Political Crossfire Forums

Apparently you don't welcome competition, otherwise you wouldn't be suggesting that Americans should choose to pay way more for oil, due to some bizarre idea of energy independence based upon shale oil.

I'm not sure how to respond.

We're so staggeringly more powerful than even our closest rival that my first instinct is "who cares?".

If anything I think our problem is that, as a nation, we are too together. The greatest threat to our national security is not some external source, but rather our ongoing complacency.

no different than japan refusing to apologize for what it did to china, or turkey refusing to apologize for the armenian genocide etc

it's what obsolete powers do

i'd hardly consider torturing a few dozen baddies equivalent to a genocide but okay

the point is that refusal to apologize for an injustice reveals weakness

no it doesn't. it reveals an unwillingness to apologize.

The fact that it's all broadcast for the world to see says something about us. The fact that we're very publicly airing our dirty laundry on center stage says something about us. At least we're have a conversation about it.

Russia, China et al can rattle off rhetorical points all they want, (and like non said, who cares?) but the reality is that this wouldn't happen over there. The issue and anyone in danger of publicizing it would simply be thrown down a very deep hole.

In Russia right now the media is state controlled and even individual bloggers are now being required to register with the government. I've come to believe that the true yardstick for the legitimacy and openness of a society is how free the access to the consumption and desemination of information. And those countries who howl the loudest about us also tend to be the ones with the most odious restrictions on media and Internet.

They have to gag and blindfold their own people with one hand while pointing an acusing finger at us with the other. Color me unimpressed.