Of Course You Know This Means War

[Cyber Stryker]

Sadly no historical 'facts' can be taken at face value. Anyone with a lick of sense already knows that but you're still missing or trying to misdirect everyone from the topic at hand:

How very disrespectful those games are to those who laid down their lives/put their lives on the line to bring about a 'positive' end to the World Wars and how those who went to Vietnam died in vain or came back to hostility that they didn't deserve. No sane soldier want's to go into battle but do when their country calls upon them to do so. (Is anyone else annoyed that I have to keep repeating that and it continues to not sink in?)

On a side note: Anti-wise if you know about those battles then obviously they're in the history books somewhere otherwise you couldn't have possibly heard of them unless you were there or had firsthand accounts from someone who was.

[The Anti-Wisemon]

What I mean to say is that most books either brush by it or don't have it at all. Look in a history book featuring WWII for the biggest battle in WWII, Kursk. Hell, Stalingrad isn't as known as D-Day.

The Russians are unrecognized, even though they were a main force in the European front. I did a lot of my research through obscure sources and the people who actually directed me towards it were a few communists on a forum I frequent (they're for the most part alright).

My point is at least the American soldiers are recognized, though inaccurately, in videogames. The people hwo make videogames really do try to not disgrace them, many try to honor them, like people who create Call Of Duty.

Hell, people think that Stephen Ambrose isn't biased.

[Wisemon]

It's true that Russia lost a hell of a lot more people than the U.S.. I took a Russian class for six years, and a good portion of it was historical, and WWII was known as the great (not in the good way) war there. In Russian history classes, the Russian involvement is made known, and the American involvement is downplayed. The point is, it's biased from every perspective. We happen to live in America, so we get the America as the saviors angle, and not the Russians as the martyrs angle.

[UnknownH]

Yeah every country does that. Why wouldn't they.

[The Anti-Wisemon]

..Maybe if we weren't so focused on nationalist bullshit...?

God, I hate how every country has to whip it out and prove themselves big men. "We did it all, ther true heroes of WWII right here!"

Pisses me off to no end

[Cyber Stryker]

No argument on that score. I think if everyone would look at the world's problems as a whole instead of just their own little corner of the planet along with the glory and/or shame they think they have that there

[Wisemon]

[quote]No argument on that score. I think if everyone would look at the world's problems as a whole instead of just their own little corner of the planet along with the glory and/or shame they think they have that there

[Cyber Stryker]

:shock:
O-kay...

Actually I was referring more to just the environment and stopping sociopaths who have made it their mission in life to kill random people and people who don

[The Anti-Wisemon]

Cyber Stryker, has it ever occured to you that we can't solve al of the world's problems?

Killing Saddam Huessain would no matter how you do it would create a huge power vacuum. Civil war, just like what is happening now. It's not as simple as killing the evil dictator.

Not only that, but the problems that we don't have an answer to get ignored. Take Sudanese genocide. There was no good solution to that. We would have fucked it up if we did anything, and it would have been a mess, just like Kosovo. So, we ignored it. And now that it's all over, we shake our heads and go "Never again". It will always happen again. And it's not nearly as simple as good people doing nothing. People who are genocidal, who are so fanatical in their beleifs that they will kill for them will always exist. And stopping people like that all together is never an option.

And this is a nice article about foriegn aid. Thoigh, I know you'll hate me for posting something so anti-government.

[quote]A Foreign Aid Disaster in the Making

By Thomas J. DiLorenzo

[Posted January 6, 2005]

In the wake of the tsunami disaster in Indonesia, governments throughout the world are doing what governments always do: throwing money at the problem. In this case, the money is referred to as "foreign aid."

The billions of dollars (or the equivalent in other currencies) being sent to Indonesia, India, Sri Lanka, and other devastated areas are bound to do some good; it would be impossible to spend all that tax money without some of it leaking out to benefit some of the disaster victims. Indeed, the television news networks are already filled with scenes of American helicopters and cargo planes unloading in-kind aid of all kinds.

Politicians are bound to politicize this disaster, as they do with all other world events, in a way that helps them accumulate more power and confiscate more wealth from their citizens. Specifically, now that they are becoming rather fond of portraying themselves as internationalized Mother Teresas, coming to the aid of anyone, anywhere, as long as it is all paid for by their hard-working, hapless taxpayers, they will be inclined to become champions of ever-expanding foreign aid spending. To do this they will have to ignore the truth about foreign aid: For over half a century, it has been either ineffective or counterproductive in stimulating prosperity.

The late Peter Bauer (Lord Bauer) devoted his entire career to studying the law of unintended consequences as it applied to foreign aid, and many of his conclusions are summarized in his 1991 book, The Development Frontier.

First of all, notes Bauer, foreign aid is not "aid" but a transfer or subsidy. And it is typically not a transfer to the poor and needy but to governments. Thus, the predominant effect of "foreign aid" has always been to enlarge the size and scope of the state, which always ends up impairing prosperity and diminishing the liberty of the people. Worse yet, it leads to the centralization of governmental power, since the transfers are always to the recipient country

[Wisemon]

[quote]Absolutely no tsunami relief? Wise that