INTENSITY²
Politics, Mature and taboo => Political Pundits => Topic started by: Peter on March 26, 2007, 09:56:58 AM
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Today, a friend asked me what the UK response was to the recent Iranian capture of British soldiers. The discussion evolved, and the friend, who's an American Bush-supporter, said that she thought Iran was trying to goad the US into a war, both with the capture and with it's nuclear programme. I replied that it looked to me more like Iran was getting edgy at having US troops surrounding it on all sides and with the UN imposing sanctions, and that the capture was probably a warning shot telling people to back off, and that the nuclear programme was to prevent a war, rather than cause one, since Iran would have learned from the examples of Iraq and North Korea; one of which didn't have WMD's and got invaded, and the other which does have them and is untouchable, to which she replied "We'll see.".
I then got onto how there was a documentary last night about the fall of communism and subsequent attempts to spread democracy, and how the 'shock therapy' economic measures used in Russia at the behest of western analysts precipitated an economic collapse that left all the major Russian commercial assets in the hands of an elite few, since the workers, who were given shares in the companies the worked for, were forced to sell those shares in order to buy food when the Ruble collapsed, to which her reply was that it was the fault of corrupt leaders, and nothing to do with Western interference. I told her about how in Iraq, things may not have been pretty before, but at least they worked, and that when 'democratic values' are imposed on a country, chaos results and that democratic values are the first thing to go out the window when people are desperate for security and food on the table, which she dismissed as one-sided propaganda and paranoid conspiracy theories intended to blame the ills of the world on the US, saying that "the U.S. has done a lot of good in the world - much more so than Communist or Dictatorships...", and then when I got onto a history lesson about how the US, through the actions of the CIA, has very often been directly responsible for those dictatorships through it's proxy power plays and by overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with US-friendly dictatorships, using multiple sources detailing the past CIA actions in Iran, Cuba, Chile, etc, etc, and she refused to hear it, dismissing it all as propaganda, and saying "PEter, I don't know how you can be SO SMART and so one sided in how you understand the world."
It's a constant theme with her; whenever she hears something she doesn't like, she dismisses the source as biased, or gets emotional and goes off in a huff, saying she can't deal with it, or just switches off altogether and pretends that the subject doesn't exist. Does anyone else here know people like that? How do you deal with them? And what causes someone to become so blind to things that they can't even take a lesson in the history of their own country? I generally avoid subjects like these with her, because it's like banging my head against the wall, but sometimes I just have to give it a go, with predictable results.
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That's the NT style to "handle" things. Preferrably the female NT style: lying and denying.
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[...]and then when I got onto a history lesson about how the US, through the actions of the CIA, has very often been directly responsible for those dictatorships through it's proxy power plays and by overthrowing democratically elected governments and replacing them with US-friendly dictatorships, using multiple sources detailing the past CIA actions in Iran, Cuba, Chile, etc, etc, and she refused to hear it, dismissing it all as propaganda, and saying "PEter, I don't know how you can be SO SMART and so one sided in how you understand the world."
It's a constant theme with her; whenever she hears something she doesn't like, she dismisses the source as biased, or gets emotional and goes off in a huff, saying she can't deal with it, or just switches off altogether and pretends that the subject doesn't exist. Does anyone else here know people like that? How do you deal with them? And what causes someone to become so blind to things that they can't even take a lesson in the history of their own country? I generally avoid subjects like these with her, because it's like banging my head against the wall, but sometimes I just have to give it a go, with predictable results.
Her idiotic "all-or-nothing" approach (as shared by many three year olds the world over) coupled with her "black-or-white", almost Borderline patient-like sense of morality, makes her sound an awful lot like a believer in Ayn Rand's Objectivism. You should ask her if she is the next time you see her. My guess would be she answers "yes".
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She is probably saying the same things about you. As I know that people are saying them about me, as I say it about them.
I believe that this is truly the heart of all the world's problems. We will never agree on anything, because our values, opinion's, experiences, beliefs, etc., are just too different to come to an agreement on certain issues.
Wittgenstein - "When two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic".
Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
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J79 - I agree on all counts.
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She is probably saying the same things about you. As I know that people are saying them about me, as I say it about them.
I believe that this is truly the heart of all the world's problems. We will never agree on anything, because our values, opinion's, experiences, beliefs, etc., are just too different to come to an agreement on certain issues.
Wittgenstein - "When two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic".
Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
don't get too cocky, but, who are you and why don't you post more?
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She is probably saying the same things about you. As I know that people are saying them about me, as I say it about them.
I believe that this is truly the heart of all the world's problems. We will never agree on anything, because our values, opinion's, experiences, beliefs, etc., are just too different to come to an agreement on certain issues.
Wittgenstein - "When two principles really do meet which cannot be reconciled with one another, then each man declares the other a fool and a heretic".
Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
don't get too cocky, but, who are you and why don't you post more?
Cocky? How so?
I post at WP under the same ID, but I will definitely be posting here more though, until I leave on a trip in 10 days...
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i dont really care. i'll be fucking glad when this iraq thingy is over with, i guess thats news though always boring
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Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
Nah. You most likely won't change his opinion, just what he says to you.
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Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
Nah. You most likely won't change his opinion, just what he says to you.
i'd have to agree with odeon on this one.
if you want to change the way a man thinks then you need to write suitable laws and control the media.
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Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
Nah. You most likely won't change his opinion, just what he says to you.
i'd have to agree with odeon on this one.
if you want to change the way a man thinks then you need to write suitable laws and control the media.
And make him think that it was his idea all along.
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Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
Nah. You most likely won't change his opinion, just what he says to you.
i'd have to agree with odeon on this one.
if you want to change the way a man thinks then you need to write suitable laws and control the media.
And make him think that it was his idea all along.
also very true.
human beings and their egos.
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Edit: Which is probably why things ultimately come down to violence. Violence is the only way to make a man change an opinion he will never change otherwise.
Nah. You most likely won't change his opinion, just what he says to you.
True. But, sometimes it's good enough to change his behavior in public, and have him secretly hate you in private.
Although I agree that McJ's method is more effective; when it is coupled with the threat of violence.
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fear seems to be a great motivator.
look at how political campaigns are run since, well, wince forever.
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fear seems to be a great motivator.
look at how political campaigns are run since, well, wince forever.
Yeah, fear, and controlling the media when you are already in power. A lot of people in North Korea think that the South is exactly like the North, and are shocked when they are shown pictures of the South.
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the first thing we did when we took control of iraq was to take over their airwaves.
remember how fortunate the people of iraq were to be blessed with a long. reassuring speech by G Dub Bush?
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the first thing we did when we took control of iraq was to take over their airwaves.
remember how fortunate the people of iraq were to be blessed with a long. reassuring speech by G Dub Bush?
As were us Americans when the "mission" was "accomplished" hahahaha
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You're all very fortunate.
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the first thing we did when we took control of iraq was to take over their airwaves.
remember how fortunate the people of iraq were to be blessed with a long. reassuring speech by G Dub Bush?
As were us Americans when the "mission" was "accomplished" hahahaha
mission accomplished will only occur after texas oil has sucked the land dry of all its natural reserves and sells it back to the tax payers in america (who's dollars continue to pay for this war) at huge profits.
then its on to the next evil regime. ::)
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It would have been much less expensive for your government just to stay pals with Saddam. Never mind his gasing of the Kurds or annexation of Kuwait.
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It would have been much less expensive for your government just to stay pals with Saddam. Never mind his gasing of the Kurds or annexation of Kuwait.
you mean the tax payers and those that expect to have their social security returned to them someday.
but mor lucrative for a few select oil men, and halburton.
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It would have been much less expensive for your government just to stay pals with Saddam. Never mind his gasing of the Kurds or annexation of Kuwait.
you mean the tax payers and those that expect to have their social security returned to them someday.
but mor lucrative for a few select oil men, and halburton.
I know. It's so goddamn incredibly shitty...