ajax18 wrote:You don't seem anything like Ragnar Lothbrok to me.
Yeah Gunnar, you don't seem at all like a dude with multiple failed marriages that would take over a hundred men hostage after attacking a city without provocation, and then hang them all on an island to honor Odin.
Why don't you grow a pair, and return to your roots.
I guess I'm just a hopeless disgrace and disappointment to my Viking ancestors!
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
EAllusion wrote:The US government paid reparations to Japanese-American citizens it put in concentration camps. That occurred under Ronald Reagan.
I know Chinese people enslaved by Mitsubishi during WWII successfully sued their Japanese captors for slave labor damages in California state court. I'm not sure if they were ever able to collect on that judgment?
I know in Germany school children are taught to be anti Hitler and how wrong Germany was for WWI and WWII. Does Japan offer similar reeducation of their population for their offenses in WWII? As far as I know all they are taught is how wrong America was to resort to the nuclear option.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
EAllusion wrote:There’s a certain kind of conservative who will go on and on about what a dumpster fire America is, ...
That was Donald Trump before the election (srsly, ajax, look it up). Immediately afterwards he began with his crowing about how awesome his nonexistent policies had turned us into the economic envy of the world. Amazing how fast that changed, right?
I guess I'm just a hopeless disgrace and disappointment to my Viking ancestors!
My only explanation is that the strongest Scandinavians sailed to England to fight while the weak ones remained in Scandinavia.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
Gunnar's homeland is looking more like the middle east now anyway. They're being bred out of existence pretty quickly. Their "tolerant" liberal culture is being driven out of their homelands by Islam and replaced by Sharia law. Given Gunnar's political views i think he and i both would agree that's good thing.
Last edited by ICCrawler - ICjobs on Wed May 01, 2019 12:09 pm, edited 1 time in total.
And when the confederates saw Jackson standing fearless as a stone wall the army of Northern Virginia took courage and drove the federal army off their land.
ajax18 wrote:...I know in Germany school children are taught to be anti Hitler and how wrong Germany was for WWI and WWII. Does Japan offer similar reeducation of their population for their offenses in WWII? As far as I know all they are taught is how wrong America was to resort to the nuclear option.
As far as you know? Did you make this up, or are you relying on somebody else that did?
This is somewhat of a personal topic for me, because I have a couple of family connections to Japan. My great-great-grandfather immigrated to Japan in 1872 as a Presbyterian Minister, and lived the remaining 48 years of his life there. He is now buried in Yokohama. My grandfather was one of the engineers who built the nuclear bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki. He was horrified and felt betrayed by Truman. He personally paid for multiple victims who were mutilated by the bombs to come to the U.S. for plastic surgery.
A couple of years ago I went to Japan to see my ancestor's grave, and to visit the monuments and museums at Nagasaki. The exhibits were striking because not only did they not imply "how wrong America was," they didn't even mention America. At all.. I'm sure there had to have been a few exceptions, but they were so few you could tell there was a deliberate decision not to make it about villainizing America.
I found an article on this from the New York Times that was published on the 50th anniversary of the bombing. Here are some quotes:
I've never had a grudge against the United States," said Mrs. Abe. "Japan also did lots of things in the war. The bomb didn't drop out of the blue. It happened in the process of war."
Yashito Matsushige, a newspaper photographer who took the only pictures known to have been taken in Hiroshima on the day of the blast, said that he, too, feels no resentment at America for dropping the bomb.
"It's not a question of whether the bomb was good or bad," Mr. Matsushige said. "The war was bad, and these kinds of wretched scenes happened because the war started in the first place."
At Funairi High School, which 50 years ago lost nearly 700 students to the bomb, a group of students said they had no resentments against Americans. The students said no one, not even the descendants of atomic bomb victims, would possibly have any objection to an American boyfriend or girlfriend....
In part, the graciousness toward Americans may be rooted in something that foreigners often complain about: Japanese schoolbooks. Critics point out that Japanese students barely learn about the atrocities committed by the imperial army, but for balance they hardly learn about the atomic bombing, either.
The textbooks, which are censored by the Japanese Government, seem intended to avoid unpleasantness of every sort. They give only cursory attention to Japan's invasion of China and attack on Pearl Harbor, sometimes describing them in a way that makes them sound like natural disasters unrelated to human behavior, and they treat the atomic bombing in a similar way.
In an extreme case, one high school history textbook says only: "In August 1945, atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and then on Nagasaki" -- without even indicating that it was the United States that dropped the bomb. One survey found that among students in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, 10 percent did not know which country had dropped the bombs....
If there is a "victim consciousness," its shrine is the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum. Schoolchildren throughout Japan pass through it and see pictures of mutilated humans, but they see very little to explain why the bomb was dropped.
The museum does not demonize America for dropping the bomb, but rather it directs its message at calls for peace and nuclear disarmament. That, too, is one of the most profound legacies of Hiroshima, for it has reinforced a passionate horror of war that remains central to Japanese politics today.
Japan vows never to develop nuclear weapons and never to send troops abroad to fight. Only 46 percent of the Japanese public favor resisting with force even if Japan were invaded, according to a Government poll.
It’s relatively easy to agree that only Homo sapiens can speak about things that don’t really exist, and believe six impossible things before breakfast. You could never convince a monkey to give you a banana by promising him limitless bananas after death in monkey heaven.
Ajax, by most measures, Norway is doing just fine, thank you. They are not in danger of being "bred out of existence", as you seem to think. It remains true that their cultural heritage and traditions are still strong and vibrant, and celebrated in cultural festivals every year by those of Norwegian descent, both in Norway and in numerous place in the USA (including our local Sons of Norway Chapter in the city where I currently reside). Judging by conversations with my Norwegian relatives who occasionally visit us here in America, they are a happy, competent, prosperous, well educated and optimistic people--and so are, believe it or not, many of the fairly recent immigrants to Norway from various other countries, who are being successfully integrated into and contributing positively to present day Norwegian society, despite the few bigots that exist even in Norway.
I fervently hope for and look forward to the day when hateful and ignorant bigots like you are the ones bred out of existence. Unfortunately, that day will probably never come, but hopefully their number can be steadily reduced over time.
Last edited by Guest on Wed May 01, 2019 12:54 am, edited 5 times in total.
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
Analytics, thank you so much for your comments concerning your family connections to Japan and how the Japanese currently view us! I found them very informative, inspiring and encouraging! I imagine that Dr. Shades could tell us a lot about that subject too!
No precept or claim is more likely to be false than one that can only be supported by invoking the claim of Divine authority for it--no matter who or what claims such authority.
“If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; but if you really make them think, they'll hate you.”
― Harlan Ellison
I guess I'm just a hopeless disgrace and disappointment to my Viking ancestors!