I can't wait til November!

[Reality_Check]

Which race was this, btw?

Trey Grayson lost to Rand Paul.

[Drake]

"You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq." -John Kerry

"I am writing too in the hope that my telling this one story will help you to understand more clearly how so many fine people have come to find themselves still loving their country but loathing the military, ..." -Bill Clinton

John Kerry already clarified that statement. I don't like him, but that's for different reasons.

And how is what Bill Clinton wrote anti-military?

[1bad65]

John Kerry already clarified that statement. I don't like him, but that's for different reasons.

And how is what Bill Clinton wrote anti-military?

Kerry gave an explanation that, in my opinion, made no sense. If you bought it, that's fine, and your right to do so. I did not buy his explanation, nor did some Iraq war veterans (I've seen some hilarious pics of them referencing that quote). Kerry is also famous for throwing the medals he got in Vietnam over the fence of the Capitol Building. Of course Kerry again waffled and said he threw his ribbons, but not his medals. He claimed he threw another man's medals. I also feel that is anti-military.

When you say you "loathe the military", I don't see how anyone could say that's not anti-military.

[Pork Chop]

Wasn't a fan of Kerry (how the F do you get a medal for getting injured when you and your buddies are the only ones firing?) nor Clinton (slashed CoLA just before I took my first job that actually paid CoLA, so that was personal).

But I think I'm finally ready to vote Republican.

[dimethylsea]

I look forward to voting Democrat for the next 20 years or so.

The GOP is the party of war, of foreign military adventures, of deficit spending on bombs, bullets and drones to be exploded/expended outside our borders.


If you want perpetual war, moralizing and pandering to our own home grown Christian version of the Jihadist zealots, and open (rather than covert) corruption with respect to the Wall Street fatcats and oil companies in general...

then just vote Republican.


In the final analysis... Bush and Cheney lied, they lead us into war, and their party must pay the price for their error. That's the nature of a democratic society.

Republicans are the greater of the two electoral evils.. and their party must and will be paying for decades for their war-mongering.

Even if that means electing a radical green socialist or otherwise unacceptable candidates just because they do not have an (R) next to their name.

[1bad65]

I look forward to voting Democrat for the next 20 years or so.

Why not just move to Cuba and leave this country alone?

The GOP is the party of war,

LBJ was a Democrat.

of foreign military adventures,

Clinton sent our troops to more foreign countries than any other President.

of deficit spending on bombs, bullets and drones

Is deficit spending on entitlement programs any better?

Even if that means electing a radical green socialist or otherwise unacceptable candidates just because they do not have an (R) next to their name.

Sadly, you have learned nothing from history.

The people of Cuba said the same thing about the Batista regime. The people of Russia said the same thing about the Czars. The people of China said the same thing about the Nationalists. And after the millions of murders committed by the communists/socialists who replaced those governments, I'm sure the people would have preffered to skip the "change".

[dimethylsea]

Why not just move to Cuba and leave this country alone?

It's my country and you lack the will or the firepower to make me leave. To be blunt.

Clinton sent our troops to more foreign countries than any other President.

Yeah but it wasn't to the tune of a quarter million service members plus all their support, equipage, etc. Bush and Cheney are the ones who started that ball rolling.

Is deficit spending on entitlement programs any better?

Sure it is. At least the money is arguably wasted at home creating economic benefit for American businesses (it's not like the poor invest their pittance overseas.. they buy their daily bread and pay their rent with it).
Deficit or borrowed money spent on a bullet or missile is destroyed overseas.
Deficit money spent on the poor supports American enterprise and incidentally keeps the rabble loyal to the civic entities and social contract (if you want to be really cynical about it).

The people of Cuba said the same thing about the Batista regime. The people of Russia said the same thing about the Czars. The people of China said the same thing about the Nationalists. And after the millions of murders committed by the communists/socialists who replaced those governments, I'm sure the people would have preffered to skip the "change".

That may very well be true.. but this is America, and in America we have (mostly) free elections that (generally) are largely fair.
And the right and responsibility of the electorate is to vote in the national interest and in their own beliefs. And that means using politician's track records as a benchmark.

In my case that means cutting off my own right hand before supporting the warmongers at the voting booth.

[1bad65]

It's my country and you lack the will or the firepower to make me leave. To be blunt.

I'd never force a law abiding citizen out. That's wrong. Maybe you advocate that though, judging by your reaction to my post.

I mean, why not save yourself all the trouble of trying to transform this country when you can go to somewhere like Cuba that already has all the poilicies/programs/Government in place that you advocate.

Yeah but it wasn't to the tune of a quarter million service members plus all their support, equipage, etc. Bush and Cheney are the ones who started that ball rolling.

So the liberal President gets a pass in your book. Ok, at least your honest, unlike your President.

Sure it is. At least the money is arguably wasted at home creating economic benefit for American businesses (it's not like the poor invest their pittance overseas.. they buy their daily bread and pay their rent with it).

Deficit or borrowed money spent on a bullet or missile is destroyed overseas.
Deficit money spent on the poor supports American enterprise and incidentally keeps the rabble loyal to the civic entities and social contract (if you want to be really cynical about it).

Newflash!!! Since the entitlements started, the problems they were designed to fix have gotten worse.

We have more people on the dole now that when the "Great Society" began over 40 years ago. Thats failure. We have a larger number of children born into poverty and single parent households than 40 years ago. That's failure. We spend more on entitlements per year than the liberals who created them said they would cost in total. That's failure. And all of that is wasted money.

That may very well be true.. but this is America, and in America we have (mostly) free elections that (generally) are largely fair.
And the right and responsibility of the electorate is to vote in the national interest and in their own beliefs. And that means using politician's track records as a benchmark.

In my case that means cutting off my own right hand before supporting the warmongers at the voting booth.

It's not a case of it "may very well be true", it IS true. Throughout history when people revolt/vote/etc for "change", just for Change's sake, it's not good. There is always something worse out there. So to me, voting blindly against a Party, and not listening to the individual candidates, is dangerous.

Also, remeber this when talking about government vs "Big Business": Big Business didn't legalize slavery, Governments did. Big Business didn't tell blacks they couldn't vote, Government did. Big Business never banned or burned books, Governments have. Big Business never threw people in gas chambers and ovens, Governments did.

Large Governments are ALWAYS present when people are murdered by their Governments. Small Governments don't have the ability to murder millions, only big ones do. I look at Government like fire, it's needed and serves some good. But left unchecked and allowed to grow too large, it can be a very destructive force than can kill everything in its path. I feel we should not take the risk that if we have a big Government, all will be ok. And history is on my side...

[KC Elbows]

Small government could never deal with the policies that required us to be in Iraq.

Also, it was slaveholders in Congress and the need for those slave holding states in the union that laegalized slavery, not 'government'. And segregation was not first and foremost government related, either, and where there was a government aspect, it was usually state, not federal government.

And the Chinese nationalists did not have a truly free press for most of their history, and dissent was normally responded to with purges and assassinations until the US was getting embarrassed about it. The Chinese situation was complex, to sum it up as good guys vs. bad guys is naive. The nationalist leader, in real terms, was nothiing more than a warlord with no stable authority until confined to an island that he could easily control due to the size of his forces vs. the land mass. He never, never had a chance of ruling the whole mainland and also having ties with the US. There is a reason the communists won, for good or ill, and it isn't a simple one, and there are so many dirty hands in it, that often the loudest complainers are from the countries whose influence had to be driven out, by whatever leadership could do it.

[Drake]

What Fmr Pres Clinton did was nowhere near the scale of what Fmr Pres Bush did, militarily. More countries? Doesn't matter, because, like said before, in terms of equipment, money, and soldiers, Fmr Pres Bush deployed exponentially more soldiers and gear than Clinton.

HOWEVER, I don't think this point is really making sense, as both were responding to different times and situations. Apples and oranges, really, though I do think declaring war on Iraq before Afghanistan was even close to finished was just a bad idea.

[dimethylsea]

HOWEVER, I don't think this point is really making sense, as both were responding to different times and situations. Apples and oranges, really, though I do think declaring war on Iraq before Afghanistan was even close to finished was just a bad idea.

In all honesty.. if we (i.e. America) wanted to institute real and lasting regime change in Afghanistan we would have gone in with EVERYTHING, and we would have ignored almost everything else until we had truly won (and that would be 10-15 laters MINIMUM). Till a whole generation of young Afghans had grown up with McDonalds and Walmarts and Beyonce.

Not just the military, or primarily the military. Send in the doctors, the nurses, the school teachers, the businessmen and women, the engineers. We would have had to do it from the bottom up, not the top down.

There was plenty of support worldwide for doing *something* in Afghanistan.. but it would have required Bush and Cheney to spend literally the entire remainder of their term/s working relentlessly pouring American knowhow, culture, business practices etc. into the region to actually do it right. And then they would have to hand it off to the next two Presidents to do the same thing.

Instead we went in hard and fast, took Kabul and declared victory.

This is, pardon my French, dumb as f*ck. The 'Stan is called "the Graveyard of Empires" for a reason. The only real way to change that is to send in massive amounts of everybody BUT the military, and have the conventional military play a security role for the Peace Corps, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Public Health Service and every other aid organization we could bribe, threaten, cajole and pressure into the region.

Of course that would not be very sexy and would not get us any oil to speak of.

Bush would probably have gone down in history as a much better President if he said
"People from Afghanistan have attacked America. We will not destroy the country who harbored these attackers. But we will change the country that they used as a base. I confidently expect my democratically elected successor to declare victory in 20 years, and do so standing next to the 5th democratically elected head of the Afghan state. Excuse me, we have alot of work to do".

As it is.. he will wind up being the last son of a President ever elected to the nation's highest office, in all likelihood.

[dimethylsea]

Small government could never deal with the policies that required us to be in Iraq.

Also, it was slaveholders in Congress and the need for those slave holding states in the union that laegalized slavery, not 'government'. And segregation was not first and foremost government related, either, and where there was a government aspect, it was usually state, not federal government..

True. Why is it that the "small government" types (with the notable exception of Ron Paul and Rand Paul) seem to be all about small government EXCEPT for military spending and certain sorts of crime control?

Because they are moral cowards, and lack the courage of their convictions.

If you believe in minimalist governments you can't justify vast standing armies and three ways to nuke the world (ICBMs, bombers AND subs). Not without a clear super-state (like the USSR) as a declared enemy threatening invasion anyway.

[Drake]

In all honesty.. if we (i.e. America) wanted to institute real and lasting regime change in Afghanistan we would have gone in with EVERYTHING, and we would have ignored almost everything else until we had truly won (and that would be 10-15 laters MINIMUM). Till a whole generation of young Afghans had grown up with McDonalds and Walmarts and Beyonce.

Not just the military, or primarily the military. Send in the doctors, the nurses, the school teachers, the businessmen and women, the engineers. We would have had to do it from the bottom up, not the top down.

There was plenty of support worldwide for doing *something* in Afghanistan.. but it would have required Bush and Cheney to spend literally the entire remainder of their term/s working relentlessly pouring American knowhow, culture, business practices etc. into the region to actually do it right. And then they would have to hand it off to the next two Presidents to do the same thing.

Instead we went in hard and fast, took Kabul and declared victory.

This is, pardon my French, dumb as f*ck. The 'Stan is called "the Graveyard of Empires" for a reason. The only real way to change that is to send in massive amounts of everybody BUT the military, and have the conventional military play a security role for the Peace Corps, the Army Corps of Engineers, the Public Health Service and every other aid organization we could bribe, threaten, cajole and pressure into the region.

Of course that would not be very sexy and would not get us any oil to speak of.

Bush would probably have gone down in history as a much better President if he said
"People from Afghanistan have attacked America. We will not destroy the country who harbored these attackers. But we will change the country that they used as a base. I confidently expect my democratically elected successor to declare victory in 20 years, and do so standing next to the 5th democratically elected head of the Afghan state. Excuse me, we have alot of work to do".

As it is.. he will wind up being the last son of a President ever elected to the nation's highest office, in all likelihood.

I agree completely.

[uki]

LOL... the great voting scam of democracy, where everyone thinks their vote counts... republican, democrat... two sides of the same coin. wanna make a difference?? stop giving them power.

[1bad65]

Small government could never deal with the policies that required us to be in Iraq.

You do realize that people like Ron Paul who call for a much smaller government also call for us to leave Iraq, right?

Also, it was slaveholders in Congress and the need for those slave holding states in the union that laegalized slavery, not 'government'. And segregation was not first and foremost government related, either, and where there was a government aspect, it was usually state, not federal government.

LMAO at this excuse. Governments have ok'd slavery, apartheid, segregation, etc. It is what it is.

I can't actually believe you typed that Congress legalized slavery, but not government. What the hell do you think Congress is???

And the Chinese nationalists did not have a truly free press for most of their history, and dissent was normally responded to with purges and assassinations until the US was getting embarrassed about it. The Chinese situation was complex, to sum it up as good guys vs. bad guys is naive. The nationalist leader, in real terms, was nothiing more than a warlord with no stable authority until confined to an island that he could easily control due to the size of his forces vs. the land mass. He never, never had a chance of ruling the whole mainland and also having ties with the US. There is a reason the communists won, for good or ill, and it isn't a simple one, and there are so many dirty hands in it, that often the loudest complainers are from the countries whose influence had to be driven out, by whatever leadership could do it.

Which Government murdered tens of millions of innocent Chinese civilians, the communists under Mao or the Nationalists?

What I'm saying about large governments being dangerous is true, history does not lie. You just either cannot grasp it, or you refuse to.