[Ryzorian]

TalnSG; My home High school back in 84. Midland High, Wyoming Iowa. William Penn University, Oskaloosa Iowa. 1990. It's unlikely the same teachers are there as then. Still, those were two area's with different teachers at different levels of the educational system informing me how "cruel and vicious" White American's were to everyone, from slaves, Native Americans to all those poor innocent people overseas.

I'm a history major myself, so I'm not unfamiler with all the asorted stories that are around reguarding America and it's foundations. Some are partly true, some are exagerated and some are out right misinformation. Trying to figure what really happened and what they were really about can be difficult at times I understand that. However, they were not evil men out to screw everyone over. Certainly not the Founding Fathers, many of whom died in poverty, after spending everything they had on freedom's cause.

I won't deny that American's have done bad things in the past or acted poorly in certain situations. That doesn't mean it was done malciously or with evil intent every single time. True sometimes it was dispicable, for instance, giveing smallpox laden blankets to the Indians was horrid. Yet sometimes it was just ignorance of the local region, other times it was misplaced atempts at trying to do the right thing. Nobody's perfect, not even America.

Blameing the US for every world problem though, is just silly.


Tenchu; It's your life, I'm not going to tell you how to live it. I even agree it would be nice if the world handled it's problems with that type of grace. However, it doesn't allways work out that way.

Case in point, I met an ex army fella at work a few years ago, who was crippled from the Engagement in Somalia. You know, the "Black Hawk" down thing? He was at the base camp when a woman with a baby came up to the fence, she placed a live gernade in the baby's dyper and threw the baby over the fence. The blast crippled this soldier, and yes, a companion shot the woman, who was obviosuly an enemy combatant. That's the mentality of the enemy they face and that's why so many "civilian's" get shot.