Robin Williams for President?

[Bruce]

Robin

William's plan.

"I see a lot of people yelling for peace but I have not heard of a plan
for peace. So,

here's one plan.

1.) The US will apologize to the world for our "interference" in their
affairs, past &

present. You know, Hitler, Mussolini, Tojo, Noriega,
Milosevic and the rest of those 'good ole boys,' We will

never "interfere"
again.

2.) We will withdraw our troops from all over the world, starting

with
Germany, South Korea and the Philippines. They don't want us there. We
would station troops at our

borders. No one sneaking through holes in the fence.

3.) All illegal aliens have 90 days to get their affairs

together and
leave. We'll give them a free trip home. After 90 days the remainder will be gathered up and

deported immediately, regardless of who or where they are. France would welcome them.

4.) All future visitors

will be thoroughly checked and limited to 90 days
unless given a special permit. No one from a terrorist nation

would be
allowed in. If you don't like it there, change it yourself and don't hide
here. Asylum would never

be available to anyone. We don't need any more cab drivers or 7-11 cashiers.

5.) No foreign "students" over

age 21. The older ones are the bombers. If they don't attend classes, they get a "D" and it's back home

baby.

6.) The US will make a strong effort to become self-sufficient energy
wise. This will include

developing nonpolluting sources of energy but will
require a temporary drilling of oil in the Alaskan wilderness.

The caribou will have to cope for a while.

7.) Offer Saudi Arabia and other oil producing countries $10 a

barrel for
their oil. If they don't like it, we go some place else. They can go
somewhere else to sell their

production. (About a week of the wells
filling up the storage sites would be enough.)

8.) If there is a

famine or other natural catastrophe in the world, we
will not "interfere." They can pray to Allah or whomever,

for seeds, rain,
cement or whatever they need. Besides most of what we give them is stolen or given to the army.

The people who need it most get very little, if anything.

9.) Ship the UN Headquarters to an isolated island

some place. We don't
need the spies and fair weather friends here! Besides, the building would make a good

homeless shelter or lockup for illegal aliens.

10.) All Americans must go to charm and beauty school. That

way, no one can call us "Ugly Americans" any longer. The Language we speak is
ENGLISH.....learn it...or

LEAVE...Now, isn't that a winner of a plan.

"The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying 'Give me your poor,

your tired,
your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and she's yelling,
'You want a piece of

me?'"

[Pancho1188]

Gooooooooooooooooooooooooooooood Morning USA!!!

[belgareth]

He's got my vote! I knew I

liked the guy.

[Holmes]

Robin Williams for

President?

I wish. :lol:

I'm reminded of Harvey Keitel's idea of bringing the world's

leaders together to perform a play. How's that for progressive?

[DrSmellThis]

It's almost nude hot

tubbing.

[Holmes]

:rofl:

Imagine if you

will...

[DrSmellThis]

Many Americans are feeling frustrated right now by our relations

with the world. There is anger going both ways. I wonder what happened to all the outpouring of international

support after 9/11/01? Was it inevitable to lose it? Should we just not care either way? I wonder what it really

would be like if we isolated ourselves like that, and sort of gave up on relationships with other countries and

peoples? Would we continue to have the largest concentration of wealth compared to other nations? What would happen

to all the American corporations that depend on plentiful and cheap foreign resources? What would happen to our

environment in America if our huge appetites for consumption of resources suddenly had to be filled entirely from

our own pool of resources? What if all the polluting and resource exploiting we've ever done around the world

happened within our shores? Might we suddenly wish we had saved or nurtured more of our natural resources? What

would we do without foreign oil? How would consumers adjust without the foreign goods that line the shelves and bins

of their stores? What would happen to our culture without diversity? Is it really true that all we do in America is

"give, give, give"? Can we really say we don't act selfishly? If so, why do we have so much of the wealth, resource

access, and power? Can you just do what you want as a large, wealthy powerful nation and pretend you don't impact

anyone else? Or is everyone in the world dependent on each other? What of our use and pollution of the air and

oceans, resources that belong to everyone and no one equally? Are the feelings of all the other people in the world

toward us really to be ignored? Does that go for criticisms that seem to be shared among many or most peoples of the

world? If so, why is that not true in healthy personal relationships? Are we sure others' criticisms of us

hold no merit, and that we shouldn't take a hard look in the mirror? Should we just ignore them, take our toys and

leave? What if we taught our kids isolationism in their own relations with others? Is our contribution to the world

so great that we somehow don't owe anyone apologies or reparations for mistakes we do make? How would we know this

if so? I don't know about isolationism. It certainly doesn't seem very forward thinking. Is there no power and

potential in cooperation or sharing among nations? I'd love to have some deep, thoughtful, nuanced answers to all

these questions.

[belgareth]

Doc,

You are right to

question the concept of isolationism and I hope everybody knows that it wouldn't work. But maybe if we reduced our

consumerism, reduced our ever increasing demand and reliance on foriegn energy foods and products, we would be

better off. You mention forward thinking, our reliance on energy sources that are controlled by others is certainly

not thinking ahead. That's just one example but a very critical one. We cheerfully live day to day relying on a

resource that is finite and is subject to the whims of others who are not always what you could call our friends, a

source that we even justify wars to assure ourselves of a steady supply, a source that will run out one day. All the

while we do little to consider what we will do when that fateful day arrives.

We talk a lot here on the forum

about personal relationships and we have all seen examples of unhealthy ones. How healthy is our love/hate

relationship to the rest of the world? If a forum member described a similar personal relationship half of us would

scream at them to get out now before it got worse. We can't do that with the world because it is far too small a

planet to isolate our large nation. So, for better or worse, our marraige to the world is a permenant one, but how

good is it for us and the rest of the world? Do we need to re-think how we do business in general, how we treat with

our fellow man and our world? We, as a nation, are badly short-sighted in our dealings with the rest of the world,

but most of the rest of the world is just as bad. We live for today with little real thought about what tomorrow

will bring. That's a recipe for disaster in a world of limited resources and increasing population.

[Pancho1188]

You ask so many questions, so

I'll answer one section:

"I wonder what it really would be like if we isolated ourselves like that, and sort of

gave up on relationships with other countries and peoples? Would we continue to have the largest concentration of

wealth compared to other nations? What would happen to all the American corporations that depend on plentiful and

cheap foreign resources? What would happen to our environment in America if our huge appetites for consumption of

resources suddenly had to be filled entirely from our own pool of resources?"

I am reminded of the movie "Bruce

Almighty" when I think about this. Remember what happened when he pulled the moon closer to the earth and made

everyone win the lottery at the same time and had total chaos roaming that one town? Everything looked completely

screwed. The world should have ended or something. Remember what happened afterwards? Everything worked out.



What I'm trying to say is, isolation would cause major problems. Prices would rise, people would lower

consumption, unemployment would skyrocket, the economy would collapse, and everyone would freak out. Eventually,

though, things would recover and a new way of living would be created. The money spent on helping other countries

and fighting wars could be spend on our own country's "disaster recovery" from the horrible stock market crash.

The United States is lucky enough to have a diverse climate from border to border and could supply itself with all

of the food it needs (granted you wouldn't have a lot of foreign food). As for natural resources, without "big

oil" to prevent inventions, scientists would finally develop better ways of providing fuel, and we would migrate to

the new systems. Just like 9/11, the country would panic and react to fix the problem, stating that they're

stronger than ever.

The world adapts. Nature adapts. Humans adapt. We would adapt. Whether that's a good

thing or not, I don't know. All I'm saying is that it would be possible to live in a world without globalization,

but many sacrifices would have to be made in the process and everyone's worldview would change. That wouldn't be

anything new, though. The Roman Empire was the world at one point. In more recent history, there were major

powers such as Germany and friends vs. the world. Then there was Democracy vs. Communism. Now it's globalization,

the United Nations vs. terrorist/nuclear threats, and other models that people would come up with.

Again, I'm

not saying it's good or bad. I'm saying that the world would continue to spin.

PR

[Bruce]

Someone wrote me that the Williams'

"quote" is a fake and a known "urban legend":

---
Comments: Ê One would expect a piece written by Robin

Williams to be smart and funny, which this lackluster synopsis of the Top Ten Sentiments Most Likely to be Heard on

Right-Wing Talk Radio is not. Apart from the final quotation (an actual quip, sans original context, from his comedy

act), Williams Ñ a so-called "San Francisco liberal" whose left-leaning political views have angered conservatives

and earned him billing on at least one Internet-posted "celebrity blacklist" Ñ clearly did not write the

thing.

Who did write it remains a mystery, if not a particularly interesting one. Early versions circulated

in March 2003 before the Robin Williams tagline was added went entirely uncredited.
---

Sorry 'bout

that,
B

[DrSmellThis]

It's interesting that no one

commented on Williams' apparent "metamorphosis." Gullible me just sort of thought, "Wow he's really changed

in his dotage!"

People who really think the way the author does -- when they're not just letting off steam --

need to take a long time-out and grow up! :nono: