Dutch politician gunned down!

[simon snowflake]

Bilbo has spoken, AMEN.
I totally agree.

[baafie]

I would like to add that Europe has never started a war. Yes, individual countries inside Europe have started wars before. Although we have a Monetary union, do not be so quick to judge us by the actions of a single nation.

[Xerxes]

Grand alliances of three or four european countries against another grand alliance of 2-3 countries in WWI doesn't count as "Europe" starting a war then?

[baafie]

No. Those countries fought with other countries inside Europe, among others.

[Curi0us_George]

Originally posted by baafie
I would like to add that Europe has never started a war. Yes, individual countries inside Europe have started wars before. Although we have a Monetary union, do not be so quick to judge us by the actions of a single nation.

Originally posted by baafie
Assuming that the info provided by your media is correct, yes.

You judge America based on our media, but we shouldn't judge Europe based on its countries?

P.S. Those countries fought each other, and started a war. That's as explicit as you can make it. You can't say don't judge Europe based on the action of its countries. That would be like America saying you shouldn't judge us based on the actions of our states. What else are you going to base judgments on?

Originally posted by Bilbo Baggins
Europe has not started another world war precisely because we have learnt the lessons of the last two, that aggrressive politics is not the way to behave in a modern "democratic" world (whatever that is). It seems to me (and to many others) that the main aggressor in the world today is the USA. I hope for millions of peoples sake that this war on "terrorism" (again, whatever that is) does not descend into the farce and destruction of a War on Islam, which lets face it, it is.

America doesn't use it's physical power nearly as often as it could. We show that we have power, and that's generally enough. As for us being the aggressor, surely you're not so foolish as to think striking back at terrorism is unnecessary. We have never, ever said that we are at war with the Middle East. Our politicians have stated over and over that Muslims are not our enemies; terrorists and their supporters are.

P.S. You said "learnt". That's neat-o keen.

[baafie]

Originally posted by Curi0us_George
You judge America based on our media, but we shouldn't judge Europe based on its countries?

I did not know that your media is full of shit.
No, you cannot judge a continent based on its countries. Iraq started a war, does that make the entire far east a 'rogue' continent?

[Curi0us_George]

Originally posted by baafie
I did not know that your media is full of shit.

All medias are full of shit. They represent only a small portion of the population, the pseudo-educated press. How could that ever accurately portray a country's citizens?

No, you cannot judge a continent based on its countries. Iraq started a war, does that make the entire far east a 'rogue' continent?

No, I wouldn't say that the Middle East is a "rogue" region based solely on Iraq. I would say, however, that the Middle East is overly violent, maybe even rogue, based on the actions of many countries from that area.

The same thing applies to Europe. Both World Wars were started there. These World Wars involved more than a single country. As a result, I am perfectly justified in saying that Europe started the World Wars.

That's how generalizations work. They don't cover everyone, but they cover a large portion.

[baafie]

Originally posted by Curi0us_George

All medias are full of shit. They represent only a small portion of the population, the pseudo-educated press. How could that ever accurately portray a country's citizens?

When I watch the news here I assume that every word spoken is based on facts, or on reliable sources. Does that make me a gullible person?

That's how generalizations work. They don't cover everyone, but they cover a large portion.

Perhaps generalization is not a good thing.

[simon snowflake]

Generalization is a bad thing, and I know. My girl get agressif if I say "Women are...." or "Its typical a Woman thing".

[Curi0us_George]

Originally posted by baafie
When I watch the news here I assume that every word spoken is based on facts, or on reliable sources. Does that make me a gullible person?

I would say yes.

Perhaps generalization is not a good thing.

Whether it's good or not, it exists. It's ridiculous to expect no generalizations. We must have them in order to communicate. If I can't say something about a continent, can I say something about a country, a state, a county, a city? Should I name every single person separately, because one Thüringer's opinion is not the same as the next? We must have generalizations. I don't want to say "deal with it", because that sounds rude and self righteous, but that's really the truth. They are unavoidable.

Simon, I think your girlfriend needs to face facts. There are typical women things, just as there are typical men things. If you said something like "women are stupid", then I could see why she would get mad. That's a ridiculous generalization (though I hear it aimed towards men often enough). But, to say that women are moody isn't really an obscene generalization; it's true. Virtually all women have much stronger mood swings than men. Their hormones require it. Obviously, some are moodier than others, and some are not noticably moody at all (maybe), but the fact is that women, in general, on average, as a whole, etc., have strong mood swings.

There are also plenty of generalizations you could make involving men that would be completely correct. Some of them may or may no involve me in particular, but they are correct, nonetheless.

[baafie]

Hold on a second. You are saying that I can't trust the media?
Then, Fortuyn is not dead?


I think you should avoid generalization wherever possible.

[lil vixen]

Just browsing through the forums I came across this.
What happened was a horrible thing. I wasn't aware of it until Baafie told me yesterday.
I would like to comment on one thing and that is news coverage being bs or what ever.
If someone is gullible for believing in the normal news coverage then I guess most of us are because your Basic news coverage on certain events and daily lives based on factual things. NOT TABLOIDS,
Like msnbc or abs or cbs... I don't know what they are out of the USA so I can name them. But every I pretty much think takes your norman every day news at face value because it should be giving us facts and not bs
anyway that's my opinion.
have a great day!

[Curi0us_George]

I didn't say that the media was nothing but lies, but to blindly accept all the media's information is to play the fool. News sources can be wrong. News sources can lie. Quite often news sources are little more than conjecture and opinion. I don't doubt that Fortuyn is dead if that's what the media says, but that's not what you asked. You asked if I thought you were gullible for blindly accepting everything you hear on the news as fact.

I think generalizations are inevitable.

[patroclus22]

I think this thread's gone a looooong way off topic...

I don't know anything about this guy or his politics, and I'm not going to pretend that I do. All I can say is that the situation must suck.

[lil vixen]

I don't believe everything I hear from anyone * news or not*
but you have to think that most of what they say when an incident occurs is based on fact and not lies or what they themselves make up for the lack of anything else. A good news reporter will give us facts , although I doubt there are any good ones anymore.

<ahh all my typos in the last post!.>
well Have a good day I am going back to bed as you seen by my typing I am sleepy still.!

[Creative210]

Sorry to hear about that news.

[Predatorsfan2000]

"Hold on a second. You are saying that I can't trust the media?
Then, Fortuyn is not dead? "



A lot of media sources, while reporting the facts, also put a slant on things to try and make you think a certain way about what they are reporting. That is what I don't trust about the media. Possibly what he's getting at. Probably not.

[ampburner]

Originally posted by Xerxes
Well there's also no way a homosexual guy could be far right to begin with.

Since when did his sexual preference have anything to do with it? (Must be an American thing... ) Fortuyn was a right wing politician by our (dutch) standards. I guess in the American political spectrum you could even consider him liberal...

[Bilbo Baggins]

It was the fact he proclaimed himself right wing, yet was also openly gay that Xerxes spoke up. Look at what hitler did to gays...

[rm']

Hitler, techinically, was left-wing. Then again, he hated communists too...

[Bilbo Baggins]

he hated everyone

[ampburner]

I understand that, but I find the link ("gay" equals "he can't be right wing") completely absurd. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I've been watching (and buying into) too much 'full-of-shit' media, but Xerxes' remark seemed soooo typically American to me....

It's what I ment in my post, I guess in the American political climate being right-wing is almost exactly the same as being 'conservative'. In Holland this isn't the case as much as it is in the US. Totally different situation, you can't compare the both if you're gonna use terms like far-right, extremist,etc, as these terms have different meanings in different countries. For example...What's your definition of far right? Hitler? Le pen? From my point of view, I'd say Bush is far right aswell....

Oh well. Guess we all agree that political violence, let alone MURDER is completely against everything democracy stands for. It's been two days and I'm still shocked

[Bilbo Baggins]

It coudl be argued that it is the ultimate expression of freedom of speech.

[rm']

Bullshit, and you know it.

ampburner- the political spectrum is relative to each country. What passes off as a rational left winger to you is appalling to us, and we could comfortably call an evil fascist. Likewise, what we consider a perfectly sane member of the right would be seen as a dangerous extremist to you. 20 years from now, the situation could be completely different. That's just the nature of politics: opinions change.

Why is this? Because the needs of both regions differ. Americans have traditionally valued their freedom and independence over all else, including their lives. Europeans, on the other hand, have recognized the need for peace and security as necessities to their survival in a fractured continent. One region is not more correct then the other: their politics have simply adapted to the needs of their respective regions.

[Xerxes]

Originally posted by ampburner
I understand that, but I find the link ("gay" equals "he can't be right wing") completely absurd. Correct me if I'm wrong, maybe I've been watching (and buying into) too much 'full-of-shit' media, but Xerxes' remark seemed soooo typically American to me....

There are a couple homosexual rightwing reporters and ediorialists in America. There is also a group that calls themselves the "Log Cabin epublicans" - registered republicans who are either gay or want to align themselves with a gay acceptance agenda within the republican party.

In Americaa however, an openly gay Republican simply doesn't float politically, because of the huge Christian anti-gay constituency. Again, I think that the the fact that a gay right winger can in fact "float" in the Netherlands is an interesting difference in political landscape.

As what you would call a "Free Market Republican" personally I could care less about people's sex lives as long as they don't tax me for government issue condoms and AIDS related healthcare.
---
RM's last point is also extremely valid- in different environments designations mean different things. For instance, Chirac, who recently bested Le Pen in france, is described as a Right of center.
In America, his politics would make him a democrat.

Fortuyn was constantly labeled far-right. And in a country that could be described as the *most* liberal on earth, that means something. The fact is in America he would probably be a "moderate" or belong to an independent party.
---

All media is biased. Your best bet is to survey the same story from several media sources across the spectrum/world and from there objectively glean the truth.

[Curi0us_George]

Originally posted by ampburner
I guess in the American political climate being right-wing is almost exactly the same as being 'conservative'.

That's the definition of right-wing. "The conservative or reactionary faction of a group."

Predatorsfan2000, that was really my point originally, but then he started saying that he accepted everything as fact, so I thought I should mention that the facts can be wrong, too, sometime even more wrong (ick, grammar) than the opinions.

[Bilbo Baggins]

Seig Heil! Fuhrer RM has spoken.
Bullshit, and you know it.

Yeah, i was tired and not thinking.