Re: Asimov Site

[pausch@saafNOSPAM.se (Paul Schlyter)]

In article <39ADAEB2.30E884E2@inetnebr.com>,
Roy and/or Janet Miller  <millers@inetnebr.com> wrote:
 
> Paul Schlyter wrote:
> 
>> OK, with that background I think you feel you've moved enough.  But
>> don't you even sometimes feel a desire to walk around in your
>> neighbourhood, and then not only on public streets or your own land?
> 
> I do walk in my neighborhood - on sidewalks.
 
Sidewalks are parts of public streets, aren't they?
 
> And down to the park that is less than a quarter mile away and on
> the trails in the park.
 
At what time does that park close for the night?   <g>
 
>>>>>> with flaws, rather tha acknowledging the benefits other systems
>>>>>> may have.
>>>>>
>>>>> When one has been attacked, they do not normally start applauding
>>>>> the attacker. but since Sweden has a long history of being an
>>>>> aggressor nation in Europe,
>>>>
>>>> <BIG LAUGH>
>>>>
>>>> How many wars did YOUR country involve itself in during the last 160 years?
>>>
>>> How many of those were wars of aggression?
>>
>> Well, if you ask the war-faring countries, NO war is a war of agression;
>> ALL wars are wars of defence - right?  That's why all countries have a
>> "Department of Defense", but no country has a "Department of Attack"....
>>
>> Now, WHY do wars start if no-one is the agressor ????????????+
> 
> Someone always is. However, it's hard to justify a war of aggression
> to the tax payers most of the time. Except, perhaps, the (American)
> Mexican War.
 
... or any other war someone feels very motivated to fight.  It's
just a matter of spreading enough propaganda to justify the war.  The
first victim in every was is the truth.
 
>>> Twice in this century we
>>> pulled western Europe's chestnuts out of the fire, and spend our wealth
>>> keeping a third war from starting. Meanwhile, Sweden traded with the
>>> Nazis and the Kaiser and made big bucks off of the deaths of millions.
>>> Nice country Sweden.
>>
>> Do you consider yourselves heroes in Viet Nam too ????
> 
> Yes, I do. We tried to protect the people of Viet Nam so that they
> could have a government that they elected,
 
Don't you think it's quite hypocritical to support a dictator and then
claim that's what the people have "elected" ???
 
> not one that was forced on them by more tanks than Hitler used against
> France in 1940. Sadly, the war was so badly bungled that we really did
> need to get out.
 
So you think it's OK to fight a war as long as you don't use tanks but
instead airplanes and napalm bombs?  A US politician once said he wanted
to "bomb Vietnam back to the stone age" -- is that your idea of freedom?
 
 
>> Or those dictatorships in South America which the US actively
> supported.....
> 
> That was considered necessary in the face of a greater threat. I think
> it was a cop out.
 
It was a product of US fear of Communism, which I think was less about the
political systems themselves and more about fithting for world rulership.
 
>> There is plenty of blood on your hands too......
> 
> Too. That was my point. You like to point the finger at the US, and all
> I've been trying to do is remind you that even your nation has not
> always been what it claims to be.
 
I never claimed anything else -- please feel free to point that out as
much as you want.  Nationalistic propaganda quite often doesn't correspond
to reality.
 
>>>> THINK before you post, will you?  Our "long history" as an "aggressor nation"
>>>> in Europe ended more than 250 years ago,
>>>
>>> And Sweden was an ally of Napoleon, and latter, when the winds shifted,
>>> joined an alliance against him. If you are an ally of an aggressor, that makes
>>> you an aggressor.
>>
>> Interesting -- during WWII, the US and UK were allies of Josef
>> Stalin, one of the worst mass murderers of the 1900's.
> 
> Yes, and it was done, again, against what was thought to be a greater threat.
> I'm not so sure. How do you decided who was worse, Hitler, Mao, or Stalin?
> The latter two killed more people each than Hitler. They killed people so
> they could, so they said, make the world a better place. Hitler, in large part,
> because he was a racist. Which one would you rather have murder you? Or your
> family? Frankly, I think we'd have been better off destroying both, but I doubt
> that we could have taken on Germany, USSR and Japan.
 
The reason you (= not you personally, of course) fought Hitler but neither
Stalin nor Mao was quite simple and had nothing to do with the number of people
they killed:  Hitler wanted to occupy the whole world, while Stalin and Mao
were content ruling their respective countries.
 
>> Conclusions?
>> Use the same logic as you used in the previous sentence....
>>
>>> BTW - the US was a nation at that time,
>>
>> The US celebrated 200 years as a nation in 1977, i.e. you're now 223 years old.
>> Which means you were not a nation 250 years ago....
> 
> We weren't independent. We were thirteen individual colonies. All (mostly) self
> governing. Are you saying that Armenia wasn't a nation even though they weren't
> an independent nation until recently?
 
Is Corse a nation?  And the Basque provinces in Spain?  Kurdistan?  Kosovo?
Lapland?  The indian preserves in the US?
 
What's the precise definition of "nation"?  Yes, there are many regions in the
world where people want an independence that's denied to them, and you cannot call
all of these regions "nations".
 
>>> and we had self governing communities here since the early 1600s - almost 400
>>> hundred years.
>>
>> 400 years --- WOW !!!!  JUST INCREDIBLE !!!!!!      <big grin>
> 
> Yes, 400 years ago, self governing democratic communities. And what was Sweden
> 400 years ago?  You see Paul, in 1776, there was a tradition of free elections
> and self government that was over 150 years old. That's one of the reasons our
> founders weren't about to let the British run rough shod over their rights.
 
Why didn't Canada do the same thing back then?  And Australia?  They must have
known about this tradition too.
 
>>>> before your country even existed.
>>>> It ended when our king of that time, Karl XII, was defeated by Russia and
>>>> then shot to death, probably by one of his own people.
>>>>
>>>>> perhaps Paul doesn't have the experience to know what it like to be attacked.
>>>>
>>>> If you automatically view a disagreement as an "attack", and start to
>>>> invoke Swedish kings who acted like dictators some 300 years ago just
>>>> because of that, I think you have a problem.
>>>
>>> Tell that to the hundreds of dead men still trapped in the Arizona.
>>
>> I think you'll have to elaborate on that a little -- I cannot read your mind.
> 
> Japan had a disagreement with the US - over a thousand American sailors are
> entombed in the Battleship Arizona on the bottom of Pearl Harbor because of
> that disagreement.
 
Oh -- I though you meant the state of Arizona.  Anyway, isn't Perl Harbor
on US territory?  If so, why don't you just go and pick up your men?
(but now it's probably too late -- human bodies dissolve in water in just
a decade or so.  No human remnants were found on the Titanic, for instance)
 
>>>>>> (which of course is correct, but it appeared he thought of it as a
>>>>>> disadantage rather than mutual care), and then he concluded that he
>>>>>> preferred to remain on his own land
>>>>>
>>>>> Land, in English has more than one meaning. I do prefer my land, that
>>>>> is, my country, to any other that I know of. There is more freedom here,
>>>>> as I value it, than in any other country.
>>>>
>>>> You're not referring to the freedom to hike out in the woods, are you?   <g>
>>>
>>> I'm a boy scout leader. I've done a lot of hiking. On public land (of which
>>> we have a lot)
>>
>> ...but most public land closes at sunset, doesn't it?
> 
> No. Depends. I've camped many nights, as a Scouter and on my own on public
> land. I've also hunted on it. And when you are hunting you don't have to
> quit until 30 minutes after sundown, and you can begin shooting at 30 minutes
> before sunup, which, of course, means you get to where you will hunt a good
> 30 minutes or more before that - and slowly freeze solid while waiting for
> the sun.
> 
>> If the rangers find you there at night, won't they chase you away....
> 
> Depends.
> 
>>
>>> and private land (after getting permission first - it's only polite.)
>>
>> Large groups of people need to get advance permission too in Sweden to
>> have activities on private land.
>>
>> I agree with you that it's polite to ask for permission first, but
>> one must be reasonable.  What if you have no idea of who owns the
>> land -- who should you ask?
> 
> It's usually easy to find out who owns the land - they usually live on
> or near it.
 
If the piece of land is small, and you're staying there for awhile, it
may be easy.  But if the piece of land is large, or if your just
passing by, it may be more difficult.
 
>> And what if hundreds or even thousands
>> of people enter your land daily (that's the situation of Erstavik,
>> the largest private land in the vicinity of Stockholm and a popular
>> recerational area for Stockholmers) -- would you, as a landowner, be
>> willing to spend all your day saying "yes" or "no" to all those
>> requests?
> 
> Most farms, for instance, have no trespassing signs, which means you
> need a note from the land owner to go on the land, if you have that
> the rangers won't hassle you. Part of their job is protecting
> landowners from poaching on their land (You'd be surprised how upset
> a farmer can get when someone kills a nice Holstein "deer")
 
Killing animals counts as destroying....
 
>>>>> The sad thing is that it is gradually being taking away, as government
>>>>> takes more and more control of our lives, to protect us from ourselves,
>>>>> as though we were children.
>>>>
>>>> Are you here referring to efforts towards increased gun ownership control?
>>>> Yep, it's indeed terrible to not have the freedom to shoot your fellow
>>>> human beings.....  <g>
>>>
>>> With three semi automatic 7.62.39 mm rifles, two semi automatic .22 rifles,
>>> three bolt action 7.62x51 mm rifles, a 12 ga shotgun and a 9 mm pistol,
>>> strange that I've never had a "chance" to shoot a fellow human being....
>>
>> Others have though -- once or twice a year, some schoolkid gets pissed
>> off at his fellows or teachers, then borrows his parents' gun and shoots
>> them.  Never heard that in the news?
> 
> Sure. And why aren't those guns or ammo locked up?
 
Because there are some people who are irresponsible.  And just saying
"Every gun owner should be responsble for how it's used" won't change
that.
 
> My guns aren't locked up - but my ammo can't be gotten at, and a gun
> without ammo is just a heavy club - a baseball bat is better as a club.
 
So I can steal your gun and then get ammo elsewhere .....
 
Or I can steal your gun and sell it on the black market ....
 
A gun without ammo isn't more harmless than a baseball bat, because
you can get ammo elsewhere and then shoot people with the gun.  Even
with ammo, you cannot shoot people with a baseball bat.
 
So you lock up your ammo but not your gun.  Perhaps some other person
locks up his gun but not his ammo, arguing "...but my gun can't be
gotten at, and ammo without a gun cannot even be used as a heavy
club...".  Now, suppose the both of you have kids who are friends,
and that these kids get sooooo pissed off at someone in school they
want to shoot him.  They both go home and see what they can find --
your kid finds a gun, and his friend finds ammo, and then they meet.....
 
>>>>> and believes in investing it. Like people who open computer stores, or shoe
>>>>> repair shops, or who have an IRA or 401K that is invested in securities.
>>>>> They are all capitalists.
>>>>
>>>> Not necessarily -- but if they mamage to get their stores into the stock market,
>>>> they become capitalists of course.
>>>
>>> Very wrong Paul. Go take a few courses in basic economics. Capital is money invested, it
>>> doesn't have to be invested in multinational corporations. It can be invested in a
>>> street vendors business.
>>
>> Well, as soon as you buy anything at all, you "invest" in something, right?  Which
>> would make everyone dealing with money at all a Capitalist....
> 
> Noooo. It isn't an investment to buy candy. Unless, of course, you are going to open
> up a candy shop or something like that. That, perhaps, is the difference. Are you a
> consumer, or an investor? An investor is a Capitalist. (Tighter definition is
> investing money/capital, as opposed to time or talent.)
 
Is it the purpose, or the result, which counts?
 
If I pay to get an education, is that an investment?  It sure is:
educated people usually end up in better paid jobs than uneducated
people (if that wasn't the case, few would pay to get an education).
Now, does that make everyone who educate themselves a Capitalist?
 
-- 
----------------------------------------------------------------
Paul Schlyter,  Swedish Amateur Astronomer's Society (SAAF)
Grev Turegatan 40,  S-114 38 Stockholm,  SWEDEN
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