shakran

Invading Iraq did not protect our national interets. In fact, it endangered them terribly, because that REALLY pissed off the middle east. Invading Viet Nam did not protect our national interests. The Bay of Pigs did not protect our national interest. Mogadishu did not protect our national interests. Cambodia did not protect our national interests. All of these actions worsened our national interests because they angered the world.


If you're so gung ho on protecting our national interestes, then why don't we fix the economy, fix education, and fix hunger - it's pathetic that the most powerful and richest nation on the planet still has people going hungry every night. It's high time we stop thinking our national interests can be addressed by killing people from other countries, and started realizing that our national interests must be addressed by improving the lives of our own people.

roachboy

i cant think of a more naive claim than "my viewpoint is grounded in reality."
what does that mean?

it seems to me of a piece with something that i see quite alot from conservative comrades--the use of claims/categories in totally superficial ways that functions to (a) exclude certain questions by (b) claiming that conservative ideology has resolved them in advance. if you push at these claims conceptually, you find that they really mean nothing--but if you link them to the way in which the various straw men of the Other get constructed--you know, the "liberal" the "leftist" the "socialist" you get a better idea of how this little machine works.

"liberal" (lefist, socialist, terrorist, dissenter, bad person) is an empty category. its contents are projections. these projections are often little more than inversions of qualities that conservatives apparently find to be aesthetically appealing--so if you want to define yourself as manly, you do so by positing wimpy liberals; if you want to define yourself as a "realist" you do so by positing abstracted liberals; if you want to be a "patriot" you can posit "anti-american" liberals--it goes on and one, one great heap of tedious repetitions.

what is strange about this is that all these claims/projections are about the persona who speaks rather than about the content of the arguments.
it is as if the content of the arguments follows necessarily from the identity assumed by the speaker.

so you can claim that you "speak from reality" without having the faintest idea what that entails as a claim because what matters is not that you have thought particularly about the claim, but because you, as conservative, are not liberal, and liberals, by definition, do not speak "from reality" so in conservativeland q.e.d.

from within this, you can explain some of the more curious features of ace's posts above, for example: that he can simultaneously claim that "liberal arguments are grounded in emotion" and relay instance after instance wherein it is obvious that his positions are grounded in emotions follows from the definition of the identity of a conservative speaker, and not from the content of what that speakers may say. so for ace (or his functional equivalent) to claim to "speak from reality" is axoimatic--it is redundant---it is like saying conservative twice.

i wonder sometimes how general this is---there is a variety within the folk here who post conservative positions, not all do exactly what ace is wont to--but i nonetheless wonder the extent to which more attention is devoted to defining the position from which a conservative speaks than to what a conservative might argue, as if definitions and logic take care of themselves once you have the positioning work done.

if this is true, then it would follow that one explanation for the talking-past-each-other that characterizes much of the "heat" in heate debates comes from there being different assumptions about the game of thinking the political itself--one that is about identity and that functions through projection, another that transfers questions of identity onto the arguments themselves.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

I say it did, you say it didn't, what's next? All I know is that Congress agreed with Bush before the invasion.

Here is were it gets foggy. I say America is not an agressive nation, that we are not an empire builder? I am not clear on what you think, and you give examples that don't relate to the issue and say we made some people mad. I think we have made mistakes, but our intensions have been honorable, in terms of doing what we thought was right in terms of protecting our interest.


How does a person go hungry every night in this country? Please explain how that happens and how frequently? I did some volunteer work in a kitchen feeding homless people, the irony is that almost all of them were able bodied men.

Read it in context of what has been written.

I have given some specific examples and have explained what I mean by my words. there is no hidden agenda or menaing. The simplicity has gotten lost in your analysis.

It also makes discussion more efficient.

Why not give a few of the opposite, i.e. comapsionate v. cold hearted conservative.

You are correct. I should state that I speak from my reality. If I lived at Disney Land my reality would be very different from living where I acutally live.

I do repeat myself. But it is usually a function of necessity, at least from my point of view. I also have been guilty of making the same point using different words. Ooops, did it again.

Not sure how you would seperate one's view point from one's arguments while being intelectually honest, do you?

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Charlatan

Ace... I think we are talking about degrees of difference but it was important to have that clarified.

Invading Iraq was important to American oil interests. Seen from one perspective the invasion of Iraq was supposed to lead to stability in the Middle East (some believe it still will). I don't think there should be any doubt of that the intention of the invasion was for this purpose.

The problem is that it didn't go as planned (these sorts of adventures rarely do).

As for America not being an Empire builder... in the traditional modernist definition of Empire I would agree. However, there is a very strong case to be made that the US is the first and only postmodern Empire.

The American empire is held through a colonization of culture and economics enforced by a roving, rapid response military. There is no need to occupy the land when you control their economy through institutions like the IMF and their ideologies through mass culture.

__________________
"My hands are on fire. Hands are on fire. Ain't got no more time for all you charlatans and liars."
- Old Man Luedecke

Yakk

So if some Brazillian outcast, trained by crack Arintinian death squads, living in Mexico said "I will kill Americans", what is the correct scale of response?
1> Nuke the city the person is in.
2> Ignore the crazy dumb-fuck.
3> Place all people you suspect are mexicans or mexican sympasizers in concentration camps.
4> Invade and occupy Venezuala.

Now suppose the person mananged to kill 5 Americans. 50 Americans. 500 Americans. 5000 Americans.

Now suppose 20 years pass. You occupied Venezuala (and currently have about twice as many armed forces there as the Venezualian government does), and supported a revolution in Mexico in order to kill the person who killed the 5 Americans. You are supporting dictators in the vast majority of latin american states.

A Venezualian who the USA trained to be a Mexican revolutionary shoots the vice president, saying "Venezualia will be free!". The assasin gets away, smuggled away by Mexicans. What do you do?
1> Nuke Argentina.
2> Track down and arrest the killer.
3> Invade Cuba.
4> Build a wall between Bolivia and Paraguay.
5> Say that the Venezualian terrorist hates freedom, and occupy Argentina.

...

Feel free to add other answers. I tried to pick ones that seemed to line up with current US foriegn policy.

Your family is in more danger from automobies than it is from terrorists. By orders of magnitude. Massive orders of magnitude.

Your family is in more danger from an oppresive government than terrorists. Oppressive governments have killed many times more people than any act of any foriegn power in any time in history.

So are you willing to say "the government can put anyone away for as long as they want, with no appeal, 100% secrecy, and I'll support them"? And if so, why do you hate your family so much that you want to increase government oppression?

Replace "suspected terrorists" with "anyone the government wants".

Do you have any problem with the government being able to hold anyone they want, torture anyone they want, and do it on any scale they want to?

By "the government", I'm talking anyone with any significant government rank. An appointed beaurocrat, someone with enough seniority, the ultra-left-wing democrat cabinate member who becomes president after the VP and Pres are assasinatd in 2015?

Or by "suspected terrorists" do you mean "bad guys"?

Because I can't see anything in the actual things you are supporting that restricts the powers you want the government to have to only apply to the "bad guys". Can you point it out?

You probably do not need me. I'm actually in favour of a Canadian nuclear arms program (secret) in order to provide a defence against American aggression. That is because I'm a Canadian, and I don't think America is to be trusted, given the attidude of people like you.

Such a nuclear arms program should be unofficial, of course. Canada should profess that we are nuclear arms free. We should just have medium-range rockets right next to "non-functioning" nuclear bombs (ie, the switch turned off).

Given the attitude of the USA, nothing else will keep Canada safe and soveriegn against a day when a US president wants to start an arbitrary war to funnel money to his power base.

As demonstrated by Russia and N. Korea, having a nuclear deterrant will slow and/or stop American imperial ambitions quite effectively.

Care to explain it to me? I would be much happier if the USA wasn't forcing me to support nuclear arming Canada.

Do you care more about being national top dog, or do you care more about the wellbeing of your family?

Usually, great power struggles are about one growing power wanting power and freedom and feeling justified in taking it, while a fading power feels justified in blocking the power and freedom of the growing power.

The only nukes aimed at the USA are in Russia, last I checked. Russia is not threatening to fire them. Between 1988 and 2000, Russia was quite reasonably friendly with the USA.

However, the Russian president, in response to recent American imperial invasions has started making some quite strong anti-American rhetoric.

So, I must ask, which nukes are you talking about? Korean nukes don't have nearly the range, and the only nuke they set off could easily have been a large conventional bomb. Britian isn't currently aiming nukes at the USA. France isn't aiming nukes at the USA, as far as I know. South Africa disarmed themselves reasonably credibly. India and Pakistan don't have the range to hit non-imperial American targets. Isreal might have a nuke aimed at the USA.

China probably has a handful of nukes aimed at the USA. I'm guessing more are aimed at American imperial forces in Japan, Taiwan, South Korea and the like.

Am I missing a nuclear power?

I understand. The moral pain that the raper of small children feels makes me feel sorry for the poor rapist. He wishes he lived in a world that he did not have to rape children, then kill them, chop their corpses up, and then console their poor parents over the loss of their child. If only the world understood that he has no choice. Oh woe is him.

Oh wait, that's not right. I don't feel sorry for the child rapist.

"Wishing" you didn't "have" to be evil means nothing. I'm not saying you rape small children and chop up their corpses -- I'm just saying you support acts that are morally worse, that from your perspective "have" to be done.

Most people who are evil and/or support evil feel justified, and wish that they didn't "have" to.

First, who is the war against, and what is it about?

Are we talking "Falkland Islands" skirmish-war, or a "I'm Britian/Russia and they are germany and it is WW2" existential-crisis war?

But in short, yes -- the ends can justify some means. On the other hand, one does not sign off on arbitrary means for an end of limited usefulness. That is stupid and evil.

How so? I was using "lie, cheat and steal" as a proxy for "the ends justify the means" -- ie, discard any usual restriction one has on one's acts.

Actually, I don't belong to the Liberal party. I don't strongly follow liberal-economic theory, but that isn't probably what you mean. I think that the communist party is foolish, and most socialists don't understand the raw power and usefulness of modern economics.

So, by liberal, what do you mean? The opposite of "conservative"?

If so, the opposite of which "conservative" -- fiscal responsibility, government intruding on personal lives, cut-tax-and-spend, the military industiral complex, anti-enthropy, don't think just feel, do whatever my parents did?

I'm just wondering which pigeon you think I'm sharing a hole with.

I really don't need any permission from you to ignore a question. Is this an attempt at trolling for flame response?

BTW, what fog are you talking about?

In what way is the world-wide network of US vassal-states and military bases not an Empire?

That the US government doesn't use the word Empire to describe itself means no more than lack of formal declaration of war during the Iraq war. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, swims like a duck and looks like a duck, calling it a duck sure seems reasonable.

You, personally, might not like having an Empire. You might not personally be supporting Empire building in order to have an Empire. But you got one.

__________________
Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

roachboy

let's take this sentence as an example of the problems with claiming to "argue from reality"---the data is experiential (i worked in a kitchen) which comes with particular advantages (grain of experience, say) and certain disadvantages---among the disadvantages are problems of generalization.

if you move from an experience that had you, say, standing across a table handing out food to making statements about who you were handing food to and, more problematically, why these folk were there, you run into trouble, yes?

well, that depends on what you think the social world is and, by extension, what you think "reality" is. if i were to try to unpack what ace seems to think reality is from the sentence, it'd go like this:

you, ace, see these people as objects: you read off information from clothing, posture, etc.--the conclusion is that "ironically" for some reason, they were mostly "able-bodied men"---and that's it.

so the political conclusion i would draw from this is that ace looks at these folk and just looks at them--when he goes to explain why they might be there, he simply transposes the looking across a table onto the social level--nothing changes about how he sees these folk--and his interpretation appears to follow from that--if folk are hungry in the united states, it is their fault--their lack of gumption or whatever meaningless adjective you like is to blame.

now the conceptual problem:
so what is this "reality" that ace speaks from?
it is an accumulation of objects.
human beings are a particular type of object.
both are defined by features that inhere in them.
so if you are going to move from the individual experience level to that of the social, you need make no adjustments--to think otherwise would be like.....say you are trying to understand what a vase is.
so you start off by looking at one of them in isolation.
you want to know what features define a vase.
if you do this with one and then later find yourself looking at, say, 30 of them, nothing in particular changes about the question "what is a vase" or how you'd go about answering it---well, maybe you could do a comparison amongst the 30 vases and isolate a feature or two that defines vases in general that you hadn't thought of--but adding more objects to one object does not create any particular problem.

since human beings are a type of object, it would follow then that moving from a particular instance to making general statements about not only what these human-things are but why they are as they are also poses no particular trouble.

but does it make sense to see human beings as things, a objects?

i guess it does if you imagine that, say, television news footage presents you with the world as it is and not with an image of the world, an image that has certain features which get superimposed on the world these images are assumed to represent.
but if you think about human beings as the results of social processes (growing up, acquiring language, ordering themselves as being-in-a-world as they begin to order the world, as operating within social contexts FROM WHICH THEY ARE NOT SEPARABLE---human beings as complex systems of dynamic systems, say) then there is a REAL problem with treating them conceptually as if they were objects. and if you want to think about what the social world is, you wont get anywhere by acting as though it is simply given, as if what you see and how you see is functionally like a camera, reflecting a world that is as it is with no particular problems attending either the arrangement of the world or of your sensory apparatus.

if you want to think about poverty, you are thinking about a complex of social relations---say class---and specific questions of social position in relation to, say, labor markets and their structure. poverty is a social fact: it is relational (it does not mean the same thing context to context)...ace is consistent in his refusal to consider social factors on this order: in keeping with the assumption that human beings are things, he looks for some internal attribute (real or imagined) that he can look to to explain poverty.

i dont think treating human beings as things is a particularly useful basis for claiming that you "operate from reality" ace.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

You failed to address the primary question in my post and choose to create a "strawman arguement" around personal experience that was insignificant at best relative to Shackran's point that hunger is a problem in this country. this is another example of what I refer to as "fog".

The only significance of my comment about able bodied men, was that I stop doing that volunteer work because I thought I would be helping woman, children, elderly and the disabled. My new reality, based on my experience, proved different from my initial perception based on reports of hunger. I do admit that my experience may not be representative, but I am curious to know what others have experienced through their volunteer work.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

host

ace....you say you have a "reality based", POV, but we can't discuss or debate anything...because you refuse to let data....facts....dent your "reality":
ace, I showed you, in this Oct., 2006 post, why your claims of "deficit" reduction were grossly misleading, and could be claimed to be false:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...0&postcount=44

....and, in the post at the above link, I referred you to my June, 2006 post, at the next link:

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...9&postcount=31

.....and it explain why there was no actual economic growth....it all came from an inefficient stimulus of increased federal borrowing and spending, and from MEW (mortgage equity extraction) and it predicts the "news" below, the implosion of the subprime lending industry, which will be followed by a residential realty valuation implosion, IMO.

Here are federal borrowing comparisons over the last ten years. The "deficit reduction" which you tout, has already been thoroughly explained to you....by me...as deliberate moving by the president and his administration, of "on budget" items, to "off-budget" status, as two articles below, strongly support.

10/01/1996 $5,234,730,786,626 to
02/23/1999 $5,619,947,525,857
<b>$385 billion= Additonal Federal Borrowing in second term of previous president</b>

10/01/2004 $7,409,510,200,267 to
02/21/2007 $8,752,478,768,342
<b>$1343 billion= Additonal Federal Borrowing in second term of current president</b>


<b>Last year Federal borrowing, fiscal year to date, vs. this year:</b>

09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723 to
02/23/2006 $8,248,764,007,091
<b>February 2006= $316 billion increase in federal borrowing in 4 mos. and 23 days...</b>

10/02/2006 $8,506,973,899,215 to
02/21/2007 $8,752,478,768,342
<b>February 2007= $246 billion increase in federal borrowing in 4 mos. and 23 days...</b>

<b>This years federal borrowing increase rate has been slowed by the previous congress's decision to walk away from it's budget making responsibilities, leaving the task to the new congress:</b>
<b>News Report on last years supplemental appropriations:</b>
Per data available here:
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPD...application=np

Link to source..."You're seeing 40 or 50 (subprime companies) a day throughout the country going down in one form or another. I expect that to continue throughout the year," Angelo Mozilo, chief executive of Countrywide Financial, told investors in a recent conference call."

Hanxter

do you work for hillary clinton?

edit: you ARE hillary clinton!!!

aceventura3

I would employ "splinter cells" to investigate. If we found credible plans to kill Americans, I would take pre-emptive action to disrupt those plans and send a message the their commrades. This almost sounds like a Tom Clancy plot.

I would not occupy Venezuala. I am now of the opinion that occupying Iraq is a mistake.

If the action was an act of war on the part of the governments of enemy nations. I would use laser directed smart bombs to strike military and government targets to overthrow the government(s). Again sending a message - If you f*** with us, there will be consequences, so don't f*** with us.

Like I wrote earlier, my tendency would be to over-react, like Bush. My tendency is also to get fixated, like Bush. I would need Congress or my wife to keep me under control. If Congress or my wife feeds my aggression, then they failed when I needed them most. To me Bush has done everything he said he would do. congress has failed and is continuing to fail, because they have the power to snap Bush out of his fixation.


That is why I drive. I am a control freak, in addition to other problems I have.

That is why I support the 2nd amendment.

Terrorist don't have Constitutional rights in my view.



I agree, its a fine line. But like they say - If my aunt had balls and a penis, she would be my uncle.

Yes. I think war is different than criminal activity.



Family, and freedom.

Perhaps, N. Korea. Perhaps Iran. Perhaps China. Perhaps terrorists have a few. Perhaps Cuba has one from 1950. No one has ever totally accounted for the nukes from the USSR, so who knows where they are pointed.

Please revisit the thread. We agreed on some points and disagreed on others. The deficit is misleading because it doesn't measure all federal government spending. But they consitently measure it wrong, dating back decades.

Also national debt numbers are misleading as well as trade deficit numbers. Where we differ is on the significance of it, not the factual numbers.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

host

....no, ace...where we differ is much simpler than your description, above. I eliminated the "misleading deficit", because I only compare the constant....year to year....and Oct. 1, 200x to Feb. 23, 200x....of increases in total federal debt.

I demonstrated multiple times....in my last post, and in the other two that I linked to in my last post.....that the "deficit reduction" you refer to, is misleading.

Haven't you contradicted one of your main points that I've already highlighted in bold? Here is what I responded to....challenge my points....not your own about meaningless deficit reduction, masked by "off-budget" deception....and what of the "strong economy"....isn't "where it's headed", the "reality" argument?....it doen't look good, going forward (Visit the "Ailing Companies" link on the "implodometer" page in my last post):
Hanxter....what's up with your new, daily , "drive-by" posts....? Seems like "pissing in the corn flakes", to me, anyway....

Hanxter

thanx!!! i needed that - funniest thing for me in days...

ubertuber

What the hell is this thread about anyway?

__________________
Cogito ergo spud -- I think, therefore I yam

aceventura3

Are we talking the total debt or anual deficit spending. Either way I still don't dispute the facts, although you avoid looking at the debt as a percent of national wealth and the deficit in terms of a percent of national tax income.
I am more than happy to debate economics, we can revive the old thread or start a new one.

It is an example of why most conservatives no longer get into heated debates. We find it diffucult to see through the fog.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

host

Good....I'm glad that you took it in the spirit that I intended....

<b>on edit, ace....now that your last post was read....you have always used the deficit numbers to advance a positive opinion of the direction/trend of this administration's deficit management. In your post before this last one, you seemed to admit that the deficit data is unreliable. I've only relied on US treasury debt accumulation data to support my contrary opinion.

Why do you say that I don't consider increased GDP vs. debt increases? I already showed, in my posts of June and Oct., 2006, that those increases came from the stimulus of $1.15 of new MEW and new federal borrowing and spending, for every 75 cents increase in GDP. IMO, we've had our debate, but you've posted today about reduced deficit trends and a "ggod economy", anyway....thus my response that your arguments are not "reality based"....</b>

...now ace....after re-reading your last post, are you saying that you believe that the US treasury debt info here:
...is no more reliable than the deficit numbers that the white house quotes?

If that is what you are saying, ace...
.....that the figures I retrieve to counter all of your posts about a "declining deficit", are "misleading" ?

Since the US treasury debt data that I use has been moved in the last few weeks, rolled into this new site described as:
....doesn't it follow, that, if your belief is that the borrowing data I'm posting from that site is in error, or misleading, that it is also true that the US treasury is offering securities for sale, via the provision of deceptive data? Isn't that an accusation of official, securities fraud?

aceventura3

National debt according to most sources is $8.7 trillion. Annual deficit spending is projected by the CBO to be about $170 billion in 2007. They project a reduction in deficit spending as well as the Whitehouse, they project a surplus of $170 billion by 20012. Tax dollars collected have increased at a faster pace than on-budget spending over the past few years.

No. Smart money knows the weaknesses in trying to measure government spending and tax collections. Dumb money doesn't rely on the numbers anyway.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Ch'i

Does anyone else think it is somewhat humorous that this thread has become a heated debate?

aceventura3

I have done my part to maintain a spirit of light heartedness.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Elphaba

I blame Stephen.

__________________
"You can't ignore politics, no matter how much you'd like to." Molly Ivins - 1944-2007

shakran

Amused? No - more like encouraged. We haven't had a good mix up like this in what seems like forever in here. I've been enjoying it personally.

And Ace - I'm not ignoring what you posted- -just happen to be busy ATM - - I'll get back to ya on what you replied

jorgelito

Heated? How is this thread heated?

Ace and Host are very civil and "tame" although Host does not seem to have discovered the new function Halx made for him.

Ch'i

I apologize that you had to preform the unbearable task of scrolling for a moment or two.

smooth

As do I...

Although I must admit, much of it comes from the odd compulsion I feel to light a spliff whenever I read his name and/or posts

__________________
"The theory of a free press is that truth will emerge from free discussion, not that it will be presented perfectly and instantly in any one account." -- Walter Lippmann

"You measure democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists." -- Abbie Hoffman

roachboy

sorry, ace, but if you agree at all with that old hoary margaret thatcher line "when i look around me i dont see society, i see individuals" then those *are* your premises.
unpleasant, aren't they?
but hey, maybe i'm wrong: why dont you lay out your assumptions concerning how you would go from your answer to shakran's question outward to any claims about poverty as a social phenomenon. maybe not the argument: more like how you'd make the argument. it'd be interesting.


hmm...


....you know, now that you mention a spliff, smooth.....not of course that i would do or endorse that kind of thing.....i just like thinking about them. thinking is psychokinetic, you know....

wait. i'm not stephen.
i'm roachboy.


uh oh.....

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

dc_dux

The Bush Dept of Agriculture no longer uses the term "hunger" to describe the condtions faced by more than 10 million Americans...rather, they experience "very low food security"

New Labels Describe Ranges of Food Security is what I would refer to as "fog".
In 2005, 35 million people lived in food-insecure households, including 12.4 million children.

Of these individuals, 7.6 million adults and 3.2 million children lived in households with very low food security.
http://www.ers.usda.gov/Briefing/Foo...ity/trends.htm

__________________
"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

shakran

As promised, my rebuttal, finally.

And that automatically makes it right, how?


Any nation that sends its military after countries that aren't doing anything to it is an aggressive nation. Whether you think Iraq was justified or not (although considering none of the terrorists were from there I'm not sure how you could), you must admit that Yugoslavia, Mogadishu, etc, were not doing anything to us. We chose to go play army anyway. That's aggressive.

We don't have to be an empire builder to be aggressive. The schoolyard bully isn't trying to take the kid's house, but he beats the kid up anyway.

Whether our intentions are honorable or not, people are still angry at us. You speak of wanting to enhance our national security. A real good way to do that is to try and avoid pissing people off. You're much less likely to kick my butt if you like me. It's the same with nations. The nations that are our allies and are our friends and who like us are not the ones attacking us. Want to enhance national security? Stop casting the country in the role of world cop.



I'm glad that you did that - I wish more people would follow your good example. But do you really think that one meal a day is good enough? I too have volunteered in those kitchens, and many of the people I fed were having their first meal with us at 5pm. I also note that you mention they are homeless people. Why do you think it is acceptable that in the richest nation on earth we still have homeless people, and we still have people who can't afford to feed themselves?

Telluride

I think it's a heated debate over whether or not we have heated debates in Tilted Politics.

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"I am certain that nothing has done so much to destroy the safeguards of individual freedom as the striving after this mirage of social justice." - Friedrich Hayek

shakran

It's the heated debate about everything including heated debate thread.

Yakk

Ran into this:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archive...ed_risk_1.html
which is a wonderful little treatise on risk. Basically, it explains what most of the major errors people have with misestimating risk.

People underestimate:
Any risk they choose to take.
Any risk they feel cannot be reduced.
Any common risk.
Any risk they are used to.
Any risk they feel personal control over.
Any risk that is rarely talked about.
Any risk that is non-intentional.

People overestimate:
Any risk they don't have a choice about.
Any risk they feel can or should be reduced.
Any rare risk.
Any risk they are not used to.
Any risk they don't have personal control over.
Any risk that is commonly talked about.
Any risk that is intentional.

"Cars are far more dangerous than terrorists, so I drive" is a classic example of this. By choosing to drive and taking personal control, you reduce the feeling of risk. Driving deaths and risks are not that reported, and driving is a common risk, so that also reduces the feeling of risk. People don't consider driving deaths as "solveable", so that reduces the feeling of risk. Most car accidents are accidents, not done intentionally.

On the other hand, terrorists deaths are out of your immediate control. You don't choose to take on terrorist risk. It is rare and outside of your experience. People consider it solveable. And it is in the news. And it is intentional.

So we get people with a seriously whacked up and error prone feelings about the relative risks of traffic accidents and terrorist attacks to the security of one's nation.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

aceventura3

What???

One person says people in this country are going hungry everyday, suggesting that it is a problem in this country. I ask what is the basis for that comment, and simply gave an anecdotal experience that caused me to change my behavior. If children, elderly and disabled people are in fact going hungry everyday, I am very interested in fixing the problem, I am also interested in fixing the world hunger problem and I think we could if we could get food the to the people who need it rather than "warloards".

Here is another anecdote - even when I was in poverty as a child, we had enough to eat. In fact we had enough to eat and my mother had enough left over to buy cigaretts.

What??? Sadaam was the aggressive one. He is the one who invaded Kuwait for no reason, he is the one who defied the UN, he is the one who fired at our military planes, he is the one that paid $25k to terrorist families, he is the one that killed thousands of his own people.

Perhaps we use the word "aggressive" in different ways. We clearly don't see the world the same way.


Many of the homeless were what they called "transitional" homeless. As a local business owner in my community I participated in several "homeless forums" with community leaders. In our county at the time there were several programs for homless people. It was rare that women with children, the elderly or truely disabled people would not have a bed and food. The most difficult category were homeless men. In most of these situations the men had opportunities get get on their feet. There were a handful who "lived the life" of a homelss person, regardless of the attempts to help.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

that's nice, ace.
but you didnt answer the question.
could you please?

ah--i see you were doing what i do and editing the post as i was responding.

ok: your response seems to confirm what i am arguing: it repeats the thatcherite logic--read what you said and maybe you'll see it. i asked you how you would go about moving from the anecdotal (i see person x, person x is hungry) to a system-level explanation for hunger in the states. you dont do it. you could: but you chose not to. so i'm asking you again.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

aceventura3

I understand the relative risk of being the victim of a terrorist attack and being in a car accident. And I would not describe my position as "whacked up". My position is clear when it comes to risk and I know this seems odd but - I place more value on my freedom than on my life. Terrorists are interested in controlling people through the threat of terrorist acts. I can not accept being controlled by terrorists. Like I said I am a control freak. Perhaps people who are not control freaks don't care, but I do.

I don't think I understand the question. But here is a shot at an answer.

Hunger is measured on an individual level. Macro-level statistics are abstract. If hunger is a problem we can not understand it on a statisical level, we need to dig into the problem, community by community, houshold by houshold, person by person. Me being one individual, I can only address the issue based on what I see around me, or what I search for. At one point I was very motivated to get involved with the issue, however based on my experience I decided there were bigger issues more worthy of my time and resources. If hunger is a problem in this country, I am interested in getting back into the issue, because hunger is a "base" issue that has to be addressed before other issues like education, healthcare, employment, etc.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

roachboy

so i take it that you see no social causes for hunger in the states then.

__________________
a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle
spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear

it make you sick.

-kamau brathwaite

Yakk

Um, what if you pretty much ignored them? Terrorists can only control you if you let them.

Their goal isn't "increase the security around the door to an airplane", there goal is to impact US foriegn policy (which, I might note, they have done). When a terrorist nutjob hijacks a plane and rams it into a building:
1> Increase airplane pilot's door security.
2> Teach hostages to not go along with terrorist demands on a plane.
3> Maybe fund a real air-marshal program.

And now the entire avenue of attack used on 9/11 has been blocked.

Terrorism only generates policy changes if you let it. Currently, Terrorism has caused massive policy changes on the part of the US government.

My point is, using the Terrorism to justify the enroachment upon civil liberties, invasions of states, nuclear bunker buster bombs, or massive increases in military spending is disingenious. Terrorism really isn't dangerous enough to justify such large changes.

The reaction is overblown. It would be like firing a nuclear weapon because someone killed a single citizen -- the killing of a citizen is a problem that should be delt with, but responding in an overkill manner just makes more problems.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

aceventura3

Not in this country. I would define a social cause as somthing similar to what occurs in Africa, where food is deprived from people for power, political or other reasons. That does not happen here. Generally there is help for people who want it in this country.

Good point. I was ignoring them prior to 9/11, but they were not ignoring us. I would love to get back to the day when I felt comfortable ignoring them.

I agree some of our reactions have been pointless, over-the -top and have been harmfull to our freedoms. Some feel the attacks were our fault, I don't. My initial raction is to increase the consequences of terrorist activity on the terrorist. I know my feelings are "wrong" but my initial reaction is that if you hit us, we hit you back with 25 times the intensity.

My reactions are primal on many levels, but at least I know what they are when they arise. I think the "liberal mind" is different. The problem in communication arises because they often see this difference in terms of being some how, better, smarter than the "simplistic" conservative mind. An exampe is - your assumption that I did not understand the levels of risk from being a victim of a terrorist attack V. being in a car accident. Or, when I say when it comes to protecting you family the means justifies the ends, the liberal mind translates that to being immoral and that they would never act in such a manner. I think we know thats B.S., but if I call it B.S. the liberal mind gets offended.

__________________
"Democracy is two wolves and a sheep voting on lunch."
"It is useless for the sheep to pass resolutions on vegetarianism while the wolf is of a different opinion."
"If you live among wolves you have to act like one."
"A lady screams at the mouse but smiles at the wolf. A gentleman is a wolf who sends flowers."

Yakk

I'm glad I'm part of a liberal mind hyper-brain.

BTW, I suspect you mean "when protecting one's family, the ends justify the means", not "when protecting one's family, the means justify the ends". *chuckle*

[quote]I agree some of our reactions have been pointless, over-the -top and have been harmfull to our freedoms. Some feel the attacks were our fault, I don't. My initial raction is to increase the consequences of terrorist activity on the terrorist. I know my feelings are "wrong" but my initial reaction is that if you hit us, we hit you back with 25 times the intensity./quote]

Fault is an interesting question. The attacks and the motivation behind them where understandable, and the USA has done (as a nation) some pretty horrid things. If you measure how "evil" some organization is based off of the number and magnatude of the evil acts done by the organization, the USA comes off pretty badly -- simply because it is a very large, very powerful, and very active organization. The USA comes off better if you measure the fraction of consequences of the organizations actions that are "evil".

Or just accept them as a price of projecting power. They are a clear example of covert action backwash -- if you believe that the USA should be engaged in covert actions around the world, then you should also accept that the USA will be burned by those actions.

The fact that the designated mastermind behind 9/11 was a CIA trained anti-Russian revolutionary is not a coincidence. The fact that Saddam was a CIA trained and backed operative is also not a coincidence. The choice of using proxy troops and leaders to implement US foriegn policy means that those proxy troops will more than occasionally attack and kill American interests.

Just because it is an incident of backwash doesn't mean that America is not allowed to intervien.

Much as "your choice to drive to your grandmothers" was one of the reasons why "your family was killed by the drunk driver": had you not driven to your grandmothers, the drunk driver would not have killed your family. The USAs past support for proxy warriors is one of the reasons behind 9/11. The question of what "fault" means becomes interesting and complex at this point.

There is the "I am right" side, which states that so long as I identify with X, X is not at fault for anything.

Then there are approaches that try to work out how predictable such a result is. If you drive at 200 mph on a motorcycle, you are more "at fault" for dieing to a drunk driver than if you drive at 60 mph in a top-safety car.

Then there are the karma based ones -- if you have killed 10 people while driving to your grandmother's, and you get killed, you are karmically at fault.

The existance of multiple interpritations leads to fault lines in opinion.

There isn't a massive war on traffic in the USA, so I figured that most people consider car accidents to be less of a problem then terrorist attacks.

What if it isn't B.S.? There are people who wouldn't kill, steal or lie to protect their family.

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Last edited by JHVH : 10-29-4004 BC at 09:00 PM. Reason: Time for a rest.

shakran

Good example of how people think similarly on different topics. Osama bin Laden attacked us, so we annihilated Saddam, who had nothing to do with it.

People die in traffic wrecks because they're not good drivers, so we attack the speed limits, which have nothing to do with it, instead of attacking the absolutely craptacular drivers education and licensing system in this country. Deaths per mile are lower on the Autobahn, where you can go well north of 200mph if your car's fast enough, than they are on the US interstate system. German driver training is much more stringent than the US, and german licensing is much less forgiving. Get a DWI? You'll never drive again. Period. Think you can pass a German driving test by parallel parking and driving slowly around a parking lot while not hitting cones? Think again - you're gonna show them you know how to control a car or you fail. What does this tell us? It's much more likely that crappy driving skills are causing the wrecks, not the speed.

But it's more fun to blame something that requires almost no thought, no effort, and which has almost nothing to do with the actual problem. Just like Iraq.

Ustwo

While I don't think there was much 'unacceptable' in my last month, after having been called every name in the book on this forum including cock sucker for my beliefs I can't say I really care if any liberals think I was flaming them.

I had a very long response to this, when I just happened for unknown reasons to check out this forum again, but the wife came by the office and we went out to lunch. I was thinking of not bothering to post it as it would still be wasted and a computer freeze took care of it for me.

With age comes wisdom, and I received a bit of a dose this last year or two. There is no need to be angry and agitated over that which you can not control. The difference between liberalism and conservatism seems to be one rallies against human nature and tries to force us to become what they think humans should be, while one accepts it and works out the best solutions we can understanding that nature and accepting its short comings.

It takes decades to see a change from one mind set to the other, and some never accept it, but regardless it makes arguing with someone who thinks the individual exists to serve the collective pointless with someone who thinks collectives form because they serve individuals.

Over my years posting here, I've had a number of PM's from people thanking me for posting or showing them there is another side of the debate. I was glad to know at least someone was gaining something from my efforts but such education wasn't worth having to deal with the rest. There was SOME good debate, but it gets buried in a mountain of over the top biased articles, communist pseudo-intellectual drivel, and cut and paste insanity which was once controlled a bit by the mods and no longer was (art was the best at this and he wasn't any easier on me).

So I came to a conclusion. Why bother getting mad? The politics of the world haven't changed because I no longer post on tfp. I have a mountain of personal goals to work on and a family which I'd rather spend more and more of my time with. I could argue with some 20 something who hasn't even figured out his own life about how the world should be run, or enjoy the life I have worked for and created myself without getting mad at the interweb political debate.

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Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.

dc_dux

You're right. Conservatives want to force us to live under a literal interpretation of their Christian bible combined with their strict and narrow interpretation of the Constitution.

On a serous note, that is probably the most baseless mischaracterization of liberalism/conservatisim I have ever seen.

Sorry you wont stay around to debate it. But, from my experience, that has been your practice...."hit and run" before your arguments can be challenged.

In any case, from one 40something to another, I wish you well in getting on with your life.

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"The perfect is the enemy of the good."
~ Voltaire

Ustwo

Hit and run? You know I covered this in my original long post.

There are about 15 liberals to one conservative that posts, I'm not going to respond to everyone who thinks they have a point.

I won't bother with the rest, as I said, there is no point, if you can't see it yet in your 40's so be it, you might be one of those who never does.

Here is your test. I'd be pretty happy under a Libertarian government, would you be?

__________________
Agents of the enemies who hold office in our own government, who attempt to eliminate our "freedoms" and our "right to know" are posting among us, I fear.....on this very forum. - host

Obama - Know a Man by the friends he keeps.