dont you hate people who say "first"

I hate it, but he's right. The moronic left will never admit they were wrong.

Time for a new poll: How long before Iraqis fall back into the default "America is the Great Satan" position?

* A month
* Six months
* A year
* Two weeks

Well, no they won't. But the important thing is that they lose credibility with people who are willing to be swayed.

A lot of people will remeber these beautiful scenes of Iraqis celebrating, and remeber who would have prevented that.

A lot of people.

I'm nearly crying. Those poor people are free!

DEMOCRACY WHISKEY SEXY!!

"Leftist means never having to say you are sorry".
-Jonathan Socialist Moonbat

Clutch, great quote, and oh so true...

That goes without saying.

Some people could catch an Iraqi torturer with electrical cables right in his hands, and they'll blame the United States.

Even if Iraq becomes prosperous democracy they'll blame the United States.

If the palestinian problem is solved and suicide bombers become a thing of the past, they'll blame the United States.

As long as someone, somewhere is not totally satisfied with everything, they'll blame the United States.

Time reporter from Baghdad on CNN said he heard a 20 yr old British woman who was there as a "Human Sheild" berating a Marine as a murderer while the Iraqis were cheering the toppling of the staute and jeering her.

There will always be those who are willfully blind to reality, but what counts is the joy of the Iraqi people. There are kids that have spent their first night with their parents in five years. Good enough for them and good enough for me.

How to make Americans, most of whom are descended from the most despised and wretched of the populations of the Old World - poor southern Italians, landless Irish peasants, ghetto Jews of eastern Europe - understand that much apparently political resistance to them is grounded in pure snobbery? The great American virtues - self-improvement, ambition, individualism - are, in European establishment eyes, the characteristics of vulgarity.

I hope he has a license for that keyboard.

NC:
Two weeks.
And its not just the Left with cognitive and memory inpairment.
Does anybody recall the fortune teller Edward Luttvak in the GW1?, In the first week, 10,000 American causualties, cities in flames etc, etc? The "battlehardened" Iraki army?
Well one week after the war Luttvak was back predicting.

wmh--Yeah, two weeks sounds about right to me, too.

the next spin of the lefties is so easily predicted that it loses all credibility.

1. The war was a success because of the Iraqi people, not because of the american military.

2. The war plan was a failure; saddam was just too weak to exploit its weaknesses.

3. We won the war but now we will lose interest, install a puppet leader, and forget about the iraqi people.

4. Any contract given to an american company proves that it was a war about profit and oil, regardless of context.

5. The truth is that it was a very bloody conflict, but the US government is suppressing that information.

Sad, really. But you KNOW its coming.

Jeez - I'd like to get a list of all the lefty doom merchants who "predicted" a quagmire.

John--They've already started in on #5. Atrios and Hesiod both have links up to a report that claims 5 U.S. special ops troops were killed in that friendly fire incident involving the Kurds the other day. They claim this suggests that U.S. casualty totals are being understated.

No, I'm not providing the links. The last time I did that, there was a roach infestation.

it's already starting - they're referring to what's going on in baghdad as 'total anarchy'

American Liberalism is in their Dark Age. Like the Church during the Spanish Inquisition, the Liberals cannot let go of their out-dated dogma, they are incapable of looking at reality and are now looking for "demons and witches" to defend their beliefs.

Like every fanatical group in history they will only cling harder onto their "strong convictions" and strike out harder against any person or persons that questions their doctines.

We should never forget the insanity of the Liberals and we need to direct our talents and energy into voting them out of office in 2004.

While that op-ed is right - and they will never admit they were wrong, no matter what happens - the next "op-ed" in the same paper is how it's now up America to force Israel to make peace with the Arabs and go back to 1967 borders.

#14 -- As I understand it, special ops casualties are always kept pretty quiet. They don't exist, of course, and are never used if they do exist, so of course none of them actually die on missions.

And it'll be pretty hard to keep casualty figures quiet after the embeds start to come home. As I understand it, they're allowed to publish EVERYTHING once they're out of the field.

On another message board the anti-war folks have taken to arguing that it was wrong for the American soldiers to put an American flag on the statue for three seconds. Talk about grasping at straws. Check it out:

[Link: www.nirvana2.com...]

#12

You are right on the money.

Just take a gander at the rantings over at Democraptic Underpants.

They really should rename the site; "Capitalist Conspiracies"

According to them,

The statue falling, the Iraqi people celebrating, the overwhelming military success, ad infinitum are ALL concocted events...

It is really so sad to see them floundering like a trout on the river bank...

This is just typical. Check out the daily kos, turning everything that happened today into a negative spin.

Ridiculous

Why do I keep seeing John Cleese playing Tim Robbins in "What really Happened with Saddam"?

Unless Baghdad has thousands of Hollywood quality actors I've never heard about, these people are genuinely celebrating and these are genuine tears of joy.

I just saw footage of Iraqis holding signs that had a picture of Bush, with "Bush: Hero for the Peace" written on them

I can't help but laugh at thinking about how some are going to have an apoplectic fit after seeing that ...

#20 Right is Right

It is really so sad to see them floundering like a trout on the river bank...

yeah, sad in a ROTFLMAO kind of way.

Democratic Underground: Group therapy for the paranoid schizophrenic. And it's cheap, too. God help these jobless wonders.

They won't... BUT - your argument is not with them. Indeed, a smart conservative response is to encorage or provoke such outbursts at every opportunity, especially as it relates to Iraq. Do this even if you're alone in an idiotarian stronghold or a debate.

Every time they do, it exposes the gap between their predictions and reality. Even in a hostile crowd, some will be having second thoughts now. That visible gap will widen them, and one day they may cross over.

Remember that the whole "neo-conservative" movement now powering National Review, the Weekly Standard, et. al. was started by a bunch of defecting Trotskyites and 1960s Marxist peace movement activists. 20 years later, they played pivotal roles in making the Reagan Revolution happen.

Why? Because inside, they had doubts. And every act of denial by the Left widened the cracks, until they became unbridgeable chasms.

But today is a day for celebration! So what if they'll never admit it. We have seen it's results, live and on TV! All that crap will still be there tomorrow. Today, a toast to all who worked, even in a small way, to making it happen:

"I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear -- "

You'll have to visit us at Winds of Change.NET to read the rest.

And on the pedestal these words appear:
"My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look upon my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

Percy Shelley

They don't have to admit they were wrong.
In fact, I hope they don't.
After all, the public has a fairly short attention span.
They are going to need the constant reminders of just how blindingly, mind-bogglingly wrong these people were so that the next time a decision is to be made (like say, November of 2004, to pick a month at random), the truth of what these people represent will be apparent.

The difference between a liberal and a normal person:

When we wake up in the morning we have a choice to be happy or unhappy. Every morning a liberal chooses to be unhappy.

The question of whether the United States military could defeat such a harmless regime has never been the question. The question is whether American influence will really be a positive force in Iraq. The question is whether America can offer a morality argument to Iraq, with itself as the example.

The U.S. Department of Justice:

[Link: www.ojp.usdoj.gov...]

Number of Firearm Deaths a year 1991-1999
                 
1991 - 38,317
1992 - 37,776
1993 - 39,595
1994 - 38,505
1995 - 35,957
1996 - 34,040
1997 - 32,436
1998 - 30,708
1999 - 28,874

That makes 316,208 Americans killed by other Americans using guns in 9 years. How many American civilians have the terrorists killed so far? 3500? The American army teaching Iraqi citizens how to be "moral" and "peaceful" is like the blind leading the blind.

The relationship between Iraq and terrorism has never been proven, only insinuated. The real purpose of this war is to keep the level of fear very high in the US so that no one will give coverage to the current administrations continuing failure in regards to domestic issues.

This is exactly the way the country was run in the 1980s. Remember that these are almost the same people as in the Reagan and the senior Bush Administrations. Right through the 1980s they carried out domestic policies that were harmful to the population and which, as we know from extensive polls, the people opposed. But they managed to maintain control by frightening the people. So the Nicaraguan Army was two days' march from Texas and about to conquer the United States, and the airbase in Granada was one from which the Russians would bomb us. It was one thing after another, every year, every one of them ludicrous. The Reagan Administration actually declared a national Emergency in 1985 because of the threat to the security of the United States posed by the Government of Nicaragua.

[Link: www.zmag.org...]

Does America even have a strong democracy of it's own to export to other countries? The stats on voter turnout say the US elections have a hard time getting even 50% of their own population to turn up and vote. If you look at the stats below you find that Syria and Russia actually have higher voter turnout than the US.

In the 1964 presidential elections 69.3 percent of the voting age population cast a ballot. In 2002, that number was only 54.7 percent, up .3 percent from 1996. During the midterm election in 1998, only 36.4 percent of the voting age population made it to the polls. The American Federal Elections Commission says that the 2000 election just squeaked by the 50% mark with 51.3% of the American population voting.

[Link: www.fec.gov...]

Here's a comparison to voter turnout elsewhere in the world:

Italy :  92.5
New Zealand:  86.2
Uzbekistan:  86.2
Netherlands:  84.8
Australia:  84.4
Portugal:  82.4
Germany:  80.6
Spain:  77.0
United Kingdom:  74.9
Turkey:  73.5
Venezuela:  72.2
India:  60.7
Syria:  58.0
Russia:  55.0
United States:  48.3
Thailand:  47.4
Zambia:  40.5

[Link: www.pbs.org...]

The current administration wants us to focus on the problems of hunger among the Iraqi citizens, but have they solved the problem of hunger at home among American citizens? Lets see what the American government itself has to say.

The US Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service, Household Food Security in the United States, says in 2001, the number of Americans who were hungry or at risk of hunger, was 33.6 million, a rise over 2000, when 33.2 million Americans were food insecure. The number of individuals who are suffering from hunger rose from 8.5 million in 2000 to 9 million in 2001. The number of children who are food insecure has also risen since 2000 by 10,000 to 6.18 million.

[Link: www.ers.usda.gov...]

Research Criteria Used for the Study:

We are all hungry at times. What does "hunger" mean in this measurement project? The physiological phenomenon of hunger is defined as an uneasy or painful sensation caused by a lack of food. As measured and described in the U.S. food security measurement project, "hunger" is involuntary hunger that results from not being able to afford enough food. People are not counted as "hungry" for these statistics if they were hungry only because they were dieting to lose weight, fasting for religious reasons, or were just too busy to eat.

Food insecurity is limited or uncertain availability of nutritionally adequate and safe foods or limited or uncertain ability to acquire acceptable foods in socially acceptable ways.

(Definitions are from the Life Sciences Research Office, S.A. Andersen, ed., "Core Indicators of Nutritional State for Difficult to Sample Populations," The Journal of Nutrition, Vol. 120, 1990, 1557S-1600S.)

So the question is why is the current administration so interested in the well being of poor people on the other side of the world? Shouldn't that interest extend to the poor people of America?

The media talks about how Saddam has opulent palaces while his people starve. Why is Bush asking for 75 billion to solve that problem while 9 million of his own people describe themselves as "hungry" and 33 million are considered to be "food insecure" by the American government? Couldn't 9 million of that 75 billion be used to help America's hungry?

NC, are you suggesting Iraqis are going to become anti-American in two weeks? Or did I misread you?

Ben--No, you read me loud and clear. I'm just wondering when the feelings of euphoria and gratitude are going to dissipate and the old chestnut of America being the Great Satan is going to creep back in. I figure it'll happen the first time we do something that one of the Shia clerics in the south doesn't like and he issues a "death to the zionist infidel occupier" fatwa. Which will probably be in, like, two weeks. (I'm exaggerating a little. Probably a few months.)

I'm just pessimistic about the prospect of us ever having any true ally in that region except for Israel.

Remember folks this is about lefties, not all liberals.
Blair is a liberal. Half of all Dem. Senators supported the war resolution, and almost half of all Dem. Representatives. The Democratic party, and US liberalism, is divided, much as it was in 1968 and 1972. This time we have a US victory, not defeat, which will enable the moderate wing to win internal struggle, but will not save it from division. Unlike the UK Labor party the Dems are not strong enough to win a general election divided.

Lefties: Most interesting is Fisk. Even today, he continues to put scare quotes around "liberated" His entire column/report is about the dead journalists, and also about civies killed in Mansour during bombing of Saddam. Also mentions that some parts of Baghdad (Mansour?) still under regime control, on this basis questions US claims to control city center (!!!) No mention Iraqi cheering, looting, Iraqi military losses, etc.

#31-
Your forgot Iraq's 100% turnout!
GAZE

#31 Matthew

So the Iraqis were better off under Saddam, being tortured starved imprisoned etc.? We Americans are so innately evil that we have no right to rescue the oppressed? It should have been left to more moral people, like the EU (Germany, France) and the UN (Libya, Iran, Syria)? Or just let the poor guys wait it out in jail for 50 years, when maybe the regime would manage to somehow change by itself. Sure.

Matthew's rant must be answered, since he backs up his opinion with source material. That is, he is not a troll. Besides, he needs to learn the art of reason.

Let's start:

"That makes 316,208 Americans killed by other Americans using guns in 9 years. How many American civilians have the terrorists killed so far? 3500? The American army teaching Iraqi citizens how to be "moral" and "peaceful" is like the blind leading the blind. "

When Americans kill one another, we call that murder and prosecute them. This is how a civilized society acts. What sets us apart from totalitarian societies is that the crimes are committed by individuals, not by the government. And how many of those murders were committed by the U.S. military? None (though some were undoubtedly caused by military personnel acting alone). By and large, the U.S. military IS moral and peaceful. Our campaign in Iraq could have been much more bloody, but our military was more concerned with Iraqi lives than the Iraqi government was. Who do you want calling the shots - a U.S. marine or a Baath official? Sounds more like the sighted leading the blind to me.

"The relationship between Iraq and terrorism has never been proven, only insinuated. The real purpose of this war is to keep the level of fear very high in the US so that no one will give coverage to the current administrations continuing failure in regards to domestic issues."

Saddam paid the families of suicide bombers in the west bank. Support for terrorism is established. His homegrown terrorist camps in the north of Iraq have been overrun by the U.S. and the Kurds. If there is a "level of fear " in the U.S it is probably due to the 3500 dead you mentioned above, not to any Bush manipulations of public opinion.

I'll avoid a lengthy quote of yours about Granada and Nicaragua, since it is mostly opinion. But have you noticed that those countries are normal these days? No wars, no repressive dictatorships, no propaganda parades. Just normal people doing normal things. Are they perfect societies? Of course not, but they are better and happier than they were under socialists.

"Does America even have a strong democracy of it's own to export to other countries? "

You suggest that Syria and Russia have stronger democracies because of their higher voter turnout. You forgot to mention how Saddam got a big electoral win just a few months ago.
Voter turnout is no measure of the strength of a democracy. If anything, it is an indication of the opposite, in which people simply trust the governemnt to function along democratic lines no matter which party wins.

"The current administration wants us to focus on the problems of hunger among the Iraqi citizens, but have they solved the problem of hunger at home among American citizens? "

Your use of stats is interesting, but I smell a rat. I haven't seen anyone starving in America. In fact, the nation is too damn heavy, and that includes the porer neighborhoods. Could this be the cause of the nutritional disparity? Bottom line: show us where the truly hungry are, and the U.S. will feed them. I can't think of a single American who would disagree with that assessment. As for the "food insecure" that sounds like people who are too proud to admit they need food stamps. Tell them to get over it and apply for the aid.

"So the question is why is the current administration so interested in the well being of poor people on the other side of the world?"

If we can bring some semblance of representative government to Iraq it will be worth every penny. The lsit of countries saved by the U.S is long and getting longer, but the examples of Germany and Japan should suffice.

In short, get off your high horse, Matthew. If you want to help the poor, help at one of the many food banks in the country, or the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, United Way. You get the picture. If you want to energize the elctorate, join someone's campaign and start registering voters or driving them to the polls. You may find that people are happier with their government than you expect. And when you want to spout off about U.S. military personnel, take a big dose of STFU.

#31

You don't happen to be a scabby flabby pinko gasbag whose real name is Mike Moore, do you?

#31 Matthew-

9 million americans are hungry.

22 million iraqis are starving to death.

9 million americans are free to go out and get a job, start a business, or even pick up a welfare/unemployment check to feed them while they search for ways to support themselves.

22 million iraqis can not even say what they think without risking death.

9 million americans are hungry, but have the opportunity to be fed.

22 million iraqis have no opportunity, other than to fight each other for the breadcrumbs that fall from saddam's table.

But you don't know what its really like to be hungry, do you? You know what hunger feels like; but you do not know what it truly means to be without food, and without the hope that food will ever come. You can never, ever understand that feeling. Today, in Iraq, hope was born. Iraqis have a reason to think food will come, opportunity will come, freedom will come. You take all those things for granted, and say the iraqis don't deserve those things because some people in america are hungry. There will never be a day when no one in the world goes hungry. But today, 22 million people in this world were given a glimpse of a day when everyone has the chance to eat. All i ask is that you reflect on that, for just 5 minutes, before you get on the next bus to protest for the next righteous cause.

NC, I guess I am always the optimist around here.

I really don't think that is the case, and here's why. Iraqi people were distracted from Saddam's plundering of their country by a means different than their neighboring Arab countries.

In Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, etc.., people are distracted by propaganda and institutional hatred towards the West. In Iraq though, Saddam did not use that tactic, he used pure brute force, not misdirection.

I think that is the difference that will allow Iraqis to be more reasoned towards Americans in the near future and I think they are modern enough and have enough of a secular history that they will be nothing like you described.

IMO You are usually 99% right on here NC, this time I think your pessimism is getting in the way :) What do you think? :)

#31:

I think it is great that we can self-reflect and look at our own internal problems -- this introspection is part of what makes America great. However, let's not forget we are the Barry Bonds of the world. Please let me explain.

Barry Bonds in 2002 had the best baseball season by a hitter, ever, period. He absolutely dwarfed the competition. Sports pundits even made up the acronym, "NBMVP", or Non-Barry MVP, to discuss who might finish second -- a distant second -- to Barry in the MVP voting, since it was beyond obvious Barry would win it. Now, during all this excellence Barry managed to fail -- not reach base -- nearly 50% of the time he stepped up to the plate. Hmm that doesn't sound too great does it? Well, baseball is a freakin' hard sport! Anyone who can achieve a 60% failure rate is a superstar! And Barry -- he's nearly God-like!

By the same token, inherent in human nature are great powers to fail, to inflict pain, and to do ill. And as for organizing humans to work together in a society where these bad potentials will be minimized -- it's freakin' hard! That's why the U.S. is far from perfect. But look at our competition. We rock! We are the Barry Bonds of the world!

Or here's Abraham Lincoln's perspective: "The United States is the second-worst government in the world. Unfortunately, all the other countries are tied for worst."

Don't worry, it's ok -- you can one day enjoy life again. Believe me, I've been where you were. Would to God my family would change too. So -- please go get laid, fuckwit. :)

#31

Translation:

1. Confiscate all civilian firearms so we'll all be safe.

2. Dump huge amounts of taxpayer money into social programmes for the greater good.

What shite.

It's not just Europe -- never underestimate the hatred and lies from our neighbor to the south. The Mexican press has spewed the most vile fabrications, e.g. that U.S. soldiers are "Assassinating more children."

[Link: www.nationalreview.com...]

"I'll avoid a lengthy quote of yours about Granada and Nicaragua, since it is mostly opinion. But have you noticed that those countries are normal these days? No wars, no repressive dictatorships, no propaganda parades. Just normal people doing normal things. Are they perfect societies? Of course not, but they are better and happier than they were under socialists."

So you say you'll avoid a lengthy quote about Granada and Nicaragua because it's just an opinion, but what do you offer in return? More opinions. Give me some sources for your "opinions" on the people of Granada and Nicaragua. While you're at it maybe you could cite some sources talking about all about the flourishing secular democracies in previous US conquests Kuwait and Afghanistan.

"Voter turnout is no measure of the strength of a democracy. If anything, it is an indication of the opposite, in which people simply trust the governemnt to function along democratic lines no matter which party wins."

"Your use of stats is interesting, but I smell a rat. I haven't seen anyone starving in America. In fact, the nation is too damn heavy. Bottom line: show us where the truly hungry are, and the U.S. will feed them. I can't think of a single American who would disagree with that assessment."

I think you're a bit confused here. I'm not the one telling you 9 million people are starving in the US, the American government is (the Department of Agriculture). Why don't you ask the Department of Agriculture where the poor people are so you can feed them (you're such a noble soul).

So you trust the American government to function, but you don't trust them when they give you statistics on hunger among your own population. Isn't collecting those stats a function of the government? What you are saying is you trust the American government to function, but when they function you don't trust them.

It's not my fault that when i quote your own government you tell me you smell a rat. Maybe you should take that up with the American government.

Why would you trust the government to wage a war in iraq for the sake of their poor people, but then you won't believe the same government when they tell you about poor people in your own country?

Come on folks, the troll was just being helpful by showing that, yes, they never will admit it.

Now clap as they're escorted to the dustbin of history...

#31

You dare to compare a nation of 280+ million to a nation ofonly 25 million? And you fail to include the estimates of haw many Iraqis were tortured and murdered in the last nine years. Finally, how many of those gun deaths were in self-defense as compared to the defenseless Iraqi population?

One thing Mathew doesn’t mention is that in Australia and New Zealand, voting is mandatory – everyone who doesn’t is levied a hefty fine. That’s a very important distinction.

And besides, who can name one country on this planet that has no hungry or poor people. Why is it only a problem for America?

Mathew is typical of the whining left. Whenever their premises are proven wrong, they shunt the direction of the issue to something else. They always complain and criticize because they are never happy and never will be satisfied. Their lucidness is always exposed as they always have the energy to complain, but never the motivation to really take any action about it. The fact that they take no action only underlines their hypocrisy.

And while I think Mathew has every right to state his opinion, it irks me that he chooses to do it at this point. Mathew had 364 other days in this year to bring up the problem with America’s hungry, but he chose to do it today. Why? Why today, Mathew? Why didn’t he do this yesterday or last week? What motivates him to bring these things to our attention at this time? The timing is very suspicious and, quite frankly, dishonest. I mean, do you really care about America's poor? What about the poor in your country (if you live elsewhere).

P.S. You really believe Syria has elections? if you do, it shows how naive you truly are.

#31

Iraq's (former) regime harmless? HARMLESS??? Why not ask those 150 children liberated by US Marines yesterday if THEY think the regime was harmless? Or, better still, ask their parents.

How much are the "celebration" images worth to these mobsters?
They waited and whined for 20 days now. Nothing like the olde greenback to make them chant for the cameras.
So far I havent seen any singing without cameras around.
A hundred bucks goes a long way in those lands...
And we spend what, 30 billions to take out some old soviet era tanks?
Ridiculous.
The fascists neo nazis havent won squat. THe long unlawful ocupation will show how deep the hate runs in those areas.
The only ones kissing the invaders flag are those who are in the US, dangerous to do so there. Lead poisoning... AK style.
And the POWs? maybe plastic shredder? Hmmm. THey loked for it. Should of stayed home.

#49 do i detect a sence of bitterness?

Matthew challenges my reply to him. Let's see if I can undermine his arguments.

"Give me some sources for your "opinions" on the people of Granada and Nicaragua. While you're at it maybe you could cite some sources talking about all about the flourishing secular democracies in previous US conquests Kuwait and Afghanistan."

C'mon! Even the worst liberal rag in the country can't complain about Nicaragua and Granada anymore. They're as newsworthy as Uruguay. And happy to be so. As for Kuwait, we restored it to its original owners. they were not the aggressors who needed changing. And Afghanistan - we just arrived there! Be a little patient.

For the record: I trust the government to provide reasonably accurate data and statistics. It's people like you who I distrust when they bend the facts around to support their prejudices.

For example: the "Food Insecure" are actually just people who had to vary their diet occasionally, or supplement their diet through Federal programs (WIC< food stamps) or through food pantries. Most used the Federal programs. These people don't need to be helped; they ARE being helped.

What of the people identified as having "hunger"? That definition includes everyone who complained of hunger at any time during the year.
From the report,
"The most severe item, children not eating for a whole day because there wasn’t enough money for food, was reported by 0.1 percent of households with children."

Sounds like ordinary child neglect to me. Don't spend the money on lottery tickets and the kids will have something to eat. And 0.1%! hardly an epidemic, especially when you consider that that family may have had one bad day out of the entire year.

Again, from the report:

Q7. Were that many people hungry every day?
No. Most households that experience food insecurity in the U.S. experience it occasionally or
episodically, not chronically. The food security measure on which the annual statistics are based classifies
a household as food insecure (or food insecure with hunger) if they experienced the condition at any time
during the year. The prevalence of these conditions on a given day is much lower than the annual rate. For
example, ERS estimates that the prevalence of hunger on a typical day is around 13 to 18 percent of the
annual rate.

God bless America, where we are concerned if any kid misses a meal on any day of the year.

For Matthew:

Relying on statistics is a dangerous thing, though it does provide you a way to show a source. The thing about statistics is that they provide no context. I won't slam on you personally for your opinions since I recognize that you can have them because you live in a free society with people who are willing to stand up for that freedom.

I also won't bore you with a lengthy listing of where I've been or what I've done. Suffice to say that it has been a mixture of military/law enforcement and a fair amount of travel both within the U.S. and overseas.

Unfortunately I can't provide links to the collective memories from my experiences and travels to provide source materials. The picture they would paint for you is a painful one. We humans have an incredible taste for inflicting pain on each other. You cannot, as a human being, separate yourself from this. To say that owning a gun raises the possibility of an otherwise law abiding citizen to commit an act of violence is a wishful thinking at best. Recognizing the inherent need of a society to protect itself our forefathers guaranteed the right to every citizen to own a gun, if they so desired. At the same time, this same society enacts laws to punish those who would use this weapon to commit acts which are universally recognized as being wrong. Further, they recognized that leaving weapons only in the hands of the police or military would leave this country open to the types of strife we have seen around the world when the ordinary man is denied the right to defend himself. So while we think the 30,000+ deaths per year of our fellow citizens is terrible, we accept that this amount would be higher, and our freedom less safe if we did not have the individual right to protect ourselves.

If this seems trite or foreign to you, I would invite you to go on a ride along with the police department of any major city in the country. Go see what the reality is on the streets. And while you are there, check out the starving children - who are most likely in that condition because their parents are out doing drugs or looking to score more. The urban world of this country is in it's own war and it isn't some creation of the conservatives or the Bush Administration. It is that way because those who stay in it don't want to be somewhere else bad enough. There are no government agencies force- feeding crack to children, or imprisoning them if they don't toe the party line.

Rightly you ask why don't we do something about this? Education, treatment!! Bullshit. Given the choice, most of these people would choose to stay where they are at because it is easier. Why? Because it is easier not to make a choice, to accept a government handout and blame someone else for the troubles in the world.

Being part of a successful society (a coalition, if you will) requires hard choices, a determination to do the right thing no matter the consequences, and the will to carry it out to fruition. That is what statistics will not tell you, no matter the source. But it is what my journeys have shown me to be true.

I will always trust my future, and more importantly, that of my children to a government and country that guarantees our freedom of choice, to protect ourselves, and the opportunity to grow physically, spiritually and financially. All I have to do is want it bad enough to work for it.

That is the strength of America, and it is what those who oppose us or put us down do not understand. I hope some day you will.

(My apologies to LGF'ers if I've strayed from the original intent here.)

#49

So far I havent seen any singing without cameras around.

Tell us what else you see, Eyes of God. :D

Matthew:

You still haven't answered my question in #36. What was your point? That we shouldn't have liberated Iraq because we aren't saintly and righteous enough to be worthy of the task? Was anyone else volunteering to do the deed? Or is everyone condemned to rot in whatever hell they find themselves in until Jesus returns to save them?

"You really believe Syria has elections? if you do, it shows how naive you truly are."

Yeah, I'm naive. Naive just like the CIA.

Syrian election information taken from the CIA World Factbook:

elections: president elected by popular vote for a seven-year term; referendum/election last held 10 July 2000 - after the death of President Hafez al-ASAD, father of Bashar al-ASAD - (next to be held NA 2007);

election results: Bashar al-ASAD elected president; percent of vote - Bashar al-ASAD 97.29%

Legislative branch: unicameral People's Council or Majlis al-shaab (250 seats; members elected by popular vote to serve four-year terms)

election results: percent of vote by party - NPF 67%, independents 33%; seats by party - NPF 167, independents 83

www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/sy.html #Govt

"One thing Mathew doesn’t mention is that in Australia and New Zealand, voting is mandatory – everyone who doesn’t is levied a hefty fine. That’s a very important distinction."

Yeah, the distinction is Aussies and Kiwi's care about their democracy, Americans don't. Take a look and what the American Federal Elections commission has to say.

www.fec.gov/pages/2000turnout/reg&to00.htm

"They always complain and criticize because they are never happy and never will be satisfied."

Apparently you can be happy and satisfied with your own government telling you that 9 million of your fellow citizens suffer from hunger.

"Why today, Mathew?"

Because with Iraq falling into the hands of the American army now is the time to examine the democracy that will be taking control.

You destroy a country's government, forcibly impliment a new one based on your own democracy, and then act like your democracy shouldn't be examined for it's inherent value in the context of it's ongoing exportation to a Middle Eastern country.

Hey! Matt's back. And even with cherrypicking his arguments he can't win.

The CIA factbook? they also list this about Iraq: "election results: SADDAM Husayn reelected president; percent of vote - 99%; "

The Factbook doesn't editorialize (well, a little). It should not be taken as an endorsement of a full-fledged democracy. Seems you had a little trouble with that Ag Dept report, and now reading the Factbook. I see a pattern developing.

And let me get this straight: serious democracies will penalize their citizens for not voting? You are definitely out of touch with the average American. The decision of whether or not to vote is your alone. We do not coerce people that way.

And, once again, he would have us believe that 9 million Americans are starving to death. Since the truth was shown previously, his motives should be questioned.

Strip off the veneer: there's no love of America in his rants, only hatred.

"For the record: I trust the government to provide reasonably accurate data and statistics. It's people like you who I distrust when they bend the facts around to support their prejudices."

I said that American citizens suffering from hunger exist, and the United States Department of Agriculture agrees with me to the tune of 9 million people.

So what you are saying is when I use a government supported fact (that you believe) within the context of an arguement you don't like, your belief in the fact is then nullified (the fact is "bent").

So without those annoying facts (supplied by your own government) getting in the way of your opinions you're free to just pull your opinions out of the air with no factual basis. This is consistent with our conversation thus far, I'm the only one who has quoted any sources for my opinions.

This means all I have to do to discredit the United States government in your eyes is use their facts to back up an opinion you don't agree with. This is consistent with our conversation.

I told you your government states that 9 million people are hungry, and you responded by saying the government is wasting their time (and your tax dollars) gathering data on a bunch of "kids missing a meal on any day of the year."

"I trust the government to provide reasonably accurate data"

You can't argue against my point about Iraq, so you dismiss the United States government's data as inaccurate instead (in spite of the fact that you "trust" their data). You should let the United States Department of Agriculture know there isn't actually a hunger problem, they don't need to bother gathering this information. Your childish analysis of their definitions has "poof" made the problem go away.

"the "Food Insecure" are actually just people who supplement their diet through Federal programs"

So people having to supplement their diet through federal progams is just a normal part of life in the United States. Nothing to be concerned about.

Well I can see the point the government is trying to make. 33 million people supplementing their diet through federal programs in a year long period could be interpreted as a serious problem (by someone who cares about the american poor, or at least admits they exist).

"Sounds like ordinary child neglect to me."

So you're saying child neglect is ordinary, so hunger is ok. What's more important is 75 billion for the Pentagon to solve the hunger of the iraqi people.

Since no one else has mentioned it ... the gun deaths Matthew is using include suicides. A quick click to his link makes this obvious.

YEAR - TOTAL - SUICIDES - % of TOTAL
1991 - 38,317 - 18,526 - 48
1992 - 37,776 - 18,169 - 48
1993 - 39,595 - 18,940 - 48
1994 - 38,505 - 18,765 - 49
1995 - 35,957 - 18,503 - 51
1996 - 34,040 - 18,166 - 53
1997 - 32,436 - 17,566 - 54
1998 - 30,708 - 17,424 - 57
1999 - 28,874 - 16,599 - 57

I don't think I need to explain why this matters.

Poor Matthew, shouting into the wind in impotent rage against the big, bad, horrible Americans.

Poor irrelevent bug, furious because the Bushies were right all along.

Say, Matt, if you happen to be French, shouldn't you and your enlightened kinfolk be out desecrating a British cemetery someplace?

Matt is absolutely correct and the rest of you should learn from him and adopt his standards.

The United States has no business--none whatsoever--attempting to "liberate' other countries until our own house is in order. As long as anyone is hungry, or there is any racial prejudice, or there is murder, what business do we have telling Iraqis that their system of routine torture and oppression is any worse?

We should bring the troops home now and stay within our own borders, living up to our ideals first, until we have banished hatred, hunger, unfairness, unhappiness, bad weather, and the designated hitter rule.

Then, and only then, should we be in a position to think about freeing twenty million or so people from one of the more vicious regimes in the history of the world.

Don't Israelis vote? Why'd you leave them out of your stats-pile, Matt?

When statistics are outlawed, only outlaws will use statistics.

An interesting read from the Sydney Morning Herald!

[Link: www.smh.com.au...]

Al-Sahaf was actually right on the money. Remember, he said "the criminals will be humiliated"? Boy, was he ever right!

31:Matthew

Voter turnout statistics can mean anything. In some countries, Australia for one I think, voting is compulsory.

Low voter turnout can also mean that the populace is satisfied with the present government and its poilicies and sees no reason to change. In fact high voter turnout is an indication of public dissatifaction rather then the other way round.

As for the US's example as a democratic country. Well it is not a perfect democracy or society by any means, but that is a consequence of the LIBERTY that is enshrined in not just the constitution but engraved in the hearts of its people.

I can think of no country which treasures its liberty and freedom, warts and all, more then the US. And that is what makes the US a light to the world.