Although I still think all the parties are different shades of the same. Oh, no. I agree with Sam. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Now I need expunging by albino nuns.
Not the Afghanis. And the Americans have been there for seven years. Probably come home when they are ready to end their empire.
Actually, power wise it's a wash, with the penetration edge going to the M-16with the new SS-109 round, better BC, and actually, I wouldn't want to take a hit from either one, they are extremely lethal out to 350 meters. Personnel as of today, I prefer the 6.8 SPC, or the 7.62x51mm, the 6.8 out preform both the AK and M-16 rounds, and the 7.62x51mm is still the best round at desert ranges that quickly go over 350 meters.
Cheap Whores On the Street Corner, or, Right Where They Need To Be ... For What? They're where they need to be to court the public. But to revisit a side argument as an example. There are some who suggest that the U.S. needs a third, centrist party on the national ballot. A third party is one thing, but a centrist party? Centrism at present accepts lies as a justification for war, accepts and even encourages torture, pines for religious supremacy, and would invest the presidency with certain authority we generally consider dictatorial. We don't need the third party to be centrist, because the centrists have the Democrats. Unfortunately, the art of centrism involves doing what's popular instead of doing what's right. And that's where I indict the Democrats for being too far to the right. Their most liberal issues right now are abortion and health care. Blue Dogs, in order to be elected, must hedge on abortion, and it is my expectation that regardless of what Obama actually wants, Congressional Democrats will manage to blow health care insofar as if we get a plan, it will just be another scheme to pad the rich.
As you may know Tiassa, I always respect your opinions and thoughts. However, I do disagree with you here. I view myself as a centerist. And I do not accept what is popular because it is popular. I believe in doing what is right, because it is right. I have none of the preconcieved ideas about what should be based on party affiliation, each case each issue should be evaluated based on its own merrits or lack thereof. You maybe right about the Democrats blowing healthcare...it would not be the first time. But I am counting on Obama to hold their feet to the fire regardless of party. We have had enough partisanship in Washington. We need Americans now in Washington not Democrats or Republicans, solving American problems. I think Obama gets it. And one of the things that I am most upset with respect to the recent reign of the shrubs is the way they have abused the military. George I and his escapades in Somalia, in order to get relected....a blatent abuse of the military. And of course George II and Iraq to punish Sadam for trying to knock of his daddie. Other people should not have to die to advance the Bush family's political interests and personal vendettas..
And we haven't made Afghanistan the priority theater of operations for those 7 years, now have we, and the Taliban couldn't drive us out. In 2008, the Nato Troop levels finally reached 32,000, the top Troops deployment numbers in Iraq were above 150,000, as we determined that was the most important theater of operations. Now lets wait until the full effect of additional troops come on line before we place any bets. Now as for me I have seen how the Democrats have run wars since 1950, and I see a big screw up in the works the Democrats will over control the military operations, get our asses kicked, declare victory and then run for cover, abandoning the Afghanis, ala Vietnam.
Nor did we do any nation building in Afganistan. In order to solve the Afganistan issue, we need to build a stable country....virtually no effort has been directed toward that objective today. George II was trying to fight this war or effort on the cheap...which always winds up costing us more in the long run. If you are going to war, we need to do what it takes to win. George II was not willing to do what needs to be done to win. Now it is Obama's turn. I think he gets it, and will do what needs to be done in order to bring and end to this blemish in history.
This and that Perhaps it is a matter of definitions. After all, as a liberal, I find it absolutely hilarious when our neighbors accuse the Democrats of being liberal. You know ... Hillary Clinton is a liberal. Harry Reid is a liberal. Nancy Pelosi is a liberal. Really? Likewise, perhaps we have different views of centrism. Some might view it as a fixed philosophy, but I find that, by nature, it needs to rove. It describes a central point between two alleged extremes. Perhaps your centrist principles differ from the statistical outcome. Presently centrism justifies terrorism and excuses fraudulent justifications for war. Right there, I'm going to have a problem with it. I, too, think Obama gets it, but I'm also prepared to be disappointed if he's not playing a long hand close to the vest. • • • List out your wars, then. The major ones in the last fifty years have been Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and Iraq. But since you mentioned Vietnam and Afghanistan: Vietnam — "Domino Theory", 1954, Eisenhower, Republican. American training of South Vietnamese, 1956, Eisenhower, Republican. Troop withdrawal, 1973, Nixon, Republican. Afghanistan — Invasion, 2001, Bush, Republican. As noted, "we haven't made Afghanistan the priority theater of operations for those 7 years". Yeah, that's the way to treat your troops. And, since Iraq makes for the other two big wars we've been in through the period, we might point out that avenging your daddy is a terrible reason to leave the troops hanging in Afghanistan. Additionally, just like Vietnam, a Republican got us into it, and left it for his successors. I won't even start on Somalia. Joe's covered that debacle.
Exactly! The Grand Old Party was taken over by the rich and the self-deluded poor who have the illusion they themselves will become rich some day. These new conservatives ("neocons") wanted to find a way to take over government completely and for good. What they found was a doctrine of an obscure economist named Ludvig van Mises who taught that unfettered capitalism can create an ideal system by business taking over government. Without it ever having happened in all human history, they adopted it with a fanaticism that has moved the whole Party. As a doctrine, it is poisonous nonsense. They also adopted a Christian Fundamentalist-like "moral high ground" doctrine that the whole world is divided up only into the "good" and the "evil" and we all know who they think are the "good"! charles http://atheistic-science.com
I don't even know what liberal is these days...other than not Republican. Republicans (ditto heads) have so abused the term over the course of the last few decades. It has come to mean anything not in line with ditto head beliefs. So I am not even sure what value is left in the liberal label anymore, perhaps that is why Republicans are now looking for a new label with emotional appeal that will allow them to make deamons of those who do not agree with their agenda...communists, socialists, etc.
Joe, Tiassa: both sides have done this as long as their parties have existed. You do yourselves a disservice to suppose that one is right and another wrong.
Obama's health care plan is rightwing and authoritarian - mandated enrollment, with market protection for corporate insurance and corporate delivery of medical services. It's possible he is playing the long game, forcing this approach until its inevitable failure allows him to introduce what the Dems joined the Reps in deflecting in '91 and make politically impossible since, but that will be an expensive and years-long postponement of the matter. That was Nixon. He was a Republican, elected in in 1968 and re-elected in '72. "Both sides" don't have a party. One side has the Republican Party essentially entire and a good share of the Dems, the other three or four sides have a few Reps and the rest of the Dems (if they have anyone). And very often one of the sides is wrong, not only on a particular matter but in its consistent approach to a range of matters - in particular the Republican Party bloc "side", which in its thirty years of increasing power has been increasingly damaging, culminating in the disaster of its complete control of the US government from 2001 until 2007. That doesn't make another side right, of course.
Relying on private corporations to provide health care and market competition to control prices and maintain delivered quality is right wing by definition. That doesn't make it wrong, or bad. My own prediction is that it won't work. Medical care, like education, confers much of its benefit indirectly on the general public, and is delivered mostly to those incapable of assessing either its appropriateness or its quality- assigning its costs and the decisions regarding its delivery to its direct recipients will result in serious market distortions and inefficiencies. That is: high prices and poor care.
Where is the logic in this statement? Where is the proof borne by history? What is wrong with the general public? Education confers benefit on all of society....including those that like to consider themselves not the general public...above the rest. Who do you think services those who are "not the general public"? Who do you think makes the planes that those "Not the Public" fly or cares for those who are "not the general public" when they get ill?
