Hardknock

Maybe we should kill them all. Just like every terrorist in the world that Bush seems to think we can catch.

moosenose

The reality of the situation is that such charges are only brought if there are other mitigating factors, and it did NOT occur in private. Why is this? It's because SCOTUS basically said that as long as it's in the bedroom, it's not the government's business. If ANY state tried to prosecute somebody for consentual sex acts between adults that occurred in private, they run the very real risk of having their state law overturned.

The 10 commandments are vital to three of the world's largest religions, and YES, they are still valid under Islam. And when peopletake the stand in court, they are given the option of "affirming" instead of swearing. "God" is a non-specific deity. "Shiva" is a very specific deity.

So you feel a responsibility to manage your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-
grandchildren's lives? Did you ever consider that maybe they don't WANT your meddlesomeness? If that's the standard we're going to use, hey, the Sun's expansion is eventually going to destroy the Earth. WHY AREN'T YOU FIXING THAT???

Ever hear of the Tuskeegee experiment? Didn't think so...


"It's all those evil damned Corporations and the Bourgoise, keepin the Proletariat DOWN. BLOOD IN THE STREETS! Death To America!" Oops, sorry. I was channelling again. Like I said, if you don't like it, fine. You are free to build the better mousetrap. If your work has merit, society will financially reward you for it.

Oh, yeah, I forgot all about the concentration camps for the poor...How silly of me. In terms of raw dollars spent, what has happened to the social welfare programs since Bush took office? Has spending decreased over what they were during the Clinton years?

Mantus

Ustwo is corect. Gun control is yet another favorite American pastime of trying to alleviate the symptoms rather then preventing the disease.

There is less political risk in focusing on the short term and treating the symptom rather then the long term and fighting the cause. Thus our country has been burried in a quagmire of half-assed political decisions that always cost us more and solve absolutely nothing.

moosenose

Ummm, WRONG. They were not gun buybacks, they were gun CONFISCATIONS. Are you advocating confiscation of guns in America?

Have you seen what has happened in England and Wales afterwards? Did the raw numbers OR rates of gun crime decrease? No matter how you look at it, gun crime in the UK has skyrocketed since the ban, Scopes be damned.

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews...l&siteid=50143
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1440764.stm
http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news/press/14919.shtml

this last one is fascinating, given that ALL handguns were confiscated by the Government in 1997, IIRC.

Fourtyrulz

The Tuskegee experiment was perpetrated and approved by the United States government, not a private drug company. If anything, this should assert the point that governments don't always have their citizens best interests in mind when meddling with health care.

__________________
the·o·ry - a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation.
faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary

moosenose

So, how long have we been keeping track of temperatures? Doesn't the Earth have a normal warming/cooling cycle? Isn't that what the ice ages were? You're looking at MAX a couple of hundred years of data, much of it suspect, and drawing grand conclusions which simply are not supported by all of the evidence. As for the rest of the world, they can kiss my...Democratic Party emblem.

Sure there is, I know people who do it. True, they live in caves deep in national forest land, and eat what they can find, but they consume almost no petrochemicals in any form. You say the government should be proactive. Where is the constitutional authority for them to do so?

The government warplays all kinds of bizarre scenarios. That's why they have a General Staff. Are you saying that ANY scenario that the Government warplays is actually going to happen?

Just because the Liberals scream and rend their garments doesn't mean that we're all going to die by next Tuesday unless we give them whatever they need for their latest cockamamie scheme.

zenmaster10665

The problem is that the cooling/warming cycle of the earth is not being followed...the earth is warming at a much higher rate than normal. If you studied this, you would understand the difference. I have. I do.

I dont think this needs any rebuttal. A statement like this only comes from someone who doesn't understand the rest of the world.

Right. I am not advocating a move to agrarian society, I am advocating a change in thought that supports sustainable energy rather than reliance on the middle east and other oil-bearing nations. 250 million people living in caves? I don't think there are enough to go around.


The US government has all the authority that they need to push thru energy reform. The fact of the matter is that there are too many people making too much money from the current situation for there to be any changes made.



No, but I would suggeest that you look at the predictions of M. King Hubbert, who predicted the US soverign oil peak in the 1970's.

http://www.hubbertpeak.com/

This makes me yawn. I am not a liberal or a democrat. I AM a concerned National of the US, a resident of the UK and a citizen of the world...and it is short-sighted views like this that need to be addressed by the industrial nations of the world, not jus the USA.

"Dont worry, be happy" Right?


...Right??

__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut

moosenose

Wrong. I do understand the rest of the world, I just don't think that the rest of the world should be involved in OUR domestic policy. Our government was not elected to make the rest of the world happy, it was elected to take care of US.

If this is true, then you will have no problem citing the part of the US Constitution that is operable, right?

Why don't we look at the predictions of Nostradamus and base our policy on that then?

So you have a "world passport"?

We have a right to have what you term "short-sighted views". We have a right to base our own governmental policies on what is best for US. If you don't like it? Well, sorry about that...

connyosis

Yeah but see, when your domestic policies affects the rest of the world, then we have the right to bitch at you. Simple as that.

__________________
If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

pan6467

Attitudes like yours are what makes us looked upon as bullies or the wife beating husband...... and sadly what also makes us terrorist targets. IT IS NOT THE USA'S PLANET, it is every country's planet and if their agenda affects us, we slam them and expect them to change, the world community has the right to do so with us if we affect them in negative ways with our agendas that affect them in negative ways.

One of these days soon, we may need help from one of these countries you so laugh at and they will in turn laugh back at you.

May I need remind you that the poorer nations and the nations we aggitate towards hating us (with those "better and holier than thoy attitudes" so many these days seem to have in regard to foreign relations), are growing and are far younger and hungrier than us.

We may have nukes but that maybe all we have someday and eventually the nukes won't scare them.

If you think we are untouchable and that we are invincible that no country will ever take us down, ask Napolean, Rome, Stalin, Hitler at their height who would take them down.

Wars are won by who is the hungriest and has the least to lose.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

moosenose

And here I thought they were won by the "biggest and best battallions".

Other countries are able to tell the US to fuck off. Remember "Yankee go home"? So why don't we have the right to tell them to fuck off too? What's fair is fair, and if they can do it, we can do it too.

If they don't want our help, that's fine. They can remember that when the next Stalin or Hitler comes along. We'll see how much they enjoy the Communist Chinese system, and how thankful their families are when the government sends them the bill for the bullet.

moosenose

And we have the right to tell you where exactly to get off. Case in point: the Presidential election of 2004.

Mephisto2

And people were compensated. You're arguing pedantics.

And, as I said before, I am not adocating confiscation of guns in America. You guys can shoot the fuck out of each other and anything that moves for all I care.

What I AM advocating is that you stop trying to recommend the reintroduction of privately held firearms into the UK, Ireland and Australia (the three countries mentioned by myself) against the wishes of the vast majority of people.

Mr Mephisto

moosenose

Where have I advocated that? If the people there are willing to live as slaves, what business is it of mine? It just means I will not move there (or intentionally visit there). And I understand that they are very NICE manacles....gold-plated, and lined with fake fur...

Tophat665

Tell it to the Iraqis, mate. While you're at it, you may want to see what the Nicaraguans, Mexicans, Salvadorans, Iranians, Cubans, Chileans, and Phillipinos think about how well we have stayed out of their domestic policies.

And a fine job our government is doing taking care of us too. Global warming is a fine thing for now. So is gasoline nearly triple the price it was three years ago. Creating all those new terrorists has provided many an opportunity for a military career for promising young men and women. And, of course, paying quadruple the going global rates for prescription drugs and sugar makes me feel quite well cared for.

Because he was French. Duh!

Actually, the fact that peak oil continues to recede does not mean that we will not catch up at some point. I will grant easily that we have more than enough oil left to continue using it for a very long time, but it will get progressivly more expensive, and, let's face it, since we stay out of the domestic affairs of other sovreign nations, we'll never have any problems with it being under the land of people who would be very happy to see our economy in shambles.

You can't honestly say you don't see the glaring contradiction in that, can you? I mean, last I checked, the United States is still on the same planet as the rest of the world. I mean, other than in the White House.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

moosenose

You can't have it both ways. Either the US needs to play "World Police", or we don't. If we DON'T, then whenever somebody foreign does something we don't think is kosher to us, expect us to bomb them. Why? Because it's the only way we'll have left to change their minds. America has tried to help damn near EVERYBODY on the planet at one point or another. You don't get the carrot without the stick. And frankly, the carrot is looking kinda wilted now...

Hardknock

I don't think that there's any hope for this guy. For some reason he think that he can have his cake and eat it too. Tell the world to fuck off if they don't agree to our policies and at te same time, beg them to produce more oil?!? I don't see the logic in that one.

This biggest and the best isn't necessarily going to cut it. Our "best" can't even defeat a bunch of suicide boming thugs. How do you think that this mindset wins wars?

But we have the right to invade others becasue, per your logic, someone said "death to america!" But you are right, they were elected to take care of us. Too bad that they don't.

It's obvious that no one is going to change your mind that the "war" policy is the best way to go. We'll just see where we end up becasue of it.

connyosis

Great. So you're saying that the rest of the world has the right to complain, but you wont listen anyway? Brilliant strategy I must say.

__________________
If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.

zenmaster10665

America has tried to help some people on the planet when its own best interests were at heart.

Just like every other country in the world.

Is anyone helping the people of Zimbabwe? What about Darfur?

The US cannot and should not play "World Police" that is for an organisation like the UN. (Which is in dire need of reform to put some teeth back in its enforcement capabilities.)

__________________
"Beware of the man who works hard to learn something, learns it, and finds himself no wiser than before.
He is full of murderous resentment of people who are ignorant without having come by their ignorance the hard way."
-Kurt Vonnegut

Tophat665

Precisely, you can't have it both ways. If we want to be a global power for justice, which would be the only justification for the clusterfucks we have generated in the countries I cited, then we need to act in a global context. That would mean, at the very least, listening to and weighing the concerns of the global community. Kerry (who is a douchebag but for whom I voted anyway), mentioned a global test, to Karl Rove's unholy glee, but that is just what he was talking about: If we want to play world police, and apparently we have wanted to do so, then we need to attend to the fraud, embezzlement, and thievery as well as the murder, burglary, and domestic disturbances. Unfortunately, we seem to be dealing only with the latter, which are largely foreign in origin, rsther than the former, much of which (not all, but a goodly chunk) have their genesis closer to home.

So which planet are we on, my friend?

Incidentally, that was a nifty argument, but it works both ways.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

pan6467

Again ask Napolean, Hitler, Rome they all had the biggest and best battallions and they all lost. Ask the USSR in Afghanistan, ask the us in Korea and Vietnam.

Yeah but I don't see Iraqis or Australians, Brits or Germans interfering with our domestic policies, do you?


Ah, but we're having our troops buy their gear are we not? And right now to at least the vast majority of the world, we look to be the next Stalin and Hitler...... and with the "fuck everyone else in the world and fuck the Dems, fuck the gays, fuck the non-Christians, fuck everyone who questions Bush" attitudes I see here, I wonder if we aren't.

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

shakran

Let's step back a second and look at Moosenose's arguments, because they are a classic example of how the Republicans are whipping the hell out of the Democrats.

He says (paraphrasing all of these) "Other countries don't have the right to interfere with our domestic policy"

So we say "But we're interfereing with the domestic policy of all these countries"

And then he says "You can't have it both ways. Either we can be the world police or we can't."


Now if you look at that example Moosenose is neatly shifting the topic of the argument while appearing to keep arguing the same thing. At first the argument was about whether or not OTHER countries have the right to be annoyed with the US for crapping out the environment. He didn't think so which is fine.

But when we pointed out that we seem to think we have the right to tell those other countries how to run THEIR governments, he rebutted with something that had nothing whatsoever to do with the original topic. Complete shift in argument.


Now you might be asking why this is important, and it's here that I want to make it clear I'm not singling out Moosenose. See, this is a tactic used by just about every member of Bush's cabinet during press conferences, and it's one widely used by republicans in general, and frankly it's a brilliant one. You can continue to make it sound like you're arguing one point when in fact you're arguing something completely different. This makes it easy to dupe the public into thinking you think one way when in fact you think the opposite. If you came right out and said it (in this example, "I don't think anyone can tell us what to do, but we can certainly tell everyone else what to do because we're big and strong") people would object. But if you couch it in the right terms, people won't get it, and they'll support you.

It's this kind of debate that is why the Republican political machine is so successful: They're willing to do and say anything necessary to get elected, whether it's deceitful or not.

And it's this kind of debate that the public, and especially the democrats, need to be aware of if they want to have a prayer of ending the current dangerous political situaiton.

pan6467

Very good read, Shakran. Informative, educational and extremely truthful.

The question is how do we keep the people focussed while the other side tends to lead them down the rosier road, saying what the people want to hear but doing the opposite?

__________________
I just love people who use the excuse "I use/do this because I LOVE the feeling/joy/happiness it brings me" and expect you to be ok with that as you watch them destroy their life blindly following. My response is, "I like to put forks in an eletrical socket, just LOVE that feeling, can't ever get enough of it, so will you let me put this copper fork in that electric socket?"

Mephisto2

What on EARTH are you talking about?

You're actually babbling now...


Mr Mephisto

moosenose

Ah, there's where you are wrong. We could defeat the suicide bombing thugs, we just lack the political will to do so. Ever read Tacitus? There's already a desert there...

Their weak points are the Madrassas or however you spell it. They are virtually suicide bomber incubators. Shut them down by whatever means are necessary, and a lot of the problem goes away.

"Death to America" has been the official Iranian State policy since the fall of the Shah. The level of rhetoric alone coming from them is casus belli, even if you completely ignore their internationally illegal attempts to produce nuclear weapons.

moosenose

So we should invade Zimbabwe? OK, I'm game for that. Of course, as soon as we did, the people who now are saying "you should invade zimbabwe" will be out on the streets alleging absolutely anything they can dream up to smear the US military.

Anybody who would want to put ANY military power into the hands of the UN is either ignorant of very recent history or just a plain old fool. "Srebrenica" ring a bell? Anyone? Anyone?

moosenose

Napoleon had big battalions, but they were unprepared for the climate. Hitler never had 1/10th of the manpower under arms that the Soviets did. At the start of Barbarossa, IIRC, the German side of the line was held by 1 million men, the offensive forces were around 1.5 million men (something like 2.5 million total on the eastern front and in support) and they were facing over 15 million russian men on the front line ALONE, not counting reinforcements in-theater. During the first 30 days of Barbarossa, the Germans killed or captured FAR more Soviet troops than the combined number of German and their allied troops in theater. When Rome fell, it most certainly did NOT have the biggest and best battalions. their military was a pale shadow of what it had been.

Well, the North Koreans endorsed Kerry, yes? What do you think the huge anti-american protests overseas were about? Hell, what do you think the various european and australian anti-gun groups are doing now?

Actually, no. There was talk of obtaining black berets from Communist China, but a federal law forbade it. They ended up being made in the USA, and just being phased in more slowly. BTW, I certainly have not said "fuck the gays" or "fuck the non-christians" or "fuck everyone who questions Bush". I don't think I've said "fuck everyone else in the world" or "fuck the Dems". And if the world choses to see us as the next Hitler and/or Stalin, hey, that's their right. They can enjoy becoming vassals or slaves of the Communist Chinese, just like the Tibetans. Find some nice Eastern Europeans to talk to, and offer them the choice of being an American ally or a Communist Chinese ally, and see what they say.

moosenose

Ohh, yay. I feel special. And NO, NOT in a "short bus" sense.

actually, I was leaning more towards their FOREIGN policy. I don't give a rat's ass about their DOMESTIC policy, unless it affects their FOREIGN policy and how it applies to us. If the goverment is domestically encouraging their people to chant "Death to America" while domestically providing shelter and funding for terrorists whose goal is to attack the US, THEN it's something that we should be concerned about. If, on the other hand, their domestic policy says "we will all drive on what the Americans say is the wrong side of the road", then it's none of our business.

Annoyed? Sure, they can be annoyed. If you're annoyed, you don't send people Christmas or Hannukah or Ramadan or Whatever cards. Being "annoyed" does NOT encompass threatening the US. That's no longer "being annoyed", that's "committing an act of war". Subtle distinction there.

We have a right to become highly pissed when they commit an act of war against us.

So, by singling out me specifically at least four times before this comment, you're NOT singling out me? Why am I reminded of an Orwell quote here?

moosenose

Well, you can always just lie to them. Hey, it's worked before...

Mods: no disrespect is intended, I'm just trying to inject some humor into the situation. If I was trying to be disrespectful, I'd have given specific examples, all drawn from a single party, while ignoring examples from other parties.

host

The UN seems to have a track record that is overwhelmingly positive. What is more, the military monitoring and peace keeping missions that the world body chooses to fund and participate in seem to have less to do with geo-political and resource driven, self interest, than the places that the U.S.focuses on.
If the U.N. did not do it, it probably would not get done. It seems that as the integrity of the reputation of the U.S. deteriorates in the eyes of much of the rest of the world, the UN, in comparison, seems more welcome and influential.
Please consider the example that is being set by these two past presidents.
Their evolving friendship would not be possible if they could not put aside the disagreements, grievances, and rivalry that once separated them:

moosenose

I think that would depend on if you talked to one of the few surviving Bosnian Muslim men from around Srebrenica, or one of the survivors of Rwanda, or survivors of the other various FUBARed UN "peacekeeping" missions or UN-allowed genocides or other UN related atrocities (remember the UN troops raping children a while back?), or talked to the "other side" in those conflicts.

BTW, has the UN issued a resolution telling member states to invade Zimbabwe to stop what is happening there yet?

Oh, and BTW....those UN figures you cite, with fatalities listed? Those are UN fatalities, NOT ALL fatalities, which often were several orders of magnitude higher. "yeah, we only lost X people" sounds a lot better than "yeah, we only lost X people, but 800,000 of the people we were there to protect got massacred, but hey, did we mention we only lost X people???"

alansmithee

Neither Napoleon nor Hilter had the biggest or best battallions at the end of the conflicts they were defeated in. The forces allied against each were far more numerous than either had. And both made several severe strategic miscalculations that allowed for their higher quality units to be wasted in inefficent ways.

Rome was destroyed because the military and gov't weren't up to the task of controlling the vast area it claimed at the end of the empire. In essence, it collapsed under it's own weight.

In Afghanistan, Korea, and Vietnam the "hungrier" side had support from outside, giving more weight behind their hunger. Also, the US kept N. Korean dictators from taking over S. Korea. And the same could have been done in Vietnam, had the military been allowed to use its full force.

So, no your examples don't support your claim.

alansmithee

1. Democrats do the same thing, just less effectively. They are just as willing to say whatever it takes to win. It's just that at this time people are less receptive to the line Dems are taking. Its also this kind of willful ignorance to their own side's flaws that makes many people not buy what Dems say. Also, it would be interesting to see why this political situation is "dangerous".

2. And I don't see why many people wouldn't buy "I don't think anyone can tell us what to do, but we can certainly tell everyone else what to do because we're big and strong". It's true. It's how things work. You just have to hope that the people who are "big and strong" aren't also totally looking out for their own self interest. And that's another thing that separates liberals/dems from conservatives/republicans: liberals are all to ready to condemn America as a source of evil in the world, whereas the others think that America is generally a good place. And this is another reason most people don't buy the liberal line-they don't believe that the place that allowed them the freedoms they have, and the relative prosperity they have is this great evil empire bent on destroying the world. For instance, look at many of the threads on this board, or posts in this thread even. If America were actually so anti-freedom, would these exist? Many places in the world currently have limited internet access in their countries, so it's entirely possible to do. Yet many liberals here would have you believe that we are living in a world line 1984, with Big Brother replaced with Karl Rove (at least now. Before people recognised that name, Cheney was the "puppetmaster". I wonder who the next "puppetmaster" will be in '08). The very fact that the OP feels comfortable with sending letters to politicians complaining about so-called lack of freedoms should be a clue that things aren't half as bad as what liberals want people to think.

Fourtyrulz

That would make the problem even worse, and would give a solid foundation to the claim that Christian America is trying to destroy Islam. A madrasa is the Muslim equivalent of a Christian Academy, where you go for religious education. Forcefully shutting down what are fundamentally religious academies would be like a shotgun blast to the head of US relations with the Muslim world.

60,800 Iraqi civilians (number fresh from today's paper), did not commit an act of war against us. Come to think of it, NO Iraqi committed an act of war against us.

Moose, you aren't going to get very far disagreeing with everybody while at the same time jumping to radical conclusions of how the world should be run. This ain't the United States of Moosenoose.

__________________
the·o·ry - a working hypothesis that is considered probable based on experimental evidence or factual or conceptual analysis and is accepted as a basis for experimentation.
faith - Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence.
- Merriam-Webster's dictionary

moosenose

So the Iraqi military shooting AAA at US planes after the ceasefire was NOT an act of war?

Mantus

The fact is, bombs never stopped dropping on Iraq after Desert Fox. Both Britain and the US continued to bomb suspecious targets in Iraq.

Leading up to the current conflict both the RAF and the US Airforce stepped up it's bombing campaign in an attempt to tease Saddam into war.

moosenose

By "suspecious targets", you're referring to AAA guns and missile launchers that shot at them first, right? How DARE we bomb people who shot at us first!

host

The evidence indicates that the U.S. and UK were the instigators and aggressors

Mantus

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article...669640,00.html

And indeed we were destroying AAA sites all this time. AAA sites that were reportedly targeting our planes. However we were in Iraqi air space.

Ustwo

Under UN mandate.

__________________
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.