I think they would get along just fine and have the same hopes, fears, and dreams.....for the most part. As long as it wasn't some stupid thing about virgins waiting in the afterlife. DD
The average Middle Easterner or Muslim doesn't believe that nonsense so it's ridiculous to even bring it up. They could get along fine but it wouldn't change their inner perceptions of our country. I have cousins who have moved here from Dubai, etc who happily live here but still don't agree with most of what our country does. Hell, I know plenty of Americans that are unhappy with our dealings in the Middle East, Muslim or not.
Good to know...and fair enough. The beauty of America is you don't have to agree with everything, we let you disagree all you want, and still live happily. Heck you can even protest the way we do things...... That is what makes our country great, the greatest that has ever been.... We are winning the culture war, more and more each day....the ancient walls are coming down, one tweet, and one facebook update at a time. DD
You couldn't be more wrong about FDR. He certainly had an astute mind when it came to foreign policy. On what do you base that statement, if you don't mind my asking?
Do they see a contradiction between happily living there (so to speak "reaping the benefits from the system") and at the same time disliking it so much?
His post World War 2 vision, which was just as ludicrous as Wilson's, if not more so. FDR was an absolute genius at getting the American people to do what he wanted, something which he used with great skill in getting them to understand that Hitler really was a threat ( and also his programs in the Great Depression, but that's off-topic). The problem is that FDR seemed to sincerely believe that after Hitler was defeated, what he deemed to be the four great nations of the world, the United States, the Soviet Union, Britain, and CHINA ( yes, Chiang's China which had been a complete mess for pretty much the whole time he ran it was from FDR's perspective one of the great nations of the world) would work together to keep the peace. The result was that he was way too nice to Stalin, and failed to realize what both Churchill and Stalin knew: that wherever the armies of the Westerners/Soviets went, their ideology would be imposed on the future Europe/world. This didn't become as big of a problem as it could have been, as he died before the war ended and as Stalin never understood how the American psyche worked, he did all sorts of things that he thought were obviously justifiable and was completely shocked that it pissed them off (He never could comprehend why America would care so much about free elections in Czechoslovakia.) But if he had been around longer, I think FDR would have been much nicer to the Soviets in order to make his Four Policeman project work, to the detriment of American security.
You can be a Republican and live happily in a Democratic controlled government and still be disliking the fact that you're being taxed 2% to save lives.
Exactly, being American, you have the freedom and rights to disagree with the policies, just like the different parties do, but doesn't mean they don't love their country. I have american pride being born and raised here, yet I don't agree with all of our policies, given that our country is so split up with two separate ideologies primarily, you are going to find plenty of people who don't agree with the views. That freedom is great, do you suggest that we can't disagree and have to support it regardless if we agree? Now you may have more views like that of a country like Saudi perhaps. I think a part of the reason they blame us for that bad leadership is because we fund and back those guys who will help our policies yet might not be the best leaders, we have undeniable influences in the leadership in many of these countries and to not accept that connection and responsibility when we fund them which keeps and gives them the power is just simply wrong. Karzai is one guy who we unified, now made him president of afghanistan. this guy is a drug dealer with all sorts of underground ties. It goes on, in some ways we are looking out for our interest, yet it backfires in many of these cases. Mathloom hit a good point where he says we don't identify with eachother because of not coming across eachother much. That is true as these sort of generalizations are done on both sides and thus we dehumanize people. They become the guys with the scarves, rag heads, just lunatics trying to kill us while most of the people are just working day to day and trying to raise families like us. They probably see us as people in power who like to abuse it and think we are better and can impose are vision on others and dehumanize american's as a whole mentality. Its all a bit misguided. But, I think ultimately, Ron Paul is as honest as it gets despite being in the right. He is just straight forward and goes over some great points in this http://www.ronpaul2012.com/2011/09/12/ron-pauls-foreign-policy-would-make-america-more-safe/ "
Nope, no contradiction in what he said about them. I am an American and I dont like a number of our policies.
I didn't mean it in an offensive way. This most probably does not apply at all to sammy's cousins. I was probably thinking of some people of Middle Eastern descent whom I have met while I lived in Denmark and who had absolutely nothing good to say about the country they had moved to and had lived in for several years. It actually seemed more like they hated it. I never asked the question but I thought to myself "if you hate it so much, why do you stay here" (the answer would have been kind of obvious, for material reasons). I guess that's where my question came from.
I think the post issue hits a point of just the issue of generalizing. The people in the middle east don't hate us, they have an issue without govt's foreign policy and if you pay attention to the majority of the world, you can find many other countries along with my many of our own, just like ron paul(of all regions,races, and religions) who carry that sentiment. But the specific people I believe you are referring to would be the extremist, they are the problem, and they don't have an issue with just americans. They have a political,social, extreme agenda nad its with anyone in tehir way. Fact is they kill more in their region, more muslims than they do anyone else, without remorse and they try to justify it with a religious voice when it is contradiction to everything overlayed in the holy book/religion, so its apparent, yet people over here like some of the posters and pamela gellar will say 'no they say its islam, so it is', ultimately it dignifies them to say yea this is islam, then you guys agree rather than calling them out as just hypocrite phonies. Anyways, I am on this rant bc i read about this http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/asiapcf/09/16/pakistan.attack/index.html They are going to attack any funerals and weddings for people who are pro govt and say they sympathize with the US...funerals.. I mean these guys arej ust disgusting people
