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[Phmcw]

Well you can build floodwalls, healthcare infrastructure and so on. Actually, for the price of that war, you could have put Netherland to shame.

[smeeprocket]

That's not cold. That's literally the opposite of cold. That's on the edge of going up in flames.

you can't arm and train violent extremists every chance you get and expect it not to bite you in the ass. It did, a lot of innocent people died because of it.

[Descan]

... Yeah, an attack on American soil that ended in the only two nuclear weapons used in anger and war is not exactly the thing I want Americans to aspire to. >_>

[smeeprocket]

we get scared everytime another country gets nukes. It's like, the only people who have used them is us. Everyone else should be scared of us doing it again,

[Helgoland]

we get scared everytime another country gets nukes. It's like, the only people who have used them is us. Everyone else should be scared of us doing it again,

Well yes - that's how MAD works, after all. If you aren't scared yourself, the whole system becomes unstable.

[SalmonGod]

But it needs to be something that feels catastrophic and effects everybody.

9/11 should have been our wake up call. But it seems to only have deepened our national political and social neuroses.

Agreed that it should have been, but it didn't effect most of the country personally.  It only gave them the opportunity to feel indignified on a nationalistic level.

They are a blight. (no offense to my parents and in-laws)

My dad, who has always been heavily left-leaning, has basically already stepped out of society. In his words, if the apocalypse came, him and his wife were just going to kill themselves.

Cheerful guy, my dad.

GODDAMN NINJAS

I'm always curious what people like your dad really think "Armageddon" is going to look like.  The Permian–Triassic extinction event, the largest in earth's history which wiped out a majority of life, took at least tens of thousands of years.  If that extinction event had included humans, would people like your dad have understood that the reality they were living was basically an armageddon?  People seem to think it's something that's going to just kick down their doors one day, but that's incredibly unlikely.  It'll be a long procession of life sucking very badly and slowly fading away, to be replaced in time by different forms of life.

Not trying to knock on your dad.  Your mention of him just triggered the thought.

[Baffler]

we get scared everytime another country gets nukes. It's like, the only people who have used them is us. Everyone else should be scared of us doing it again,

Well yes - that's how MAD works, after all. If you aren't scared yourself, the whole system becomes unstable.

And do you really want MORE nukes kicking around out there?

[smeeprocket]

we get scared everytime another country gets nukes. It's like, the only people who have used them is us. Everyone else should be scared of us doing it again,

Well yes - that's how MAD works, after all. If you aren't scared yourself, the whole system becomes unstable.

And do you really want MORE nukes kicking around out there?

no but the US telling people not to produce them or disarm them is a little ridiculous.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Wasn't on US Soil, since Hawaii wasn't a part of the US at the time. Rather, the attack on US Soil during WWII was in Alaska.

Hawaii wasn't a state, it was still US soil.

[smeeprocket]

The point is, it was an attack on a military base, and we responded by nuking a civilian city.

edit: two, actually.

[Rolan7]

when 9/11 hit, and I watched the towers falling, my first thought was "shit, people are going to go insane." And that is what happened.

Yeah I felt the same way.  Everyone just got galvanized into nationalistic anger, it was crazy.

It was bad for arabs. Really bad. The govt used it to justify so many awful things, and people were all for it.

It was bad for all of us.  Our freedoms were taken away, I was scared to dissent.  Actually scared.  People in my family joined up, which really strained some relationships, and I'm just glad they all survived.

I was out protesting the Iraq war at one point. We had people pretending like they were going to run us over and trying to start fights.

I've got a lot of respect for that.  I did volunteer bicycle repair at a commune for a while, and they went on a lot of protests, but I never did.

Americans don't really think except with their gut. They are incredibly reactionary and pro-violence.

We (including you and I) are part of an incredibly diverse nation with unique issues.  Anti-patriotic spiels are just as intellectually bankrupt and pointless as "AMERICA FUCK YEAH".

Iraq was completely unnecessary, and Afghanistan served no purpose. I was just incredibly scared and ashamed of my country for a long time.

Yeah...  We hit a rough patch, got swindled by some powerful monsters, and still haven't recovered our freedoms all the way.  We're still better off than most places, liberty wise, but we can do better.

Going to echo the sentiment that shit needs to hit the fan and fall to pieces one way or another before anything will get better.  I don't think it has to be losing a war on home turf.  But it needs to be something that feels catastrophic and effects everybody.

I've had the sense for many years that America just became mentally ill after WW2.  The "Greatest Generation" that fought the war went on to create a political atmosphere that was obsessed with control and global military/economic dominance.  Then they spawned the baby boomers, who can really just be characterized as obnoxious spoiled reactionary brats.  If the Greatest are the people who turned America into the world police, then the boomers are your stereotypical cop's kid.

We've been spoiled and deluded by a long period of superpower status and material affluence, and the origin and nature of that status has been whitewashed by authorities for decades, while everyone else has been making honest efforts to mature.

Yeah no.  Most of our current political problems are due to poverty, and a shrinking middle class.  We aren't fat, we're starving.  What we need is better education and infrastructure, not more poverty or another enemy to blame everything on.  We've *had* war all this time, and it's just draining our resources and enriching profiteers.  The worse things get, the more desperate people throw their lot in with the conservatives.  Promise of riches for hard work, plenty of people to blame for everything, and old fashioned "safe" values like keeping women in kitchens.  These things appeal to people who have lost everything, ironically due to Neocon schemes.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with America, or any of its ethnic or cultural groups.  It's the neo-conservative ideology.  They *love* it when poor whites and poor blacks blame each other for everything.  They're the ones who profit over illegal immigration, that's why they want to keep it illegal - meanwhile poor white workers blame the poor Mexican workers for stealing all the jobs.

See?  The 99% keep fighting *each other*, and the neo-cons win every time.

Fakedit: While you were typing 16 new replies have been posted.  Flip.

[Bohandas]

... Yeah, an attack on American soil that ended in the only two nuclear weapons used in anger and war is not exactly the thing I want Americans to aspire to. >_>

Why does everybody criticise the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Would it really have been better if we destroyed them with an assload or regular bombs like in Dresden?

Or do you believe that we should've invaded? What good would that possibly have done?

The only difference I can think of that it could have made is to needlessly expose our troops to avoidable danger.

EDIT:
Personally I think that the nukes - along with drones and missiles - are the only part of our military that's still worth keeping around. Everything else is just expensive decoration with no practical function.

[smeeprocket]

when 9/11 hit, and I watched the towers falling, my first thought was "shit, people are going to go insane." And that is what happened.

Yeah I felt the same way.  Everyone just got galvanized into nationalistic anger, it was crazy.

It was bad for arabs. Really bad. The govt used it to justify so many awful things, and people were all for it.

It was bad for all of us.  Our freedoms were taken away, I was scared to dissent.  Actually scared.  People in my family joined up, which really strained some relationships, and I'm just glad they all survived.

I was out protesting the Iraq war at one point. We had people pretending like they were going to run us over and trying to start fights.

I've got a lot of respect for that.  I did volunteer bicycle repair at a commune for a while, and they went on a lot of protests, but I never did.

Americans don't really think except with their gut. They are incredibly reactionary and pro-violence.

We (including you and I) are part of an incredibly diverse nation with unique issues.  Anti-patriotic spiels are just as intellectually bankrupt and pointless as "AMERICA FUCK YEAH".

Iraq was completely unnecessary, and Afghanistan served no purpose. I was just incredibly scared and ashamed of my country for a long time.

Yeah...  We hit a rough patch, got swindled by some powerful monsters, and still haven't recovered our freedoms all the way.  We're still better off than most places, liberty wise, but we can do better.

Going to echo the sentiment that shit needs to hit the fan and fall to pieces one way or another before anything will get better.  I don't think it has to be losing a war on home turf.  But it needs to be something that feels catastrophic and effects everybody.

I've had the sense for many years that America just became mentally ill after WW2.  The "Greatest Generation" that fought the war went on to create a political atmosphere that was obsessed with control and global military/economic dominance.  Then they spawned the baby boomers, who can really just be characterized as obnoxious spoiled reactionary brats.  If the Greatest are the people who turned America into the world police, then the boomers are your stereotypical cop's kid.

We've been spoiled and deluded by a long period of superpower status and material affluence, and the origin and nature of that status has been whitewashed by authorities for decades, while everyone else has been making honest efforts to mature.

Yeah no.  Most of our current political problems are due to poverty, and a shrinking middle class.  We aren't fat, we're starving.  What we need is better education and infrastructure, not more poverty or another enemy to blame everything on.  We've *had* war all this time, and it's just draining our resources and enriching profiteers.  The worse things get, the more desperate people throw their lot in with the conservatives.  Promise of riches for hard work, plenty of people to blame for everything, and old fashioned "safe" values like keeping women in kitchens.  These things appeal to people who have lost everything, ironically due to Neocon schemes.

There's nothing fundamentally wrong with America, or any of its ethnic or cultural groups.  It's the neo-conservative ideology.  They *love* it when poor whites and poor blacks blame each other for everything.  They're the ones who profit over illegal immigration, that's why they want to keep it illegal - meanwhile poor white workers blame the poor Mexican workers for stealing all the jobs.

See?  The 99% keep fighting *each other*, and the neo-cons win every time.

Fakedit: While you were typing 16 new replies have been posted.  Flip.

I agree with all or most of this.

People think America is all fat lazy idiots. But we are working harder, longer, and for less money than ever. We have so much less than any generation before us. And that divide only gets bigger.

And yea, many of the poor don't vote in their best interest. The neo-cons are very very effective at propaganda.

[smjjames]

So, to make things better we should gang up on the conservatives, neoconservtives in particular? That sounds like what you're saying rolan7.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The point is, it was an attack on a military base, and we responded by nuking a civilian city.

edit: two, actually.

Japan would have fought to the last. They were preparing for just that when the bombings happened.

And as Bohandas pointed out, yes, other bombings were equal or worse. The firebombing campaign on Japan had average kill numbers above that of the nukes, not that anybody ever talks about that. The main value of the nukes was shock and awe.