[smoothy]

what on Earth are you talking about? you are a media driven society and the whole thing is an act, you don't like what you see on TV turn it off as to arrogance there is nothing as arrogant as an american outside america

Right... listen to yourself.. EVERYTHING you know about almost everything not in your own back yard you get from a biased media no different than most other people on the planet.

Have you spent much time outside your own country? Or someplace that has a lot of foreign tourists? I'm guessing you haven't... because you'd know... a LOT of foreign traveling tourists are arrogant... because most of them are... "oh look at me, I am special because I can afford to do this while you go about your boring lives" Not even thinking how many OTHER people can and do... usually far, far more often than they do.

[paraclete]

Right... listen to yourself.. EVERYTHING you know about almost everything not in your own back yard you get from a biased media no different than most other people on the planet.

Have you spent much time outside your own country? Or someplace that has a lot of foreign tourists? I'm guessing you haven't... because you'd know... a LOT of foreign traveling tourists are arrogant... because most of them are... "oh look at me, I am special because I can afford to do this while you go about your boring lives" Not even thinking how many OTHER people can and do... usually far, far more often than they do.

Yes I have spent a lot of time outside my own country in Europe and Asia as well as observing tourists here from time to time, but you have identified the problem there are people who think they are doing you a favour by blessing your country with their presence and like you really need their opinion. Tourists who come to a place that is different to their own have to recognise that there is a difference for a reason. If you just want to go to a place that looks the same and feels the same stay home

[smoothy]

Some of the most arrogant are those from the poorer countries... because the ones that managed to save enough to travel think they are so superior... since many of their fellow countrymen are lucky to own a pair of shoes... and have windows in their shack. I'm guessing a lot of them had been saving their entire lives to make that one trip... I guess I notice it a lot because it really isn't a big deal to me (after something like 27 trips back and forth... the excitement really is a distant memory)... so its hard to remember the excitement they must feel... but I have been around far too many of the uppity type. I used to think it was a result of the caste system... then I realized it goes well beyond that when I saw that among most other geographic and ethnic groups.

[paraclete]

It's just pride and this is reinforced in certain national and religious characteristics, "it's better where I come from" syndrome and I always say, well if it is better why did you leave? personally I like the place where I live to stay the way it is, it doesn't need the latest overseas influences, they will find their way here soon enough but here's the catch, someone thinks that tourism should be encouraged whereas I wonder what on the Earth the attraction of where I live is to a coach load of asian tourists, have they come to see our wide tree lined streets?, our neat houses? our well laid out cities? have they come to see the lack of traffic or a place devoid of large rivers? have they come to see buildings that are no older than two hundred years? do they expect to see mobs of kangaroo in the streets or even the paddocks? don't they have mountains? oceans?

[talaniman]

Tourism is good, running from regional problems is not so great. Tourist go home after vacation to a life, refugees don't have that luxury. Some immigrants forget where they came from after they have arrived and done better.

I suppose its human nature in many cases to forget your own struggles in the humble beginnings and feeling entitled and self righteous when you have arrived. Or is it a character flaw of humans to have no empathy, sympathy, or understanding of the desperation you have forgotten. Or the gratitude to have the opportunity to do better.

For sure we all need a place to run from our fears, and some of us found what others are looking for. Some think they are entitled to look down their noses at those who have not ARRIVED yet, simply because they remember others who look down at them.

Be grateful you have the choice to be sympathetic, or an A$$HOLE. A tourist, or a refugee.

[paraclete]

I am grateful to look out the window and see the fog and know it will lift to a bright day and to know I will have to deal with a minimum of, as you put it, a$$holes. I can be sympathetic for those who are disadvantaged for various reasons but we now have more refugees in the world than we have had in sixty years and all because of the actions of a few thousand religious nuts and I ask myself how is it that the 60 million haven't just risen up and overwhelmed these nuts and one word comes to mind fear. It is our own hands to stop this nonsense but nothing will change until those most affected take matters into their own hands

[smoothy]

If you aren't willing to fight for your own country, then well... you have earned the right to be looked down upon with disdain by others who would.

Israel has females fighting for their country... so can the others.

They don't have the moral right to break our laws because its "Incoinvienient" for them to get in line like so many others do every day.

[NeedKarma]

If you aren't willing to fight for your own country, then well... you have earned the right to be looked down upon with disdain by others who would.

So by your logic, everyone who is not in the armed forces should "be looked down upon with disdain by others"? Is that it?

[smoothy]

So by your logic, everyone who is not in the armed forces should "be looked down upon with disdain by others"? Is that it?

You don't HAVE to be in the armed forces to fight for your country... particularly in these third world hell holes. In fact in a few of them... they are part of the problem.

[paraclete]

we have seen the expressions of people power over the past fifty years, when the people decide they have had enough, regimes fall, so why can't they take on a few radicals with the same ferocity handed out to them, there is only one way to deal with these radicals anniliation and the force to do it is not the military but the people, they know who they are

An I have long said Islam represents a fifth column in western countries and look now, western governments are acting to prevent the jihadists from returning. the lesson is, if you want to be a ratbag, don't expect to be welcomed home as a hero

[smoothy]

Here we have Obama saying on video... what conservatives have been saying all along... and the left has been arguing he's never said muchless intended.

[NeedKarma]

An edited video that smoothy believes without doing any research whatsoever - I'm shocked!

Here's the full context

"But those ideals have also been tested, here in Europe and around the world. Those ideals have often been threatened by an older, more traditional view of power. This alternative vision argues that ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign. Often this alternative vision roots itself in the notion that by virtue of race or faith or ethnicity, some are inherently superior to others and that individual identity must be defined by us versus them, or that national greatness must flow not by what people stand for, but what they are against."

Small minded people blindly believe what others tell them, it's always good to go to the source to verify.

[paraclete]

clearly there are people who handle the stress of office better than others thus suggesting there are the governed and the governors, throughout history there are exceptional individuals