Western politics asking questions

[derekmohammed]

Can any of you fine people provide me with an example from Western (Canadian/British/American) politics when the public not asking questions made the situation much, much, worse? I am drawing a blank and must write an essay post haste!

Thanks in advance for any/all help!

Derek Mohammed

 

[wasteofo2]

Can any of you fine people provide me with an example from Western (Canadian/British/American) politics when the public not asking questions made the situation much, much, worse? I am drawing a blank and must write an essay post haste!
Thanks in advance for any/all help!
Derek Mohammed

Next to no one questioned whether there were WMD in Iraq leading up to the current war there.

Next to no one questioned why we weren't more concerned with international terrorism prior to 9/11.

Curently, very few members of "the public" are raising any serious questions about the rising American budget and trade defecits, and both have continuously rising for quite some time.

 

[Pengwuino]

Next to no one questioned whether there were WMD in Iraq leading up to the current war there.

What kinda parallel dimension do you live in

 

[Skyhunter]

What kinda parallel dimension do you live in

The same one the rest of us do.

Just curious, I don't want to spend a lot of time reading through your posts, but do you ever provide anything constructive to an argument?

 

[Skyhunter]

Next to no one questioned whether there were WMD in Iraq leading up to the current war there.

Next to no one questioned why we weren't more concerned with international terrorism prior to 9/11.

Curently, very few members of "the public" are raising any serious questions about the rising American budget and trade defecits, and both have continuously rising for quite some time.

Those are good examples. I think that whenever people fail to question their leaders that disaster befalls them.

 

[The Smoking Man]

The same one the rest of us do.
Just curious, I don't want to spend a lot of time reading through your posts, but do you ever provide anything constructive to an argument?

I'm having a premonition ... Or is it dejavu?

He's about to tell you they found them.

 

[Pengwuino]

Just curious, I don't want to spend a lot of time reading through your posts, but do you ever provide anything constructive to an argument?

I've never seen you once make an argument that withstood the test of logical inquiry.

 

[derekmohammed]

Hey Guys, these are great responces but I am looking for something not so recent and better documented. Please don't turn this into a needless debate...
Thanks a lot
Derek

 

[The Smoking Man]

Hey Guys, these are great responces but I am looking for something not so recent and better documented. Please don't turn this into a needless debate...
Thanks a lot
Derek

Try comparing the results of the Tokyo Trial and Nuremburg.

Why are there so few war criminals from Japan than there were in Germany.

What has this to do with current relations between China and Japan?

And yes, this is an American thing since it has to do with McArthur, the San Francisco Peace Treaty, and repatriations.

 

[The Smoking Man]

You've also got the conditions and the suspicions that are turning out to be fact regarding the bombing of Pearl Harbor (Harbour for the Brits).

There are a lot of 'Why's' still outstanding.

If you go much before the 20th century, you won't find much since the world was ruled by despots and there was no real right of the people to ask the questions anyway.

 

[loseyourname]

Hey Guys, these are great responces but I am looking for something not so recent and better documented. Please don't turn this into a needless debate...
Thanks a lot
Derek

Personally, I think you should go with the USS Maine incident that led the US into the Spanish-American War. Nobody questioned Teddy Roosevelt on it, who was essentially lying, and we ended up making a land grab to make up for our lack of colonial possessions relative to industrialized Europe. It would be an interesting topic to investigate, because there are the obvious parallels to how got involved in the current war, the possible true reasons we were taken to this war, and you can analyze the consequences without the rhetoric and speculation involved with the current war. This is all history and can be looked at with the benefit of hindsight.

 

[The Smoking Man]

Then again, you can also look at the Brits who supported Hitler prior to WWII.

People rarely bring these people up:

LORD HA-HA. Real Name: Sir Percival "Percy" Hawley.

Quetions were being asked but were they the right ones? Why did it take people so long to enter the war?

Most people for example think WWII lasted 3 years ... America. 6 Years Europe. 14 years China.

With our 20/20 hindsight we tend to see all and, like the Japanese, we wrote our history of the time.

What was THEIR view prior to '39?

 

[GENIERE]

In your country I would examine `universal health care'

In the UK I would examine the 'public school system' (Blair is seeking to partiallly privatise it to remedy the poor results from the public system)

In the US I would examine the Synfuel Corporation

 

[Pengwuino]

In the UK I would examine the 'public school system' (Blair is seeking to partiallly privatise it to remedy the poor results from the public system)

Sounds like he wants things that have already been universally proven to be a failure and not just someones opinions as to what something might end up being.

 

[GENIERE]

Sounds like he wants things that have already been universally proven to be a failure and not just someones opinions as to what something might end up being.

Is that not what I provided i.e., three failures due the citizens not questioning their leadership? Where did I opine?

 

[Pengwuino]

"Blair is seeking to partiallly privatise it to remedy the poor results from the public system"

I don't know about the UK system but that statement comes off as if Blair has a plan to do this in the future. Did this already happen?

 

[Skyhunter]

The Gulf of Tonkin incident comes to mind.

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB132/

 

[Skyhunter]

I've never seen you once make an argument that withstood the test of logical inquiry.

I wouldn't expect you to.

 

[The Smoking Man]

I wouldn't expect you to.

Stab twist... Nice one!

 

[GENIERE]

"Blair is seeking to partiallly privatise it to remedy the poor results from the public system"
I don't know about the UK system but that statement comes off as if Blair has a plan to do this in the future. Did this already happen?

http://education.independent.co.uk/news/article322297.ece

..."Sweeping new powers for parents to bring about the sacking of head teachers of under-performing schools have been spelt out in Tony Blair's long-awaited White Paper on education...The central thrust of the White Paper - as revealed in Monday's Independent - is to allow all schools to opt out of council control and become independent self-governing state schools...

They would be run by trusts - businesses, faith groups, universities or charities - charged with setting up parents' councils to liaise with over the running of the school. A schools commissioner would be appointed by the Government to ensure every school had a trust partner to work with...

Among those groups already expressing an interest in becoming trust partners are companies such as Microsoft...


.

 

[champ2823]

hmm, what about citizens not questioning what really happened at the Gulf of Tonkin, which led to the Vietnam War?

 

[Pengwuino]

One of the problems with the idea of citizens not speaking out against certain acts is that your average citizen really has no business questioning certain government acts since they no absolutely nothing about what is going on. I mean what business does your average housewife who spends her day cleaning questioning a CIA mission off in Kazikstan or what not. It'd be like if every tom dick and sally walking up to a construction site demanding answers as to why this beam is here and why that wall is there.

I mean sure, people egotistically think there little collection of news clipping means they are "in the know"... but what do we all realistically know at the time of most major events in history? I mean how many people knew on 9/11 exactly what had gone wrong in the chain of command in our national security network? Then compare that to how many people "know" what happened 4 years after the fact (and even at that point most people don't really know what they are talking about).

You really have to go back many decades to get to a point where governments were close enough to people that they actually knew what was going on in the country. Now things are so distant that all we know about our country is what we hear on the evening news or in our local newspaper for your average citizen.

So best bet... 19th century is where you'd get the more reasonable stories.

 

[Skyhunter]

One of the problems with the idea of citizens not speaking out against certain acts is that your average citizen really has no business questioning certain government acts since they no absolutely nothing about what is going on. I mean what business does your average housewife who spends her day cleaning questioning a CIA mission off in Kazikstan or what not. It'd be like if every tom dick and sally walking up to a construction site demanding answers as to why this beam is here and why that wall is there.

I mean sure, people egotistically think there little collection of news clipping means they are "in the know"... but what do we all realistically know at the time of most major events in history? I mean how many people knew on 9/11 exactly what had gone wrong in the chain of command in our national security network? Then compare that to how many people "know" what happened 4 years after the fact (and even at that point most people don't really know what they are talking about).

You really have to go back many decades to get to a point where governments were close enough to people that they actually knew what was going on in the country. Now things are so distant that all we know about our country is what we hear on the evening news or in our local newspaper for your average citizen.

So best bet... 19th century is where you'd get the more reasonable stories.

Actually just the opposite is true. A century ago news and information traveled very slowly. Even 50 years ago information was consumed in small quantities. Today, with the internet, the average person has access to vast amounts of information, and can get the latest news, and opinions instantaneously.

 

[The Smoking Man]

One of the problems with the idea of citizens not speaking out against certain acts is that your average citizen really has no business questioning certain government acts since they no absolutely nothing about what is going on. I mean what business does your average housewife who spends her day cleaning questioning a CIA mission off in Kazikstan or what not. It'd be like if every tom dick and sally walking up to a construction site demanding answers as to why this beam is here and why that wall is there.

I mean sure, people egotistically think there little collection of news clipping means they are "in the know"... but what do we all realistically know at the time of most major events in history? I mean how many people knew on 9/11 exactly what had gone wrong in the chain of command in our national security network? Then compare that to how many people "know" what happened 4 years after the fact (and even at that point most people don't really know what they are talking about).

You really have to go back many decades to get to a point where governments were close enough to people that they actually knew what was going on in the country. Now things are so distant that all we know about our country is what we hear on the evening news or in our local newspaper for your average citizen.

So best bet... 19th century is where you'd get the more reasonable stories.

What is your opinion of the Reason Ollie North was dragged in front of the senate and Richard Nixon took a hike from office?

What about the Bay of Pigs?

What about the USA dopping fliers to the Iraqis in Guf War One saying Rise up and fight and we'll follow you to Bahgdad and when they didn't, Saddam took reprisals?

What about McArthur giving Ishii a get out of jail free card in the Tokyo Trials when he killed 12 times more Chinese than Mengele killed Jews in the name of Science? (The Americans got copies of the bio-warfare research in return --- see bill 1902 and the support documents passed into law in your own government.)

Who works for whom in the USA?

Tell me, do you think the German people should have asked more questions of Hitler while he was in office? Should the soldiers have questioned orders? ... It was certainly made clear at Nuremburg that the soldiers were REQUIRED to ask and REFUSE orders even if they were just 'house husbands' before the war.

In America, by the virtue of the way a president assumes power, by the will of the people, he IS answerable to those people and when he committs crimes he does so in the name of every housewife.

Yes, they are all owed an explanation.

 

[GENIERE]

... get the latest news, and opinions instantaneously.

News? Opinions? Redundant?

 

[The Smoking Man]

News? Opinions? Redundant?

Nope.

Reuters is relatively neutral. (News facts)

O'Reiley on Fox ... ain't. (opinion)

 

[Skyhunter]

News? Opinions? Redundant?

No. There is a difference. Discerning that difference is the responsibility of the consumer.

 

[devil-fire]

a good example might be the german population not questioning what happened to jews sent to extermination camps. in a lot of documentrys iv seen where german civilians are brought to mass graves there is the phrase "we didnt know it was this bad" said a lot.