Absolutely spot on Teri, but I just want to clarify a couple of things...

I didn't write the comment about "The USA want to be a World POLICE"...
However, while I agree with what you say, I can only assume Dietmar meant
the USA Government, and not the individual people (and hell, probably not
even all the USA Government want that authority?).

I quoted it however, because one of the responses it generated was deeply
offensive, and racist.  While the USA comment was probably misinterpreted,
or at least, could have been written better, it was not, to my knowledge, a
vitriolic attack on any US citizen, on or off list, and certainly didn't
warrant the comeback it received.  Given the capitalisation of the word
"POLICE" in the sentence, I see that comment as a simple play on words.

Like I said, it could have been written better, but people seem to jump in
before taking everything into account (and I know I've been guilty of that
in the past).


I also don't want to be accused of trolling..... For some reason, the post
that just came through was delayed at my smtp server for 24 hours, so should
have gone through yesterday, rather than coming through today, making it
look like I'm just out picking fights.  I'm not.

And anyone who thinks I am, bite me.

But seriously, things have become pretty heated in the last few days - but
I'm still friends with the lot of you.

I wonder if it's mutual...  ;-)

J.






-----Original Message-----
From: police-bounces@mailman.xmission.com
[mailto:police-bounces@mailman.xmission.com] On Behalf Of Teri Kronberg
Sent: 24 November 2003 22:59
To: police@mailman.xmission.com
Subject: RE: [Police] Weirdo Whining....



We don't carry the weight of our countries on our shoulders.  We don't
suffer with responsibility for the wrongs, or bask in the
rights of those who came before us.  The truth is that we as individuals are
responsible for our own actions, burdens, beliefs
(religous or political, etc.), failures and successes.  Personally, I refuse
to take the responsibility for actions of my ancestors
(and some were especially henius), much less the actions of
strangers who just happen to have been born in the same country.

>The USA want to be a World POLICE. So for a POLICE mailing list
>mentioning the Chief of the World Police is within the rules...

Allow me to explain the potential offense (not disparaging truth?)
of this statement.  For one things, it lumps together all
Americans, even those who do not support the actions and policies
of the government and/or it's Chief of Police.  It does nothing but make
individual Americans (on the basis alone of being
American) feel they are being held responsible for the policy it
states.  It's not true that the entire USA wants to Police
the world, since not every individual within it's borders
supports that policy.  It's a useless general statement directed at the
person responsible for American policy (which is no one on this list).

I hope my thoughts makes sense.

Teri

-- "Jason Sheldon" <jason@digital-solutionsco.uk> wrote:
We all come from countries that have a past not to be proud of...
Coming from Britain, I'm not proud that we occupied a huge chunk of the
world and exploted it's people....  But then, my country decides to join a
war I object to without asking my opinion, so I come from a country that has
a present not to be proud of as well...

J.


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