Texas wants to rewrite the US History books

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Bushead

You know I am usually very in the middle and try to be calm about some things, but this I just won't stand for.

Our education sucks, especially in history, because it is a constant push to prove "American exceptionalism," or this idea that the U.S. started great, was always great, continues to be great, and was never wrong, bad or selfish in any of its exploits. It's unrealistic.

I'm tired of it. Guess what? The United States has been one of the most notorious countries in exploiting other countries and paving the way for Neocolonialsm, which is not taking over other people's land but controlling them through economic and political pressure. We have mingled in other countries' problems for years with assassinating other leaders, staging coups and involving itself in other people's politics for our own good. Want to know why some countries don't like us? It's not because they are jealous of our freedom or status; it's how we have been involved in other countries underhandedly and manipulating them.

Has the US done great things? Yes it has! But, there is this concept that if you talk about these things, you aren't patriotic. That is completely just untrue.

Second, one of the earlier posters talked about how there is this liberal bias everywhere: the news, the media, Hollywood, entertainment, etc. This is complete bullshit. This boogieman just needs to die. CNN is way more fair and balanced than Fox News or MSNBC ever will be.

To pick on FoxNews for a bit, I remember during the Tea Party rallies how an earlier one boasted great attendance and one that happened a few months later didn't have many people(both were marches on the capitol of I remember). FoxNews used clips from the earlier one (the one with more people) for the one that happened later (the one with less people).

That is agenda pushing guys, pure and simple. I'm not asking news to be perfect; that is unreasonable. But if I knew a news source was willing to switch different video and different pictures and different statistics, I would not trust them. But, people on the right are fine with this because it's "fair and balanced." Can you tell me how? IF you acknowledge they did that, which they did, they can't be fair and balanced.

People just don't want to accept the fact that America is not some pie in the sky country, and any time someone goes to correct that, ignorant people come out of the woodwork more than willing to defend historical rewriting because we are theoretically leftist and moving a bit more to the right will put us in the center.

These makes our kids stupid. This makes us stupid. We are moving to more and more globalization. The technology that will come out in the next 20 or 30 years will only increase this trend. But, with all of our kids thinking America is a deity because of their historical education, how will they operate with other people? How will they understand why there are pockets of people who can't stand us?

Just what I would expect from the left. Why not talk about the countries that we help that don't give a dam about us but we still help them because its the right thing to do. Most in the midle east hate us because of their goverment and the people who want to keep their power. They also hate our way of life so it does not matter if we left today they would still hate us for that. They think that our way of life will take over in the middle east and they will loose their power over people. No the US is not perfect but we do way more good then bad. By the way it doe not matter what you do people will always hate you. I would also like to see your proof that Fox did what you said.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Just what I would expect from the left. Why not talk about the countries that we help that don't give a dam about us but we still help them because its the right thing to do. Most in the midle east hate us because of their goverment and the people who want to keep their power. They also hate our way of life so it does not matter if we left today they would still hate us for that. They think that our way of life will take over in the middle east and they will loose their power over people. No the US is not perfect but we do way more good then bad. By the way it doe not matter what you do people will always hate you. I would also like to see your proof that Fox did what you said.

No, that is not true.

For just one example: the US spends more money on its military than the rest of the world COMBINED. No one can challenge us militarily because we outspend the entire rest of the planet. If we took some of that money which is far overspent on the military, and used it to build clinics and schools in desperately poor countries, a lot of people would like us a lot more.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Lotus

No, that is not true.

For just one example: the US spends more money on its military than the rest of the world COMBINED. No one can challenge us militarily because we outspend the entire rest of the planet. If we took some of that money which is far overspent on the military, and used it to build clinics and schools in desperately poor countries, a lot of people would like us a lot more.

Read what I said and a lot does not mean all. We can never make everyone like us no matter what we do. We allready spend more then any other country around the world helping poor countries. If we reduce our spending on the military then lets at least keep the money here at home. Last time I check we are running in the red. By the way whats wrong with having the strongest military in the world?

[MTK]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Read what I said and a lot does not mean all. We can never make everyone like us no matter what we do. We allready spend more then any other country around the world helping poor countries. If we reduce our spending on the military then lets at least keep the money here at home. Last time I check we are running in the red. By the way whats wrong with having the strongest military in the world?

I totally agree with cutting the military budget and keeping that money at home. When you have so many social inequities and programs in desperate need of funding, you have to wonder if having a monster military budget is really the best use of our money.

[tryfuhl]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

I totally agree with cutting the military budget and keeping that money at home. When you have so many social inequities and programs in desperate need of funding, you have to wonder if having a monster military budget is really the best use of our money.

the ghost of Reagan haunts you

[Trample the Elderly]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

I totally agree with cutting the military budget and keeping that money at home. When you have so many social inequities and programs in desperate need of funding, you have to wonder if having a monster military budget is really the best use of our money.

I'd pull all of the troops and bases out of foreign countries. That would save some money. I'd cut social spending too.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by Trample the Elderly

I'd pull all of the troops and bases out of foreign countries. That would save some money. I'd cut social spending too.

So where would your savings in to?

[Trample the Elderly]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

So where would your savings in to?

I'd put my money in my own coffers, not the governments.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

I totally agree with cutting the military budget and keeping that money at home. When you have so many social inequities and programs in desperate need of funding, you have to wonder if having a monster military budget is really the best use of our money.

Well we don't live in fear of another country invading us. I don't have a problem with military spending because it keeps us safe but I do agree that we could make cuts in the programs. Remember alot of that money is used on technology that helps save lives when we are at war.

[Bushead]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Well we don't live in fear of another country invading us. I don't have a problem with military spending because it keeps us safe but I do agree that we could make cuts in the programs. Remember alot of that money is used on technology that helps save lives when we are at war.

I always feel like military spending is a double edge sword. So many new technology development comes from it and it does keep us safe, but we have so many troops all over the world.

I feel like we could make some cuts with out endangering our troops if we didn't have so many bases around the entire world.

[budw38]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Well we don't live in fear of another country invading us. I don't have a problem with military spending because it keeps us safe but I do agree that we could make cuts in the programs. Remember alot of that money is used on technology that helps save lives when we are at war.

True , and much of that Technology is used to help make cars safer as well as more energy efficient appliances,auto's homes ect.

[GusFrerotte]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Well we don't live in fear of another country invading us. I don't have a problem with military spending because it keeps us safe but I do agree that we could make cuts in the programs. Remember alot of that money is used on technology that helps save lives when we are at war.

Dude name me a war where our interests were truly at stake? And by that I mean interests of the nation as a whole, not the moneyed elites.


American Revolution The Big Break from England.

War of 1812 Never would have happened if we hadn't invaded Canada.

Spanish American War First war started under a false pretext(USS Maine was mined by the Spanish) later found out to that the explosion was caused because one of the powder rooms was next to the boiler, but we get the Phillipines and Cuba out of the deal.

World War I The war where Western Civ blew its collective brains out. Had nothing to do with the United States. A bunch of jealous cousins use a spat between the Hapsburgs and Serbia to jockey to redraw boundaries of their respective empires and set the stage for both facism and communism.

World War II The only war where our nation was truly attacked and face a true double pronged threat to its liberty and security, but would have never happened if we didn't butt into World War I.

Korea Commies trying to unite Korea under one banner, but it was set up mostly by American naivete of Stalin's intentions and Dean Acheson's omission of S Korea from the newly formed Pacific Defense Perimeter at the beginning of the Cold War. The North took this as a sign that we didn't care so they invaded with Russian/Chinese help. 3 years later we have over 25,000 dead and many more wounded, and the treaty line was at the 38th parallel, right where the border was before it all started. All could have been avoided if Acheson would have said touch S Korea and we will kick your ass!!

Vietnam Civil war like Korea, where many signed up with the commies, who were the best organized, and had a plan to unify Vietnam. S Vietnam was corrupt and the nation falling wouldn't have really impacted us at all. Most of SE Asia fell anyway(except Thailand) and we weren't screwed at all. 58,000 dead for a 8 year war though. A total waste


Gulf War I Ambassador April Glaspie tells Saddam that we don't care about intra Arab squabbling when he asks her point blank what the US would do if he took the N Kuwaiti oilfields by force, as his cash strapped nation needed revenue and the Kuwaitis were slant drilling into Iraq. Biggest setup in modern history. Saddam is of course demonized, since he is a brutal dictator(who cares we had no problem with him being a sadistic pig from 1978-1990 as he was our boy against the crazies in Iran)

Gulf War II Biggest waste of national treasure and blood since World War I in my book. At least in WW II you had bad guys that could attack us. Koreae and Vietnam you could make a valid case about them being wars against communism, but this one was 100% based on lies or exaggerations.

Afghanistan Supposedly was all about nailing the Taliban and bin Laden, but not sure we needed to trash the country. But of course, as in Iraq it quickly turned into another joke of nation building.

[Lotus]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Read what I said and a lot does not mean all. We can never make everyone like us no matter what we do. We allready spend more then any other country around the world helping poor countries. If we reduce our spending on the military then lets at least keep the money here at home. Last time I check we are running in the red. By the way whats wrong with having the strongest military in the world?

Fine. Keep the money at home. My point was that there are things that we do to make people dislike us and there are things that we can do to make others like us more.

I don't have a problem with having a strong military per se, I have problems with the overkill. We could cut our enormous military budget in half and still far outspend, and thus be stronger than, any other country. There are so many other things that we can do with that money.

[Ruhskins]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Just what I would expect from the left. Why not talk about the countries that we help that don't give a dam about us but we still help them because its the right thing to do. Most in the midle east hate us because of their goverment and the people who want to keep their power. They also hate our way of life so it does not matter if we left today they would still hate us for that. They think that our way of life will take over in the middle east and they will loose their power over people. No the US is not perfect but we do way more good then bad. By the way it doe not matter what you do people will always hate you. I would also like to see your proof that Fox did what you said.

Actually, most of the countries in the Middle East hate us because of our support for Israel. Granted, not just because of that, but typically the whole opposition to the US starts with that argument.

Personally I'm in the middle when it comes to your argument. I think this country is the land of opportunity (hence why my family came here) and there is a lot of good that we do for the world. However, I think this country has done its share of bad things and one of the worst thing that a country can do is to dismiss their wrongdoings.

People in the left love to complain about our country, yet they don't realize that we are lucky to live in a country where you can freely do so. And people on the right need to realize that it is OK to complain about your country, and that in a democracy it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Ruhskins

Actually, most of the countries in the Middle East hate us because of our support for Israel. Granted, not just because of that, but typically the whole opposition to the US starts with that argument.

Personally I'm in the middle when it comes to your argument. I think this country is the land of opportunity (hence why my family came here) and there is a lot of good that we do for the world. However, I think this country has done its share of bad things and one of the worst thing that a country can do is to dismiss their wrongdoings.

People in the left love to complain about our country, yet they don't realize that we are lucky to live in a country where you can freely do so. And people on the right need to realize that it is OK to complain about your country, and that in a democracy it is not only permissible to question our leaders it's our responsibility.

Ok I left off our support for Isreal but I wonder how many in the middle east use that as a shield for their real hate toward us? I don't have a problem with people pointing out our problems but I some times wonder why people want to go back in history and keep pointing out every little thing we have done wrong and act like we never do any thing good. I also respect all opinions and try to never attack anyone personally but some here on the left seem to not have that problem.