...Nice try. But you are trying to compare treatment of prisoners captured in conflict to rights enjoyed by citizens/residents of a country. I know of no country that affords POWs or enemy combatants the same rights they do their own citizens or even visitors to their country...

Quite honestly, this is one of the most chilling statements I have heard on this forum.
Have you never heard of the Geneva Conventions, or are you echoing one of your politicians (I forget his name) who said that they were a quaint anachronism.
I grieve to see what has happened to "my" America where I have many friends. How can any country claim the moral high ground, if it practises torture as a matter of course.
If someone had told me twenty years ago that the United States would be holding people for years without trial and routinely torturing them, I would have laughed in their face.

It's not the US, it those "politicians" and the people that excuse their evil deeds for the sake of "security" and "fighting tr**orists". Like many others, I too do hope things get "back on track" and the culprits will be punished some day. Will the other guy really bring a change? I've no idea, if he really wants to and I doubt, he'll be influential enough.

<i>Quite honestly, this is one of the most chilling statements I have heard on this forum.</i>

Where did I make a value judgement about torture? I simply pointed out that you are comparing apples and oranges. Don't jump to the conclusion that I support torture.

The discussion was about the rights that citizens (and to some extent residents) enjoy in the US vs other countries. This is completely separate from questions about treatment of POWs and enemy combatants. Feel free to criticize the practices of the US in Iraq if you want. Heck, list it as a reason not to move to the US, if you like. But it would be a separate discussion from one about rights and freedoms enjoyed in the US versus elsewhere.

&quot;If someone had told me twenty years ago that the United States would be holding people for years without trial and routinely torturing them, I would have laughed in their face.&quot;

You're assigning a new meaning to &quot;torture&quot; than was used 20 years ago if you insist that what's going on today is &quot;torture&quot;. That aside...

The U.S. has routinely held people without trial - even it's own - in time of war. Heard of Manzanar??

The fact is that this country is pretty damned sensitive about attacks on its own and usually reacts with force.

20 years ago I might have laughed myself at the notion that a dinghy might try to take down the USS Cole, or that some relgious freaks might encourage children to strap on explosives to take out the infidels, or that anyone would dream of boarding a commercial flight and commandeering it into the Twin Towers.

It's just possible that extraordinary times do call for extraordinary measures, even if some are stuck in a pre-9/11 mindset.

The discussion is interesting but, surely, of more importance than gun control (or lack thereof and health care (of lack thereof) is the position on baggy pants!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/usa3

It was nice of Sue to say that my comments were insightful, but this reply is aimed at Flanner, who suggested that those of my family who emigrated &quot;weren't up to it back home&quot;.

Having followed the lives of the family members who went to Illinois, I know that through the 19th and early 20th century they were more successful financially than those who remained in England. They had their own businesses, and were better educated.

At the beginning of the 21st century, there is probably little difference in social status, with the English family just as likely to have enjoyed higher education and to be doing professional jobs.

Religious persuasion may not be inherited. In the US, I know of family members who are or were Mormons, Lutherans, Methodists, Mennonites and other, more local, churches. Over here, we have a Baptist minister in the family.

The wealthiest person in my immediate family is my wife's brother, who went to work in California 27 years ago, married an American wife, and worked in the oil industry. He has now bought a second home back in England.

Saggy pants and builder's cleavage.
Now that is the clincher.
I definitely won't be returning ;-)

&quot;You realize, I guess, that Australian society has a reputation for being racist, not egalitarian. I'm not saying you are or it's true, I'm just surprised at the discrepancy between outside perception and inside perception. I've never been to Australia, so I don't have an opinion about it.&quot;

- A reputation among whom, zeppole? I venture to suggest, probably the same sort of people who've never visited America but are prepared to accuse it of numerous sins (racism included) based on sensationalist media reports.

&quot;I'm not saying you are...&quot;

- Well, gee, thanks.

From casey:

&quot;Also, you cannot tell me that if someone entered your home intending to cause harm to you or your family that you would not wish you had a gun. It's a no brainer. You shoot that SOB.&quot;

- And this is precisely the sort of harebrained, unrepresentative comment that convinces many foreigners that Americans are crazy.

how is protecting your family from harm crazy?

The vast majority of people living outside of the USA - certainly in this country - would associate keeping a gun in one's house against the remote possibility of a break-in as somewhat deranged behaviour. Nor would they entertain the thought of actually using one.

The only break-ins I've known of (including our single experience) took place while no-one was at home, and the object was invariably theft on the part of some pathetic addict who'd have run for dear life if confronted. I'd be very, very surprised if this caused any of the victims to contemplate arming themselves.

They wouldn't have been allowed to acquire a firearm anyway, certainly not without a better reason than that. The fact that the great majority of Australians support the present gun control laws indicates that they don't feel particularly threatened by not being allowed to play Wyatt Earp in their own homes. It seems to be a peculiarly American problem.

Thanks Neil, for stating the obvious. :-)

All right, the bleeding obvious. And of course trying to tar all Americans with the same brush - although in retrospect that mightn't have been as obvious as I'd have wished.

I don't think any of my American friends own a shooter, or feel any need to. On the other hand I admit to having an Australian friend who does keep a rifle, just in case. But he's from Queensland.

Wow Neil, Wyatt Earp? Is that what you think were doing? Waiting for someone to break in so we can shoot them?

Look, it's a means of protection that we as citizens of the USA are allowed to have. Some poeple exercise that right and some people don't. Just because you don't have that right doesn't it make us wrong for exercising it.

As far as assuming that someone would just run away after being caught is just that, an assumption. You can't know what they'll do, it's impossible. Besides, all it takes it one loser to break in while high on meth or some other drug to freak out on you and attack. It's just a risk a lot of Americans are not willing to take.

Obviously you live in some sort of utopian world where everybody is whistling happy tunes and prancing down the street tipping their hat to every old lad in sight. Well, in America we have crime. We have murder, assaults, robberies, rapes, kidnapping and the list goes on and on. That is the reality of our country. Though it is a small chance that something like that could occur to you or in your home their is still a chance.

Now are we going to just lay down and let it happen to us or are we going to protect ourselves, our homes and our families? Well, you may just want to die but I and many other Americans don't.

And I am sick of the criminals always having more defendants then the victims. So what if you shoot somebody who breaks into your home to do no good? Should it be okay for them to break into your home? If I broke into somebody's house I would hope they would shoot me because obviously my life wouldn't be worth living if I had to do that. It's great that you don't like guns, I don't necassarily do either. Do I wish their were no guns in my country. You damn right I do. But there are, millions of them. Many Americans find owning a gun no different then having a good medical insurance policy. Even if you will never need it at least you have it if you do.

No-one is saying that the US is wrong in having its gun laws. It's your country, have whatever laws you like.

Why are you unable to accept that other people may not want to live with those laws? That's all we are saying. If you have the right to live in a country with guns, we have the right not to.

Why are you taking this discussion so personally? You clearly feel that the US is the best country in the whole world. OK. That's nice. Lots of other people feel that way about their own countries too. Can't you understand that non-Americans are probably not going to agree with you on that? You can't expect the entire world to feel the way you do. So what?

what the hell are you talking about?

nona1's post about sums it up for me. And casey, you may have had a different set of responses if you hadn't implied that other countries are deficient in the civil liberties stakes in imposing strict limits on private gun ownership. Most of us actually feel that our rights as human beings are enhanced by prohibiting private arsenals.

And while the rest of us don't suffer American levels of violent crime we don't live in innocent utopias either. In fact it was a massacre by a nut wielding a semi-automatic rifle that led to all Australian governments agreeing to tighten up the gun laws here - with the overwhelming support of the people.

If I were American I think I'd be asking why it is that the crime levels you cite are so high, and what can and should be done about it. But as nona1 says, that's your business.

&gt;&gt;&gt;The vast majority of people living outside of the USA - certainly in this country - would associate keeping a gun in one's house against the remote possibility of a break-in as somewhat deranged behaviour.

&gt;&gt;&gt;It seems to be a peculiarly American problem.

Yeah, cause comments like these sure make it seem like you don't care about us having guns.

&gt;&gt;&gt;If I were American I think I'd be asking why it is that the crime levels you cite are so high, and what can and should be done about it.

Well we can start by shooting them. That would take care of quite a bit of the criminals.

Casey, We’ve tried to have a reasonable conversation with you. However, as an American in another thread started by you put it,

“Must be the season for the tree's to drop idiots in quantity.......
Dropped smack on the top of their pointy little heads.”

Asking questions is good. Refusing to hear the answers isn’t. Go to east or west of the US, young man, and see it for yourself. You need to see the world. It will surprise you.

Neil_O, Has tightening gun laws there made a measurable difference? I'm all for it. Or at least make them stop selling bullets.