As much as I disagree with Ornhelm on a lot of things, I'd have to agree that at the very least, 80% of the European Theater was fought by only Europeans. Yes, Americans helped, but our contributions in Europe were definetly overshadowed by the amount of lives the U.S.S.R. decided to throw at the problem (Although, the majority of those deaths were from starvation, lack of adequate weaponry, idiotic generals who fail in the categories of common sense and were simply in power because they were the first to join the Communists); despite how inefficiently the Russians fought it, they still accomplished a massive ton. Now, that's the European theater we're talking about. Don't forget Africa and Pacific campaigns were in action as well.

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Sir, why I say sir I find that offensive!

Every time I think of Macdonalds I throw up a little in the back of my mouth.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

Every time I think of haggis I do the same.

Yeah...yeah your right.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

I wasn't responding to your post...

I never said that. Saying the Soviets were "...the allies most responsible for the dismantlement of freaking Nazi Germany..." is way off. First, they weren't the only allies that did anything as shown by your own interjection of the Commonwealth. Second, the Soviets signed this thing called the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact. Third, if the Americans would not have joined the fight then there would really be zero chance of winning the war.

Food here = yummy. Also I wasn't American boasting, I was replying to your Soviet boasting like they saved the world. Ya, when a disaster hits somewhere in the world I don't hear anyone saying "Hope the Americans don't help us." Our democracy may not be perfect, but it sure is better than a whole lot of other kinds.

Ya, and the Russians were thanked by their leader by him trying to top the number of Russians killed by Germany?

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

90% of the food from Ireland/UK/Eastern Europe sucks, which is why they have such good beer. They have to drink themselves into a stupor before they can eat any of the shit they produce for a table.

Of course the average American fast food joint sucks too, but where actual work is involved that shit tastes like fucking mana from heaven. Have you ever had a peach pie with real peaches, butter crust, and a dollop of vanilla icecream on top? A real one, made southern style? Yeah, don't diss our cooking.

Everything else on your list, Ornhelm, was mostly correct though. I'd say right now the UK's parliament is just as corrupt and shitty as the US congress.

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Rationalizing the irrational since 2005.

Britain's attempt at modern politics has always been half-assed.

I mean seriously. They don't even have their constitution WRITTEN DOWN. WHAT IS UP WITH THAT?

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

Ornhelm, just out of interest, do you mind saying what country you're from? It would be a lot easier to try to figure out where you're coming from if I at least knew that.

The two party system isn't actually a law or anything, people just have found that they tend to fall under either Republican or Democrat. While I think it would be better if parties besides those two could actually gain political power, its not like we founded our government with the goal of limiting it to two parties.

The mudslinging part comes from the fact that most humans are terrible people. I know places like Britain and other European democracies don't televise (among other things) their elections as much as we do, but I am absolutely certain there would be nearly as much mudslinging if they were. Most people's opinions can be easily swayed, and if you give candidates a medium like television that is so easily exploited to do so its an inevitability that they'll do so eventually.

I'll agree the senate sucks though. Whichever party is in the minority just cannot stand that and dedicates their terms to making sure the majority can't do anything either. Of course, democrats had the supermajority for a while so that didn't matter. But then we lost Ted Kennedy's senate seat. I'm still fuming at the party's leadership for basically just letting the Republicans take it.

Our military does what its told to do, as I'm sure most countries military does. Its not their fault if we have someone like Bush wants to use them to try to set up democracies. As for the CIA, well, I don't know too much about them except for that the CIA director is a local guy.

I'm assuming you're saying that we should have more gun control and a smaller military budget, or something like that based on what I can gather about your beliefs, in which case I agree.

Where I draw the line, though, is at the food. Seriously, taste some real American food sometime. Its awesome.

McDonald's is just about as far from food as you can get. There's a lot of crap food over here, true, but its not just here, even if a lot of chains started here. (I mean, when I visited Egypt there was a Pizza Hut with an incredible view of the pyramids. I was flabbergasted). But if you ever have real, true American food, you'll know what I mean when I say its awesome.

[I'm sorry for the likely widespread grammar errors or poor sentence structure, I'm getting tired which doesn't affect my english skills well]

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People who can't stand the fact that someone else has a different opinion and HAVE TO keep commenting it, despite it being an idle ranting thread that's not supposed to originate big discussions.

See what I did there?

I have the right to rant about what other people said, even if I don't sound very angry. I hate it when people interfere with my right to do so.

[but, yeah, I get what your saying. I wasn't planning on extending my discussion past that post, it just annoys me when people start insulting a lot of parts of my country. I'm not super-patriotic or something, it just annoys me]

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I wasn't talking about you specifically. To not cause any strife, I won't name people, but one would get me.

They also don't have ID cards and still wonder how they are crap at controlling immigration, and their sense of superiority every time trying to stall progress in the EU, which i thinks derives from the fact they ruled most of the world for a long long time, making me believe they want the all of the cakes and eat them too.

I blame mcdonalds for making me fat(even trough i rarely go to mcdonals), and although i don't have any problems with american food the creation of meat statues creep me out.

I also blame most of america's problem on it's Christian majority and it's oppressive behaviour on other ways of thinking, and the capitalistic belief that the world will be a better place if you're greedy.

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No. Just no. If the Soviet Union hadn't won at Stalingrad, and if the Commonwealth didn't win the Battle of Britain, the Americans wouldn't even have been INVOLVED in the European theater. Because there would be nowhere for them to set up operations in order to mount a counter-attack.

Jesus.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

Okay, so the Nazis having control of a near-inexhaustible supply of oil in the middle east wouldn't of tipped in their favor? W/o America, North Africa would be speaking German today.

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If the americans didn't land in Normandy, if the americans didn't defeat Japan, if the germans didn't attack the USSR the war might've been lost too. If Hitler would've been killed by any of the 30 or so murder attempts, the war might've been over sooner. If Roosevelt wasn't so sick after the war ended(and stalin wasn't such a jackass to demand them to meet in Russia), if the Americans, English etc. pushed towards Berlin instead of letting the russians attack it, the Soviet Union would've been a lot weaker.
If,if,if, a lot of things could've happened, for better or for worse. Be glad the things happened the way they did, otherwise you probably wouldn't be here (all of the events could've had some influence in the lives of your great-grandparents,grandparents,parents)

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The Oilfields of Eurasia say hi.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

It isn't just resources but also strategy that made them lose in the end.

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"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...~Thomas Jefferson


So instead of seeing this as a continuation of an era of the 20th century that gave us so much debt and destruction and undermined our liberties and conditions today that are so dangerous, let us think that we are now moving into a new era, a new era where we are going to concentrate on liberty and freedom and property rights and peace. I believe that is the cause that we should lead and I thank you very much for being part of it.~Ron Paul

It also doesn't help if your leader has gone from regular mad and megalomanic to batshit crazy

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Really? Commonwealth forces might want to have a word with you.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

Same here. When you go insane you will make crazy failures of strategies.

Best described in this pic.

Link

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"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their Fathers conquered...~Thomas Jefferson


So instead of seeing this as a continuation of an era of the 20th century that gave us so much debt and destruction and undermined our liberties and conditions today that are so dangerous, let us think that we are now moving into a new era, a new era where we are going to concentrate on liberty and freedom and property rights and peace. I believe that is the cause that we should lead and I thank you very much for being part of it.~Ron Paul

Why do you keep saying events and inanimate objects want to say hi to us?

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell

Because they're lonely.

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The One Free Man.

Run. Think. Shoot. Live.

8 out of 10 Aperture Science engineers believe that the Weighted Companion Cube is most likely incapable of feeling much pain.

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And the other two are... dead.

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"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
– George Orwell