1. Standard memberuzless
    The So Fist
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    12 Apr '18 20:19
    Originally posted by @vivify
    So America was "great" when segregation, Jim Crow laws, Japanese internment camps, McCarthyism, women needing their husband's permission to own a credit card, and marital rape was still legal?
    what other country at the time outlawed these things. hmm?
  2. Standard membervivify
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    12 Apr '18 21:481 edit
    Originally posted by @wolfgang59
    Great for the time and not because of those things.

    We are always slagging of the USA - give them a break sometimes!
    You claimed the the U.S. "used" to be great; that we were "better" back in earlier times than now. I don't see how you can justify that, in a time when the U.S. has more tolerance and progress than it's ever had. What other time in U.S. history could we have both legalized gay marriage AND a black president in the same year a woman won the popular vote?

    When people talk about how great the U.S. "used to be", I suspect they're thinking of a warm and fuzzy time when you could legally kick blacks out of your stores, literally everyone on TV was white, and there weren't so many of pesky brown people. For god's sake, you can't even sexually objectify a woman at work anymore.

    Roy Moore once suggested that Blacks were better off as slaves; white supremacists openly marched with torches in Charlottesville.

    So when a president who was endorsed by a KKK Grand Wizard and made the front page of the KKK's official news paper says he wants to make America great "again".....followed by "Mexicans are rapists" and "ban Muslims", talking about how great America "used to be" understandably comes across as distasteful.
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    12 Apr '18 22:03
    Perhaps America was at its greatest before it was called America.
  4. Standard memberapathist
    looking for loot
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    13 Apr '18 05:04
    Originally posted by @uzless
    Thank god for ...
    I saw no reason to click on your link. I bet you offered something really shallow. say, ten to one? We'd need a poll.
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    13 Apr '18 10:22
    Originally posted by @uzless
    what other country at the time outlawed these things. hmm?
    Just about every other Western country? Admittedly, compared to Liberia or Imperial or Maoist China you weren't completely backward when it comes to human rights, but that's very faint praise.
  6. Standard memberuzless
    The So Fist
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    13 Apr '18 16:26
    Originally posted by @shallow-blue
    Just about every other Western country? Admittedly, compared to Liberia or Imperial or Maoist China you weren't completely backward when it comes to human rights, but that's very faint praise.
    please, give us a list of 5 countries specific to that time period..
  7. Standard memberuzless
    The So Fist
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    13 Apr '18 16:33
    Originally posted by @apathist
    I saw no reason to click on your link. I bet you offered something really shallow. say, ten to one? We'd need a poll.
    Your comment guessing it to be shallow shows I suppose that you don't know who Aaron Sorkin is. Hint, he's the greatest script writer of our generation.

    Calling Aaron Sorkin shallow is like calling George W Bush a deep thinker. How sad and lonely it must be for you to go through life having no clue, relying on others to illuminate your dark and dreary entrenched view of never moving beyond the walls of the cave. Come to the light....or at least to the less dim.
  8. Standard memberuzless
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    13 Apr '18 16:37
    Originally posted by @vivify


    When people talk about how great the U.S. "used to be", I suspect they're thinking of a warm and fuzzy time when you could legally kick blacks out of your stores, literally everyone on TV was white, and there weren't so many of pesky brown people. For god's sake, you can't even sexually objectify a woman at work anymore.

    Do you really think that's what Aaron Sorkin and Jeff Daniels are talking about in this speech? Really?

    How can you be filled with this much hate that you can't even see a positive message when its put in front of you? Can you honestly take ANY part of Jeff's speech and tell me where he's referring to ANY of what you are saying?

    If not, then please, apologize. 😞
  9. Standard memberuzless
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    13 Apr '18 16:502 edits
    Originally posted by @wolfgang59
    Now that is brilliant.
    And let's not forget the US was great.
    Where did it go wrong? Vietnam? Nixon? IDK

    IMO, somewhere post Eisenhower. He warned of the coming military industrial complex and how it would infiltrate government skewing government's social focus away from FDR's "The New Deal" into what has now become its focus on the "New World Order".

    Jeff Daniel's speech when he refers to how we used to see big ideas put forth by important men who were revered, is a reference to that pre WW2 time when the US stepped up and become a force for social justice with successive president's moving the pedestal forward inch by inch culminating with the New Deal from FDR and ended by Lyndon Johnson's "Great society" with his programs to try to end poverty and racial injustice circa 1965.

    Since then though, we've seen the social movement's pace decline in relative terms at the presidential level. It's been left to individuals and, in more recent days, social media tokenism to move the bar forward.

    If you think about that way, and then listen to Jeff's speech again, I think you'll see what i'm talking about and you should note it has nothing to do with junk vivify and her hate-at-all-cost like-minded minions spew forth uncontrollably.
  10. Standard memberwolfgang59
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    14 Apr '18 02:30
    Originally posted by @vivify
    You claimed the the U.S. "used" to be great; that we were "better" back in earlier times than now. I don't see how you can justify that, in a time when the U.S. has more tolerance and progress than it's ever had. What other time in U.S. history could we have both legalized gay marriage AND a black president in the same year a woman won the popular vote? ...[text shortened]... slims", talking about how great America "used to be" understandably comes across as distasteful.
    Calm down ... this isn't "Debates".

    I agree with everything you are saying but you have to look at the times.
    I think there was a time when America was looked upon as great.
    It was post-war until ... not sure when.

    America is probably "greater" now as are all countries compared to themselves 50 years ago.
  11. Standard memberapathist
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    14 Apr '18 05:261 edit
    Originally posted by @uzless
    Your comment guessing it to be shallow shows I suppose that you don't know who Aaron Sorkin is. Hint, he's the greatest script writer of our generation.
    ....
    So we are talking about fiction. That was my guess.
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    14 Apr '18 13:37
    Originally posted by @shallow-blue
    Plenty of complaints while they were sitting on the sideline for three years waiting to see which side would win, while the UK, Russia, and resistances all over Europe did the dangerous work.

    D-Day? Yes, lots of thanks to the British, Aussies, Poles, Canadians and all the others. And to the USSR for making it posdible. Why should that make the USA, ...[text shortened]... be loved forever more and forgiven anything and everything. Reality is just slightly different.
    Nice try.
    You have a very poor knowledge of history or are deliberately distorting the facts. In either case, your ignorance or insensitivity is duly noted.

    After the Great War, you know...the one which was a "war to end all wars"... the USA became very isolationist.
    President Wilson tried to hype the idea for a "League of Nations"...but was confounded by his opposition and a war-weary American public. Many Americans were apathetic. Europe was 3000 miles away, after all and had consumed too much of our blood and treasure.
    Wilson was unsuccessful as he tried to help negotiate a more forgiving Treaty at Versailles. The European victors wanted their pound of flesh from Germany, all future generations be damned!

    By the time Hitler came on scene...our prevailing view was..."ya'll made your own goddamned beds...now lay in them!"

    There's no point in regurgitating the whole story here, but I'll just state: Our European friends were big boys and girls...and should have been able to manage their own affairs...but:

    - Ignoring the plight of the duly elected government in Spain? Not good.
    - Allowing Mussolini's expeditions into N.E. Africa? Poor effort.
    - Chamberlain's appeasement at Munich? Very poor effort.
    - A Soviet-German Non Aggression Pact? Bad.
    - Relying upon the Maginot Line without a Belgian equivalent? Very very bad.

    Etc. etc. etc...

    Bottom line: We came aboard reluctantly...but once aboard...we were committed until victory!

    And General Marshall says "You're Welcome" too.
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    14 Apr '18 15:11
    Originally posted by @wolfe63
    Bottom line: We came aboard reluctantly...but once aboard...we were committed until victory!
    Yes, that's the "America won the war for Europe" myth I was referring to. It's evidently still prevalent; it's no less a myth.

    You came aboard when the USSR and the UK had already ensured victory for us, and are still claiming it for yourself. Very poor show, old man.
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    14 Apr '18 15:25
    Originally posted by @shallow-blue
    Yes, that's the "America won the war for Europe" myth I was referring to. It's evidently still prevalent; it's no less a myth.

    You came aboard when the USSR and the UK had already ensured victory for us, and are still claiming it for yourself. Very poor show, old man.
    You mean we came aboard after propping up Churchill from 1939 to December 11th, 1941 with fuel, arms and supplies (Lend/Lease Act). You know...those that helped the Dunkirk evacuation succeed...right?

    You mean we grudgingly came on side with Russia after they'd stabbed Europe in the back by claiming Eastern Poland for themselves in their foolish pact with Hitler? Correct?

    I guess we weren't needed after all. You guys had it well in hand the whole time.

    We could have saved 250,000 young American lives and saved billions of dollars.
  15. Subscribersonhouse
    Fast and Curious
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    15 May '18 01:25
    Originally posted by @wolfgang59
    WTF

    When have I been brainwashed Old Man?
    DId you actually SEE the film? Probably not.
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