The part where you automatically know who is the millionaire and who is the terrorist. That's the part you didn't think of.

"Well yes it is, about half of it or something like that maybe a bit more. Explain to me how christian "hispanics" from south america who can read write and do math (though in spanish) are so much more foriegn to US than say a spanish imigrant would be to Denmark. At least you guys only have to learn 1 foriegn language to communicate with 90% of you migrantes. Also go to London some time. Believe me the only place you are likely to find a majority of brits is in the pub. It should also be noted that a significant part of the remaining imigration to europe comes from sub saharan africa, where large swaths have little to no education system (a situation which is to the best of my knowledge not mirrored in south america)."

I never said that European nations were completely homogenous. Although London being full of foreigners is hardly that impressive. Comparing the spanish to the Dutch is the extreme case, too. That's kinda missing the point. If we really want to get that nit picky about it, I could point out that if you think of the 50 states as different countries (most of them have populations similar to various European countries (not the big ones, but the population of California is equivalent to that of Canada). Not only does the US have several different races, but even the "white" folks aren't all monocultural. The largest number of whites are Germans, and then you have Irish, Italians, English, French, etc etc. Then each state has its own institutions, culture, and traditions. Blacks in Texas celebrate Juneteenth, which many northern blacks don't even know about. How many European countries are less than 50% white? Texas is. Sure everybody speaks english, but that's just because we believe in "America" as a collective whole, rather than a bunch of different parts. Although we are that too..... It's really complicated, but that's the beauty of a true melting pot.

Technology always wins the war, aside from nuclear annihilation, that is why I want to be on technology's side. Actually, technology can survive an atomic blast better than we can, as an aside, and thereby technology can win with or without our help.

"Any country with a military capable of stopping the mercenaries will have no incentive to do so, since killing terrorists serves the interest of all existing governments."

That's the unreasonable part.

It do not serve the interest of all existing governments.

At least you guys only have to learn 1 foriegn language to communicate with 90% of you migrantes. Also go to London some time. Believe me the only place you are likely to find a majority of brits is in the pub.



Generally, most Americans prefer that most everyboyd speak just one language overall, as we prefer to be a melting pot rather than a hodge pogde of balkanized neighborhoods. I don't see why the language can't change over time to incorporate new nationalities, but I think it is best that we are as much on the same page linguistically as possible. That's true, the vast majority of our immigrants are from one part of the world, but I still think that the US population, especially in a state like Texas has higher proportions of many kinds of immigrants.

True, London is more of a foreigner city due to its importance in the international economy. I think that diversity generally permeates american culture.

Thank you Larskj that was genuinely a good response.

to tkwelge's
"Alot of people will point out that many European countries have similar levels of immigration to the US, but the "white" proportion of the population is huge, leading to me to believe that most of the immigrant population of European nations consists of white folks crossing back and forth between the border from the neighboring white/European countries."

Well yes it is, about half of it or something like that maybe a bit more. Explain to me how christian "hispanics" from south america who can read write and do math (though in spanish) are so much more foriegn to US than say a spanish imigrant would be to Denmark. At least you guys only have to learn 1 foriegn language to communicate with 90% of you migrantes. Also go to London some time. Believe me the only place you are likely to find a majority of brits is in the pub. It should also be noted that a significant part of the remaining imigration to europe comes from sub saharan africa, where large swaths have little to no education system (a situation which is to the best of my knowledge not mirrored in south america).

I by the way do not think most americans are xenophobic- I however believe that most american foreign policy is arrogant enough to SEEM xenophobic or ignorant- at bit like the French foreign policy. The people are fine in both cases- the govermental system and the retoric doesn't make you popular though.

Also the posting signs in multiple languages generally only happens in the nations that have more than 1 official language- it's for the white folks who allready live there, not the imigrants.

"This is off-topic, but does it bug you Scott, or anyone else, that all your strips get 4 stars?"

I've given this quite a bit of thought and I have to say ... no, it does not bug me.

Webster

"I've tried looking at other countries to see what it takes to be an expat, but you quickly learn that most countries are no where near as friendly to foreigners as the US; even though they try to appear friendly by posting signs in several languages etc) and find long term employment in."


Don't take no for answer. We are rooting for you. You can do it.

Webster

"I think you're wrong in assuming that the American public currently has any interest in funding the war in Afghanistan."

If there was only a Nobel Prize for the most profound non sequitor. Damn, that would be cool.

Webster

I think you're wrong in assuming that the American public currently has any interest in funding the war in Afghanistan.

This is off-topic, but does it bug you Scott, or anyone else, that all your strips get 4 stars? In this age of insane amounts of data processing power, one would think you could have finer grading resolution than 10 measly points. I would like to see every strip graded on a scale of 100, or even better yet, because it's Dilber, 10,000! The scale would be a 100 times better than normal!

"The part where you assume the mercenaries will actually target terrorists and not targets for their own gain in the civil war that will be fought between warlords selling their drone services to wealthy American psychopaths."


Actually, these mercenaries would depend on contracts from actual governments, so you're completely wrong. If a mercenary company isn't getting the job done properly, we can just fire them and use other people. Kinda like what we did with Blackwater. Mistakes were made and now we don't use them anymore. Of course, nobody seems to want to disband the US military when their soldiers make mistakes, so it's all kind of a double standard anyway. Who are these wealthy American psychopaths? The targets for the mercenaries gain would be the targets that are pointed out in the contract. But this gets several thumbs up. Wow. All of these issues are pretty simple to refute.

The word xenophobia means fear of outsiders. I don't think that fear of muslim extremists who have actually hurt people as qualifies as general xenophobia. Countries such as Japan, Germany, and France are much harder to move to (I've tried looking at other countries to see what it takes to be an expat, but you quickly learn that most countries are no where near as friendly to foreigners as the US; even though they try to appear friendly by posting signs in several languages etc) and find long term employment in. Plus, we trade more freely with the rest of the world, which is the opposite of xenophobia. Don't just give me thumbs down, explain what makes Americans generally "xenophobic."

How is xenophobia running high in this country? I work with 3 russian immigrants, one mexican immigrant, and people of all races. My friends run the racial spectrum. The US has a very friendly immigration policy, and we don't even really enforce the unfriendly parts. I've had half muslim/half indian friends and my girlfriend is Asian. Personally, I'm white. We're a real cultural melting pot, but the US always gets accused of being anti-multi-cultural, because most of the rest of the world prefers the fruit salad approach. The US is actually pretty welcoming to foreigners, foreign opinions, foreign goods, and we tend to forgive and forget immigration !$%* ups. In plenty of countries, they exclude foreign goods to keep out competition. They require that you have to have a job to move to the EU then the EU requires employers to hire domestic workers first and only hire a non EU worker when there is no other choice. IN the US, immigrants are often the first choice. Explain how we're xenophobic? More than fifty percent of the population in Texas is non white or white hispanic. Most of the white people I know are far from xenophobic, so if you're surrounded by these people who are suspicious of "brown" people, then you need to move.

Alot of people will point out that many European countries have similar levels of immigration to the US, but the "white" proportion of the population is huge, leading to me to believe that most of the immigrant population of European nations consists of white folks crossing back and forth between the border from the neighboring white/European countries.

tkwelge: there are so many problems here.

"1. If public opinion anyways is not interested in pursuing a war, that probably means there's not much of a threat left. After all, the american public is among the easiest to scare in the world. If they're not even scared anymore, that says something.
2. If rich people of some distant country were flying Predator drones over my city constantly "looking for terrorists", I'd be pretty terrorized myself. Those rich people have just turned into the very same people they're hunting.
3. What the hell is a terrorist? Any guy looking brownish and living on sand or a mountain? The fact that americans have become so accustomed to using the word so carelessly is very worrying. Xenophobia is already running high in this country, let's not make it worse.
4. Sure, keep a war going to dismantle AlQaeda and friends, I'm all for that. But this is not through carpet bombing or drone flying. It requires very solid intelligence and ground forces."

Um, I never said that I was some anti-terrorist zealot. I never even said that I agree with either Bush or Obama's foreign policy. I think that you were reading things into what I said. Did I say anything about brown people? Those cities where predator drones would be flying, we would already be at war with some sort of force in this country. This idea is not about flooding every country with predator drones. The idea is to free up human beings in countries we are already patrolling (with people on foot or in humvees or tanks) by replacing as many as possible with predator drones. We're not talking about sending thousands of predator drones to Paris or anything.

The only time that I mentioned the word "terrorist" was to attempt to define it. I've heard people accuse the US government of being terrorists, because members of it kill people, but this misses the entire definition of terrorist. The word terrorism implies violence being used for a non strategic (in physical military terms) impact. You're simply killing people for shock value. Collateral damage is not the same thing as terrorism as long as attempts are made to contain it. Assassination is not terrorism if the person assassinated was contributing resources to an actual enemy or directly working with them. Taking out the twin towers had nothing to do with making us weaker militarily or positioning the enemy for any kind of tactical victory. It was about showing what they could do to scare people. Hence terrorism. I guess that you could argue that the attack on the pentagon wasn't necessarily terrorism, but it's not like they were actually trying to accomplish anything tactical there either.

I think this is one of the problems with roboticisation of warfare- people will start seeing the vidio game and no use of force will seem exsive if we manage to automate warfare to the level where no live person from our side has to go onto the battlefield.

Every aspect of your prediction is unreasonable, unethical, immoral and basically psychotic in character.

Have you become a Republican?

If so, it would have been thoughtful of you to find a gentler way to break the news to your audience.

;-)

Webster