Elections in the USA tomorrow...

What, that I hate America? You could've just asked; it's not a secret.

Prime Junta said:

What, that I hate America? You could've just asked; it's not a secret.

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The inherent problem is that your bias therefore inherently taints your purported objectivity. Your perspective becomes clouded as to whether you think the US is broken based on solid reasoning or because you hate it and chase supporting tidbits ...

On the contrary. I didn't always hate America. I came to hate it following a long period of objective analysis. Hatred is the only logical and moral response to America as it currently stands. *Love* of America is the biased, immoral position.

Prime Junta said:

On the contrary. I didn't always hate America. I came to hate it following a long period of objective analysis. Hatred is the only logical and moral response to America as it currently stands. *Love* of America is the biased, immoral position.

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I don't see things so black & white as that. But then the current state of the US tends to bring out the extreme reactions in outsiders, particularly those of a more socialist leaning.

... and not without reason ...

Oh, I'm not socialist at all. I'm politically as centrist as anyone you're likely to find in this part of the world.

There's a problem with language, you know. You can be either terse, or precise, but rarely both. "Hate" is an oversimplification of how I feel about America, even if it's roughly accurate; it's just the shortest word that gets it in the ballpark.

If you don't mind me asking, why do you hate America?

@Korplem -- Because it's taken the ideals that I hold closest to my heart, and turned them into slogans being used to destroy lives.

@Prime Junta: I do understand that you dislike the momentary right-wing government but you shouldn´t make the mistake to see Mr. Cheney and his NeoCon-Clique as America as a whole.
I think, like many europeans, that the foreign policy of the Bush-Administration is at least very very questionable since they have managed to ridicule the UN with their solo run in Iraq so that nearly all efforts that the international politic has done since the end of WWII to prevent wars of aggression from happening have just gone down the drain, but it´s a bit overacting to say that America as a whole
has "rotten" or something like that.

PJ, HATE is neither logical, nor moral!! It's actually a waste of time and energy. I don't Love America, I certainly don't agree with a lot it does, (neither do many Americans I suspect), but to hate it would be silly. What is 'America'? or any country for that matter? Is it a geographical PLACE, a group of people, a government, or what? Disagreeing with a person, or a gov't is fine, it's also healthy, but Hate isn't. Hate destroys the hater, often more than the hatee (if there is such a word). You say you're concerned about ideals being twisted!! Wake UP!!!! That's been happening all through history by every country and government. Hatred dispels reason and can lead to the situation we see now where Terrorism is taking hold. Hatred is an extreme position, so shouldn't line up with your avowed centrist position!!

Let's have good discussion and honest disagreement, but let's keep Hate out of the equation. It achieves nothing that is positive, so why bother!!

I would shudder to think that anyone would see our government and prime minister as being representative for all our people's views, even if they were chosen in a fair and democratic system. Which I may add, was not really the case with the last Bush election, but that's beside the point. And I came across a nice chart that really set things into perspective: it shows the mean IQ of people in all the states that voted for Kerry and those that voted for Bush, guess which states had the lowest score?

Right.....More frightening is that there is almost no exception! Not to say that "dumb" people shouldn't vote, but to make a point that the people who voted for Bush didn't have the priviledge of access to good education and therefore may have more trouble making an educated choice in politics. The irony of it is that Bush was chosen by the same people he sent to war (a lot of poor uneducated men choose the army as career) and for whom he didn't do s**t when it comes to basic health care, employment and education. He would be stupid too, because he benefits by keeping his electorate dumb as they are. I came across a lot of young American people during my travels over the last couple of years that were pleading not to look at them through the image of their goverment and leader. Let's not get into black & white arguments.
BTW: Have you ever seen our "leader"?, he looks like a LEGO man for chrissakes! He walks like one of them also

America's betrayal of its ideals happened long before the W came into power. His clique is simply the culmination of a long historical process. It's possible that America will be able to reinvent itself (it has happened before), but I find it very unlikely. Therefore, I base my actions on the assumption that it won't.

Oh, and Corwin -- again, language is imprecise. It's hard to pin down what any word really "is," let alone a word as amorphous as "America." I'm referring to America as a country, society, polity, idea, and set of values reflected in action; certainly not "all Americans."

Maybe Prime Junta is just upset that his president looks like Conan O'Brien.

Of course, if I had to choose between a president that looked like a monkey and one that looked like Conan, I'd probably go for Conan...

@PJ: I see your point... Honestly, I do, and I agree that the "ideal" of America, as was stated a few hundreds of years ago, has been lost in the shuffle of dollar bills exchanged by a small and increasingly wealthy minority.

However..... you miss the point in lumping the U.S. (i.e., those people who live in the geographic location called the United States) with the bad work being done by this wealthy and vocal minority. I will not dispute that Americans as a whole are uneducated compared to other countries, which (as history has shown) is a recipe for extremism. This, too, is a result of our 20th century leaders favoring "bread and circuses" over "Reading, wRiting, and aRithmetic."

Also, as Corwin so eloquently stated, words have power. Hate is a word we in America are all too familiar with and its ability to polarize is one of the main reasons the Neocons were able to take a foothold. So, if you respect the ideals of sane Americans, I would request you come up with another term that more closely fits your view of the failed experiment that is the American political system. In fact, I think just calling it a "failed experiment" gets your point across just fine. If your reaction is more emotional than that, than you have issues of your own you need to address.

@Alex -- as stated, language is imprecise. I do not lump all Americans automatically with the concept of "America" that I "hate" (for want of a better word). On the contrary, I have nothing but the greatest of respect and admiration for the Americans that are working like hell to return America to the beacon of hope and liberty that it used to be, and I feel pity rather than hatred for those Americans who are simply prisoners of the system or have opted out of it.

The point is that they're not the ones who are acting in the name of America. Haven't been for a very long time.

Moreover, I don't hate America for being a failed experiment, any more than I would have hated Argentina for collapsing its economy due to Perón's populist policies. As said, I hate America for taking those ideals that I love most dearly -- liberty, democracy, justice, human rights -- and turning them into curse words. If there's one political change I'd like to see happening in the world, it's democracy in the Arab world -- but I can't even *say* that anymore, because all it does is invoke pictures of the smoking ruins of Falluja, the oil slick that destroyed most of Lebanon's coastline, and that guy in a black hood standing on a cardboard box with wires through him.

And, Alex, I'm sorry, but I can't think of any word that better expresses my feelings about all this than "hatred" -- and I believe that I would not be a moral human being if I did not have this response. I could try "outrage," but that's not strong enough. You're a writer, I understand; perhaps you can suggest something?

Disgust leaps to mind!! That's what I feel when I look at some of those images, revulsion would be another, but I don't hate those people, I rather feel sorry for them in some way!!

Wait, what? Images of what? America or the war?

Korplem, images of the war are images of America.

That's like saying a picture of an exhaust pipe is a picture of a vehicle.

But it is, isn't it? The exhaust pipe is an integral part of the vehicle. It wouldn't run without the exhaust pipe. It may not be a picture of the entire vehicle, but then it's not possible to display the entire vehicle in a single picture; something will always be left out.

No, that is not a picture of a vehicle. That is a picture of an exhaust pipe. A core is not an apple, a rectangle is not a square, G.W. Bush is not America, leprosy does not represent the soul of a man.

You strike me as a glass-is-half-empty kind of guy.