Earlier quoted context omitted.
What history have you been reading?
I think it's a reference to this pact: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Ha! Think we posted at same time.
112 Gripes About the French
191–200 of 365 posts
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#192Earlier quoted context omitted.
We need to be reminded of this. The left and right are so divided that they're intolerable of one another. Neither side believes the other is worth listening to. It's a shame. We're all animals traversing a complicated landscape. There's daily pain and suffering, and then we die. We should remind ourselves how similar everyone actually is, and that the diversity of our views are humanity living and breathing through…
Right there with the 'both sides are the same' false equivalence... In case you're wondering why.
What a knee-jerk, unserious reply. You performed the perfect example of the point gp was trying to make.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#193Earlier quoted context omitted.
You're correct. I should have been more clear that progressive and conservative labels are more apt for individual viewpoints and not as a defining characteristic of the person. I think that logic can still be applied, though. The point I was trying to make is that with any label (whether French/American or conservative/progressive) it's more productive to try and find clarity about the opposing viewpoint rather than…
To be clear, I agree with your original post that some type of mediation between the poles would be helpful. Reflecting a bit more, it's hard to imagine that a government could convince it's people to go to war without a large degree of brainwashing to demonize the foe. To some degree, we need our soldiers to believe that they people they kill are deserving of death, even though the they were most likely brainwashed…
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Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#194Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#195Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I wish we had such a book currently on how arabs and the muslim world are different I also wish we had such a book currently on how progressive and conservatives are different
I'll use myself as an example: - Voters should show proof of citizenship when voting. - The US needs to take a serious look at implementing Universal Basic Income, and not just because of the automation of jobs. - Abortion should be legal up to the earliest that a fetus has survived out of the womb, roughly 3 months. - We should celebrate diversity, and, we should be able to talk about what makes us different. Withou…
I would obviously apply a more progressive label to you. UBI, not anti-abortion, celebrating diversity, citizenship approval, MSM being dodgy.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#196The questions in the chapter entitled "the French and the Germans" paint a picture that despite defeating the Nazis and witnessing their atrocities, many American servicemen harbored deeper sympathies to German culture than to French, and this pamphlet was intended in part to fix that. Examples of questions in that section:
"The French aren't our kind of people . The Germans are"
"The French are not as clean as the Germans"
"The Germans are easier to get along with than the French, because the Germans are law abiding"
This is reminder that despite the US being at war with the Nazis in WWII, the heinous beliefs behind the Nazi agenda had a lot of resonance in many other countries, including the United States. In fact, in recent years, it's become better understood how Nazism was inspired in part by the Jim Crow laws and culture in the US.
https://www.ushmm.org/collections/bibliography/nazism-and-th...
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/04/30/how-american-r...
https://www.history.com/news/how-the-nazis-were-inspired-by-...
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#197Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#198What strikes me me as amazing is that straightforward answers are viewed as "omg". We live in a society where its viewed as shocking that people shared their thoughts.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#199Earlier quoted context omitted.
Right there with the 'both sides are the same' false equivalence... In case you're wondering why.
I think if you are willing to ignore 50% of the population, well, I don't know what to tell you other than that history does not look kindly on partisans.
Not just 50% of the population. Folks on the left will sniffily tell you that stuff where the vast majority of the rest of humanity agrees with the right isn’t even up for discussion.
Re: 112 Gripes About the French
#200The opening paragraphs are lovely and absolutely not what I'd expected based on the name. This is the America we want to live in. "We insist upon the right to express our own opinions. But we also believe in the right of others to express their opinions. For the right to speak involves the duty to listen...We know that the truth can only be found through open and honest discussion, and that the common good is served…
xkcd doesn't agree with the "duty to listen".