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Author Topic: Hey asshole! Yeah, you, you little f...
clockwork
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 690

posted 27 July 2003 07:13 PM      Profile for clockwork     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
quote:
If you are looking for some fun, and have a research grant to spend, try this. Visit an American university, bump into random students in the corridor and loudly call each one ‘asshole’.

Sword of honour

From: Pokaroo! | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 27 July 2003 07:29 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm surprised he didn't expand further on Dubya and his "honour duel" with Saddam. I was waiting through the whole article for it and just a sentence or two at the end. Well, I guess it was too obvious.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
skdadl
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 478

posted 27 July 2003 09:59 PM      Profile for skdadl     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I'm still trying to figure out how, in the first few seconds after you have "bumped into" a "random" student and called him an "asshole," you could talk him into having his cortisone and testosterone levels measured.

An interesting topic, though, interesting article.

Especially, for Canadians, if you come from Alberta. And I do.

Seriously, and even though I'm a gril, I understand that gut reaction to offended honour. I know it well enough to have wondered recently whether I oughtn't to be taking anger-management classes.

So Michelle: which is it to be? Do we keep it simple, a "no-holds-barred gouging and scratching contest," or are you up for the full aristo production number, white gloves, noble seconds, and pistols at dawn?


From: gone | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
DrConway
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 490

posted 27 July 2003 10:34 PM      Profile for DrConway     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I don't know how it is in British Columbia compared to Alberta; even though we are both Western provinces, BC has more people from all over the world in it, which probably moderates out the "it's my honor" reaction that might otherwise be characteristically present.

Food for thought.


From: You shall not side with the great against the powerless. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
abnormal
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 1245

posted 27 July 2003 10:59 PM      Profile for abnormal   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Hope your research grant will pay your medical bills.

A lot of this is cultural. As a graduate student I used to train at the local YMCA and there was a very large Italian contingent that trained there.

Great bunch of guys. They'd stand by you to the end. But pull that sort of stunt and by there code there was only one response.

[By the way, a friend of mine actually had to explain to someone that the simple fact that "The fucking cop mouthed off to me in front of my lady" was there was not sufficient reason to slug him.]


From: far, far away | Registered: Aug 2001  |  IP: Logged
meades
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 625

posted 28 July 2003 12:08 AM      Profile for meades     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
I was intrigued by the "Four different forms" of American foreign policy, but he forgot to elaborate on the others (Either mention them, and elaborate, or don't mention them at all, says I), so I did a bit of googling, and found them, in case anyone else was interested:

quote:
The Hamiltonians are people who think the United States needs to become the same kind of great power in the world that Britain was at its peak. We need to have a strong economy. The federal government should be working hand-in-glove with large corporations and great business interests to advance their interest in overseas trade. We should try to build a global order of trade and economic relations that keep us so rich that we can afford to do what Britain used to do, which is to keep any one country from getting too strong in Europe and Asia to affect our vital interest, to threaten us. And when a country threatens to take over, either Europe or Asia, then we should build up a coalition against them and bring them down, either by peace or war. That's been a vision that has moved a lot of people. George Washington to some degree had this view of American foreign policy.

Then you've got its opposite, the Jeffersonian view, which says the United States government should not go hand-in-glove with corporations. That will undermine democracy. It'll get us involved with despots abroad. We'll be supporting evil dictators because some American corporation has economic interest that is advanced by this. And, also, this is going to undermine democracy at home. So you look at somebody like Ralph Nader as a Jeffersonian, who sees the Word Trade Organization (WTO) as a corporate, big-government plot against democracy at home and democracy abroad.

But at the same time, this Hamiltonian goal of a grand, global order gets us involved in conflicts with people overseas. We're involved in the Middle East, so people hate us in the Middle East, so they come and attack us as on September 11th. "If we'd never set foot in the Middle East, we wouldn't have these problems," say Jeffersonians. That's the logic of antiwar movements, and we've certainly seen a lot of Jeffersonian [values] over the generations.

Wilsonians -- and I think we all intuitively know what that is -- hold the belief in the United Nations, international law. The United States should be pushing our values around the world and turning other countries into democracies whether they like it or not. And the U.S. should also work multilaterally in institutions. We should be supporting things like the International Criminal Court, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. And we should not be unilateralist in our approach. We should put human rights ahead of trade, and so on.

Then finally, you've got a group called the Jacksonians, for Andrew Jackson. One way I describe them is to talk about an incident in American history that illustrates a lot of that school's values. When Andrew Jackson was a general in 1818, he was fighting a war against the Creek Indians in Georgia. Because Florida at the time was still under Spanish rule and there were two Englishmen in Florida selling arms to the Indians, who were then attacking U.S. forces in Georgia. Jackson took the U.S. Army across the international frontier into Spanish territory without any permissions or any U.N. resolutions. He went in there, arrested the two Brits, brought them back to the United States, tried them before a military tribunal and hanged them. And this did cause outrage in Europe. They said "These people have no respect for international law." But it made Jackson so popular in the U.S. that his election to the presidency was just a matter of time after 1818. [The idea is]: "Don't bother with people abroad, unless they bother you. But if they attack you, then do everything you can."

So in the 1930s, Hitler takes over Paris; we don't move an inch. He starts exterminating the Jews; we don't move an inch. Japan is [carrying out aggression] all over Asia. And on December 6, 1941, any opinion poll in the country would have said that most Americans wanted to stay out of World War II. Then December 7th, Japan attacks Pearl Harbor and suddenly the polls change. Jacksonians: when somebody attacks the hive, you come swarming out of the hive and you sting them to death. And Jacksonians, when it comes to war, don't believe in limited wars. They don't believe, particularly, in the laws of war. War is about fighting, killing, and winning with as few casualties as possible on your side. But you don't worry about casualties on the other side. That's their problem. They shouldn't have started the war if they didn't want casualties.


Click!


From: Sault Ste. Marie | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 28 July 2003 07:42 AM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Thanks, meades, that was interesting! I guess probably Americans learn that in school, so he didn't feel as if he had to elaborate.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged
Cougyr
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Babbler # 3336

posted 28 July 2003 04:18 PM      Profile for Cougyr     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
In this day and age, one would think that the Jacksonian approach would be just an historical curiosity. The world is too small for the testosterone approach to everything.
From: over the mountain | Registered: Nov 2002  |  IP: Logged
Jacob Two-Two
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Babbler # 2092

posted 28 July 2003 05:57 PM      Profile for Jacob Two-Two     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
That's if you're thinking rationally. If you're reacting on emotion, it's precisely when the world starts to get uncomfortably small that you let your testosterone out to "make some space".
From: There is but one Gord and Moolah is his profit | Registered: Jan 2002  |  IP: Logged
swallow
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 2659

posted 29 July 2003 07:27 PM      Profile for swallow     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Americans don't learn that in school. It's from a recent book by historian Walter Mead which may, just possibly, be taught in universities.
From: fast-tracked for excommunication | Registered: May 2002  |  IP: Logged
Michelle
Moderator
Babbler # 560

posted 29 July 2003 08:09 PM      Profile for Michelle   Author's Homepage     Send New Private Message      Edit/Delete Post  Reply With Quote 
Oh. Whoops. Well, I admit my ignorance all around then.
From: I've got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell. | Registered: May 2001  |  IP: Logged

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