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Grex > Agora41 > #17: How much did the U.S. military spend while you were reading this sentence? | |
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jp2
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response 150 of 199:
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Mar 31 04:18 UTC 2002 |
Or we could do the right thing and impose a flat tax, instead.
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russ
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response 151 of 199:
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Mar 31 05:31 UTC 2002 |
Re #148: Obviously you're not open-minded enough to even make
intelligent counterpoint, instead of merely re-stating your thesis.
The fact is that the use of influence to cement power is a feature
of corruption, not capitalism, and is far more common in the
Communist and cronyist regimes of Asia than in the USA. We still
have our battles to fight (like DMCA), but capitalism is treating
us better than any other system on earth.
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raven
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response 152 of 199:
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Mar 31 07:52 UTC 2002 |
re #151 Pretty weak response there Russ considering the new copy right
protection act is all about protecting "intellectual property," which
is about the ownship of ideas a capitalist concept if there ever was
one. You just are too stuborn to admit there are public goods like
the free circulation of ideas, and private goods like competition to
speed the evolution of the technical infrastructure. It's a complex world
and the idea that one system like capitalism. or the government can solve
all the problems of thr world is an example of simplistic thiking at it's
finest.
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jp2
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response 153 of 199:
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Mar 31 08:04 UTC 2002 |
IP has nothing to do with ownership of ideas. It is about the ownership of
implementation of ideas. This is not a subtle difference.
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russ
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response 154 of 199:
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Mar 31 14:46 UTC 2002 |
Re #146: That situation is due to the artificial restrictions on
space, security and people unable to go anywhere else for hours on end.
Re #137: "Those who will not learn from history are doomed to repeat it."
Isolationism such as raven espouses:
a.) Is absurdly naive; it assumes that the rest of the world is full
of people who are only bent on doing wrong because we did wrong
to them first. (Such people have to blame us for Joseph Stalin,
Idi Amin and Pol Pot, but they probably don't even have a good
idea of who they were.)
b.) Would never work; allowing enemies to have a free hand in the
rest of the world would allow them to gain power and then sit
on our doorsteps, with all the advantages.
c.) Has been tried before, after WWI; it got us WWII after a mere 21
years. So far the world has been 56 years without a conflict on
anything close the same scale, and there is nothing on the horizon.
I'm curious, raven. Would you suggest that we remove the troops in
S. Korea and get rid of our mutual-defense treaty with them? You
realize that this would mean that S. Korea could, and probably would,
be over-run or co-opted by China (acting through its N. Korean proxy).
You take your freedom for granted, I suspect; you'd do nothing to help
other people maintain theirs?
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raven
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response 155 of 199:
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Mar 31 20:00 UTC 2002 |
re#154 Yep let people fight their own damn wars, why waste American lives
and money on other peoples problems when we have so many problems here
at home?
I would also note that our hands are very unclean since WWII U.S. forces
killed 2 million people in Vietnam, we supported a regieme in Indonesia
that killed hundreds of thousands of it's own citizens, our "School of the
Americas" (now renamed Hemospheric Protection Institute) has literally
trained over a dozen central and south American dictators who again have
killed hundreds of thousands of their own citizens. Just what I have
mentioned there is half a holocaust. Some helper we are. This is not to
mention the CIAs role in training the Mujahadeen many of whom are now Al
Queda, the CIAs rule in overthrowing Iraq's government in the 50s and
helping to establish Saddam Husseins murderous Baath party, the CIAs role,
in overthrowing Chilles democratically elected goverment in the 70s for
which Kissinger has been indicted in several contries to the point where
he has to watch his travel agenda. Yes the U.S. military provides
protection all right, the same way the mafia does to local store owners.
I'm sure most of the third world would be very glad if U.S> military and
CIA spooks stayed the hell out of their business.
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raven
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response 156 of 199:
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Mar 31 20:10 UTC 2002 |
re #154 These enemies by the way are a fabrication of your over heated
mind, think about the following fake headline:
A.P.
Today radical shite Muslims gathered in central Tehran to burn the flags of
Sweden of Switzerland. Hundreds of thousands of Iranians held signs and
chanted death to Sweden, imperalist satanic Swiss go home.
Funny isn't it? Why is that, because this doesn't happen because people
in Sweden and Switzerland are too busy quietly being prosperous to bother
sending troops all over the world where they aren't wanted.
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jmsaul
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response 157 of 199:
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Mar 31 20:19 UTC 2002 |
Yeah, they were too busy to help the rest of Europe when Hitler overran it
too.
Next?
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raven
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response 158 of 199:
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Mar 31 21:19 UTC 2002 |
re #157 So Hitler foundered on the rocky shores of Russia. Next?
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mcnally
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response 159 of 199:
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Mar 31 21:49 UTC 2002 |
re #158:
>So Hitler foundered on the rocky shores of Russia. Next?
Kind of hard luck for the Russians that they lost millions and millions,
but at least the Swedes and Swiss didn't have to compromise their
principles and violate their neutrality.
Neutrality is a great policy for a small country who can reap the obvious
benefits and yet count on the fact that the rest of the world will pick up
the tab for what needs to be done when an aggressor like Hitler comes along.
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bru
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response 160 of 199:
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Mar 31 22:02 UTC 2002 |
We cannot stay out of the world, because the worldkeeps coming to us. We have
tried it. We tried to stay out of WWI, WWII, Korea, Vietnamte Gulf until they
forced our hands.
The more we try to stay out, the more it hurts when we finally get involved.
Remember, just a couple of months ago many of the liberals were arguing on
here that we had to get involved in Afganistan because they were hurting women
and children by taking away their rights, beating them, starving them, and
in general enslaving them. Others thought we should have gotten involved when
they startted destroying ancient works of art like the large Buddhist statues.
But we didn't. We waited hoping they would handle their own problems. Then
came 9/11. Suddenly, we couldn't wait anymore.
Now the Isrealis are in trouble. The four major Palestinian factions are all
claiming they will not negotiate with Isreal. They vow JIHAD until Isreal
is destroyed. This includes Arafat's own party who have begun sending out
their own suicide bombers. And the people who will replace Arafat? The
leaders of those same groups.
Isreal is being backed into a corner they can only make one decision from,
and when tehy do, the palestinians, lebanese, and very possibly the Jordaninas
are all going to feel the pain. So will Iran and Iraq, probably. An it is
going to involve us.
Once again we have laid low, letting them handle their own problems until
someone decides it is time foranother attack on the Us and another group will
get ground under our bootheels at the cost of our armed forces and those of
our allies.
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raven
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response 161 of 199:
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Mar 31 22:47 UTC 2002 |
Vietnam bad example we lost there at the terrible cost of 50,000 American
boys and 2 million Vietnamese, all over the the admitted lie of the Gulf
of
Tonkin. As for Sharon he is a a war criminal who would be tried in
a court in Belgium for his war crimes in 1982 if he ever had the balls
to go to Belgium:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama/tra
nscr
http://www.oneworld.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?root=129&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eweb%2
Furthermore Israel has been in violation of U.N. resolution 242 since 1967
calling for an end of it's occupation of the Palestinian territory and
awithdraw to the 1967 borders. So again a bad example.
Iraq is not threat to the continental United States let Israel fight it's
own damn bloody wars of oppression against the Arab world. We should stay
out of it and continue to use our resources to do positive things like
crank out computer software and chips. Fighting other peoples stupid
bloody wars is just a waste of American lives and money.
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raven
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response 162 of 199:
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Mar 31 22:51 UTC 2002 |
Let me try those URLs again:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/audio_video/programmes/panorama
/transcripts/transcript_17_06_01.txt
To clarify the second is Amnesty International:
http://www.oneworld.net/cgi-bin/index.cgi?root=129&url=
http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eweb%2Eamnesty%2Eorg%2Fweb%2Fnews%2Ensf%2FWebAll%2
FA13E3C3399DC3A3A80256AD90057029E%3FOpenDocument
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jazz
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response 163 of 199:
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Mar 31 23:08 UTC 2002 |
There's "getting involved" and there's "getting involved". Make no
mistake about it, the way we "get involved" has a lot to do with a need to
keep the budgets for the military-industrial complex high.
Our sanctions were, and still are, crippling Iraq; any reasonable
interpretation of the Gulf War was that it wasn't even a war, but an
extraordinarily expensive mop-up operation for public relations reasons. We
won that war without firing a shot.
If we're going to be the policemen of the world - and that's a
position that, as Bruce pointed out, we may be forced into - then it's time
we started using minimum necessary forc.e
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oval
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response 164 of 199:
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Mar 31 23:09 UTC 2002 |
i do find it odd that america helping stop hitler justifies every bad thing
the US military has done...as if this is an argument about whether or not
there should even be a military, or that the only two options are to NEVER
help out a country in a serious crisis, *or* we butt into every little fucking
thing. there's a very wide range of involvement between neutrality and
whatever the opposite of neutrality is.
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oval
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response 165 of 199:
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Mar 31 23:09 UTC 2002 |
163 slipped in ..
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jmsaul
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response 166 of 199:
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Apr 1 02:28 UTC 2002 |
I mentioned Hitler because raven seemed to be holding Sweden and Switzerland
up as shining examples. They aren't.
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jazz
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response 167 of 199:
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Apr 1 03:36 UTC 2002 |
It's a good example of one thing; someone damn well better be
preparted if one of the major powers in the world decides to suddenly attack
its' neighbors and annex their land. It's a wonderful justification for
keeping a reasonably strong armed forces, in pre-nuclear times, or keeping
at least a few nukes and nuclear manufacturing capacity around in
post-nuclear times.
There's nothing wrong with what Sweden and Switzerland (and post WWII
Japan, for that matter) have done. The foolishness is in the nations that
paid the tab for their military defence and then never asked for them to own
up.
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mcnally
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response 168 of 199:
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Apr 1 03:37 UTC 2002 |
re #166: exactly. America's involvement in WWII doesn't absolve us of the
need to act judiciously, but WWII does point out why a policy of engagement
with the rest of the world is necessary. Raven would almost certainly be
appalled by the results if he ever got the withdrawal he demands. It *is*
interesting to see him agreeing with Pat Buchanan, however..
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russ
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response 169 of 199:
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Apr 1 03:40 UTC 2002 |
Re #152: I suppose your intellectual prowess wasn't up to noticing
that I'd already stated, time and again, that "intellectual property"
is a legal fiction (in exactly those words).
In other words: "My god, raven really IS as dumb as he looks!"
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senna
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response 170 of 199:
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Apr 1 07:26 UTC 2002 |
People so radical/reactionary that they go around the back and meet up. Like
the radical/reactionary anti-kkk rioters?
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gull
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response 171 of 199:
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Apr 1 16:28 UTC 2002 |
Re #169: You may consider it a "legal fiction", but it's actually
pretty important to capitalism as it exists today. I'm not sure you
can really seperate the two.
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oval
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response 172 of 199:
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Apr 1 20:21 UTC 2002 |
it's actually pretty important to capitalism as it exists today that any and
everything be able to be bought and owned/patented/copyrighted...
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gull
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response 173 of 199:
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Apr 1 21:06 UTC 2002 |
Well, yeah, exactly.
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oval
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response 174 of 199:
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Apr 1 21:18 UTC 2002 |
has anyone patented oxygen yet?
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