This has been an interesting thread. How much of this has to do with wanting to keep your own cultural distinctiveness separate from England? From my limited American perspective, I see two huge islands. One island is called Ireland but it's divided for whatever reason (politics, religion, cultural ideosyncracies, etc). Peter G has made it clear that Ireland is two separate countries. Then there's the other big Island with 3 "countries" that are part of the same kingdom. I'm pretty sure the long history of these islands has to play into why there's all this division. I've never been across the pond so I guess this American culture has kept me insulated. I guess what I really love about the USA is that you can drive for thousands of miles and you use the same currency, everyone speaks the same language (unless you wander into Miami, then you're screwed if you don't speak Castillian...), no border patrols stopping you from leaving one state and entering another. There's so much to see here. As much as I'd love to visit the UK and Europe in general there's still a lot of places I've never been to in the US. Anyway.......
Well, you'd have to admit that there's a bit of a difference between misspeaking in public and saying "I don't recall" or "I don't remember" 88 times (there are considerably higher counts of such claims) during a hearing about an illegal trading of arms for hostages with Iran.
"The White Zone is for loading and unloading only. If you got to load or unload go to the White Zone!"
In a nutshell, it places profit before people. Jumpstarted under Reagan, accelerated under Clinton, and now pretty much the status quo.
http://www.chomsky.info/onchomsky/19990401.htm
http://www.newstatesman.com/south-am...emocracy-latin
Not to derail this thread any further, but this is why some of us wouldn't really mind chucking the whole system and starting over. It's rotten to the core. Arms for hostages vs. targeted IRS attacks ... covering up criminal activity vs. engaging in criminal activity ... like one is somehow morally superior to the other. Yet the Red and Blue true believers argue with each other as if their side is so much better, while all the cronies in Washington work together for their own benefit and sell us all down the river. Keep your eye on the ball, folks. They're all in it together and don't care about us. Their goal is to keep you distracted and arguing with each other -- and most of the time, sadly, it works all too well.
Meet the new boss...same as the old boss...
-=Will you stand by me against the cold night, or are you afraid of the ice?=-
Vote is over. Nothing to see here...
WANTED: Sig-worthy quote.
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