It won’t be 100% comforting
September 21, 2006Belgian GNOME developer pvanhoof:
I will not visit the Boston Summit because I’m against its country’s foreign policy. Try again when you guys have real and good leaders in Washington. I know the people organizing the summit aren’t responsible for American foreign policy. Their non-guilt isn’t the point. The point is philosophical: I can’t visit a country that doesn’t respect human rights, is directly responsible for thousands of innocent dead and of which its politicians think that they own the planet. They don’t. For me, visiting the country wouldn’t feel right.
I have been struggling with the same problem. Eugenia invited me on numerous occassions to come visit her and her husband in California, and David will invite me to come to his new house when it’s done in Salt Lake City. Besides the fact I simply do not have the money to make such an expensive trip right now, I also have problems with it for the same reasons as pvanhoof.
You see, I would not go to Iran, China, or whatever other country that disrespects human rights either. Thanks to the United States, the world has gotten a whole lot less safe, and us in the west are slowly but surely getting more hated by the day. With the US in the lead, we are inevitably en route to more violence thrown our way from Muslim extremists; we are in a spiral of violence, all due to the uninformed arrogance of the United States.
I do not wish to support this menace country. However, I also fully realise that only 25% of the American electorate even voted for Bush (50% of the electorate voted, and half of them voted for Bush, hence, 25%).
A difficult decision, and no matter what I choose in the end it, won’t be 100% comforting.
Politics | 
I fail to see how by visiting a country you support or not supporting a PART of it (foreign policy in this case). Sure, you might pay a bit of tax on the ticket or whatever, but this is hardly “supporting” it.
This is just plain overreacting, from both you and Philip. You revenge on your friends and Gnome, instead of USA’s foreign policy and this is unfair.
If you have a problem with USA’s foreign policy, write them a letter. I bet you never did.
Comment by Eugenia — September 21, 2006 @ 8:46 pm
I like pvanhoof’s reply to that exact same comment:
Comment by Administrator — September 21, 2006 @ 8:53 pm
You and Philip need to get a clue. Your friends are not trash. They are people.
Comment by Eugenia — September 21, 2006 @ 10:03 pm
That is probably the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard. I am sure you’ll grow out of it though.
Let’s say for example I didn’t like the way, say…cows are slaughtered (just using an example, I love a good steak). That would be the equivalent of me never ever wanting to set foot in a restaurant that served cows. The staff of the restaurant themselves didn’t kill the bovine.
Or what if I was anti-drug (which actually I am in this case) and said I’d never set foot in The Netherlands because of their lax drug policies. Again same thing, and equally as ridiculous.
It’s not difficult unless you make it so.
Comment by jayson knight — September 23, 2006 @ 6:11 am