Page 1 of 1 pages
While it is true that if you outlaw guns, or nukes, that only criminals will have them, how well armed must we be? Allowing citizens to have a 9mm pistol at home is fun, but a fully functional 50mm machine gun seems excessive. So it goes with the nuclear programs. We do need a certain number of nuclear devices to defend ourselves with, but we certainly dont need enough to make the earth a nearly uninhabitable place. About one per capital should do it.
Posted by lastchance on Apr 30, 2007 at 5:44 PM
Overkill doctrine states that each target requires a minimum of 500 kilotons to be considered “destroyed” As technology increases the CEP or circular error probability of an individual warhead the numbers per target have decreased. But the total tonnage required has remained the same.
As a bonus to our “eco” friendly greenies the new doctrine uses airbursts at 50000 feet which results in little or no radioactive fallout to neighboring countries.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” What part of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” is unclear?
Posted by texasindependent on Apr 30, 2007 at 10:10 PM
Any attempt to micromanage our military preparedness could lead to our ignoring the advice of professionals and trying to accomplish a major operation without adequate resources.
Oh, yeah, Rumsfeld did just that. Too few troops for an all-out invasion (CENTCOM plan was for 500,000). Immediate deployment of the RESERVES (40% of total force) is at least an oxymoron, at worst what we now have. Too little manufacturing capability to provide body armor or replacement parts for Humvees.*
* Since both Democrats and Republicans have been enthusiastic supporters of deporting our industries you don
Posted by whattheheck on May 1, 2007 at 5:53 AM
“What if Iran or some other country processing nuclear capability should happen to be seriously considering an attack on the U.S. now or in the future and we are less than totally prepared? “
does anyone actually believe that any nation state, such as Iran, would ever seriously consider attacking the United States and risk a full nuclear reprisal from the most powerful murder machine ever constructed? Highly unlikely. What is more likely is that a “stray” nuke would be detonated by “terrorist” (we need to start to use that word more objectively) inside of the US. Nuclear prolifiration makes “strays” more likely. What leads to proliferation? A message transmitted by Bush and his boys that says, “if you have no Nukes” we won’t mess with you. Considering the US’ current imperialist stance and objectives, you’d be crazy if you were a country with resources and you weren’t trying to get nukes. It may be the only thing that keeps the US out of your back yard
Posted by dcosby on May 3, 2007 at 3:01 PM
dcosby,
Posted by whattheheck on May 4, 2007 at 10:47 AM
whattheheck,
thanks for responding.
I agree with you that only responsible parties should have access to deadly weapons. but How would one measure who is a responsible party. I think that we would both agree that you might want to consider past actions when accessing who is likely to be responsible.
First the obvious: the U.S. is the only country to use nulear weapons. We attacked Hiroshima knowing full well the civilian death that would result and, after the first bomb was dropped and we knew the scale of the devastation, we dropped another of these monsters three days later.
Since then the United States has been involved in conflicts in North Korea, Vietnam, Loas, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Somaila and twice in Iraq, to name a few. During that same period in history who did Iran invade? Answer: no one. Not one country. The only war they have been involved in was with a U.S. sponsored Iraq who used poison gas against Iranians with the help of U.S. sattelite intelligence. If the United States were trying to buy a gun at a gun store we, just like the Vrigina Tech killer, should have been/be denied. Just like the VT shooter, warning signs of our psycho pathic behavior are everywhere to see, but no one wants to pay attention.
Question for you: are there any Iranian troops in Canada or Mexico(humor me)? Are there any Iranian subs off the coast of Florida? Does Iran have one spy Sattelite in Space. Does Iran have any aircraft carriers? The US has bases in over 130 countries. We patrol all the worlds oceans. We not only have sattelites in space, we have declared quite openly that any challenge to our space superiority will be seen as an act of war (in military lingo it’s called full spectrum dominance). Keep in mind that the US currently is threatning Iran with a nuclear attack (in the words of Bush, Clinton, Obama and Edwards “all options are on the table”). So who is a threat to who? How many innocent people do you think Iran has killed outside their own borders in the last six years? Be honest, haven’t we killed far more ?
Brother, me and you and all of us have been sold a bill of goods that consist of false propaganda and misplaced patriotism. We are constantly made to feal fear so that we will continue to support the agenda of a small, rich elite who only havee their interest at heart. No? We may have different poliics but I’m sure we agree on this: those f’ers in Washington are mostly liars and thieves. agree? So they lie about everything but this, huh? Come on :-)
And the media are in on it (Cnn, Fox .... no distinction, the ditinction is illusion). Think I’m crazy. Google this : USS Stark. Read what happened. Then ask why you never knew that before. If sadaam was such the hitler why didn’t we attack him then . Why not use this as evidence for the run up to war….. sorry to go so long ..... the rabbit hole goes real deep… but folks like me and you need to start to use some good ole horse sense before it’s too late ....... if you can see the matrix you’re not in it !!! look forwar to hearing from you .... take care
Posted by dcosby on May 4, 2007 at 11:51 AM
p.s.
“These religious wackos are like Kamikazes”
“Religous Wackos” ??? Who is parading around the world stating they’re going to rid the world of “the evil doers”. Just because you wear a brooks brothers doesn’t mean you’re not a fundementalist. Just because you live in a big White masion doesn’t mean you’re not a terrorist. Osama Bin Laden would love to have Bush’s body count .
Posted by dcosby on May 4, 2007 at 1:57 PM
dcosby,
Posted by whattheheck on May 6, 2007 at 5:19 AM
whatheheck,
I agree with almost everything you said :-). The only real difference I have is with your statement that “The main problem is a minority of Muslim extremists… “. While I agree that Muslim extremism is a problem and dangerous, it isn’t the main problem. The problem is American influence in that part of the world. Look at our best friends in the region : Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, to name a few. What do all of these have in common? All of them are either dictatorships of one kind or another or, as in the case of Turkey, a “democracy” that uses force to subjugate a significant minority (kurds). You can tell alot about a person/country by the company they keep. The muslim world knows the company we keep and see US as part of the apparatus of oppression that makes their lives miserable.
So the everyday muslim in the middle east, while condeming terrorist, is hesistant to condemn them out right because they seem to be the only ones that are addressing their justified greviances with the West. Aren’t we really there to take the oil ??? I hate to put it so bluntly, but if the chief export of the middle east were turnips we wouldn’t be there. Extremism is the result of and not the cause for our presense in the middle east (unless you’re talking about American Extremism). We in the US are conditioned to thing of Arabs in general as violent and the Arab world as chaotic so that we can justify our presense there (“they need us…. what would the poor Arabs do without us”).
Concerning withdrawl, I would ask this : is it moraly right for us to be there? Not What strategy will work. Is the occupation morally right or wrong? We invaded a country that never attacked us, didn’t have the ability to attack us and never threatened to attack us. But we’re stil there. Do Bush and company apologize? No! They say that even when we’re wrong we’re still right because we’re brining freedom. The reality is that our presence there can bring about nothing good. We are universally distrusted in the Middle East and our words and promises hold no sway there. You cannot negotiate a peace when the parties concerned distrust your motives. What the US needs to be doing is (1) outlining a plan for a complete withdrawl in the next 12 months (2) conducting a diplomatic full court press with the countries in the region who might be able to help stabilize Iraq (3) offering an apology to the Iraqi people backed by a full and comprehensive reparations backage to pay for the damage we caused. That’s what a great country would do. That’s what a just country would offer. Then possibly (it will take a while) the US can start to establish (notice I did not say “re” establish) some good will and begin to slowly drain the pool of resentment that allows extremist to have safe harbor in parts of the Middle East. But all of this may still fail. That is why more sober minds (daddy Bush included) thought the invasion was a mistake. Because the outcome would leave us with no good choices.
“Bleed and Bankrupt”. That’s what Osama calls it. It is the idea that America cannot be defeated in a conventional military sense, It has to be bled. It will be bled by provoking it to engage evermore in costly military confrontations farther away from home, causing a strain on it’s economy, causing domestic decay, causing collapse. Based on this model, who is really winning this war on terrorism ????
ps. your opinions on the media are dead on .... have you ever read “amusing ourselves to death” check it out ... it’s definitly relevant ....... peace ..... question: what about Bush appealed to you twice??? I ask that meaning no offense , but am still trying to understand intellectually what people who voted for him found apealing. was it the Christian appeal (I too grew up in a church environment and have an Aunt (75 yrs young) who believes Bush can do no wrong).
Posted by dcosby on May 7, 2007 at 8:58 AM
dcosby,
I
Posted by whattheheck on May 7, 2007 at 11:30 AM
Cosby, welcome. Great posts! I have been saying much the same for years. It’s good to see someone else willing to speak out about the American saber rattling at Iran. You said “Osama Bin Laden would love to have Bush’s body count .” and in a way he does. Or at least gains some advantage from it. It’s a win win situtation for anyone who believes that violence solves problems.
Whattheheck, when you say ...“I can’t refute the idea that a lot of countries have a low opinion of the U.S. and not totally without cause. However, I don’t agree that we are as bad or even worse than other countries.”... I have to ask : How do you measure it? What do you weigh? The number of dead people, yes?
David,
U.S. integrity, intentions or whatever:
Posted by whattheheck on May 8, 2007 at 6:34 AM
David in CA,
Thanks for the encouragement. I need all I can get. Im In the heart of the South (Atlanta, Georgia) and don’t get much of it.
to all,
what do we do from here?
do we need to impeach the President (if we want to save the little that’s left of America’s soul we might want to think about it. I remember when Gerald Ford died and the media went round-and-round about how he saved the country because he pardoned Nixon. How he saved the country from all the grief that would have come from putting an Ex-President on trial. I couldn’t believe it !!! He didn’t save the country, he condemned it !!! If Nixon would have been tried it would have sent a clear signal to future presidents that executive license of this sort will not be tolerated. An unpunished Nixon = an unrepentent Bush.) ???
Do we storm the Capital? No, I’m serious. Do we , peacefully, march on Washington, 6-7 million, occupy the House, the Senate and surround the Whitehouse and put our so called represenatives on notice that this country belongs to the People of the United States of America. Not Halliburton. Not Kellog, Brown & whoever, not any part of corporate America. . The People of the United States of America.
Are we at all willing to look seriously at ourselves? I agree that some right answers tend to be found somewhere in “the middle” and that folks in the debate are sometimes a little too presumptuous (sp?) and a little too certain with their answers. But there are a few things that I can be relatively sure of : free health care for at least every child under 18 might be a good thing (other countries with less seem to have this crazy idea that wealth should not determine whether you live or die). That our schools should be funded at least as well as the military (in reality this would mean cutting the defense budget but, considering that we currently out spend all the worlds countries combined for defense, a little cut won’t hurt the nation where genuine!! defense is concerned). What does this have to due with new nuclear technology and the Iranian threat ??? I’ll simply direct you to google Eishenhower’s farewell address concerning the military industrial complex and the threat it poses for a democracy (when you read his address it’s crazy to think that what an American president said in a fairwell address from the Oval Office is unmentionable in todays climate ) or watch a documentary called Why We Fight ..... have a few more but I’ll stop here and ask again ................. What do we do???
Posted by dcosby on May 8, 2007 at 8:33 AM
dcosby,
I wish I could give you workable and meaningful answers. I can
Posted by whattheheck on May 8, 2007 at 9:35 AM
I have a much better plan dcosby . You start the impeachment process. I start the civil war process. We split the country into politically acceptable parts. Considering the political stance of the country you would get a lot of people without any practical skills, states without many natural resources, or connected borders. Your emotionally mature part starves, freezes, and rides bicycles. My knuckledragging part eats red meat, watches porn, and drives hummers. We never speak again and mine the borders. Your happy. I am happy. Deal?
Posted by texasindependent on May 10, 2007 at 1:03 PM
texasindependent,
thanks for responding.
Well, I’m almost at a loss for words….. almost :-).
You might be happy with the America you’ve described but I would not want to live in that place. Part of the problem in the United States today is that we have lost the ability to have rational discourse. Our conversations often reflect the bizzare atmosphere that we see on most corporate news/talk show forums.
As far as civil war is concerned, I’m not sure how to respond to that. I’ll assume for a moment that you’re not currently amassing a stockpile of weapons in the hopes of sometime in the near future fracturing the country “into politically acceptable parts” and then “mine the borders”. In other other words, you’re kidding. Hoping that I’m right, I would rather speak to the sentiment emodied in your response rather than the actual content.
I think what you express is a growing frustration being felt by more and more Americans over the lack of real dialogue. We have no outlet for our angst and seem to have no power. So we say things that ,more than reflecting a true belief , actually express more of our collective anger at seeing the America we thougt was become to our eyes the America that actually is. As result we say things like “bomb em all” or “let’s split the country up”. The fact that we don’t really mean these things eventually adds weight to the meaninglessness we feel when hearing almost anyone speak about these issues. We become more and more disillusioned because no one means what they say.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying the solution is for you to be more sincere about this civil war you’re promising :-). A first step might be just stating coherently what , speciifically, is making you say what you say.
What specific issue are you most concerned about.? Maybe we’d find we agree on some things, who knows.
So what, specifically, do you think is driving the country to the point of “civil war”. Maybe I’m not that tough of a guy, but generally I like a little dialogue and maybe some coffee and a doughnut before my revolutions start :-)
Take care
Posted by dcosby on May 10, 2007 at 3:00 PM
dcosby, Tex,
Posted by whattheheck on May 11, 2007 at 6:07 AM
whattheheck,
I’m definitely going to pickup that book you mentioned this weekend (you’re the second person to have mentioned that to me this week). I read a few reviews on it the other day and it looks to be very interesting .
when you say, “However, we need to guard against the herd instinct which repetition arouses. The cure for disillusionment is not re-illusionment of some other kind. “, what sort of re-illusionment do you mean.
Posted by dcosby on May 11, 2007 at 7:01 AM
I am tired. I am tired of the defeatism of the far left and the ultranationalism of the far right. I don’t want a fucked up quasi socialist government and I don’t want a police state. I am tired of the left gloating over every lost soldier in Iraq and I am tired of the glorification of the same soldier by the right. I am tired and disgusted with both sides and this endless political wrangling. Neither side has the ability to effect any legislation so we spin our wheels until 2008. The answer for me and 62 percent in the latest poll in my state is seccession. We were an independent nation for 10 years before we became a state. We can do it again and join OPEC. Fight it out amongst yourselves.
Posted by texasindependent on May 11, 2007 at 10:20 AM
dcosby,
re-illusionment? I
Posted by whattheheck on May 12, 2007 at 6:32 AM
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Reader Comments
I
While it is true that if you outlaw guns, or nukes, that only criminals will have them, how well armed must we be? Allowing citizens to have a 9mm pistol at home is fun, but a fully functional 50mm machine gun seems excessive. So it goes with the nuclear programs. We do need a certain number of nuclear devices to defend ourselves with, but we certainly dont need enough to make the earth a nearly uninhabitable place. About one per capital should do it.
Overkill doctrine states that each target requires a minimum of 500 kilotons to be considered “destroyed” As technology increases the CEP or circular error probability of an individual warhead the numbers per target have decreased. But the total tonnage required has remained the same.
As a bonus to our “eco” friendly greenies the new doctrine uses airbursts at 50000 feet which results in little or no radioactive fallout to neighboring countries.
“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.” What part of “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” is unclear?
Any attempt to micromanage our military preparedness could lead to our ignoring the advice of professionals and trying to accomplish a major operation without adequate resources.
Oh, yeah, Rumsfeld did just that. Too few troops for an all-out invasion (CENTCOM plan was for 500,000). Immediate deployment of the RESERVES (40% of total force) is at least an oxymoron, at worst what we now have. Too little manufacturing capability to provide body armor or replacement parts for Humvees.*
* Since both Democrats and Republicans have been enthusiastic supporters of deporting our industries you don
“What if Iran or some other country processing nuclear capability should happen to be seriously considering an attack on the U.S. now or in the future and we are less than totally prepared? “
does anyone actually believe that any nation state, such as Iran, would ever seriously consider attacking the United States and risk a full nuclear reprisal from the most powerful murder machine ever constructed? Highly unlikely. What is more likely is that a “stray” nuke would be detonated by “terrorist” (we need to start to use that word more objectively) inside of the US. Nuclear prolifiration makes “strays” more likely. What leads to proliferation? A message transmitted by Bush and his boys that says, “if you have no Nukes” we won’t mess with you. Considering the US’ current imperialist stance and objectives, you’d be crazy if you were a country with resources and you weren’t trying to get nukes. It may be the only thing that keeps the US out of your back yard
dcosby,
whattheheck,
thanks for responding.
I agree with you that only responsible parties should have access to deadly weapons. but How would one measure who is a responsible party. I think that we would both agree that you might want to consider past actions when accessing who is likely to be responsible.
First the obvious: the U.S. is the only country to use nulear weapons. We attacked Hiroshima knowing full well the civilian death that would result and, after the first bomb was dropped and we knew the scale of the devastation, we dropped another of these monsters three days later.
Since then the United States has been involved in conflicts in North Korea, Vietnam, Loas, Cambodia, Lebanon, Grenada, Panama, Haiti, Somaila and twice in Iraq, to name a few. During that same period in history who did Iran invade? Answer: no one. Not one country. The only war they have been involved in was with a U.S. sponsored Iraq who used poison gas against Iranians with the help of U.S. sattelite intelligence. If the United States were trying to buy a gun at a gun store we, just like the Vrigina Tech killer, should have been/be denied. Just like the VT shooter, warning signs of our psycho pathic behavior are everywhere to see, but no one wants to pay attention.
Question for you: are there any Iranian troops in Canada or Mexico(humor me)? Are there any Iranian subs off the coast of Florida? Does Iran have one spy Sattelite in Space. Does Iran have any aircraft carriers? The US has bases in over 130 countries. We patrol all the worlds oceans. We not only have sattelites in space, we have declared quite openly that any challenge to our space superiority will be seen as an act of war (in military lingo it’s called full spectrum dominance). Keep in mind that the US currently is threatning Iran with a nuclear attack (in the words of Bush, Clinton, Obama and Edwards “all options are on the table”). So who is a threat to who? How many innocent people do you think Iran has killed outside their own borders in the last six years? Be honest, haven’t we killed far more ?
Brother, me and you and all of us have been sold a bill of goods that consist of false propaganda and misplaced patriotism. We are constantly made to feal fear so that we will continue to support the agenda of a small, rich elite who only havee their interest at heart. No? We may have different poliics but I’m sure we agree on this: those f’ers in Washington are mostly liars and thieves. agree? So they lie about everything but this, huh? Come on :-)
And the media are in on it (Cnn, Fox .... no distinction, the ditinction is illusion). Think I’m crazy. Google this : USS Stark. Read what happened. Then ask why you never knew that before. If sadaam was such the hitler why didn’t we attack him then . Why not use this as evidence for the run up to war….. sorry to go so long ..... the rabbit hole goes real deep… but folks like me and you need to start to use some good ole horse sense before it’s too late ....... if you can see the matrix you’re not in it !!! look forwar to hearing from you .... take care
p.s.
“These religious wackos are like Kamikazes”
“Religous Wackos” ??? Who is parading around the world stating they’re going to rid the world of “the evil doers”. Just because you wear a brooks brothers doesn’t mean you’re not a fundementalist. Just because you live in a big White masion doesn’t mean you’re not a terrorist. Osama Bin Laden would love to have Bush’s body count .
dcosby,
whatheheck,
I agree with almost everything you said :-). The only real difference I have is with your statement that “The main problem is a minority of Muslim extremists… “. While I agree that Muslim extremism is a problem and dangerous, it isn’t the main problem. The problem is American influence in that part of the world. Look at our best friends in the region : Egypt, Saudia Arabia, Jordan, Turkey, Pakistan, to name a few. What do all of these have in common? All of them are either dictatorships of one kind or another or, as in the case of Turkey, a “democracy” that uses force to subjugate a significant minority (kurds). You can tell alot about a person/country by the company they keep. The muslim world knows the company we keep and see US as part of the apparatus of oppression that makes their lives miserable.
So the everyday muslim in the middle east, while condeming terrorist, is hesistant to condemn them out right because they seem to be the only ones that are addressing their justified greviances with the West. Aren’t we really there to take the oil ??? I hate to put it so bluntly, but if the chief export of the middle east were turnips we wouldn’t be there. Extremism is the result of and not the cause for our presense in the middle east (unless you’re talking about American Extremism). We in the US are conditioned to thing of Arabs in general as violent and the Arab world as chaotic so that we can justify our presense there (“they need us…. what would the poor Arabs do without us”).
Concerning withdrawl, I would ask this : is it moraly right for us to be there? Not What strategy will work. Is the occupation morally right or wrong? We invaded a country that never attacked us, didn’t have the ability to attack us and never threatened to attack us. But we’re stil there. Do Bush and company apologize? No! They say that even when we’re wrong we’re still right because we’re brining freedom. The reality is that our presence there can bring about nothing good. We are universally distrusted in the Middle East and our words and promises hold no sway there. You cannot negotiate a peace when the parties concerned distrust your motives. What the US needs to be doing is (1) outlining a plan for a complete withdrawl in the next 12 months (2) conducting a diplomatic full court press with the countries in the region who might be able to help stabilize Iraq (3) offering an apology to the Iraqi people backed by a full and comprehensive reparations backage to pay for the damage we caused. That’s what a great country would do. That’s what a just country would offer. Then possibly (it will take a while) the US can start to establish (notice I did not say “re” establish) some good will and begin to slowly drain the pool of resentment that allows extremist to have safe harbor in parts of the Middle East. But all of this may still fail. That is why more sober minds (daddy Bush included) thought the invasion was a mistake. Because the outcome would leave us with no good choices.
“Bleed and Bankrupt”. That’s what Osama calls it. It is the idea that America cannot be defeated in a conventional military sense, It has to be bled. It will be bled by provoking it to engage evermore in costly military confrontations farther away from home, causing a strain on it’s economy, causing domestic decay, causing collapse. Based on this model, who is really winning this war on terrorism ????
ps. your opinions on the media are dead on .... have you ever read “amusing ourselves to death” check it out ... it’s definitly relevant ....... peace ..... question: what about Bush appealed to you twice??? I ask that meaning no offense , but am still trying to understand intellectually what people who voted for him found apealing. was it the Christian appeal (I too grew up in a church environment and have an Aunt (75 yrs young) who believes Bush can do no wrong).
dcosby,
I
Cosby, welcome. Great posts! I have been saying much the same for years. It’s good to see someone else willing to speak out about the American saber rattling at Iran. You said “Osama Bin Laden would love to have Bush’s body count .” and in a way he does. Or at least gains some advantage from it. It’s a win win situtation for anyone who believes that violence solves problems.
Whattheheck, when you say ...“I can’t refute the idea that a lot of countries have a low opinion of the U.S. and not totally without cause. However, I don’t agree that we are as bad or even worse than other countries.”... I have to ask : How do you measure it? What do you weigh? The number of dead people, yes?
David,
U.S. integrity, intentions or whatever:
David in CA,
Thanks for the encouragement. I need all I can get. Im In the heart of the South (Atlanta, Georgia) and don’t get much of it.
to all,
what do we do from here?
do we need to impeach the President (if we want to save the little that’s left of America’s soul we might want to think about it. I remember when Gerald Ford died and the media went round-and-round about how he saved the country because he pardoned Nixon. How he saved the country from all the grief that would have come from putting an Ex-President on trial. I couldn’t believe it !!! He didn’t save the country, he condemned it !!! If Nixon would have been tried it would have sent a clear signal to future presidents that executive license of this sort will not be tolerated. An unpunished Nixon = an unrepentent Bush.) ???
Do we storm the Capital? No, I’m serious. Do we , peacefully, march on Washington, 6-7 million, occupy the House, the Senate and surround the Whitehouse and put our so called represenatives on notice that this country belongs to the People of the United States of America. Not Halliburton. Not Kellog, Brown & whoever, not any part of corporate America. . The People of the United States of America.
Are we at all willing to look seriously at ourselves? I agree that some right answers tend to be found somewhere in “the middle” and that folks in the debate are sometimes a little too presumptuous (sp?) and a little too certain with their answers. But there are a few things that I can be relatively sure of : free health care for at least every child under 18 might be a good thing (other countries with less seem to have this crazy idea that wealth should not determine whether you live or die). That our schools should be funded at least as well as the military (in reality this would mean cutting the defense budget but, considering that we currently out spend all the worlds countries combined for defense, a little cut won’t hurt the nation where genuine!! defense is concerned). What does this have to due with new nuclear technology and the Iranian threat ??? I’ll simply direct you to google Eishenhower’s farewell address concerning the military industrial complex and the threat it poses for a democracy (when you read his address it’s crazy to think that what an American president said in a fairwell address from the Oval Office is unmentionable in todays climate ) or watch a documentary called Why We Fight ..... have a few more but I’ll stop here and ask again ................. What do we do???
dcosby,
I wish I could give you workable and meaningful answers. I can
I have a much better plan dcosby . You start the impeachment process. I start the civil war process. We split the country into politically acceptable parts. Considering the political stance of the country you would get a lot of people without any practical skills, states without many natural resources, or connected borders. Your emotionally mature part starves, freezes, and rides bicycles. My knuckledragging part eats red meat, watches porn, and drives hummers. We never speak again and mine the borders. Your happy. I am happy. Deal?
texasindependent,
thanks for responding.
Well, I’m almost at a loss for words….. almost :-).
You might be happy with the America you’ve described but I would not want to live in that place. Part of the problem in the United States today is that we have lost the ability to have rational discourse. Our conversations often reflect the bizzare atmosphere that we see on most corporate news/talk show forums.
As far as civil war is concerned, I’m not sure how to respond to that. I’ll assume for a moment that you’re not currently amassing a stockpile of weapons in the hopes of sometime in the near future fracturing the country “into politically acceptable parts” and then “mine the borders”. In other other words, you’re kidding. Hoping that I’m right, I would rather speak to the sentiment emodied in your response rather than the actual content.
I think what you express is a growing frustration being felt by more and more Americans over the lack of real dialogue. We have no outlet for our angst and seem to have no power. So we say things that ,more than reflecting a true belief , actually express more of our collective anger at seeing the America we thougt was become to our eyes the America that actually is. As result we say things like “bomb em all” or “let’s split the country up”. The fact that we don’t really mean these things eventually adds weight to the meaninglessness we feel when hearing almost anyone speak about these issues. We become more and more disillusioned because no one means what they say.
Now, to be clear, I’m not saying the solution is for you to be more sincere about this civil war you’re promising :-). A first step might be just stating coherently what , speciifically, is making you say what you say.
What specific issue are you most concerned about.? Maybe we’d find we agree on some things, who knows.
So what, specifically, do you think is driving the country to the point of “civil war”. Maybe I’m not that tough of a guy, but generally I like a little dialogue and maybe some coffee and a doughnut before my revolutions start :-)
Take care
dcosby, Tex,
whattheheck,
I’m definitely going to pickup that book you mentioned this weekend (you’re the second person to have mentioned that to me this week). I read a few reviews on it the other day and it looks to be very interesting .
when you say, “However, we need to guard against the herd instinct which repetition arouses. The cure for disillusionment is not re-illusionment of some other kind. “, what sort of re-illusionment do you mean.
I am tired. I am tired of the defeatism of the far left and the ultranationalism of the far right. I don’t want a fucked up quasi socialist government and I don’t want a police state. I am tired of the left gloating over every lost soldier in Iraq and I am tired of the glorification of the same soldier by the right. I am tired and disgusted with both sides and this endless political wrangling. Neither side has the ability to effect any legislation so we spin our wheels until 2008. The answer for me and 62 percent in the latest poll in my state is seccession. We were an independent nation for 10 years before we became a state. We can do it again and join OPEC. Fight it out amongst yourselves.
dcosby,
re-illusionment? I
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