Actually you were the only one who was asking stupid questions about the President, the Congress and the American people. I never asked any questions about those, so there were no stupid questions for you to reflect upon and thus the stupidity of your comments must have been drawn from your own ideas about American politics.

I would say that this statement is nothing more than a sham. You acknowledge my question as a question and then in the very next statement you say that it is "alleging." You just said that it is a question. So what you say is not consistent with itself. On the one hand you say that that sentence is a question and then you say that it is "alleging." You are maintaining that it is two different things. Before you break your arm patting yourself on the back for all the things you've assumed, maybe you should strive for a little bit of consistency first.

Your mischaracterization of my comments as absurd is based upon your failed trap of saying that you reflected my question with another question. As I never asked you a question about the US's population or government you have failed even in the execution of this worthless trap. Your trap would have failed even if it had been executed properly, but you failed to even execute it properly so that it makes sense, and thus it's quite pathetic.

None of this defends the assumption in your comment or "article" or whatever it is. Your article assumes that the US is one man: I presume the one person is the President. This assumption is easily disproven by showing that not only is there a President who determines policy, but there are also 535 congressmen. Understanding the basic facts disproves your key assumption.

As for deviating, deviating can be avoided if you can refrain from asking stupid questions, strawman tactics and having difficulties in analyzing simple facts.


WEB

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Now if we can at least have someone who does not ask stupid questions to defend their argument! ""

In any case, the question is not the consistency or inconsistency of US foreign policy but of the homogoneity or mixture of foreign policies advocated by different US public officials. Where your argument fails, is that it treats the US government as one person, when the major actors who determine US foreign policy actually number 536! So 536 people who have different foreign policies is not inconsistent, it is not HOMOGENOUS. Applying common sense, we should not expect any free society to be composed of 536 national representative who have the same opinion. Really, your criticism of US foreign policy appears to be little more than an attempt to discredit the concept of democracy because you believe in Chinese authoritarianism and concentrate mostly in advancing Chinese nationalism.

I'm sorry that you feel the Chinese people are not intelligent enough to govern themselves. I disagree with that.


WEB

__________________
"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

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Dear Du Bois,

First, I wish to comment on your first question "Is this an article from somewhere on the internet?" This question is rude and insulting bordering on absurdity. Tempers would definitely flare up if everybody begins his message with such a question in all the forums on the Internet.

Try asking any writer or author this question at a book promotion but prepare yourself for any eventuality by wearing a crash helmet: "Is your story or idea from somewhere else?"

When I said "the U.S. is suffering from Parkinson's Disease or some sorts of mental problems with the result that 'the left hand does not know what the right hand is doing'", I was criticizing the inconsistency of the U.S. foreign policy by comparing the U.S. political establishment to a person with a dual personality. It is flawed reasoning and lack of common sense for you to take my analogy literally by labelling it as an "initial assumption" and bringing out the irrelevant point that "the US is not composed of one person, but 300 million".

Taking another example, sometime ago I saw a cartoon in a Southeast Asian country's Chinese newspaper satiring the Japanese government's policy on wartime atrocities. The cartoon depicted a Japanese man bowing low in apology but standing back to back behind him was a Sumo wrestler bowing to the notorious Japanese war shrine. It would be illogical for a Japanese reader who saw the cartoon to argue that the cartoon was flawed by highlighting the huge population of Japan. What the cartoon represented figuratively was the Japanese political establishment. So is my analogy with the U.S. It is absurd to take the analogy literally by highlighting the entire U.S. population of 300 million people.

Well this comment is totally wrong. I will leave it to each individual member on this forum to come to their own conclusion to see if it was right or wrong for me to ask "Is this an article from somewhere on the internet?" Most people will say that it was a fair and necessary question as the forum rules state that people must post their opinion on any article they present to start a thread.

I'll keep that in mind for when this internet forum magically transforms itself into a Barnes & Nobles. Thanks for the tip.

Well let's make this nice and simple. Your point of reference seems to be China, which definitely operates more along the lines of a hive mentality. A handful of men (probably the CCP standing committee) agree on one course of action and the Party Chairman is the one who delivers that set of policies. Obviously, the US is not an oligarchy and one would only expect total homogeneity of opinion from each member of Congress and the President in an actual democracy like the US.


WEB

__________________
"Of course the fact that a person believes in racial equality doesn't prove that he's a communist...but it certainly makes you look twice, doesn't it? You can't get away from the fact that racial equality is part of the communist line." - Joseph McCarthy

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Dear Du Bois,

Some more comments on your first question: "Is this an article from somewhere on the internet?"

It is rude, insulting and annoying bordering on absurdity, with mischievous implication if not allegation.

Another of your mischievous implication is found in your so-called presumption: "Your article assumes that the US is one man: I presume the one person is the President."

As I had said before, I used the term U.S. for the political establishment of the country, as is the usual practice of newspapers. Don't tell me that your countrymen, including you, are foolish enough to elect a Parkinson Disease patient to be their President.

You said: "In any case, the question is not the consistency or inconsistency of US foreign policy but of the homogoneity or mixture of foreign policies advocated by different US public officials. Where your argument fails, is that it treats the US government as one person, when the major actors who determine US foreign policy actually number 536! So 536 people who have different foreign policies is not inconsistent, it is not HOMOGENOUS. "

If "the major actors who determine US foreign policy actually number 536!" as claimed by you, the U.S. might as well set up 536 Departments of State headed by 536 Secretaries of State! And you have the cheeks to claim that "536 people who have different foreign policies is not inconsistent, it is not HOMOGENOUS".

In other words, all other countries must prepare to cope with 536 different foreign policies in its dealing with the U.S. It must also prepare to sign 536 accords in every dealing with the U.S. You have the cheeks to consider 536 foreign policies as one consistent policy. How ridiculous! It sounds like a fairy tale from the Arabian Nights!