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Post by shin on Aug 30, 2006 3:24:30 GMT -5
Why is that so important?
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Post by kmc on Aug 30, 2006 8:38:49 GMT -5
Ona is 38, but I don't actually know how old Azu is. He is in his mid 40s, if I remember.
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Post by Paul on Aug 30, 2006 8:44:14 GMT -5
Anyone who has read the Federalist Papers understands that at least a few of the Founders recognized the potential dangers of pure democracy. How many of those essays refer to the "tyranny of the majority"? A great many things in our federal system are designed specifally to prevent the majority from having too much power over the minority. A lot of people in this country seem to think that democracy is the same as American democracy, and it is not. Our rhetoric about democracy in the middle east is a direct contradiction to many of our actions there. The strongest proponents of our current policy talk about democracy, but really want those countries to adopt our way of doing things, which, when done by force, is the exact opposite of democracy. This is a good point Rocky. |
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Post by kmc on Aug 30, 2006 9:12:21 GMT -5
Well, the lesson has been taught: Don't fuck with America, or we'll bring democracy to your country too.
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Post by RocDoc on Aug 30, 2006 18:44:58 GMT -5
Out of curiosity, what are the age ranges of this group of Lithuanian acquaintances you have? Similar to yours I'll guess.
Why is that so important?
There is nothing more fun than when I C&P something for shin, that was just there 3 posts ago that answers a question of his fully....bu, no, actually. It's not much fun at all.
Here:
The point here being if they're 25 years old, then they were just ten when the Soviet Union broke down, a bit short on having a usable opinon on the 50 years of Communism which their parents and then their parents and grandparents lived through.
Ona's 38 and Azu's mid-40-ish....OK, this does place them as having lived through the pleasures of the latter end of Russification. So obviously they both were subjected to the mandatory Russian lessons...and mandatory Communist history while being taught nothing (by decree, by law) of the history of their own country.
But I do hope you'll grant me that someone as young as I'd stated above would have a pretty worthless idea of what Communism did to their countries...
So they thought living in Lithuania was great.
Sure, they got laid, they got drunk....to some that'll get you through a lot of shit.
My wife explains it to me like this, 'We might have had a less than perfect life under the communists. You guys here might even portray it as a shit life. But remember, it was our shit, ours and ALWAYS we will have lots of fond memories. It's what we grew up with.'
That's what Ona and Azu (not any sort of typical name, that) are talking about, a sense of pride in still having had something 'normal' (success even) in spite of the repression.
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Post by shin on Aug 30, 2006 22:22:49 GMT -5
Ona's 38 and Azu's mid-40-ish....OK, this does place them as having lived through the pleasures of the latter end of Russification. So obviously they both were subjected to the mandatory Russian lessons...and mandatory Communist history while being taught nothing (by decree, by law) of the history of their own country.
But I do hope you'll grant me that someone as young as I'd stated above would have a pretty worthless idea of what Communism did to their countries...
No, the point is that someone who lived in Russia for the first 10 years of their life, say, is someone who lived 10 years more years in Russia than you ever did. What gives you the right to discount someone's experiences on the basis of age? Anne Frank was 13 when she started her diary. No one seems to think her observations on Naziism were "worthless".
You don't have to be old to have experiences of worth. You can even say that the younger you were, the more vivid and pure the experience, given that there's no political subtext to distract you from the raw emotion of the times. If times were good or bad, you'd know it in your heart. It won't make a difference what you're taught in school if what you see in life doesn't match, especially when you grow up and can look back and filter the lies from the truth. I'm sure you can appreciate that nuance.
That's what Ona and Azu (not any sort of typical name, that) are talking about, a sense of pride in still having had something 'normal' (success even) in spite of the repression.
Oh, so you've met them before?
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Post by RocDoc on Aug 31, 2006 0:31:19 GMT -5
You don't have to be old to have experiences of worth. You can even say that the younger you were, the more vivid and pure the experience, given that there's no political subtext to distract you from the raw emotion of the times.
Yeah. Haw!
There's FAR more to the 50 years of how the Russians shit on all the countries which they subjugated which the emotions of a kid is going to encapsulate with any sort of real accuracy, unless he's simply writing for 'Hi-lights For Children'.
WTFuck sort of logic drives you here?
Oh I forgot, it's personal.
Yes a child IS going to have a viewpoint, but as encompassing as someone who's parents went to Siberia for trumped up 'insubordination to the party?
Fucking hello??
....lived 10 years more years in Russia than you ever did.
Regarding my ability to understand through history, through the way Lithuania and the SSRs were always (QUITE fucking accurately) portrayed to us of Lithuanian descent, who the fuck cares WTF you think especially when a comment this stupid is made?
No. We here have zero understanding, zero input. Ha.
It HAS been put through a different filter (mine especially and you DO know enough about it, that it's fucking valid...I know FAR shitloads more Liths than kmc's encompassing 'survey') than this Ona and Azu's, but no, I have a pretty good understanding regardless of this pitiful (very obviously) personality-rooted fucking knee-jerk abnegation of yours which you (and Kenny) think actually has something factual going for it.
Other than a purely personal stupid fucking dig. Unsurprising.
The factual is that yeah, they found a 'normal' existence within their undeniable restrictions, like a thousand PLUS people I've talked to.
They had joy there, they did.
And what they have had here, 90% of the time, is often related to language issues and the fact that their higher education gets most of them nowhere here....usually again through language issues, often immigration issues, of their own or of close friends.
Of COURSE they will say that life here is shit compared to the system which they'd sussed over the years.
Well. Fucking duh.
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Post by shin on Aug 31, 2006 1:32:42 GMT -5
Did you ask Ona and Azu why they feel the way they do? Or do you just think you're so damn smart, so damn knowledgable, so damn on top of things that you can tell Kenny what his own friends have told him?
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Post by someone on Aug 31, 2006 18:19:22 GMT -5
I'm just curious how the second hand experiences as an immigrant's son you have rocdoc, not as someone who actually lived thru it himself, but as someone who got used material, is any more valid than people who were actually fucking there. Please enlighten me.
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Post by RocDoc on Aug 31, 2006 22:59:50 GMT -5
Immigrants' son, someone.
Schooled in history, grammar and the love of that country.
....not as someone who actually lived thru it himself, but as someone who got used material, is any more valid than people who were actually fucking there.
And no, I did not live through it there, I lived through it HERE.
DEEP in that shit. DEEP in my parents' shit, those worthless immigrants, communally hating your fucking Communist brothers starting from 19-and-fucking-fortyFOUR, OK?
And I know literally THOUSANDS who went through those years, there.
Relations. (MY aunts, uncles and cousins...my wife's whole family, close enough for ya? Siberia, the gulags, the shit you and shin idiotically choose to laugh at and minimize here..)
Patients.
Friends.
But fuck me anyway. WTF do I know?
What could I know? I (*sob!*) was not physically there!
OH! How I wish!
And yeah. To 'enlighten' you OR shin?
A joke for the ages then is what you're asking.
How with those deadbolted PADlocked closed minds?
You know ALL, you know MY life, full stop.
And then, why? This is nothing you value.
Grant me nothing. Cool.
With the way you dislike this image (of your making) of me...ANY possibility of that (ie enlightenment) would obviously be fucking hopeless.
Well, basically, (and with me also padlocked into this image which I have of this hate-filled inarticulate 'you' here...GASP!), I have to say (and with ALL due respect regarding the HISTORY of how we speak to one another), honestly:
Well I was gonna say "Fuck You and your basic exTREMEly elementary and very limited presumptions, OK? ",
but why?.
EVEN THOUGH you fully deserve it.
See, you're this thoroughly fulfilled married woman now, intelligent, absolutely changed like night and day, improved, right? I mean there ARE poeple here who I respect who see something good in you....
Crosses to the other side of the street. Runs like hell....
...and yes, this enlightenment process would annoy the pig as well.
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Post by shin on Sept 1, 2006 1:04:56 GMT -5
Now you know how Ona and Azu feel. Take a moment to think about that. You're self-righteousness might be easier to swallow if you do.
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Post by frag on Sept 1, 2006 1:14:36 GMT -5
Couldn't agree more, shin. I got into a similar argument with a professor a few years ago, and I used the exact same example.
Anyway, how about the latest of the President's comparison(s) of the terrorist regimes/insurgents to the Nazis and Commies of yesteryear? Just out of curiosity...
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Post by Galactus on Sept 1, 2006 7:18:50 GMT -5
Anyway, how about the latest of the President's comparison(s) of the terrorist regimes/insurgents to the Nazis and Commies of yesteryear? Just out of curiosity... Becuase that's one we all agree on. He hoping people will go "Oh? The Nazis you say? Well yes, then we must keep fighting them!". THe same reason he keeps bringing up 9/11 he's trying to tie it to something with meaning becuase this war doesn't have one of it's own. |
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Post by Kensterberg on Sept 1, 2006 7:49:38 GMT -5
Resorting to comparisons with Nazis is the last resort of a bankrupt foreign policy. It's exactly like comparing your opponent to Hitler. Everyone hates Hitler, therefore now they have to hate your opponent.
Notice that Churchill and FDR didn't need to compare the Nazis or Imperial Japan to any earlier regimes. Their wrongdoing spoke for itself. The fact that the best that Dubya can do is to try to link his self-appointed enemies to these earlier ones speaks volumes about the fundemental groundlessness of the war in Iraq.
So I'm 100% with BatMantis on this one. Not sure if it's the bat or the mantis speaking, but he's spot on.
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Post by kmc on Sept 1, 2006 9:55:40 GMT -5
Resorting to comparisons with Nazis is the last resort of a bankrupt foreign policy. It's exactly like comparing your opponent to Hitler. Everyone hates Hitler, therefore now they have to hate your opponent. Notice that Churchill and FDR didn't need to compare the Nazis or Imperial Japan to any earlier regimes. Their wrongdoing spoke for itself. The fact that the best that Dubya can do is to try to link his self-appointed enemies to these earlier ones speaks volumes about the fundemental groundlessness of the war in Iraq. So I'm 100% with BatMantis on this one. Not sure if it's the bat or the mantis speaking, but he's spot on. The comparison, of course, is disingenous. Were our enemies the Nazis, our administration would be waging total warfare against them. We'd institute a draft, we would be continuously bombing the shit out of the enemy, and they wouldn't have to jump through hoops to get their version of the truth out to the masses. I'm pretty sure the President himself doesn't see the enemy as the Nazis. It's all just talking points. |
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