Armed Polite Society
Main Forums => Politics => Topic started by: grislyatoms on June 09, 2011, 06:42:35 AM
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Remember what Hussein did to the Kurds? Mid-Late 80's?
He gassed them. I have an image etched in my mind's eye that I will never be rid of, an image from Newsweek. A Kurd woman attempting to shield her child from the gas but they both succumbed.
Now, even the right wing finds fault with G.W.
I, myself, do not. Count me with the lunatic fringe, I guess, on that count. G.W. made some hard decisions, ones that no president had the balls to make, previous. G.W. ended Saddam Hussein's reign of gassing women and children. If supporting him put's me on the fringe... so be it.
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He gave us the Patriot Act, the TSA, Homeland Security, and Barack Obama. His first duty is to the people of the United States. I don't care what happens to people in Iraq or even Europe. Just like I don't expect them to care about us.
Chris
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I agree with Chris.
Bush also started the first bailout package, among other failures. Bush was registered as a Republican, but I don't think he stayed with Republican values.
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I agree with Chris.
Bush also started the first bailout package, among other failures. Bush was registered as a Republican, but I don't think he stayed with Republican values.
name one "republican" who has? (aside from ron paul)
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Oh, gorgeous. A single thread resurrects the well-worn arguments about W and Ron Paul, and for no apparent reason.
(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fi171.photobucket.com%2Falbums%2Fu292%2Fjoshbissey%2Fbeating_a_dead_horse.jpg&hash=217c43e552df8f5e4783a68e71e5f385063d366d)
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It does seem quite out of the blue. ???
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And don't forget the Navy surveilance plane that landed in China right before 9/11....he caved in heavily on that one..... ;/
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Bush needs a song.
The Ballad of a Man Called Bush. Sung to the tune of The Ballad of a Man called Jayne.
Bush, the man they call Bush...
He robbed from the Americans
And he gave to the Kurds
Stood up to Saddam
And he gave him what for
Our love for him now
Ain't hard to explain
The Hero of Iraq
The man they call Bush...
Looks like Bush found the crappy town where he's a hero.
Chris
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name one "republican" who has? (aside from ron paul)
Not sure I can. But this thread is about Bush, not someone else. Grislyatoms seems upset by the Bush-bashers, but it seems to me that Bush deserves plenty of bashing. He did do plenty of good, but that doesn't mean we can't point out his flaws.
I imagine Obama has done something good, yet we still bash him for all the crap he does. Bin Laden was killed under Obama's command, so Obama gets at least partial credit for that, but that one act isn't enough to undo all the other garbage he has tried.
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Huh.
I remember a lot of flag-waving when G.W. said " we will not tolerate this" when he was standing on the rubble of the world trade center. Folks LEAPT out of that building to keep from burning to death. Our countrymen.
G.W. said "Enough" and kicked ass.
When was the last attack on our soil? Credit Barack "bow to foreign heads of state" Obama for that?
He (Saddam Hussein) gassed the Kurds. Have you not seen the photos? Mothers trying to keep gas out of their babie's lungs. He was on a wholesale genocidal rage and the world acted as if all was o.k. I'll post the pics if I must/can. Yet G.W. is villified as Public Enemy #1.
G.W. and the U.S. military heeled that dog, and in Saddam's case, put him down. He deserved it. Honestly, wanna see the pics?
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I imagine Obama has done something good....
Prove it.....
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WHY? Those folks sent 3,000 or so of our countrymen to their graves. Over THEOLOGY. I see folks becoming complacent about it and it pisses me off.
A few replies came in before I replied. That's the way of internet communication, I guess. =D
mntnbkr. So my opinion is to be ridiculed with a comparison to a sci-fi show? I would think better of a moderator. Aside, because I try not to let superfluous arguments cloud my judgement. What exactly is your argument?
Sock monkey/fistful: That horse ain't dead yet. G.W. was the first President with the balls to look Islamic extremism in the face and face off/call out the dogs. It was a ballsy decision and I applaud it 100%. ( Since Reagan, anyway)
Y'all wanna play pansy foreign policy, go ahead. Don't expect my support.
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WHY? Those folks sent 3,000 or so of our countrymen to their graves. Over THEOLOGY. I see folks becoming complacent about it and it pisses me off.
And America took the war to them, killed the guy who did it, and inflicted devastating damage to the terrorist infrastructure. What's next?
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And America took the war to them, killed the guy who did it, and inflicted devastating damage to the terrorist infrastructure. What's next?
MB - That the one man who said "ENOUGH" is being thrown, for all intents and purposes, under the bus.
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Out of sheer curiosity, why did you pick the Kurds as an example? As opposed to other acts of genocidal violence, such as Bosnia, Rwanda, the Sudan or a host of others that have occurred under a number of Administrations?
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Out of sheer curiosity, why did you pick the Kurds as an example? As opposed to other acts of genocidal violence, such as Bosnia, Rwanda, the Sudan or a host of others that have occurred under a number of Administrations?
I am more familiar with the Kurds. Beyond articles, I worked with a Turk who HATED Kurds but when queried, could not produce a valid argument. Anecdotal, sorry. I don't have anything better.
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Huh.
I remember a lot of flag-waving when G.W. said " we will not tolerate this" when he was standing on the rubble of the world trade center. Folks LEAPT out of that building to keep from burning to death. Our countrymen.
G.W. said "Enough" and kicked ass.
When was the last attack on our soil? Credit Barack "bow to foreign heads of state" Obama for that?
He (Saddam Hussein) gassed the Kurds. Have you not seen the photos? Mothers trying to keep gas out of their babie's lungs. He was on a wholesale genocidal rage and the world acted as if all was o.k. I'll post the pics if I must/can. Yet G.W. is villified as Public Enemy #1.
G.W. and the U.S. military heeled that dog, and in Saddam's case, put him down. He deserved it. Honestly, wanna see the pics?
Attacking Afghanistan was the right call. Staying and nation building? Not something I agree with. We'll never domesticate that cesspool.
However, any links between 9/11 and Hussein were weak at best. So what we ended up doing was the corrupt and disfunctional UN's bidding.
And "he deserved it" isn't cause to push for war against a soverign nation. If we were going off that standard, we'd drop our troops at one end of Africa and pick them up in North Korea when they're done pushing East.
Politics. Moving it.
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He gave us the Patriot Act, the TSA, Homeland Security, and Barack Obama. His first duty is to the people of the United States. I don't care what happens to people in Iraq or even Europe. Just like I don't expect them to care about us.
Chris
Point of contention - GW did that all by himself, did he? He created the Patriot Act, the TSA, and Homeland Security all by executive order? No Congressional influence? Don't sell me bridges.
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Point of contention - GW did that all by himself, did he? He created the Patriot Act, the TSA, and Homeland Security all by executive order? No Congressional influence? Don't sell me bridges.
He didn't oppose them, nor did he refuse to sign the Patriot Act when it hit his desk (FWIW, neither has Obama).
I clearly remember him stumping for DHS.
Y'all wanna play pansy foreign policy, go ahead. Don't expect my support.
It's not pansy foreign policy to not appreciate wasting our soldiers and treasury on a cesspool who doesn't care about us beyond what we can do for them.
BTW, OBL won this one. Yeah, he's dead, but look at the damage done to our nation in the meantime. That was his goal. He never had a chance at military conquest, he wanted to destroy our way of life and our heart. I'd say he did a damn fine job. Or maybe you like the TSA feeling up your daughters...
Chris
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(https://armedpolitesociety.com/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.rikthib.com%2FHumor%2Flesbush.jpg&hash=b17f0c76fc8cc28a16b3b8e83f2f60fde085e433)
Well, in the " I still have a sense of humor" vein, that's pretty funny! >:D
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I am more familiar with the Kurds. Beyond articles, I worked with a Turk who HATED Kurds but when queried, could not produce a valid argument. Anecdotal, sorry. I don't have anything better.
A friend of mine from chemistry school was in the Army Chemical Corps in the 1980's. Through a variety of means, the US Government came into possession of various soil, bomb fragment and bodily fluid samples that were tested to identify the specific agents used at the Halabja massacre. My friend was on one of the analysis teams. They confirmed the presence of mustard gas and various nerve agents. It is to date the largest chemical attack on a civilian population.
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A friend of mine from chemistry school was in the Army Chemical Corps in the 1980's. Through a variety of means, the US Government came into possession of various soil, bomb fragment and bodily fluid samples that were tested to identify the specific agents used at the Halabja massacre. My friend was on one of the analysis teams. They confirmed the presence of mustard gas and various nerve agents. It is to date the largest chemical attack on a civilian population.
It's not like Saddam used WMDs at Halabja though.
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A friend of mine from chemistry school was in the Army Chemical Corps in the 1980's. Through a variety of means, the US Government came into possession of various soil, bomb fragment and bodily fluid samples that were tested to identify the specific agents used at the Halabja massacre. My friend was on one of the analysis teams. They confirmed the presence of mustard gas and various nerve agents. It is to date the largest chemical attack on a civilian population.
And I wonder what we'll find if we ever get unfettered access to North Korea...
Point is, there are a lot of bad people running cesspool nations. That has always been the case. Frankly, it isn't worth our time, effort, and resources to correct that.
Chris
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Point of contention - GW did that all by himself, did he? He created the Patriot Act, the TSA, and Homeland Security all by executive order? No Congressional influence? Don't sell me bridges.
Oh, don't think that I've counted out any of those chuckleheads.
But the President is also considered the party leader, especially when that party controls the legislative branches as well. They had up until 2006, with Bush as the head of the party and government, to pass all sorts of nefarious laws. And they did.
Bush stumped hard for the Patriot act, TSA, War in Iraq, TARP I, and the Neverending War on Terror.
Answer this question:
Are you more free, or less free, post 9/11?
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That pic is a pun.
We've had nearly 10 years to hash this over. As an old guy I keep remembering the tired old slogan; The Lesson Of Vietnam. How soon we forget. So, I'll remind you of it..the real lesson.
War is serious business. It is not a game. If it needs to be employed, and at times it is necessary, then it should be employed in Old Testament fashion. It is full tilt boogy, not surgical. I recall the words Shock and Awe. I was shocked and awed that it was not shocking nor awe inspiring. And here we are, 10 years later, broke and still electing stupid, cowardly, self serving people.
I think America had some legitimate reasons to give an exhibition of our power as a lesson to the world that peace is better than war. Don't Tread On Me is a valid national slogan that represents us. If you tread on us, we will destroy you with no regard to what you think about it, or what anyone else thinks about it. If it is the only thing to be done, then it will be done. We can be poles apart in dogma, but whatever bad things one might believe are righteous within one's tribal religious fanaticism, it should not be exported. The Lesson Of Vietnam has been forgotten, or in reality never really understood or learned, and more thousands of noble American lives have been shed, not in vain, but worse yet, in egregious stupid.
Though I supported beginning what was begun in response to 9-11, it is now time to say lesson given, and again taken. We're done. Understand if we have to come back, you don't want that. It will be different next time. It is simple what you must do. Don't export what we don't want.
Yes, it is more complicated than this and many things are intertwined. But that is for another discussion.
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Though I supported beginning what was begun in response to 9-11, it is now time to say lesson given, and again taken. We're done. Understand if we have to come back, you don't want that. It will be different next time. It is simple what you must do. Don't export what we don't want.
I agree with this.
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Remember what Hussein did to the Kurds? Mid-Late 80's?
He gassed them. I have an image etched in my mind's eye that I will never be rid of, an image from Newsweek. A Kurd woman attempting to shield her child from the gas but they both succumbed.
Now, even the right wing finds fault with G.W.
I, myself, do not. Count me with the lunatic fringe, I guess, on that count. G.W. made some hard decisions, ones that no president had the balls to make, previous. G.W. ended Saddam Hussein's reign of gassing women and children. If supporting him put's me on the fringe... so be it.
WHY? Those folks sent 3,000 or so of our countrymen to their graves. Over THEOLOGY. I see folks becoming complacent about it and it pisses me off.
Saddam did not attack us on 9-11 and there is no good evidence linking him to that attack to be found.
OTOH, GWB was good-to-go legality-wise vis a vis Congress and internat'l law in making war on Saddam. All legal-based arguments cross-wise with this are either ignorant or dishonest. GWB had a decade's worth of Congressional authorizations and policies going back to Gulf I and through Clinton's years & the UN resolutions & Saddam's violations of the cease fire agreement.
Besides, Saddam needed killing.
Problem was, GWB screwed the pooch so hard (in Iraq and Astan) when he decided to go all nation-buildy/COIN, etc. rather than letting his Inner Jacksonian loose and just killing and destroying until the threat was bloody rubble. Toss in GWB's using the COTUS as toilet paper (PATRIOT, DHS, etc.) and my opinion of him is "nuanced."
Just because one savage slaughters other savages in job lots does not make it either in our interests or our moral duty to intervene. If the Kurds were the ones with the T72s and mustard gas, they would have been the ones slaughtering Arabs. As long as they do not threaten American interests or citizenry, let them kill each other with wild abandon.
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Point of contention - GW did that all by himself, did he? He created the Patriot Act, the TSA, and Homeland Security all by executive order? No Congressional influence? Don't sell me bridges.
He supported and pushed the legislation and signed the bills. If he had a lick of respect for the COTUS he would not have done so. It is just to hold GWB in contempt for his dereliction of duty and oath-breaking.
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I agree with everything Grampster said.
In my theoretical world, we leave them alone, they leave us alone. But that doesn't happen in the real world. Unfortunately, when we do get into wars, we drag them out, even after winning (or at least reaching a goal). How long were (are) we in Germany? Unlike Grampster, few seem to read or understand Clausewitz. Get in, be devastating, leave. Much less death and destruction on both sides. It's just not pretty to watch ((see the opening scene in Private Ryan).
I hate the Patriot Act, TSA, and a good number of Homeland Security Directives. Yet Bush was a better president than the alternative, and a better president than the current guy. Sad that we have to work off 'lowest common denominator", but there it is.
I'm certainly less free since 9/11, but I can replace "9/11" with "X" and the statement still holds true. In my 51 years on the planet, I have never been left "more free" by any presidential administration (which can't always be focused on the President, but on Congress and the Senate as well). Some were less egregious than others, some gave some freedoms while taking others away. The net result though, is that at the end of every administration in my lifetime, I've been left with more laws, more regulations, and less freedom.
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That pic is a pun.
We've had nearly 10 years to hash this over. As an old guy I keep remembering the tired old slogan; The Lesson Of Vietnam. How soon we forget. So, I'll remind you of it..the real lesson.
War is serious business. It is not a game. If it needs to be employed, and at times it is necessary, then it should be employed in Old Testament fashion. It is full tilt boogy, not surgical. I recall the words Shock and Awe. I was shocked and awed that it was not shocking nor awe inspiring. And here we are, 10 years later, broke and still electing stupid, cowardly, self serving people.
I think America had some legitimate reasons to give an exhibition of our power as a lesson to the world that peace is better than war. Don't Tread On Me is a valid national slogan that represents us. If you tread on us, we will destroy you with no regard to what you think about it, or what anyone else thinks about it. If it is the only thing to be done, then it will be done. We can be poles apart in dogma, but whatever bad things one might believe are righteous within one's tribal religious fanaticism, it should not be exported. The Lesson Of Vietnam has been forgotten, or in reality never really understood or learned, and more thousands of noble American lives have been shed, not in vain, but worse yet, in egregious stupid.
Though I supported beginning what was begun in response to 9-11, it is now time to say lesson given, and again taken. We're done. Understand if we have to come back, you don't want that. It will be different next time. It is simple what you must do. Don't export what we don't want.
Yes, it is more complicated than this and many things are intertwined. But that is for another discussion.
I agree with this.
So war is total, no quarter given, none taken? GW was of that mind, but he was hamstrung and frustrated by Congress, I believe. It was not the man himself. Hence my argument, that hanging everything on GW doesn't resonate.
You folks who were over there, and still over there... if I may give my respect as a free man, it is yours and it comes freely.
I will not presume to put words in the mouths of our vets; yet that is how I feel about the issue.
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Bush is an anti-John the Baptist. Without him we wouldn't have the anti-Messiah we have now. Just remember, they both work for The Man.
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Was he better than Gore or Kerry would have been? Yes. Was still pretty bad? Yes. I guess he gets points for being the lesser of the evils but as mentioned he did some pretty awful things and I firmly believe the country is in a worse place in a number of categories after his term than before it. There is of course plenty of blame to go around, it is not all on GWB.
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For all of Bush's faults, and they were numerous, without him, we would have had Al Gore running the show. Given the choice of having Obama now, or Gore then, I'd take Obama every time. Obama maybe an ineffective narcissist, but at least he hasn't proven himself to be insane (yet).
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Cut to the chase: W. is part of a continuum of American leaders whose agenda should scare any liberty-loving American. It didn't start with W. and it won't end with Obama. It goes back decades and includes all of the American Presidents thereafter, without exception. Even Reagan wasn't blameless and wasn't exempt.
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For all of Bush's faults, and they were numerous, without him, we would have had Al Gore running the show. Given the choice of having Obama now, or Gore then, I'd take Obama every time. Obama maybe an ineffective narcissist, but at least he hasn't proven himself to be insane (yet).
"Ineffective narcissism" is the least of Obama's manifest toxicities. He embodies a movement for which narcissism is really just the arrogation of absolute power but is more symptom than cause. Ineffective? Look around you. I'd say he's done a pretty good job of swinging the wrecking ball.
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It goes back decades and includes all of the American Presidents thereafter, without exception. Even Reagan wasn't blameless and wasn't exempt.
It goes all the way back to Washington.
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"Ineffective narcissism" is the least of Obama's manifest toxicities. He embodies a movement for which narcissism is really just the arrogation of absolute power but is more symptom than cause. Ineffective? Look around you. I'd say he's done a pretty good job of swinging the wrecking ball.
That wrecking ball was in full swing as W left office. Obama really hasn't done much besides sign off on whatever Pelosi/Reid put in front of him. He's been too busy taking vacations, playing basketball, golfing, and appologizing about America to really focus on doing any harm on his own so far.
I believe that if Gore were president, We'd all be unemployed, as just about all human activity would be taxed under some sort of carbon/global warming scheme or another.
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Answer this question:
Are you more free, or less free, post 9/11?[/b][/i]
That's a very complex question. Gun laws are much better now. Bush's court appointments brought us the Heller decision, which will continue to help the cause of freedom.
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That's a very complex question. Gun laws are much better now. Bush's court appointments brought us the Heller decision, which will continue to help the cause of freedom.
Frankly, more guns aren't very comforting given the other aspects of Freedom we've lost over the years. It's almost as if they're saying, "if we give them their toys, they won't care when we curtail other freedoms".
I'll take another AWB any day to ensure I maintain the other 9 Amendments that make up the BoR.
Chris
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I'll take another AWB any day to ensure I maintain the other 9 Amendments that make up the BoR.
Chris
You have a point there, so long as you admit that the gains of Heller, the continuing legacy of Roberts and Alito, and the steady advance of carry legislation (just to hit the 2A highlights) stack up to much more than what we gained with the AWB sunset.
Not that Bush receives all the credit for these things, but Jamis's question was not that specific.
This is not a pro-Bush rant. More of a Microbalrog-style "But things are getting better!" speech.
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This is a repost
I saw this topic on here... several years ago
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Frankly, more guns aren't very comforting given the other aspects of Freedom we've lost over the years. It's almost as if they're saying, "if we give them their toys, they won't care when we curtail other freedoms".
I'll take another AWB any day to ensure I maintain the other 9 Amendments that make up the BoR.
Chris
I hear ya, but if tyranny weren't an inherent part of human nature we wouldn't need the BoR, RKBA, or to worry about self-defense.
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I hear ya, but if tyranny weren't an inherent part of human nature we wouldn't need the BoR, RKBA, or to worry about self-defense.
I'll buy into that when people start taking action. Right now, it's all talk and bluster. For the time being, the other amendments have a greater impact into my life.
Chris
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That's a very complex question. Gun laws are much better now. Bush's court appointments brought us the Heller decision, which will continue to help the cause of freedom.
Warrantless wiretapping. Being groped just to partake in air transportation. Layers upon layers of new bureacuracy, regulations, and laws. Creeping incrementalisim of the word "terror" being attached to more and more crimes (and along with it, the loss of due process). And the growth of the police state. Huge increases in the welfare state.
And before Obama's drunken orgy of a spending spree, Bush and the Congress were spending us down the path of indentured Chinese servitude.
I would argue the most nefarious of Bush's follies was actually his both public and corporate welfare sprees. Increases to Medicare and Chip, as well as TARP. Those things make slaves of the taxpayer classes, pure and simple.
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So war is total, no quarter given, none taken? GW was of that mind, but he was hamstrung and frustrated by Congress, I believe. It was not the man himself. Hence my argument, that hanging everything on GW doesn't resonate.
GWB was given his head to do as he saw fit in Astan & Iraq. The Dems squawked (especially on Iraq), but they went along with and voted for them.
Given the Congressional authorizations and his position as Commander in Chief, damn straight he is responsible for for the feckless not-so-Grand Strategy he saw fit to implement.
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I partly disagree with Ben. I am more optimistic about the future. Based on literature and history, the 1760s to 1830s was the peak of classic liberalism in the US. The hallmarks of this peak are obvious in the UK literature, US revolution and the spread to the French revolution.
From that peak, a trend towards more gov't and more planning emerged. It wasn't just Marx, but many thinkers of the time began the intellectual and popular trends towards expanded roles of gov't and elite power.
This trend peaked in the time from 1920s to 1990s. This periods most rapid change was hallmarked in the US by SS, unemployment insurance, the NRA, and other large public works projects. According to Hayek, Germany and Russia went much further down this same path, each installing totalitarian power. The US seemed to be moderated by the horrors of Germany and USSR. But intellectual thought still based itself on more central "planning".
The 80's and 90's are powerful turning markers in this reversal of the planning trend. By 2010, the installation of mandatory private health insurance was passed against the will of the majority of Americans and its repeal has become a popular election promise. The average American is also ready to discuss the necessary cuts in SS and Medicare and Medicaid, like no other time in history. There is no interest in raising taxes to support more gov't efforts, and deregulation is still preferred for most people.
Both democrat and republican oriented people hate the anti-freedom parts of the Patriot act. The same complaints can be seen here on APS as on a leftist site.
The narrative of intellectual thought and policy from authoritarians is falling apart while the intellectual influence of classical liberalism is ascendant.
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Well, you're right, you certainly are an optimist.
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The narrative of intellectual thought and policy from authoritarians is falling apart while the intellectual influence of classical liberalism is ascendant.
You might be right, especially considering some of the political movements that are/have been occuring recently and simultaneously in several states.
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Warrantless wiretapping. Being groped just to partake in air transportation. Layers upon layers of new bureacuracy, regulations, and laws. Creeping incrementalisim of the word "terror" being attached to more and more crimes (and along with it, the loss of due process). And the growth of the police state. Huge increases in the welfare state.
And before Obama's drunken orgy of a spending spree, Bush and the Congress were spending us down the path of indentured Chinese servitude.
I would argue the most nefarious of Bush's follies was actually his both public and corporate welfare sprees. Increases to Medicare and Chip, as well as TARP. Those things make slaves of the taxpayer classes, pure and simple.
As long as we consider the whole spectrum, good as well as bad.
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Remember what Hussein did to the Kurds? Mid-Late 80's?
He gassed them. I have an image etched in my mind's eye that I will never be rid of, an image from Newsweek. A Kurd woman attempting to shield her child from the gas but they both succumbed.
Now, even the right wing finds fault with G.W.
I, myself, do not. Count me with the lunatic fringe, I guess, on that count. G.W. made some hard decisions, ones that no president had the balls to make, previous. G.W. ended Saddam Hussein's reign of gassing women and children. If supporting him put's me on the fringe... so be it.
Mebbe he was feeling guilty because his daddy abandoned them at at the end of GW I when they thought we were going to help them.
He gave us the Patriot Act, the TSA, Homeland Security, and Barack Obama. His first duty is to the people of the United States. I don't care what happens to people in Iraq or even Europe. Just like I don't expect them to care about us.
Chris
I agree.
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For all of Bush's faults, and they were numerous, without him, we would have had Al Gore running the show. Given the choice of having Obama now, or Gore then, I'd take Obama every time. Obama maybe an ineffective narcissist, but at least he hasn't proven himself to be insane (yet).
How did Gore do that?
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How did Gore do that?
He opened his mouth. :laugh:
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Warrantless wiretapping. Being groped just to partake in air transportation. Layers upon layers of new bureacuracy, regulations, and laws. Creeping incrementalisim of the word "terror" being attached to more and more crimes (and along with it, the loss of due process). And the growth of the police state. Huge increases in the welfare state.
And before Obama's drunken orgy of a spending spree, Bush and the Congress were spending us down the path of indentured Chinese servitude.
I would argue the most nefarious of Bush's follies was actually his both public and corporate welfare sprees. Increases to Medicare and Chip, as well as TARP. Those things make slaves of the taxpayer classes, pure and simple.
Bush was elected to stop liberalism. He didn't do that; what he did was to give liberalism new cover. We had a serious energy problem when he took office yet he showed no serious leadership on that front, probably because of his "personal connections."
We could have had a hundred nuclear reactors operating by now. He got us into two diversionary wars after 9/11, neither of which go to the heart of the islamist threat; meanwhile he worked overtime, through the State Dept., to "spread democracy," not only abroad but right here in the heartland (refugee resettlement). And the border? Nada. Anyone want to wager a body count on how many illegal aliens entered the U.S. during Bush's eight years in office and how many children they had and how many family members joined them? Bush's liberalism was the inheritance of his dad's NWO agenda and the sentimentalism of his upbringing.
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^^^^ I think you mean your first word to be 'Bush', not 'Nixon'.
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Thanks, you are right, I have corrected that. I was simultaneously engaged in an exchange of e-mails with someone about Watergate and whether the media would have applied the same elevated journalistic ethics to a sitting Democratic President.
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Bush was elected to stop liberalism. He didn't do that; what he did was to give liberalism new cover. We had a serious energy problem when he took office yet he showed no serious leadership on that front, probably because of his "personal connections."
We could have had a hundred nuclear reactors operating by now. He got us into two diversionary wars after 9/11, neither of which go to the heart of the islamist threat; meanwhile he worked overtime, through the State Dept., to "spread democracy," not only abroad but right here in the heartland (refugee resettlement). And the border? Nada. Anyone want to wager a body count on how many illegal aliens entered the U.S. during Bush's eight years in office and how many children they had and how many family members joined them? Bush's liberalism was the inheritance of his dad's NWO agenda and the sentimentalism of his upbringing.
I would like to know just how the A'stan war was "diversionary??" Al Qaeda was operating from there and being sheltered by the Taliban. That was the one truly necessary war.
I understand the problem with Iraq. I bought into that too when it started because of the WMDs but we know that excuse fizzled. The problem was since we "broke" Iraq, we had to "fix" it, and doing that has been far too costly.
A lot of the other stuff I don't have a really big "problem" with....but I somehow missed the part where Dubya got elected to "stop liberalism." I never thought he'd be able to do that, even at the time he was elected......
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Diversionary because the problem with the Islamists didn't originate in Afghanistan; because most of the 9/11 perps were Saudis. It's easier to show force in Iraq and Afghanistan than deal with the profound clash of religious cultures and civilizations. While brave Americans were fighting--with indifferent success but at considerable cost in blood and treasdure--in two theaters of war in the Middle East, our President was winking at Wahhabism and permitting thousands of mosques teaching hostile doctrine to be built around America. I know you don't want to hear this, but try refuting it.
Why do you think Bush was elected? Because a lot of voters were fed up with the liberalism represented by Clinton and those around him, less the economics--though they should have been--than a host of other issues that voters recognized, if only intuitively, were changing America in ways they didn't approve of. Bush was viewed as moderate to conservative. Ten years later: all the stuff that Bush was elected to at least blunt has become fully ripe in Obama and Obamaism.
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our President was winking at Wahhabism and permitting thousands of mosques teaching hostile doctrine to be built around America. I know you don't want to hear this, but try refuting it.
I would like to know your thoughts as to how any President can prevent this, in a way that passes Constitutional muster.
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I would like to know your thoughts as to how any President can prevent this, in a way that passes Constitutional muster.
He could have refused entry to Saudis & wahabbis and their monies for jihadi recruitment centers (AKA, Saudi financed mosques--one a few miles east of me).
IOW, border control, for both humans and monies. We did similar things during the Cold War with particular countries & ideologies.
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Diversionary because the problem with the Islamists didn't originate in Afghanistan; because most of the 9/11 perps were Saudis. It's easier to show force in Iraq and Afghanistan than deal with the profound clash of religious cultures and civilizations. While brave Americans were fighting--with indifferent success but at considerable cost in blood and treasdure--in two theaters of war in the Middle East, our President was winking at Wahhabism and permitting thousands of mosques teaching hostile doctrine to be built around America. I know you don't want to hear this, but try refuting it.
Why do you think Bush was elected? Because a lot of voters were fed up with the liberalism represented by Clinton and those around him, less the economics--though they should have been--than a host of other issues that voters recognized, if only intuitively, were changing America in ways they didn't approve of. Bush was viewed as moderate to conservative. Ten years later: all the stuff that Bush was elected to at least blunt has become fully ripe in Obama and Obamaism.
"Diversionary because the problem with the Islamists didn't originate in Afghanistan; because most of the 9/11 perps were Saudis."
:facepalm: Well, I suppose this is true.
Many were Saudis. I've heard this before.
But, do you really expect that we should have attacked Saudi Arabia? Or that doing so would have been justified? Were those "Saudis" acting as agents of, or on behalf of, Saudi Arabia?
Clearly, no, they were not. Therefore attacking S.A. would never have been justified.
The terrorists may have been Saudis. They may also have been Yemenis, or Iraqis, of Turks, or Brazilians, or Klingons (this is intended as sarcasm and is not intended to impugn all Klingons as terrorists). Despite their soveirign heritage the 9/11 terrs were acting on behalf of Al Qaeda, and thus we must deal with AQ.
"It's easier to show force in Iraq and Afghanistan than deal with the profound clash of religious cultures and civilizations." ??? I am not sure I know what THIS means. Lots of cultures and religions have "clashed" that always was and always will be. A'stan was a necessary war and it remains so. AQ remains a threat; weakened, perhaps, diminished, maybe. But that small part of Islam that wants us exterminated must still be dealt with. And A'stan is part of the problem, and now Pakistan is also part of the problem ..... and no I have no easy answer for that. Well, I do. Just not one that the powers that be would ever accept as reasonable, despite how many American lives might be saved. >:D =( =( =(
"While brave Americans were fighting--with indifferent success but at considerable cost in blood and treasdure--in two theaters of war in the Middle East, our President was winking at Wahhabism and permitting thousands of mosques teaching hostile doctrine to be built around America. I know you don't want to hear this, but try refuting it."
I suppose you would expect him to have sent the 82nd Airborne into American mosques after our own wahabists? Wow, that would have gone over so well with many in the civil rights arena --- even those in conservative circles.
The lefties would whine about American Einsatzgruppen busting into sacred religious centers and the conservatives would scream over the extinction of Posse Comitatus.
Even FBI scrutiny of these places has come under serious scrutiny ... unfortunatly.
The president is not all-powerful. And despite the characterization foisted on Dubya, he was never Americanishe Hitler.
"Bush was viewed as moderate to conservative. Ten years later: all the stuff that Bush was elected to at least blunt has become fully ripe in Obama and Obamaism."
Huh? Obama was elected because , in the midst of a serious economic downturn, people were sick & tired of Bush and wanted the "hopey-changey" stuff -- and got it.
Bush was never a true conservative. He was never a leader in the conservative field, he was a republican. Nothing really more than that. He grew government light prior to 2006 and didn't fight the libs hard enough after the demorats took over. Obama is of a wholly DIFFERENT ilk. He is a leftie, a Keynesian, a nominal socialist, who if anything has been forced to temper his ideology by realpolitik concerns.
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Here's the main question.....does one combat the new face of terrorism by using the same tactics used in prior wars (large armies, invasions, curbing civil liberties, etc.)?.....or does one adapt to the new kind of warfare and act accordingly (covert actions, special warfare, spycraft, counterterrorism) while still upholding the ideas and liberties for which the terrorists target us?.....
This is the new face of war.....time to quit fighting the old ones.....
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That is a good question, Seeker Two .... I think Dubya had an idea when all this started it wasn't going to be a "normal" war, ie., one between two soveirign nations. I think he realized that would mean it would be fought over a long period of time.
That doesn't mean I think we've been doing a stupendously aggressive job, and while I agree we've suffered some civil rights erosion (primarily in airports and some 4th amendment problems: the "sneak & peak" provisions), I also happen to view the war as serious and the threat posed by the Islamonazis to be very serious and real.
Doesn't mean I have brilliant answers for the whole thing .... just examining the whol **** mess and praying we come out the right side ..... =|
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"Diversionary because the problem with the Islamists didn't originate in Afghanistan; because most of the 9/11 perps were Saudis."
Well, I suppose this is true.
Many were Saudis. I've heard this before.
But, do you really expect that we should have attacked Saudi Arabia? Or that doing so would have been justified? Were those "Saudis" acting as agents of, or on behalf of, Saudi Arabia?
Clearly, no, they were not. Therefore attacking S.A. would never have been justified.
The terrorists may have been Saudis. They may also have been Yemenis, or Iraqis, of Turks, or Brazilians, or Klingons (this is intended as sarcasm and is not intended to impugn all Klingons as terrorists). Despite their soveirign heritage the 9/11 terrs were acting on behalf of Al Qaeda, and thus we must deal with AQ.
Follow the money. So long as the right pockets remain filled, our government will find ways of fighting Everyone But The Real Threats. Who are the real threats? The entities with the military capability to offer true existential danger to the U.S. and its way of life. Iran. Pakistan. Entities with the capability to subvert the core values of the Republic and destroy us from inside as well as bankroll the asymmetric paramilitary groups hostile to us. Saudi Arabia.
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"It's easier to show force in Iraq and Afghanistan than deal with the profound clash of religious cultures and civilizations." I am not sure I know what THIS means. Lots of cultures and religions have "clashed" that always was and always will be. A'stan was a necessary war and it remains so. AQ remains a threat; weakened, perhaps, diminished, maybe. But that small part of Islam that wants us exterminated must still be dealt with. And A'stan is part of the problem, and now Pakistan is also part of the problem ..... and no I have no easy answer for that. Well, I do. Just not one that the powers that be would ever accept as reasonable, despite how many American lives might be saved.
Afghanistan was never a threat to the U.S. But Pakistan is. If you truly want to neutralize Afghanistan get ready to occupy that nation; that will take a monumental American conscription. And it will still fail. You are not going to change a tribal culture that is millennia old; you can, however, make sure they are "quarantined" and innocuous.
There is only one issue that matters with Pakistan: making sure they can't use their nuclear weapons. How do we do that? I don't know. No doubt others do. Perhaps sabotaging their delivery systems. Hacking into their computers. Bribing the right military people. Making sure they don't fund other dangerous Islamist forces.
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"While brave Americans were fighting--with indifferent success but at considerable cost in blood and treasdure--in two theaters of war in the Middle East, our President was winking at Wahhabism and permitting thousands of mosques teaching hostile doctrine to be built around America. I know you don't want to hear this, but try refuting it."
I suppose you would expect him to have sent the 82nd Airborne into American mosques after our own wahabists? Wow, that would have gone over so well with many in the civil rights arena --- even those in conservative circles.
The lefties would whine about American Einsatzgruppen busting into sacred religious centers and the conservatives would scream over the extinction of Posse Comitatus.
Even FBI scrutiny of these places has come under serious scrutiny ... unfortunatly.
The president is not all-powerful. And despite the characterization foisted on Dubya, he was never Americanishe Hitler.
No, the 82nd isn't needed; what is needed is clarity about who and what poses the threat. Maybe honesty about Wahhabism instead of fatuous rationalizations--outright lies--that remain official DHS doctrine right up until the present day, subverting everything we do to defend ourselves. Maybe I wouldn't be confusing religious freedom with disseminating ideas antithetical to everything we hold sacred as a nation and culture? Maybe I wouldn't be letting the State Dept., with its dubious motives and missions (and this is an old, old story) continue to place foreign priorities over our own, importing thousands of students and refugees from terror-sponsoring nations without any Congressional or public oversight or vetting?
No one wanted Bush to be Hitler. We did want him to be armed with more than sanctimonious and self-serving platitudes.
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"Bush was viewed as moderate to conservative. Ten years later: all the stuff that Bush was elected to at least blunt has become fully ripe in Obama and Obamaism."
Huh? Obama was elected because , in the midst of a serious economic downturn, people were sick & tired of Bush and wanted the "hopey-changey" stuff -- and got it.
Bush was never a true conservative. He was never a leader in the conservative field, he was a republican. Nothing really more than that. He grew government light prior to 2006 and didn't fight the libs hard enough after the demorats took over. Obama is of a wholly DIFFERENT ilk. He is a leftie, a Keynesian, a nominal socialist, who if anything has been forced to temper his ideology by realpolitik concerns.
Of course Bush was never a true conservative; that was my point. But he pretended to be one and many people in this country, in government and in the media, reinforced that fantasy. Bush is at most a liberal Republican, at worse a regent of the New World Order so cherished by his father. I never said Bush and Obama were kissin' cousins philosophically, but one global autocrat isn't so different from another global autocrat. I believe overtime we will see that they aren't quite as different as some would like to think and that both work for the same people who figured so prominently in the Crash of 2008, with its repercussions for the last election, and who are hard at work today saving the world for autocracy.
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Afghanistan was never a threat to the U.S. But Pakistan is. If you truly want to neutralize Afghanistan get ready to occupy that nation; that will take a monumental American conscription. And it will still fail. You are not going to change a tribal culture that is millennia old; you can, however, make sure they are "quarantined" and innocuous.
There is only one issue that matters with Pakistan: making sure they can't use their nuclear weapons. How do we do that? I don't know. No doubt others do. Perhaps sabotaging their delivery systems. Hacking into their computers. Bribing the right military people. Making sure they don't fund other dangerous Islamist forces.
Wow. It was from A'stan that Al Qaeda launched the 9/11 attack. It was being harbored by the Taliban.
That's like saying Japan wasn't a threat to the U.S. in WW2 .....
I can tell you how to handle Pakistan's nukes .... but it will never matter, 'cause we'll never do it.No, the 82nd isn't needed; what is needed is clarity about who and what poses the threat. Maybe honesty about Wahhabism instead of fatuous rationalizations--outright lies--that remain official DHS doctrine right up until the present day, subverting everything we do to defend ourselves. Maybe I wouldn't be confusing religious freedom with disseminating ideas antithetical to everything we hold sacred as a nation and culture? Maybe I wouldn't be letting the State Dept., with its dubious motives and missions (and this is an old, old story) continue to place foreign priorities over our own, importing thousands of students and refugees from terror-sponsoring nations without any Congressional or public oversight or vetting?
No one wanted Bush to be Hitler. We did want him to be armed with more than sanctimonious and self-serving platitudes.
You realize the F.B.I. does domestic surveillance, right?
I do not know if they're doing a great job, or whatever .... I do know they DO NOT ADVERTISE what they are actively engaged in.
Several domestic terror plots have been defused. One has to wonder about what was behind all of those attempts.... what undercover work was being done, what surveillance techniques, etc.
"Maybe honesty about Wahhabism instead of fatuous rationalizations--outright lies--that remain official DHS doctrine right up until the present day, subverting everything we do to defend ourselves."
I agree with you here 100% but as I pointed out above I don't think we're anywhere near a point of desperation ... yet.
Follow the money. So long as the right pockets remain filled, our government will find ways of fighting Everyone But The Real Threats. Who are the real threats? The entities with the military capability to offer true existential danger to the U.S. and its way of life. Iran. Pakistan. Entities with the capability to subvert the core values of the Republic and destroy us from inside as well as bankroll the asymmetric paramilitary groups hostile to us. Saudi Arabia.
???
We're not going to fight Saudia Arabia, and I have seen no evidence to prove that the 9/11 terrorists were acting as agents of or were military operatives acting under orders from Saidia Arabia. You CANNOT attack a country simply because some of it's citizens went koookooo for kokopuffs and joined in a terrorist conspiracy to attack America. It is not going to happen.
Iran is a threat, but they have not launched any overt act on us. Would you attack them? They have an active nuke program, and while that is going to be a threat, we don't have the cojones to take it out, and it would be a major undertaking to do so. Obama sure isn's going to do it. If he does it the way he's handling Libya it won't work anyway.
Of course Bush was never a true conservative; that was my point. But he pretended to be one and many people in this country, in government and in the media, reinforced that fantasy. Bush is at most a liberal Republican, at worse a regent of the New World Order so cherished by his father. I never said Bush and Obama were kissin' cousins philosophically, but one global autocrat isn't so different from another global autocrat. I believe overtime we will see that they aren't quite as different as some would like to think and that both work for the same people who figured so prominently in the Crash of 2008, with its repercussions for the last election, and who are hard at work today saving the world for autocracy.
Shrubbie and the 'bamster are hardly "close" to each other at all. The only reason they might appear so is that Obama has been hit in the face with "realpolitik" --- when he took office he realized he WASN'T going to "LOSE" a war. He wasn't going to close Gitmo; despite sanctimonious, edealistic promises made in the election campaign it hit him there is not good solution for those detainees; they're dangerous and need to be confined.
The one good thing about Shrubbie is he was neither Kerry or Gore; both of those would have been utter horrors as president.
The bad thing about Shrubbie is he wasn't Ronald Reagan.
But, then, there was only one of those. There were two Bushies. [popcorn]
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Didn't say attack S. Arabia. Please note. Said don't pretend they are what they aren't and aren't doing what they're doing. Big diff. If we're going to deal with the terror problem seriously, we have to be serious. Let's get real. I realize this interferes with various financial agendas by people of great power and moment. It is what it is.
Al-Qaeda has limited resources to attack inside the U.S. without the active neglect--note paradox--of people in our gov't who should know better and should be doing a better job. If the State Dept. keeps acting according to its own lights and maintains its agenda you can expect small-scale terrorism inside the U.S. borders to become a serious problem. Anyone care? I mean enough to challenge the right people in the right way.
Al-Qaeda is not and was not Japan in 1941. Al-Qaeda gets aid and funding from terror-sponsoring states and organizations both outside and inside our scope of operations. Identify and neutralize.
You say we're not near a point of desperation. Well, thank God for that, but we are at a point where we have a mosque going up near Ground Zero, endowed chairs at Harvard, and thousands of madrassas across America. That ought to be an issue of public debate in America, but it's not. Why not?
We'll continue to disagree on Bush and Obama. That they appear radically different is obvious, but somehow the same financial honchos seem to run both administrations. Odd, that. Very odd.
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Didn't say attack S. Arabia. Please note. Said don't pretend they are what they aren't and aren't doing what they're doing. Big diff. If we're going to deal with the terror problem seriously, we have to be serious. Let's get real. I realize this interferes with various financial agendas by people of great power and moment. It is what it is.
Al-Qaeda has limited resources to attack inside the U.S. without the active neglect--note paradox--of people in our gov't who should know better and should be doing a better job. If the State Dept. keeps acting according to its own lights and maintains its agenda you can expect small-scale terrorism inside the U.S. borders to become a serious problem. Anyone care? I mean enough to challenge the right people in the right way.
The southern border has been a problem for decades. You're right that we will likely be experiencing terrorism in our borders .... I don't know how "small-scale" it will be. This problem does not mitigate against dealing with AQ in other lands, however.
I have little hope our govt. is ever going to do anything about the border since the immigration issue is such a tendentious issue, and both parties are intransigently against effective measures, prefering only making a "show" of adding a few border giards here and there, and a partial, rather inept fence. I doubt much less than rebellion would motivate the government toward real reform.
The only real hope I have is that the American people remain armed in their own defense .... to the degree it will help, which may be minimal at best. How do you shoot a guy who is intent on planting a biological weapon? You have to identify the perpetrator first, and they are hardly going to wear a uniform or a neon sign saying "I AM A TERRORIST WHO IS PLANTING A SARIN GAS DISPENSER" on his body.
Al-Qaeda is not and was not Japan in 1941. Al-Qaeda gets aid and funding from terror-sponsoring states and organizations both outside and inside our scope of operations. Identify and neutralize.
Well, I never said AQ and Japan were the "same thing." Only in principle; both entities attacked us in an act of war. One is a soveirign country, the other a terrorist group. A more appropriate comparison would perhaps be the Barbary Pirates of the early 19th cenury. But we still dealt with them with military force.
We have done some things to attack AQ funding, but not enough, no doubt.
You say we're not near a point of desperation. Well, thank God for that, but we are at a point where we have a mosque going up near Ground Zero, endowed chairs at Harvard, and thousands of madrassas across America. That ought to be an issue of public debate in America, but it's not. Why not?
We'll continue to disagree on Bush and Obama. That they appear radically different is obvious, but somehow the same financial honchos seem to run both administrations. Odd, that. Very odd.
I know we have some madrasses here, but, I doubt the number is in the thousands.
As for Obama retaining Shrub's financial trolls, I sincerely think Obama had no good, intelligent economic policies himself -- beyond his Keynesian programming, and retained them because he had no one he knew in his own camp to appoint. Or something similar.
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I wasn't talking about the southern border; we already know THAT's a huge problem, and one more thing Bush wouldn't deal with. I was talking about, among other things, the State Dept.'s benign "seeding" of America with people, all for the most enlightened purposes of course, who pose a threat to our society. Ever examined the refugee resettlement business? Yes, it's a business, involving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money being funneled to groups with agendas of their own--yes, NGOs and charities--and all of this kept behind the curtain.
There are a lot more mosques and madrassas in America than you are aware of, and it would be a good thing to know what's being taught and said there.
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I wasn't talking about the southern border; we already know THAT's a huge problem, and one more thing Bush wouldn't deal with. I was talking about, among other things, the State Dept.'s benign "seeding" of America with people, all for the most enlightened purposes of course, who pose a threat to our society. Ever examined the refugee resettlement business? Yes, it's a business, involving hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayer money being funneled to groups with agendas of their own--yes, NGOs and charities--and all of this kept behind the curtain.
There are a lot more mosques and madrassas in America than you are aware of, and it would be a good thing to know what's being taught and said there.
:facepalm: Oh.
Really, you need to be a little more specific. I am not a mindreader and that is not the "gist" I got from your post. ;)
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Sorry, but I thought my reference to Dept. of State was a clue. I am not blaming them for the southern border fiasco. Yet. We know that the southern border problem lies with Dems who want future voters, corporations that want cheap labor, and nice middle-class Americans who just want their gardens and kiddies tended to.
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The Kurds were gassed in 1988. The know-how for the chemical weapons that were used were given to Iraq by the United States, to help them in their war against Iran, who we didn't like because they had just recently kicked out the authoritarian puppet leader we had installed in their country (the Shah). The massacre of the Kurds was more or less glossed over in 1988, because the US government was giving a lot of support to Iraq. Somehow, people used this massacre as justification to attack Iraq 14 years later, in 2003.
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So you complain that it was glossed over, then complain when it is not. The sort of logical legerdemain we have come to expect from those who carp about the second Iraq war.
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That is a good question, Seeker Two .... I think Dubya had an idea when all this started it wasn't going to be a "normal" war, ie., one between two soveirign nations. I think he realized that would mean it would be fought over a long period of time.
That doesn't mean I think we've been doing a stupendously aggressive job, and while I agree we've suffered some civil rights erosion (primarily in airports and some 4th amendment problems: the "sneak & peak" provisions), I also happen to view the war as serious and the threat posed by the Islamonazis to be very serious and real.
Doesn't mean I have brilliant answers for the whole thing .... just examining the whol **** mess and praying we come out the right side ..... =|
The fact that you A. use the oxymoronic term "Islamonazi" & B. gloss over the fact that our fed.gov is busy instituting a police state that Hitler would have been proud of tells me about all I need to know about your positions.
And please, stop with the funky formatting. If you can't make your point without glowing highlights and massive bold font, perhaps it is not a point that needs made.
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I believe that GW will go down in history as the unintentional 2nd Lawrence of Arabia....George of the Middle East. Whether that will be a good or bad thing for the Middle East, only time will tell. I'm only sure that it has, or will, bankrupt the US. I think everyone else has covered the losses of freedom incurred under his watch.
And not to sound like an unreasonable Liberal (I'm neither), Saddam was an ally when the west provided him the tools to make the gas to use on the Kurds.
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The fact that you A. use the oxymoronic term "Islamonazi" & B. gloss over the fact that our fed.gov is busy instituting a police state that Hitler would have been proud of tells me about all I need to know about your positions.
And please, stop with the funky formatting. If you can't make your point without glowing highlights and massive bold font, perhaps it is not a point that needs made.
I use the term "Islamonazi" because other commentators use it, and it's a convenient shorthand. If you think the Taliban/AQ types -- who keep women in Burqas, amputate peoples' heads while they're still alive, and who repress many other people in a number of ways, are not aptly comparable to Nazis then gee whiz, what part of The Twilight Zone are YOU from?
If you don't like my formatting I suggest you not read my posts.
I don't agree with everything that has been done in this war, but let's not pretend we are not dealing with a dangerous enemy.
One last thing;
If you really are ignorant enough to think what we have now is in any way comparable to Hitler's Germany,
I suggest you read Inside Hitler's Germany; Life Under the Third Reich, by Mathew Hughes and Chris Mann. It will open your eyes.
There are other books too, but they are probably too long ........ [popcorn]
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I use the term "Islamonazi" because other commentators use it, and it's a convenient shorthand. If you think the Taliban/AQ types -- who keep women in Burqas, amputate peoples' heads while they're still alive, and who repress many other people in a number of ways, are not aptly comparable to Nazis then gee whiz, what part of The Twilight Zone are YOU from?
I'm not going to get in the middle of this, except to say that, until the jihadists, al-Queda and other types start slaughtering people by the millions in a very mechanized way, the word "Nazi" should be reserved for true Nazi's. Its use as a label for other despicable groups (or politicians, but I repeat myself) diminishes the history of the Nazi's and their horror. Two-thirds of Europe's Jews were murdered. Al-Queda has a long way to go to match that.
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As I said it is a convenient shorthand. If anyone can think of a better term I will happily entertain it.
As for not "matching" the atrocities of the Nazis, true, but 2,973 human beings on 9/11/01 was a decent start.
Both the Nazis and AQ/Taliban represent very repressive ideologies, and that is the basic point here.
I did not invent the term. If you want to know who did you're welcome to go on a jihad and find that guy and complain to him ... or her, which ever.... [popcorn]
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I did not invent the term. If you want to know who did you're welcome to go on a jihad and find that guy and complain to him ... or her, which ever.... [popcorn]
Well, at least you aren't following orders when you say it.
"Nazi" has a very specific and definite meaning. I don't see why you need to follow some jackass that wants it to mean something else, especially given how ridiculously wrong it is to apply the term to the Taliban. Frankly, this use of "Nazi" pisses me off. I find it disrespectful to the victims and to the people who put their lives on the line to defeat them. I also think that thoughtlessly parroting some talking head is nothing to be proud of.
You want a term? What's wrong with "Islamic fanatics"? It's quite accurate. Are the extra four letters and a space that much of an effort?
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Words have meanings. When you just change them to mean whatever you want, you lose any hope of accurate conversation. Nazi is a clearly and specifically defined term, not "convenient shorthand" for anyone you don't like. Sort of like how I don't care for robbers, but I don't call them child molesters just cause. I bet you object when people call Bush a fascist, right?
I never said the fed.gov was comparable to the Nazis in the scope of their activity (you're the one who conflated genocide with killing a few thousand people) I said they would be proud of our advances. If you can tell me Hitler et al wouldn't have loved to have the invasive tech fed.gov does, or the ability to get people to agree that having a bunch of minimum wage thugs groping little kids is a necessary evil well... You're blinded by your ideology.
I do skip your posts, you have nothing worth reading. But the bold colors and massive fonts make them annoying to scroll past. It's as infantile as your arguments, please stop.
And the not so subtle attempt at an insult in suggesting other history texts would be too long for me? Classy.
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Well, at least you aren't following orders when you say it.
"Nazi" has a very specific and definite meaning. I don't see why you need to follow some jackass that wants it to mean something else, especially given how ridiculously wrong it is to apply the term to the Taliban. Frankly, this use of "Nazi" pisses me off. I find it disrespectful to the victims and to the people who put their lives on the line to defeat them. I also think that thoughtlessly parroting some talking head is nothing to be proud of.
You want a term? What's wrong with "Islamic fanatics"? It's quite accurate. Are the extra four letters and a space that much of an effort?
That's the largest leap of logic I've seen here yet. It isn't "disrespectful" to the victims of the nazis or to those who defeated them at all; it has nothing at all to do with them.
There's nothing wrong with "Islamic fanatics," except I suppose if you were Islamic you could complain that it's a "slam" against Muslims who aren't fanatics -- a sort of "guilt by association" type of thing. Everyone wants to capitalize on that sort of **** these days.
Words have meanings. When you just change them to mean whatever you want, you lose any hope of accurate conversation. Nazi is a clearly and specifically defined term, not "convenient shorthand" for anyone you don't like. Sort of like how I don't care for robbers, but I don't call them child molesters just cause. I bet you object when people call Bush a fascist, right?
I never said the fed.gov was comparable to the Nazis in the scope of their activity (you're the one who conflated genocide with killing a few thousand people) I said they would be proud of our advances. If you can tell me Hitler et al wouldn't have loved to have the invasive tech fed.gov does, or the ability to get people to agree that having a bunch of minimum wage thugs groping little kids is a necessary evil well... You're blinded by your ideology.
I do skip your posts, you have nothing worth reading. But the bold colors and massive fonts make them annoying to scroll past. It's as infantile as your arguments, please stop.
And the not so subtle attempt at an insult in suggesting other history texts would be too long for me? Classy.
For someone who "skips" my posts you sure get riled by them. [popcorn]
I did not "conflate" genocide with the killing of "a few thousand" people --you're ASSUMING I did. Even the Nazis had to start somewhere, and I'm fairly certain the Jihadis (do you like that term? :angel:) would love to acquire a regime as large -- or larger -- than the Grösser Germania the Nazis imagined for themselves. If you think Hitler would have cared a **** about a bunch of mallninja wannabes who grope schoolkids, then, my friend it is you who is blinded by YOUR ideology. The type of people who operated the Geheime Staatzpolizei, the Einsatzgruppen, the early brownshirts, they were far, far more serious people than the TSA wandrapers you whine about as though they were lining up Jews, Gypsies, and homosexuals along a trench and machinegunning them all down.
I think it is you who conflate the Nazis -- but NOT with the Jihadis, but with our own government. That is the real insult to the people who fought to defeat the Third Reich, and to the victims of that Reich. To believe the TSA, as overbearing, incompetant and goofy as it is, is anywhere near as evil as the Nationale Sozialistische Deutsche Arbeiter Partei ever were ... that only justifies and emphasizes my suggestion you start with Inside Hitler's Germany. It is a shortish book. That doesn't mean it was written for children, or for blind people, or for anyone else of diminished mental capacity. It isn't an "easy" book to read.
But to someone who thinks the U.S.A. is anywhere near Nazi Germany, or who thinks Hitler would be in any way "proud" of what America is, it is something you should read.
But.... :facepalm: I waste my time and efforts. After all, you don't read my posts. They're too ... "infantile." [tinfoil]
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Enough.
Chris