It's supposed to mean that right now the USA is so overpowering that they can do whatever they like, and nobody can do anything but complain to no avail. They haven't done anything gross so far, of course, but it's still not an ideal situation. And I don't mean we would need a dictatorship like the USSR to counterbalance the USA, but we could use another democracy to do that. Too bad that's not going to happen...

Indeed.

Lassev--but having one person in power also makes things a lot easier in some areas. Take the recent dispute about the internet being split up--if the US weren't more powerful than the EU we might not be able to HAVE this debate right now.

Yeah. The USA has handled Internet well enough so far. But if for some reason the US gov wanted to cripple the Net, it could also do that. Internet isn't just an American thing anymore. Well, since I don't see why anything like that would happen in the foreseeable future, that issue is pretty dead to me. And everybody knows that if the EU was in charge, not the USA, the Net wouldn't work nearly as well as it does right now.

But Internet and global politics and military power balance aren't the same thing. Yet. For a person living in the US the situation right now might look like the best possible one, but not necessarily for the rest of us living elsewhere.

We've done well, and save for the last 6 years or so our Presidents have done a good job of handling the massive responsibility we have to the world. It may SEEM like there could be a better alternative, but you forget the fact that so many people fight to have their opinions expressed, their wants answered, etc is what makes a government so inefficient.

The US is like a parent--we do our damnedest to stay responsible and do the right thing. Sometimes that works...sometimes it doesn't, but for the most part we end up doing okay. There's no reason not to trust the US really--we're not some rogue nation who has nothing to lose and can do whatever we want.

[QUOTE=Dj Yoshi]...do whatever we want.[/QUOTE]

...except invade Iraq with a big "**** you" to the rest of the world.[/size]

Don't get me wrong - I'm simply saying that you may be...glorifying...the U.S. a bit.

Note the "Except for the last 6 years" bit :p

we all know what that means...TOASTED CHEESE FOR ALL!!!! huzzah!!

stop terrorism AND world hunger...Massassi may have just saved the world

oh but first lets buy some deserts where the new beaches will be so we can get loaded.

I ****ing hate this thread.

Why's that?

Because nukes are dirty, and Shintock is an Extremely Clean Frenchman. Makes sense he hates this thread.

...parce qu' il est Francais (sorta)?

Il n'est pas français. Il est québécois.

Je suis americain!

[QUOTE=Commander 598]Did anyone feel that...?

Felt like the Maginot Line was turning in it's grave...[/QUOTE]

The Germans are going to attack France?

Je sais, mais j'expliquais pourquois Shintock etait (bah, I give up, I stopped studying French 4 years ago. What's the word for pissed off?)

Well, that's a given. The French are our arch-enemies. No hard feelings, it's just that we hate them.

LOL you're funny... you act like the USA is tring to take over the world or something.. Trust me lassev, when you live in the US it's a very ideal situation to be in.

Don't ya'all think its funny how the Americans hate the French so much yet if France didn't help the colonists back in the Revolutionary War, the United States probably would not have existed?

you're right!

if it wasnt for dem damnable frenchies, us Brits would still own you all and have our Glorious empire.

if(getThingFlags(source) & 0x8){
  do her}
elseif(getThingFlags(source) & 0x4){
  do other babe}
else{
  do a dude}

Not at all. Maybe you tried to read my post with a preconception like that, instead?

If there was only one doctor in the world, would you gladly trust him to always make the right decision on a treatment needed for a sickness? If there were two doctors, and they agreed on something, I think it would be quite a relief. If they didn't agree, you wouldn't be so fast to trust the first one. Dj Yoshi said it oft makes things easier when there is only one entity making the decisions. Perhaps that is so, but sometimes two heads are wiser than just one.

Heh, the one-entity deal is... like a dictatorship, or something a la Thomas Hobbes. Iraq is a pristine example of that; they weren't really a threat in the immediate sense, but because, in essence, they "ticked us off", we got rid of them. Now, if we had an opponent, or at least, a real check to our power, things like this wouldn't be so easy to do. As it is, we can do pretty much whatever we want; bugger to what anyone else says. Which, as you said, isn't ideal for everyone-but-us.

Then again, a lot of this conflict stems from back when there WAS two super powers, the US and the USSR. Many countries got screwed in the middle. The only "ideal" situation is if every country is an equal power, that way there are no overpowering bullies. However, there are obvious problems with that as well.

They're also the first nation we had a conflict with once we were independant.

Bad analogy. There's still other doctors--we can just ignore what they say if we want.

If it was not for us (and by us I mean U.S.) in WWII Frenchies would still be goosesteping.

- we are even

but yes it is funny, they sure took their freaking time though.

French people are cocky.

Don't mistake their involvement for anything but an attempt to piss off the British.

You realize that was like 7 French governments ago right?