the US, be a hypocrite about it. If you are from France and you want to talk about the Iraq war (which by the way I am very much against and gave all kinds of money and time to help the lobby against -- wtf did you do?) then please have the cohones to talk about how your country was buying oil from Saddam Hussein and helping him militarily while there was an international embargo against the country. If you are from the UK and want to criticize the war, please don't forget that your own country was right there holding our hand every step of the way.

I could go on but the point of this post was not to point out the failings of countries other than my own. However that is something you don't see Americans doing much. Usually we just hang our heads and say something like "yeah I know my country is screwed up sorry" and walk away. And yeah, we have a lot of problems at the moment. Be intelligent! Be educated! If you want to make an argument for how much America sucks then do so! But do it with logic, do it with a well-reasoned argument, do it with statistics and facts that mean something -- not a pile of garbage that someone made up to pad a book the sole purpose of which is to make money off the current anti-American sentiment.

Except for not being against the war, I agree with everything you said here. This is exactly what I've been trying to get at all along in this thread.

HEY!!! I resemble that remark!

"Fascist State" or not, #12 "Obsession with Crime and Punishment" ... man, just look at the TV schedule some time. What the hell is it with all these cops and lawyers?

I always heard there were rational liberals, nice to meet you. (You don't hold the opinion that the POTUS helped plan 9/11 do you?) </tounge in cheek>

I have always hoped that what I call "honest liberals" would find their voice on the Internet.

Please invite me to your next party. We will probably disagree on politics 90% of the time, but that's fine as long as there is no fire-bombing going on.

... etc. ...

That's a fairly meaningless retort, Drebin. Why didn't you go for the really valid response and call into question the validity of this claim that there are 14 identifiable points of fascism to begin with?

Really, I was just flat-out lazy about it because I'm tired of this debate. I don't want to argue the point because it's one of those things people are going to rebutt endlessly no matter what I say, just arguing to argue. By now, if you can't look around you, at the nigh-unlimited power of FEMA, at the Patriot Act, at the 9/11 cover-ups, and it just goes on and on ... if you can't look around you and work it out for yourself, nothing I could ever say would likely make a bit of difference anyway.

And our prison population being by far the world's highest? And ...

Well, again, I'm tired of it. My heart really isn't in this anymore, and it's making me lazy and sloppy, just shoving Web sites in people's faces and hoping they'll go away. It's like, at this point, I just want to say, "How could this possibly be news to you? How could you not know?"

Of course, I know the answers to those questions, but I'm beginning to simply not care.

Because it would be like arguing the validity of a Saturday Night Live skit - Only a fool would see it as factual, and only a bigger fool would try and create a rational argument to counter a fictional hatchet job.

The farcical television show "Reno 911" is a huge hit in the Middle East. They think it is a genuine show in the manner of "Cops". In actuallity, they believe it because it reinforces their preconcieved notions.

Ah, I see, so any correlation to the truth should be summarily ignored, because clearly the United States has no problems at all with overconsumption, obesity, poor education, and or anything else implied in that list. Glad that's all sorted out now.

You mixed up your topics Chip. We were on a different issue there