I understand that much of the power and perceived power the United States has is what has long kept it at the forefront of political influence. Often, when the U.S. has flexed its muscle, others argue that the U.S. only has its own interests in mind. I agree that often the U.S. first considers the benefits to itself before anyone else; however, the interests of the U.S. often coincide with the interests of the world.
However, I can see how various decisions have furthered the view that the U.S. is irresponsible. In fact, I no longer support the war in Iraq; at least not as I did at the onset of war. My support has waned and wavered of late… probably because, as some have pointed out, there seems to be no end in sight, no strategy, and no direction. In this I feel the leaders of the United States have failed its citizens and has failed the world. This failure has often led to critique: The U.S. has appointed itself the world’s police. Or we hear, why should the U.S. choose what is best for the world? How is the U.S. to be trusted? What gives the U.S. the right to…? And so on, and so on.
I don’t see this as justified criticism. In general though, I think the world has failed itself. We have failed each other and we have failed ourselves. Someone has to step up and lead the way. I am not certain if there are any other countries that have the resources, the history, and the qualifications to lead the world into a brighter tomorrow.
Some may disagree with the above point in part or in full, so I ask: Who should lead the way to a brighter future? Should it be Saudi Arabia? Israel? Perhaps Thailand should lead the way? Should it be the U.N.? Should every country adopt a “live and let die†policy? When is it justified to interfere with another country’s affairs?
I think the criticisms are all justified. you’ll think so to, watch C-SPAN 3 on friday (if you don’t get cspan3 goto c-span.org and watch the downing street hearing.) Somehow the dems convinced Hunter to let them use a room… in the basement with a seating capacity of TWENTY.
enough ranting though onto the topic at hand.
“Who should lead the way to a brighter future?”
brighter, indeed.
FIrst we need to ensure that every american has adequate health care, and is not starving to death. i fully believe that before you try taking care of the rest of the world you need to take care of your own.
Secondly, before we try helping the rest of the world, we need to have a clear plan of environmental consciousness and freeing ourselves from the dirtiness of oil on all levels. If we make ourselves too dependant on it, the moment the wells all dry up we’re screwed. In fact, I’ve heard some well founded theories that even a 5% reduction in oil output would be ABSOLUTELY crippling to our country.
I actually agree with bush on clean nuclear power. Too bad it’s an empty promise.
“Should it be Saudi Arabia? Israel?”
sigh… well if we were really going to war to stop “terrorism” it would be Saudi Arabia. But war breeds terrorism. You cannot fight terrorism with guns and planes. You’ve got to fight it with humanitarian efforts.
I suggest you research where Saddham got his weapons of mass destruction, and then wonder why we ourselves our not facing war crimes. Also research where Saddham got the idea to invade Kuwait. It was the Kuwait invasion that got us into Saudi Arabia, It was us getting into Saudi Arabia that gave Osama Bin Laden strength.
and while your thinking about that, ponder this. Did we go after all the right wing wacko’s like Timothy Mcveigh after the OKC bombing?
“Perhaps Thailand should lead the way?”
They shold certainly be looked at as examples of peace.
“Should it be the U.N.?”
To goto war? no, I think war is antiquated and in this day and age war should only be necessary in clear cases of genocide. I think the US sat on it’s laurels too long to enter WW2. There are several countries in Africa commiting genocide right now. Those are dictators that need to be removed with force.
“Should every country adopt a “live and let die†policy?”
No see above. There are situations that warrant force.
“When is it justified to interfere with another country’s affairs?”
When they are blatantly violating human rights and committing genocide.
What does Iraq represent to america?
Look at the globe. It sits between our enemies and is a huge supply of resources. Strategically if you are planning to take out the middle east, going for Iraq was a smart move. Why no exit strategy? Exit isn’t the goal. From Iraq after “stabilizing” it (which will never happen, if your country was invaded and you liked your leader (which a large group obviously did.) what would you do if taken over? would you sit still and let it happen? or act out?) they’re goal IMO was to then take down Iran and Saudi.
That will obviously never happen at this point. If No. Korea decided at this point to militarily threaten us we are so overextended in Iraq and Afghanistan that we’d be screwed.
So is it time to stop being the world police?
yes.
Is it time to find more peaceful ways to spread democracy?
yes.
(btw on a side note, today the republican’s are proposing a bill to investigate the Red Cross, obviously they don’t like the red cross meddling in their affairs…)
The current paradigm of a global hegemon directing the affairs of the world is coming to an end, and shifting toward international cooperation. Globalization and integration have thoroughly penetrated all industrial nations and much of the third world creating two camps, those who resist and those who accept. The United States is in an unique but inevitable position of being the last hegemon before the shift, and concequently is acting it’s part as the main resistance to international cooperation which foreshadows the necessary downfall. As easily predicted the U.S. has flexed it’s muscle and the more unified world community has turned its back on the dogmatic hegemon forcing it to intensify it’s hegemonic tendencies, and thus furthering tensions between the hegemon and the world community.
The reliance of our economy on foreign nations specifically China will spell the downfall of our hegemonic asperations. In the wake of our downslide I see a failed attempt by China to grab power, and if we’re lucky the actualization of an international government founded on global cooperation.
I agree global hegemon seems to be in decline… its replacement seems to be certain powers operating in large spheres of influence. They may cooperate or the may not. Currently, however, it appears as though Orwell knew what he was talking about, an Asian bloc, a European bloc, and a North American bloc seem to be where the world is headed.
I agree that there is health care deficiency which is related to our capitalistic system. The implementation of such a program would be incredibly difficult, costly, and would take a very long time which could result in a massive failure.
However, most of the people starving to death are ‘societal victims’ in that they victimize themselves and blame society for their failures (see my Victims of What? thread). I grew up near these ‘starving people’ and they are simply starving because they choose to starve. Basically, most of them are worthless bums.
Also, if we take care of our own first and foremost, it would be very unlikely we would ever help elsewhere… this is a live and let die policy.
I do agree that our dependency on oil is a problem. In the meantime though, we need it. Science will find a way… that is not an empty promise. In fact, necessity is the mother of invention… It’s a bit overused and simplistic, but I think it applies. The necessity is becoming greater–it will reach a point where we will need a renewable source of energy and that will push invention.
Non-violence huh? I don’t support Israel’s rights over the Palestinian’s or the Palestinian’s rights over Israel’s… however, how do you suppose they can work out a resolution? There are many whose sole purpose is to remove Israel from the area completely. Do you think there is a resolution that will make these extremists happy? I can picture 100,000 Israelis sitting in protest of aggression when a powerful bomb from some extremist goes off right in the middle… I wonder how effective humanitarian efforts will be to prevent this.
What is the definition of genocide? How many deaths before it is a genocide? Do we commit ourselves to preventing genocide at 100,000 people? How about 10,000? How about 1,000? How about 100? Also, what if Israel began taking over Jordan, Syria, Lebanon without committing genocide? When is it justified to remove a dictator based on genocide? I suggest that these questions don’t have simple answers. It’s not so easy to be on top.
How many people must a ruler outright murder before a country is justified in removing them from office? Do you think that everyone can agree with 10,000? It’s not so simple to decide. Was Saddam’s regime violating human rights? I think so. Here is where people point to Saudi Arabia and say that women’s rights…
I learned something in the ghetto: On two occassions where gang members surrounded and ‘jumped me’ (slang for attacked me as a group), I made a decision to attack first that resulted in two very different outcomes.
Occasion 1: I was surrounded by six gang members and I decided to attack first. I attacked the biggest guy (I was a damn good fighter and could kick just about any one guy’s ass). The result: We both went at it for about 15 seconds in which time I did major damage. I was doing well until the bangers managed to drop me to the ground and beat me to a near pulp. I was saved when some of my brother’s ‘homies’ happened to find me and started shooting in our direction… no one was killed that day.
Ocassion 2: I was surrounded by about 12 - 20 gang members–I don’t recall because I was too scared to remember/count. I knew that if I tried to fight them at all, I would die that day (I didn’t think I would be rescued this time). I decided to again attack first. I attacked the thinest, weakest looking guy. With two punches this guy was down… it opened a hole and I ran like I’ve only run on ONE other occassion. I was like the wind. I ran to the local police station which was about 3 blocks away and went inside. The blood of the guy I punched was on my white t-shirt and Dickies… The cops tried to get me to tell them something but I had a different attitude about cops back then (didn’t trust them back then). So, I waited in the lobby for about an hour and then ran home since I didn’t have a dime to use the payphone for anyone to pick me up.
We have to pick our battles. Some people will not relinquish power unless that power is removed through force. When faced with many adversaries should we always confront the strongest opponent? No, not always. The battle between the strongest will leave the winner weakened. In some cases, we have to attack the weaker ones, make an example of them and then resort to humanitarian efforts with others.
What makes you think we are overextended?
I understand that we want the world to be unified and that a unified decision is most fair. However, as much as some want this, others are opposed to this same idea. Who has the resources, the influence, the power, the muscle?
Someone has to lead the way; the choice may be simple; the answers of how they accomplish this may not.
Political globalisation will only happen when the communism prevails. The US is doing so far so good, now after flatened Iraq and is hotly doing North Korea. My compliments. Before long it’ll corner China on its own and fully exploit the Chinese economy to its own ends - that’s undoubtfully the game plan. But who else wants its plan? If India is stupidly enough to watch China screwed by America, then soo enough the whole world become federal states… China is the only hope for a much better world future than that; it’ll save the world from McDonald’s fat plague and Holywoods’ philosophy and so on, even from the new sexual trend of JackoWacko… China’s already failed? Man it hasn’t even started yet. And you’d better hope it’d actually make a start despite America’s ethuiastic pocking and blocking.
China won’t try to shove their high spiritual culture into the capitalists’ ass, they don’t need to, by then even more people will finally see the light that the western culture has been a rather self-destructive one in many aspects so to speak - so in this way alone, I claim that the world’ll be milder for better, and that influence can only come from China. Who else can do better? Russian is a candidate but we don’t really want Putin promoting Shodaokan to primary school children.
to say the least. Such a system to be correctly undertaken would require tax rates near as high as Canada. It would also require us not throwing 80 billion dollars at a war we can’t hope to win with the numbers we have.
I believe you are generalizing, but I myself have said the same thing. The US has one of the lowest jobless rates in the world. A majority of the people not working are either unemployable (health problems, or mental problems.) or don’t want to work. Either way, like it or not, society has an ethical responibility for these people.
I disagree. I think once we worked out our own problems it’d be far easier to help others.
keep dreaming. The current administration has it’s pockets lined with oil. Alternative energy, like solar power? a dream. Not feasible. Fuel Cells? They need replacing every 20,000 miles and currently are nowhere feasible cost wise for mass production. Will something be invented to fix the problem? for sure, but not from an oil tycoon.
Honestly? Stop thinking that they’re god is the one to follow. The only way they’ll ever treat each other equally is if they drop religion. One thing you should know is that you should NEVER pick sides in a religious battle. It’s too late though since we’ve “unofficially” sided with Israel. This is part and parcel of what pisses off palestinians. That and we sold chemical WMD’s to Saddham Hussein during the 80’s along with the helicopters to deploy them.
those were all destroyed at the end of the previous Bush war to control Saddham in 91 though. (and no this wasn’t secret intelligence.)
well, I think that the whole notion that a land is “holy” is absolutely silly. I also think Israel overstepped bounds of rationality by buying up (illegaly sometimes.) land from palestinians and moving in jews from other parts of the world. jews that NEVER lived in Israel.
I also think it’s silly that germany thinks they have to apologize for the sins of hitler. modern germany couldn’t control hitler, why should they feel responsible for hitler’s actions?
I feel the same way about the US government. Yes they screwed up enslaving blacks. Why should we feel perpetually indebted to them though? It’s ludicrous. (I realize I’m getting off topic here.)
How effective would a war be at preventing that? All we’ve done by invading Iraq is unstabilize an ALREADY unstable region, created MORE terrorists and more reasons for terrorists to hate america. We’re in a lose lose with military action in that area because of our past actions and choices. The best choice is humanitarian efforts in that area, but even that will piss off the orthodox muslims that think it’s ok to clip the clitoris of women or behead raped women.
genocide is less about How many and more about WHO. If you kill 10 people of the same race or culture that is genocide. Where do we commit ourselves? where the rest of the world can back us up so we don’t end up in a hopeless situation like Iraq.
These are the kind of questions that the UN is for. Bush circumvented the UN with Tony Blair through lies, and misdirection. While he was saying that Saddham was not allowing weapon inspectors on the ground, they were on the ground. Had we waited and gone through official channels, we would’ve had the full support of the UN in removing Iraq and would not be completely financially burdened with the task.
It all comes down to ego. Daddy couldn’t reign in their little bitch so junior took care of it.
see above.
without a doubt, just like every other country in that area, just like No Korea, just like Sudan, just like Cambodia, just like vietnam, just like china.
Do you see the problem with military force fixing the world yet? Let’s say we decide to go in and “regime change” China. We’d get wiped out. They have an army that is probably the population of california.
interesting that your relating your ghetto experience to the world table.
This is the situation we would be in with china. No one would save us though. We can’t fix the human rights problems with military force in china, and we certainly wouldn’t try it with No. Korea now that they have nuclear arms, so what made us think we could accomplish it with Iraq?
You knew that you were horribly outnumbered and had to run away. We are in that situation now with Iraq. We took on a situation that we had no exit strategy, partly because they had no real entrance strategy. They lied about the reason to go to war, regardless of whether there were human right violations we can’t go riding in to countries we deem need help like a cowboy or we’re garaunteed to get trampled every time.
were you able to relinquish power in either of your street examples? no.
It’s through alliances that battles are won, we have a rather weak alliance with britian where we can use there bases.
yes and we can clearly see how effective it was to invade a country that wasn’t ready for freedom. Did a country come riding in to help us gain our freedom from britain? No, it was financial help and strategic help. NOT, help winning the war. You have to want freedom.
Tell me how our nation is not weakened. We are split partisan. We’ve lost 1800 troops. Half of the national guard is deployed to Iraq. If there was a severe forest fire at this moment, they’d either have to recall the guard from Iraq, or just let the fire burn itself out.
We’ve spent BILLIONS on this war and got none the closer to a clear exit strategy. You’ve got to understand when it’s best to cut your losses and pull out. Like when you have stock in a dying company. At some point you’ve just got to give up on the damn thing and sell.
In this case we’re losing more than money, we’re losing lives and morale.
listen to what your saying, your talking like THEM (being a terrorist.) It’s better to beat someone up on the playground to make an example to the other kids that you don’t dick around with the US. and you pick the smallest kid in the playground when your the biggest kid on the playground.
Think about how that would look on the playground if you saw this 400 pound muscular fatty kid come over and pound this 50 pound twig of a kid. Sure you’ve accomplished beating up the kid, but you’ve pissed off everyone on the playground and now they are all trying to get you.
How many reserves are left in the states in case we do get an attack on the states? I’ve already told you the situation with the national guard.
Again muscle is not the answer. Playground antics will not work against terrorists. Unless you like feeding the fodder?
resources:
Middle east
influence:
No longer the US. The UN has far more world influence than the US.
the power:
we did have great power, but great power only works against OTHER great powers. Would you goto war against fringe groups in the states to stop terrorist actions by right wing wacko’s like Tim McVeigh?
Of course not, you’d punish Him and his cohorts, not go in with tanks and kill his town and declare martial law until a “democratic” system can be setup.
someone does have to lead the way, we don’t have to lead it by being a playground bully though. I don’t think you understand that playground bullery will not stop terrorism it will only promote it.
the downing street meeting is the first on the recent list (currently). It’s worth watching what may be one of the most important events in a long time.
an example of the partisan split was displayed tonight when the democrats involved in the judiciary comittee hearing raised HR 324 to bring Sensenbrenner’s actions (which were clearly illegal and partisan) to the table, and the vote was unanimously partisan.
So I have to ask, do the rules of democracy even matter to republicans in the house and senate anymore? Here one of the most important pieces of evidence pointing to the fact that bush lied to start the war in Iraq and they have to meet in the basement? and republicans don’t even show up?
as a republican you should be ashamed of their behavior. If they have nothing to hide why not attend the meetings?
I think your forgetting who bush is selling our debt to. (that would be china.)
You are forgetting something: economics. Taxes on corporations get passed over to consumers. As I recall, there was once a state increase in taxing cigarettes, which at the current level of consumption would have netted the state $80 Million in taxes; however, these charges were passed onto the consumer. Price goes up, demand goes down. In the end, the state raised only $36 Million. Taxing corporations will achieve a similar effect while damaging our economy.
These people are suggesting that our school problems will go away by adding $10 billion in education for the entire United States. California alone is spending $40 billion, and New York spent about $30 billion, how is an additional $200 million per state (assuming each state receives an equal amount) going to make a difference? And you believe this?
God has less to do with it than you think. Clearly, one side thinks god has deemed it their land and ditto for the other side; however, those aren’t the only sides. The Israeli/Palestinian fight is not just about religion. It shouldn’t be classified solely as a religious battle. These people either do or do not have a right to this land IRREGARDLESS of religion. How will this issue be resolved? What will make the terrorists and extremists happy? I doubt anything but complete removal JUST FOR BEGINNERS.
If you ever watch the Simpsons, there is a funny commentary that Principal Skinner proposes to the children when they start getting out of control: “Order, order. Do you kids wanna be like the real UN or do you just wanna squabble and waste time?” Sorry, the U.N. fails on a more consistent basis than the U.S.
As for regime change: Pick your battles. You think taking on China is the smartest thing to do? Heck no! And you agree. So, no, you don’t pick China for regime change. First you start with a symbolic threat (say, oh… Iraq) and then you move on with humanitarian efforts in Sudan. With fewer threats to the U.S. who are they to argue?
The world is a tough place. You gotta be a tough Oreo cookie to survive. Come on, that was witty of me!
We are not outnumbered… we have poor execution. Different problems.
Are you kidding me? Those guys are probably all dead or in jail. Who has the power now? If I wanted too I could have my gang member friends get these guys back. That would have ended in many deaths… again, you pick your battles. I won in the long term. That’s where the strategy comes in… that is why my support is waning; not because I don’t believe in the cause. We need a strategic plan for complete victory.
You have it reversed. The U.S. is me–the new kid at school. The bullies all thought they could beat me; however, I beat the shit out of one of the tougher ones (remember bullies l.ook tough but are pussies–like the old Iraqi regime) and that served as an example to the other bullies. You think Lebanon wants a piece of me? Of course, I picked the right bully, there were others that could have hurt me pretty bad. You pick your battles. The U.S. is able to do this… you disagree? Then we have to agree to disagree.
I may be a registered republican but I have no prob voting for a democrat. Yes, the republican party has its problems. So do the democrats. The democrats have no plans for anything. They sit around bitching and whining. They don’t propose solutions. This is exactly what the republicans did during the Clinton years. Bipartisan politics are bullshit. I have no loyalty to either party, nor to any party. I am for what is in the best interest of the U.S. I happen to think that democrats are currently focused on their own interests against Bush. Just like Republicans were only interested in ousting Clinton. All bullshit.
Deserting Iraq would be a mistake… staying there without any clear plans is a mistake too.
Scythe, I would like you to reconsider your oreo cookie example: $50 billion in China buys you a hell of a lot or arms, a hell of an army, a hell of a military threat. Also, the amount represents nearly 1% of their GDP.
In the U.S., our military spending is about 3%… So, let’s take these statistics into consideration before we make it seem like we are grossly mispending our funds.
In China, you could put about 200,000 people to work for a whole year on just $1 million bucks… In the U.S., that would be about 25 people. Let’s not get carried away here with the numbers these Oreo people are shoving down your throat.
As an ILP friend, I advise you to stop looking solely at one side of the numbers.
There is an alternative to politics. Consider the Emporers of China or the Kings of the Holy Bible. Peace reigned during those times. I’m not saying we need a royal family to lead us, I’m suggesting something more spiritual.
Why is the sea king of a hundred streams?
Because it lies below them.
Therefore it is the king of a hundred streams.
If the sage would guide the people, he must serve with humility.
If he would lead them, he must follow behind.
In this way when the sage rules, the people will not feel oppressed;
When he stands before them, they will not be harmed.
The whole world will support him and will not tire of him.
Because he does not compete, he does not meet competition.
I don’t see how that affects higher personal tax rates for better social services though?
I say we close the tax loop hole and apply a low flat tax on corporations, then the individuals tax burden could be lower while still providing ample social services. (The type of “if I was president for a day” scenario.)
I think part of the goal of the cigarette tax was to cause demand to go down. basically to tax it out of existence.
well obviously each state wouldnt’ recieve an equal amount. (I didn’t realize california and new york had spent so much on education.) Clearly it would have to be divvied up by populous. I don’t think it will “fix” all the problems, but hell an extra 500 - 750 million for New York and California certainly wouldn’t hurt.
unfortunately it is. The Zionists (like reagan) believe that the second coming will happen when the jews completely have their land back.
The jews believe it is their choice land (bible).
And Jerusalem is an important city for Islam as well.
It’s got everything to do with religion, read osama bin laden’s letter in the rant house (posted by avicenna). He wants all the people of the world to be muslims and is on a holy crusade to stop the evil mammon worshipping US from taking over “HIS” land.
well we also want oil… as the Former FBI guy at the downing street memo said, “the problem is that somehow our oil ended up under their sand.”
This is the thought of the administration. (possibly the clinton administration as well.) Oil like I think I’ve alluded to is a religion of it’s own. Exxon’s plan for hydrogen energy is to extrapolate hydrogen from oil or methane. that’s fantastic, as it won’t remove our dependency on oil.
I think the failures are not a fault of the UN, though it’s a good idea and could work if all nations checked themselves.
and yes I’ve seen the simpsons, best social satire this side of the family guy.
“symbolic” being the key word here, the lie was that they were a threat at all, starting war under false pretenses is a high crime.
regime changes as we SHOULD’VE learned from the past, rarely work correctly. we were only able to liberate half of Korea and because some of the south koreans were actually willing to help us.
Then we tried in Vietnam, and completely and utterly failed, because there wasn’t a large enough group to support us, of course around this time was also the “bay of pigs” designed to take fidel castro out of power, which failed miserably.
the old cliche, is true. History does repeat itself. Yes we’ve removed a dictator, yes they had a semi democratic election.
but,
Is the region more stable?
Is there less or more terrorism in the region?
Will the actions of the US and Bush lying about a reason to start war, increase or decrease terrorism?
clever,
we do have poor execution, but what the hell do you do against insurgents that didn’t want a regime change and don’t care about their lives? these are people that before the invasion probably wouldnt’ have suicide bombed but we’ve given them a reason and targets. as far as being outnumbered, I would disagree, do to the difference in tactics. the sheer numbers aren’t as important in geurilla (sp?) style warfare with terrorist attacks. One person can walk up with a bomb strapped to his chest or car, and take out 30 - 40 people.
you?
we need a real reason to be there to have a sound strategic plan. Since we don’t have that the best course of action is to pull out.
WHAT? come on, look at some history of the middle east and what we’ve done there under the guise of democracy.
Who gave Saddham his WMD’S in the 80’s to help him attack Iran?
Who prompted Saddham to attack Kuwait, so that we could go in and push saddham back to press fear into saudi to let us build a base there.
So to retaliate in the early 90’s they tried taking out our “financial idols” the WTC by car bombing the garage. Then in 2001 they resorted to using our own airplanes as missiles.
Was it a tragic loss of life? of course, but so is the devastating losses in Iraq of the civilians. You can’t fight terrorism with war, remember my tim mcveigh example?
we bullied the old Iraqi Regime.
yes we’ve picked a battle and created more enemies and more terrorists.
remember cliche number 2 → violence begets violence.
yes they were threatening to beat the shit out of you. I’ve been in a similiar situation, I was the new kid at school, and was being verbally abused by some punk that was acting all tough, and then I threw an insult back to him while we were getting dressed in the locker room. After we got out of gym there was a huge crowd of people yelling fight, he was willing, but me being a pacifist just walked away, and NOTHING happened.
ah come on you know that’s BS. The democrat plan:
get a secure plan to get out of Iraq.
Get a budget that works and doesn’t cause a massive deficit, and doesn’t kill social programs like social security and the CPB.
do they bitch and moan? yes, I think it’s justified bitching and moaning, reverse the roles, if the repubs were the minority and the dems were the majority, and the dem president lied about war (me being a dem still) I would want him brought to justice, I would want the dem version of sensenbrenner brought to legal justice for breaking the rules of the judiciary comittee.
IMO, if your not bitching and moaning about what the neo-cons are doing, you don’t fully appreciate what your losing.
which is interesting because the house and senate had a majority of republicans at the time. So if you want to blame anyone for playing the bipartisan bullshit? blame the republicans, they were doing it then and are doing it now trying to lock the democrat opinions away, and trying to make it look like they’re opinion does not matter.
HR 324 (last night on CSPAN) demonstrated this perfectly.
THAT’S my interest. I consider myself more in the middle than either dem or republican. I think the republicans were bitching and whining about nothing. The democrats are justified.
No it’s not, the ousting of clinton was bullshit. The ousting of bush is IMPORTANT. he broke the law, he committed a high crime and lied about the reasons to go to war, he fixed intelligence. You can say that clinton comitted purgery and lied about his affair, but that didn’t kill 1800+ of our troops, and send them to war for a false reason.
Don’t you think that’s an important reason to be ousted?
I disagree, without a good reason to be there, even if we make clear plans they’d still be under false pretenses. The best course of action now is to pull out and accept the losses, maybe even work a deal with the UN to try and stabilize the nation.
every day we spend in Iraq is 1 billion dollars more that we owe to china.
You make a good point, but you missed his point, china is a trading partner and not a threat. (not immediately at least) financially they are a threat. I mean what happens when China owns a substantial part of our country because they’re financing our “war on the axis of evil.”?
I think you missed my point (my fault). I was not arguing that China is our enemy. I was arguing that $1 billion spent on military in Iraq or Iran or North Korea has a lot more purchasing power, and pays for many soldiers… The comparison of cookies is overly simplistic… perhaps Ben & Jerry’s should stick to ice cream (and they can’t even get vanilla right).
Also, throwing $500 million in California is like throwing an ant at an elephant. The point is that throwing money at everything will not easily solve the problem. Why does California spend billions (by the way I hear it is $50 Billion now) and score lower than many states? It has to do with execution. Democrats love to talk the talk, but can’t walk the walk… please read on before you comment:
Allow me to present you a few scenario…
Scenario - The Idealistic Liberal
Democrat: I have a plan.
Republican: Great. Tell me about it.
Democrat: We must ensure that social security endures.
Republican: Great. How do we do that. What’s the plan?
Democrat: That is the plan. We must ensure that social security endures.
Republican: That’s not a plan. That is a goal.
Democrat: You neo-cons have no clue.
Republican:
I think this represents the current plan of democrats… goals are not plans. I don’t think I have read a single plan on how to accomplish these goals… only that we want to achieve them. I’m sure there will be a nice democratic committee that will start a social program aimed at discovering what the uneducated poor would like to mispend billions on…
You are over simplifying… there is a fringe movement that thinks this is a religious issue; they do not represent the majority. I read Osama bin Laden’s letter (and commented on that thread); however, are you suggesting that Osama represents the majority of Arab Muslims? And that religious zionists (different from secular zionists) represent all the Jews?
Scythe, I am very fond of you. I think you are willing, more so than the average person, to vehemently disagree without losing respect for your opponent. Even though you are secure in your conclusions, you seem to want to comprehend the other side, especially since you are curious to find out if there’s anything to it… I thank you for discussing this with me in a civil manner. It’s been a joy and I look forward to any of your counter points.
I am considering the emperors of China, but I still see politics… Peace did happen, as much as violence, only nowadays, peace can be said as truely reigns. Royal families led nobody, it was the whole aristocracy political net with the royale familiy at the centre that ruled - it was politics, namely - feudalism.
It’s a spiriutual advise for rulers, as moral codes is what DaoDeJing is about. But for politicians, let it be emperors or senators, morality is more like a burden than a guide. That’s why no Chinese emperor was “spiritual” enough to consult this book, but instead others such as ZiZhiTongJian, which is more practical and equivalent to ArtOfWar in military.
Too bad it can’t happen that way liquidangel… spirituality opposing materilism is like a fragile juenzi facing a bullish soldier. Communism is the idealogy that offers you both, because a communist society unites spirituality and materialsm - it’s the ideal situation suggested by DaoDeJing, with the added understanding and concern of politics and economics.
I think a larger majority than we’d like to admit, and I think we help his cause by invading a country without probable cause, or by lying about probable cause.
And certainly not ALL jews, but most of the jews in Israel I think are religious Zionists, as they think the “motherland” is important.
here’s some questions for you:
do you think Bush fixed the intelligence around the (flawed) policy of pre-emption?
if you don’t think he did and are trusting reports from the “Heritage Foundation” (remember my reference to them in the homosexual thread?) that the downing street memo doesn’t contain anything damning (which it does, they are fixing the facts like they did with the abstinence statistics.), why should we believe them about that when they’ve already LIED about something else? And note this, the british government hasn’t denied that authenticity of the memo.
Do you understand the problems I have with the neo-cons?
Come on, that was witty of me!
(haven’t had that happen in awhile!)