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What is a backward nation?
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MacGorilla
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Feb 11, 2005, 09:25 PM
 
A friend of mine sent me this definition of a backward nation. Food for thought.

I think that's the heart of the matter. Everyone gets nervous when
weapons of terror are in the hands of "backward" nations, just because
of the obvious conflict between the nation being backward in so many
ways, and the weapon being advanced.

What constitutes a "backward" nation? That's harder to say. Here are a
few general guidelines, however:

1. Backward nations have not yet abandoned the barbaric practice of
capital punishment.

2. Backward nations are still unable to provide their own citizens with
health care.

3. Backward nations usually have an enormous percentage of the wealth
concentrated in the hands of very few, which few exercise more and more
direct political power in defense of that wealth (usually under the
cover some sort of religious doctrine combined with blatant militarism).

4. Backward nations generally keep an unreasonable number of their own
citizens in prison.

There are others, of course. But I think most people would agree that a
nation that displays those characteristics ought not to trusted with
weapons of terror.
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TETENAL
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Feb 11, 2005, 10:17 PM
 
Your friend is an Anti-American.
     
Millennium
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Feb 11, 2005, 11:11 PM
 
I think that's the heart of the matter. Everyone gets nervous when weapons of terror are in the hands of "backward" nations, just because of the obvious conflict between the nation being backward in so many ways, and the weapon being advanced.

What constitutes a "backward" nation? That's harder to say. Here are a few general guidelines, however:

1. Backward nations have not yet abandoned the idea of justice: of people who do good receiveng good and people who do evil receiving evil. They either lack comprehension of or respect for the idea of cause and effect, or of human will, as regulators of behavior.

2. Backward nations enslave those who have spent their time learning valuable skills, because of some notion that these people have ulterior motives and that their dedication should go unrewarded, for some nebulous undefinable "common good".

3. Backward nations usually steal money from people arbitrarily, often for no other reason than that there is money to steal, and then redistribute according to equally arbitrary criteria which never take things like societal contribution into account. Agbain, this is often for the sake of some nebulous entity in whose name they decide "the common good".

4. Backward nations generally decide to crack down on irrelevant "root causes" of things, often again picking arbitrary or only peripherally-related concepts, rather than face unpleasant realities such as personal responsibility: that just as some people choose to do good, some people choose to do evil, and that those who choose either way ought to have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

There are others, of course. But I think most people would agree that a nation that displays those characteristics ought not to trusted with weapons of terror. Such nations are the ones who fail to uphold freedom above all else, trusting in the human spirit to do what is needed when it is free to do so, instead trying to force their own world view into being. It is little wonder that no attempt at this has ever succeeded for long.
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BRussell
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Feb 12, 2005, 02:06 AM
 
1. Backward nations have not yet abandoned the barbaric practice of capital punishment.
I agree. And the US is not in very good company here. I sincerely doubt that any of the other countries on that list have the fairness of the US criminal justice system. But we still shouldn't use it.

Executions in 1998:
1. China: 1067
2. The Congo: 100
3. US: 68
4. Iran: 66
5. Egypt: 48

3. Backward nations usually have an enormous percentage of the wealth concentrated in the hands of very few...
According to this the US has the 3rd highest concentration of wealth of developed countries. But that's only developed countries; developing countries have much more inequality.

Amount the richest 10% in a country hold.
1. Mexico: 42%
2. Turkey: 32%
3. US: 31%
4. Portugal: 28%
5. UK: 28%

(A better measure of inequality that shows the same thing)

4. Backward nations generally keep an unreasonable number of their own citizens in prison.
Apparently the US does have the highest percentage of its people in prison. That's pathetic. What the hell is going on?

Number of prisoners per 100,000 people
1. US: 715
2. Russia: 584
3. Belarus: 554
4. Palau: 523
5. Belize: 459
     
Athens
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Feb 12, 2005, 03:48 AM
 
Originally posted by TETENAL:
Your friend is an Anti-American.

Its funny how you automatically took that as Anti American. Whats funny is that Americans identify with every thing on that list so easy. Just means the items on that list are true. But I don't think it means the US is a backwards country so the title is unfair.
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olePigeon
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Feb 12, 2005, 04:17 AM
 
Originally posted by BRussell:
3. US: 68
4. Iran: 66
I find that funny.
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Athens
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Feb 12, 2005, 06:24 AM
 
Originally posted by olePigeon:
I find that funny.
and I bet 40 or more of those are from Texus alone.
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sugar_coated
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Feb 12, 2005, 09:23 AM
 
All countries are backward when it comes to this or that.
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Mithras
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Feb 12, 2005, 09:39 AM
 
Originally posted by BRussell:
I agree. And the US is not in very good company here. I sincerely doubt that any of the other countries on that list have the fairness of the US criminal justice system. But we still shouldn't use it.

Executions in 1998:
1. China: 1067
2. The Congo: 100
3. US: 68
4. Iran: 66
5. Egypt: 48

Hmm, but per capita we're not even a competitor. I'll forgive the Bahamas because 2 executions in a tiny populations is distorting. Still, well ahead of us are 18 countries:


including Cuba, which is interesting.
I'm pretty much against the death penalty, and do think the administration of it in this country is shameful. But we might as well have an accurate view of things.
     
Athens
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Feb 12, 2005, 10:19 AM
 
Originally posted by Mithras:
Hmm, but per capita we're not even a competitor. I'll forgive the Bahamas because 2 executions in a tiny populations is distorting. Still, well ahead of us are 18 countries:


including Cuba, which is interesting.
I'm pretty much against the death penalty, and do think the administration of it in this country is shameful. But we might as well have an accurate view of things.

That accurate view is basically saying the US is in the same club as those other countries.
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BRussell
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Feb 12, 2005, 12:18 PM
 
Originally posted by Mithras:
Hmm, but per capita we're not even a competitor. I'll forgive the Bahamas because 2 executions in a tiny populations is distorting. Still, well ahead of us are 18 countries:

including Cuba, which is interesting.
I'm pretty much against the death penalty, and do think the administration of it in this country is shameful. But we might as well have an accurate view of things.
There's something creepy to me about listing the number of executions per capita, but you're right, that's a fairer way to look at it. It still highlights the company we keep on this though. Being on the same list as Iran and Cuba and Yemen and Saudi Arabia and Afghanistan isn't fun.
     
Mithras
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Feb 12, 2005, 12:43 PM
 
You are both right. "The United States: Lower execution rate than Rwanda!" is not exactly a selling point.

The graph also makes me think - who was it that was arguing for the justness of a Singaporean police state, because it's better to execute minor criminals than have normal people fearful of crime? Anyway, if we had the same per-capita rate of executions as Singapore, we'd be executing 1,800 per year; five a day, every day.
     
BRussell
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Feb 12, 2005, 06:43 PM
 
Originally posted by Mithras:
You are both right. "The United States: Lower execution rate than Rwanda!" is not exactly a selling point.

The graph also makes me think - who was it that was arguing for the justness of a Singaporean police state, because it's better to execute minor criminals than have normal people fearful of crime? Anyway, if we had the same per-capita rate of executions as Singapore, we'd be executing 1,800 per year; five a day, every day.
I also wonder why we have such a high incarceration rate. We have far and away the highest percentage of our people in prison, more than Rwanda and Iran and all those places. Are there really that many more criminals in the US? Or are other countries just not imprisoning their criminals? I assume that we're not just filling our prisons with innocent people - I'd believe it may be as high as a % or two, but that can't even come close to accounting for the numbers we're talking about. What's going on?

And does it work? Do we have less crime as a result of incarcerating so many people? With the numbers we have in prison, you'd think we'd have no crime at all.
     
Athens
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Feb 13, 2005, 04:58 AM
 
Originally posted by BRussell:
I also wonder why we have such a high incarceration rate. We have far and away the highest percentage of our people in prison, more than Rwanda and Iran and all those places. Are there really that many more criminals in the US? Or are other countries just not imprisoning their criminals? I assume that we're not just filling our prisons with innocent people - I'd believe it may be as high as a % or two, but that can't even come close to accounting for the numbers we're talking about. What's going on?

And does it work? Do we have less crime as a result of incarcerating so many people? With the numbers we have in prison, you'd think we'd have no crime at all.
Its the war on drugs. More americans are put away for drug offences. More americans commit crime because of drugs. Vancouver has one of the highest crime rates in Canada be it mostly property crime not violent crime. Vancouver also has the worst hard drug problem too. They go together. Which is why im glad Health Canada has approved giving away free heroin to heroin addicts in a trial program. If addicts get there drugs for free there is no need to commit crime to support the addict. How does this relate to the US? Well until the US changes its thinking and how it deals with drugs, there is always going to be a large amount of people in jail and a large amount of crimes.
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mitchell_pgh
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Feb 13, 2005, 01:01 PM
 
Originally posted by Athens:
Its the war on drugs. More americans are put away for drug offences. More americans commit crime because of drugs. Vancouver has one of the highest crime rates in Canada be it mostly property crime not violent crime. Vancouver also has the worst hard drug problem too. They go together. Which is why im glad Health Canada has approved giving away free heroin to heroin addicts in a trial program. If addicts get there drugs for free there is no need to commit crime to support the addict. How does this relate to the US? Well until the US changes its thinking and how it deals with drugs, there is always going to be a large amount of people in jail and a large amount of crimes.
Athens,

Doing drugs is illegal in the USA. Ask ANYONE in the United States and you will get the same answer over and over. The people in jail aren't your 1/8th oz. of pot in the dorm type of people. They are generally dealers. I know because a friend of mine did 5 years for transporting a few pounds (100+) of drugs. He knew what he was doing and loved the fast money... until he lost everything.

I love Canada and enjoyed visiting hundreds of times in my youth. That being said, it has the population of Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan combined. So your comparisons between Canada and the US is apples and oranges. The US is more comparable to the EU albeit smaller.

Your loathing of American government and politics always amazes me. In your world, drugs would be legal (in fact, the government would give them away for free). Prostitution would be legalized, etc. etc.

Those positions DO NOT reflect the general population of the US. Ask if Bush should be president and you are going to get a 50%/50% debate... ask about legalizing drugs or legalizing prostitution and you are going to see radically different information.

A short list of your more interesting threads...
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Provide hard drugs as medicine for addicts
Prostitutes - Time to make it legal
what kind of BS is this allowing a Yank Cop to pull over ppl in BC
Jews to easy to offend...
Canada / US War Room.
President George Bush Charged in Vancouver :|
U.N. : corruption or disinformation?

It doesn't take one long to figure out your political views...
     
roberto blanco
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Feb 13, 2005, 01:17 PM
 
Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Doing drugs is illegal in the USA. Ask ANYONE in the United States and you will get the same answer over and over. The people in jail aren't your 1/8th oz. of pot in the dorm type of people. They are generally dealers.
funny, because the only person who did jailtime i met in the us while i was living there, was somebody who got busted for growing pot (only 2 plants and he wasn't a dealer).

i also talked to quite a few people about the legalization of drugs and prostitution, and you usually got the liberal/conservative divide.

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BRussell
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Feb 13, 2005, 09:16 PM
 
Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Doing drugs is illegal in the USA.
Doing drugs is illegal in most other countries too, as far as I know. So why the difference? The drug explanation is the best I've heard, but then again, it's the only one I've heard.
     
Mithras
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Feb 13, 2005, 09:59 PM
 
Sorry to do yet another lame echo post, but I found the prisoner statistics so arresting (hah) that I just have to post it. This is of industrialized nations only:


Indeed, what the fuck are we doing?
My wife looked at the graph and said, Well, we don't like black people and so do everything we can to put them in jail for long periods of time. And I think she's onto something...
( Last edited by Mithras; Feb 13, 2005 at 10:16 PM. )
     
Krusty
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Feb 13, 2005, 10:18 PM
 
Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Athens,

Doing drugs is illegal in the USA. Ask ANYONE in the United States and you will get the same answer over and over. The people in jail aren't your 1/8th oz. of pot in the dorm type of people. <snip>
Do your homework before posting your anecdotes. link
In 1985, our incarceration rate was 313 per 100,000 population. As of June 30, 2003 it was 715 per 100,000. The largest single factor contributing to this imprisonment wave is a ten-fold rise in drug convictions. In 1980, when illicit drug use was peaking, there were about 50,000 men and women in prison for violating drug laws. In 2002, there were about 500,000 incarcerated. (2)
...
According to the US Justice Department, between 1995 and 2001: "the number of Federal inmates held for public-order offenses increased 133%, mostly accounted for by immigration offenses [in the wake of 9/11]. While the number of offenders in each major offense category increased, the number incarcerated for a drug offense accounted for the largest percentage of the total growth (48%) , followed by public-order offenders (38%). (7)
Don't just trust my link. Google it, if ye doubt my source ...there are plenty of others that tell the same story. Its pretty well known that the "Drug War" and mandatory minimum jail time laws started in the mid 80s is the largest contributing factor to the astronomical rise in incarceration rates in the US over the last 20 years.

Re: Mithras post on black people. An AMAZING(ly bad) 1 in 3 black males will be incarcerated at some point in their lives .. compared to 1 in 17 white males. One would really have to stretch the limits of credulity to argue that blacks honestly commit nearly 6x the number of crimes as white people per capita.
     
Athens
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Feb 13, 2005, 10:40 PM
 
but the drugs are also the feeder to other crimes which is why the US is one of the more violent places to live. Drug dealers have to use guns because its such a high risk to sell, the war on drugs. Addicts have to use guns to rob people because the general population is armed and they have to rob people to support there 500.00 day addictions. That creates higher violent crimes rates, and more violent crime arrests. That goes for property crimes too, 500.00 a day addictions leads to addicts doing everything they can to feed it. And this is why the US has so many people in jail, and why there are so many violent robberies and other crimes that feed the drug crimes. American attitude is so pig headed on the issue of drugs, and I dont mean to be flaming Americans really Im trying to be more laid back, but when it comes to the attitude on drugs I cant help it. I cant wait until the results are out after a year of providing heroin to addicts in Vancouver, when it shows that overall all crimes reduce alot perhaps some American pollitions will look at it in a better light. Because providing drugs to addicts take away the profits for the dealers, and it takes the cost away from the addict who no longer needs to steal to get there fix. A medical approch vs a war approch. I had a topic about this issue already. But this topic directly relates to crimes and prision.

Some one said Canada's population is small, as a country it is. But our cities are not small since most Canadians live in 5 major cities and our cities have the exact same problems. The reason there is such a difference in crime stats, murder rates, gun violence isnt because we have a smaller population. We approch the dealing of these things different. Toronto is the 5th largest city in North America after Mexico City, New York, LA, Chicago.
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Athens
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Feb 13, 2005, 11:00 PM
 
Originally posted by mitchell_pgh:
Athens,

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Provide hard drugs as medicine for addicts
Prostitutes - Time to make it legal
what kind of BS is this allowing a Yank Cop to pull over ppl in BC
Jews to easy to offend...
Canada / US War Room.
President George Bush Charged in Vancouver :|
U.N. : corruption or disinformation?

It doesn't take one long to figure out your political views...
Provide hard drugs as medicine for addicts -- Yup im fully for that, im tried of dealing with it as a criminal thing when all people are doing is hurting themselves. Turn it into a medical condition which it is.

Prostitutes - Time to make it legal -- Again its people hurting themselves and as a underground thing it has more risks then if it was turned into a tax paying legal industry which would provide more protection to those that do that work.

what kind of BS is this allowing a Yank Cop to pull over ppl in BC -- If a American was pulled over and searched by a Canadian cop the reaction would be the same.

Jews to easy to offend... -- They are

Canada / US War Room. -- I was tried of every post turning into a American bash canada, Canadian bash america flame war. Some people need to get it out of there system out of the way of the real topics.


President George Bush Charged in Vancouver :| -- Posting a news story. I didnt go out to have him charged. I just thought it was funny that it actually made it to the courts.

U.N. : corruption or disinformation? -- I dont remmeber that one but it was prob posting of a CNN news story.
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Feb 13, 2005, 11:31 PM
 
Having made my previous post on the "drug reasons" for the incarceration rates in the US, I'd like to add that the US's incarceration rate was already the highest in the world even before the Drug War spike. I attribute this to the fact that the US is unique in its 3rd world/1st world culture. Money and the things it can buy are more exalted in the US than almost anywhere else because it it needed both the acquire the trappings of consumer culture (like most other 1st world countries in Europe and the Far East) and to acquire healthcare and education (which makes us more like a 3rd world country than a 1st world country ... virtually all of which have these items universally available and for "free" or cheap for its citizenry.) So, the US has the doubly-whammy ... money isn't just necessary to have nice stuff here, its also necessary for one's basic well being. This, I think, provides a markedly increased impetus for property crimes ranging from simple muggings to corporate embezzlement. No other sizable country has the combination of material wealth (consumer culture) and healthcare/education poverty that the US has.
     
saab95
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Feb 14, 2005, 12:28 PM
 
Originally posted by MacGorilla:
A friend of mine sent me this definition of a backward nation. Food for thought.
REAL characteristics of a backward nation (not necesarily in order):

1. Run by a totalitarian government.

2. Individual rights and property rights are not protected; instead, the residents of such backward country are servants to the government.

3. Very important- the backward country has not adapted any form of industrialization.

4. Clean water and sanitary sewage are not elements of a backward nation

5. Education does not exist, or, if it does, it is primitive and doesn't relate to modern times.

That's some good material to start with.
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malvolio
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Feb 15, 2005, 02:32 AM
 
Originally posted by Krusty:
Re: Mithras post on black people. An AMAZING(ly bad) 1 in 3 black males will be incarcerated at some point in their lives .. compared to 1 in 17 white males. One would really have to stretch the limits of credulity to argue that blacks honestly commit nearly 6x the number of crimes as white people per capita.
A first-time drug offender (other than dealers) is likely to get probation and/or treatment if he/she is white. If he/she is black, it's jail time.
Racist? The USA? Noooo....

And a nation where more than half the population believes in religious mythology instead of sound science is definitely backward.
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