War Monger At Work

Karl:

We have ills in our society because it is in the best interest of the government, that's why. Create just enough fear/envy etc to create dependency, which is Control.

I don't go for grand Conspiracy Theories because it has been my experience that most people - especially government workers - are clueless boobs. What I find disturbing is that at our very core, us humans appear to have a despotic streak. We're always scheming of new ways to have power/authority over others.

Consider something as integral and logical as every person working together to make the world a better place. But wait, that would take "sacrifice." Bulls**. Throughout history we have used our imagination and one hell of a lot of resources - material and money - to scheme of new ways to control and kill each other.

We even create and use "religion" to control other people. Look at how despotic and cruel the Church was in the Middle Ages: not only did they burn people at the stake for being “witches†but they even committed animal cruelty by killing a bunch of cats. Kind of ironic how by getting rid of so many cats, various plagues exploded out of control.

Is that a dark and gloomy viewpoint of society on my part? You bet it is. But when I look upon my fellow human beings in that light, I'm never disappointed, they always "live up" to it.

That’s why I could never do your job. I’d probably snap and start shooting people for speeding or something.

 

Wow! I didn't know you could get a shiny new EV car, solar panels on the roof of your house, and all of your health expenses taken care of for a one time payment of only $2,232 per household or $833 per person.

Boy! I've been shopping in the wrong places. Sign me up.

Congress has so far budgeted $250 billion on the Iraq war over the last three years. That sounds like a lot doesn't it? Could take care of all our ills, right? Do the math and divide $250 billion by 300 million people or 112 million households and find that it's really not that much when you are talking about the population of a country as large as the US. The Federal government takes in 10 trillion in revenue each year. That's 40 times greater than $250 billion and it hasn't solved all our ills yet.

 

Marlin, perhaps you would like to go through this exercise again, but instead of setting the denominator to total US gov revenue, use new national debt. Or compare the 250B to the anticipated shortfall in SS. Or compare it to the total US subsidy of higher education in the US.

Or, consider this, since 250 Billion is a hard number to grasp: it is enough money to build the windmills that would provide electricity for *all of America*.

 

:lol: LOL :lol:

 

Yeah just like in WWII when the USA saved everybodies nice person and forgave all the money we lent them. Sure glad the French love us now and the Soviet Union and let me see who else?

Wildkow

 

Oops. I must have forgotten the part where these benefits are only for us rich folks. Sorry! :lol:

Even if we ignore how totally wrong I am in the face of your numbers.... Even with your numbers... $2232 per household!? Most people wet themselves when they got their big $300 "tax relief" check a few years back. What would they do with $2232 (for every man, woman and infant as you've counted here)??? Think that would stimulate our economy? Damn.

With even that amount of money per household, we could grow all of our own power domestically.

 

Hmmmm, tough choice give 20+ million people their freedom or buy stuff. :lol:

Wildkow

 

Let me see if I have this right . . .

1) The Gov creates ills in our country to control the people.
2) Most people expecially Gov. workers are clueless boobs.
3) History shows only a continued use of our imagination to kill and control people.
4) Religion was created so that we can control people and kill cats.
5) Dead cats cause plagues.

and you don't go for grand Conspiracy Theories. :blink:

Wildkow

p.s. prehaps its just the lunatic Conspiracy Theories you go for.

p.p.s. You must not have voted for "W" since most that didn't are all Dark and Gloomy because "W" won both elections the second in a near landslide victory. :angry:

 

What war if any in our countries history would you be willing to fight if you were in control?

 

Ah. So it is our job to buy freedom for others. Do we buy them library books for their schools too, or just the "freedom?"

What of our own freedom here at home? We're beholden to other countries for the energy that sustains our society. We're a slave to external energy sources. More important to free the Iraqis before Americans... or can we afford to do both?

 

Well shoot, if $20 a month from every man, woman, and child in the US is enough to build enough windmills to provide all of our electicity needs, then why let the Iraq War stop us? I think we can all afford another $20 a month. Let's just do it.

 

How the hell could I have voted for Dubya - or anybody else in the U.S. for that matter - when I moved to Canada in '98?

Here in Canada I have always voted Canadian Alliance. This is a right-of-center party that demands fiscal responsibility, government accountability, efficiency, and government openess, among other things. They recently merged with the Progressive Conservatives, under the leadership of former Reform Party and Canadian Alliance member Stephen Harper.

I'm also a member of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, a group opposed to grand government schemes designed to suck money out of the average working person. It was constant pressure from the CTF that helped expose the scandals and lies of the previous Liberal government.

So call me a Classic Conservative. If I was still living in the U.S. I would vote Libertarian. I'm not sure what the Republican party is now, or even what they truly stand for, since they became infested with NeoCon nuts.

 

Excellent question that I'd like to have answered as well. We cough up the money for the war... but can't dig deep enough for the pocket change that we need for some of the important DOMESTIC projects.

I have no illusion that the cost of the war would fix everything here. I feel that it could sure be put to better use here though! We have unlimited funds for the war, but VERY limited funds for what we need to do here.

Adding $20/month... wouldn't that mean *gasp* raising taxes?! That's not how we do things here! We just pay more... but don't raise taxes. That seems down-right un-American!

 

I think it's a bit misleading to look at just one small part of the cost and say it's "only" $20 per capita. Remember that the total debt includes past debt and - more importantly - the interest on that debt.

Take a look at the Debt Clock:

http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock

Almost $28,000 per capita with no end in sight.

There is a right wing guy who seems to be a "classic" conservative like me. I don't agree with all his ideas, but he is unapologetic about issues like the debt:

http://mwhodges.home.att.net/debt_b.htm

This guy spells it out as to the REAL danger: not only the increasing slice of total government revenue to just pay interest on the debt, but the loss of control of that debt. I don't think it's a huge secret that almost half of the current debt is now funded by foreign sources.

 

Well he seems fairly liberal to me so for an off hand guess I'd say he was a Democrat. Therefore logically he would fight . . .


Mexican American - James K. Polk (D)
Spanish American War - Grover Cleveland (D)
WWI - Woodrow Wilson (D) elected with only 42% of the popular vote.
WWII - Franklin D. Roosevelt (D) 4 terms
Korean War - Harry S Truman (D) still at war.
Vietnam War - John F. Kennedy (D) only war lost by USA.
Balkans Conflict - William J. Clinton (D)

he would not have fought . . .

Civil War - Abraham Lincoln [R] Freed the Slaves
Desert Storm - George H. Bush [R] Freed the Kuwait's from Saddam Hussein
War against Terror - George W. Bush [R] freed 50+ million people from a repressive Islamic regime and once again Saddam Hussein

Wildkow

p.s. Does it seem odd to you that 7 conflicts were started during Democratic Presidents tenure and only 3 during Republican? :huh:

 

"the USA saved everybodies nice person" (sic)
:lol: :lol: :lol: L O L :lol: :lol: :lol:

Did you ask Poles, Bulgarians, Serbs, Slovenians, Slovakians, Hungerians, Romanians, Croats, Moldavians, Lithuanians, Estonianas and Latvians, if we have saved their "nice person" during WWII?

I suggest you re-visit even the children history textbooks as no one will debate with anyone who is saturated with pathetically chauvinistic jingoism.

 

Someone asked for ideas. Here a few for consideration:

1. Never start a war on false or shakey pretenses. War is serious business, and requires a higher level of certainty, purpose and justification than was ever present for a war with Iraq.
2. Never vote for someone who does item 1.
3. Never spend the country into a $9 trillion debt hole.
4. Never vote for those who do.
5. Reduce government spending.
6. Spend it more wisely (that would be easy).
7. Fight the war on terror the only way it can be fought, with good intelligence, political action, police action, and limitied military action.
8. Realize the terrorists are not a nation with a standing army, and cannot be defeated in a conventional war against nations.
9. Realize that when we start wars in the middle east (or anywhere else) it will breed resentment and hatred for the U.S., despite our best intentions. People generally don't likes wars or those who start them. Wars are accompanied by a lot of killing, maiming, and destruction that people don't find easy to forgive.
10. Realize that becasue of 9, the concept of preemtive war is a bad idea, and should not be used except under the most dire circumstances.
11. Realize that the Iraq war didn't even come close to qualifying for item 10. Learn from that mistake.
12. Track down the real terrorists (Bin Laden, etc.) and deal with them. Bush dropped the ball in Afghanistan, and diverted our attention, our military, our financial capability and our resolve into a pointless conflict in Iraq.
13. Don't discount other people just because they don't have a "Plan" of what to do about Iraq. I'm not qualified to have a plan, and I doubt that anyone reading this is either. It's a complicated problem, and if there is a solution, I'm sure it is also quite complicated.
14. Just because you percieve the Democrats (or other person or entity of your choosing) "don't have a better plan" is no excuse for supporting Bush. It is Bush who drove the bus off the cliff without a plan in the first place. The guy who drove off the bus off the cliff (on purpose, I might add) is the absolute last guy who should be driving it now.

 

Well, said, Jay. Interesting to hear folks say "You're making a big deal out of a relatively small amount of money." Well, it isn't like we have that money stashed in a bank account. We're borrowing it on VERY expensive credit! Where'd our freedom go again?

 

Well, it is a lot of money. I'm not trying to say it isn't. What I am saying, however, is that it is not as enormous an amount as some folks here seem to think.

The whole implication that $250 billion over three years would have solved the nation's ills if only it had been spent on something other than a war is very naive.

Case in point, daniel's post from the 1st page:

In the three years of the war, the US Federal Government, (just the federal, not the states) have taken in over 30 trillion in taxes and still managed to spend more than they took in. That's more than 120 times the amount spent on the war, and again, it's not counting state revenues.

Sure, eliminating the $80 billion or so a year going towards the war would make a dent in the $800 billion deficit, but it's not the sole solution. How about taking a look at the other 10.5 trillion or so that the Federal government spends each year.

Blaming the deficit on the Iraq war is like driving a Hummer 60 miles to work, eating at Outback every night, followed by nightly drinking binges at bars and then blaming your morning latte for exceeding your monthly budget.

 

:lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: