Oh please! Stop comparing Romania and other relatively small states against the US. Pull up a map of the world and compare the size of Europe against the size of the US. And yes China and Russia are similar in size to the continental US but the Gobi desert in China and large areas of northern Russia are not exactly loaded with people needing an Internet connection. The government and businesses have already sunk a shitload of money into the existing system. An existing system that has, for better or worse, been built piece by piece over many years. Before you run an entirely new network keep in mind you will still need to pay for and continue to support the existing networks. And asking for the government to be responsible for an entirely new network is stupid in the extreme. Have you seen any indication the US government is competent enough to pull off a project like this? It would take hundreds of committee meetings and a billion dollars for them just to re-wire my neighborhood. Also keep in mind that the "government" doesn't have a Department of Network Installation and Support. They contract with 3rd party companies to do the work and you end up where we are today. So lobby the government or start your own company but stop acting like a fast internet connection is laid out in the bill of rights or is any shape or form a human right.
Civilian deaths should always be part of the decision making process when deciding who to target but it should not be the only criteria. The drone program has introduced fear and uncertainty in those planning or executing attacks and that is a good thing.
I support the US actions just so I can watch people like you implode in a fit a mindless rage while using half-truths and outright lies to support your ravings. The best sign the US is not all lost is it's growing reluctance to concede any decision making power to the UN which as an orgranization is worthless and should have been shown the door a long time ago,
The online services did a risk assessment and decided the risk was to great to continue accepting funds related to Wikileaks. At the time there were serious concerns about the legality of releasing some of the information. If the services had continued to accept funds they could have been charged as being complicit in distributing information protected under certain laws and regulations. Just being charged can require spending large amounts of money to defend a company even if the charges are bullshit. The legal issues are much clearer today and the lack of criminal charges proves it. If there was even a chance something was illegal some government nimrod would have tried to prosecute those involved by now. The only person being charged is Manning and he is charged with violating military law. The most that Wikileaks could have ever been charged with would have been receiving stolen property and even that charge has been a non-starter. I have not heard of anyone petitioning the online services to reverse their decision since the legal issues have been examined and the risk to the online services has been eliminated.
Every major economic block in the world would suffer tremendous damage if the US economy really tanked. People were panicking when it looked like Greece would bring down the entire EU financial system. There are neighborhoods in the US that have higher GDP than Greece. When it comes to China they make nothing the US could not get somewhere else. However China has a growing dependency on US food exports that have grown by a factor of 5 over the past 10 years. The US has already re-opened several rare earth extraction sites to avoid total reliance on China. The US represents 30% of China's total export market so they would take a major hit if they lost the US as a customer. China is also starting to face it's own competition when it comes to cheap labour. There are several south west Asian countries that can compete with China in the labor market. The current US energy boom with natural gas and growing oil production is also going to make the US economy stronger over the next 10 years. All of the projections of China's economy passing the US economy has not taken into account the growing US energy export increases. The US public has also started speaking out against anything made in China. (Witness the Olympic uniform manufacturer uproar) Apples latest initiative to start manufacturing some of their product lines in the US is good marketing PR even if the benefits are not as great as some people think in terms of providing new jobs. And by the way the US already undergoes regime change every 4 or 8 years like clockwork. It's not a perfect system but show me a system that is.
Are people being convicted of crimes using information from warrant less wiretapping? Are there any examples of evidence collected by warrant less wiretapping being used at someones trial to convict them? Law enforcement agencies are all subject to having their evidence vetted by the courts as part of someones legal defense. Courts throw out illegally obtained or tainted evidence quite frequently. Courts have also nullified laws passed by the legislative and executive branches of government. Like I said before the system is certainly not perfect but the legal mechanism and framework that protects a citizens civil rights is in place and used regularly. As far as I know no provisions or protections in the constitution or bill of rights has been removed. People who cite "privacy" violations often equate "privacy" with "anonymity". The government has always had the means to collect personal data on the average citizen, the electronic age has just made the process easier and faster.
There are precedents of the government suspending or ignoring certain laws and rights. If you look at US history you will find several examples of the government blatantly ignoring constitutional rights. Pre-WW2 Congress passed a bill expressly forbidding warrant less wiretapping and Roosevelt issued a written presidential memo later the same day instructing the justice department to ignore Congress and they did. At the time Roosevelt was concerned that German agents were infiltrating and running operations in the US. Roosevelt also blatantly ignored the Congressional mandate when it came to providing Britain with war related materials and services. Congress had voted not to become involved with supplying Britain with anything that might cause the US to abandon it's stated policy of neutrality. The Lend-Lease program was designed and implemented to circumvent the express will of the Congress and it worked. Roosevelt also unilaterly declared that US territorial waters extended half way across the Atlantic so ships could supply Britain without being torpedoed by Germany. He pushed until the Germans, by accident, torpedoed an American merchant ship and the incident was used to get the US public to support his war policies. The internment of the Japanese-Americans was also a huge violation in citizens rights that dwarfs any perceived abandonment of constitutional mandated laws in today's world. I saw a documentary where Carter, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 were interviewed and asked would they have made the same decisions that Roosevelt did and they all said they would have done the same thing even though the decisions were without a question illegal. They all commented on how US national security super seeded certain laws and rights. Another example of the government really violating civil rights was when Lincoln unabashedly suspended habeas corpus during the civil war.
"Except that the entire government is obsessed with safety over freedom; even the people don't seem to care"
It is the "people" who had conniption fits after 9/11 because the government did not prevent the attack. All the people complaining about airport security today would crucify the airlines and government if the scanning and searching procedures were halted or relaxed and an airplane gets blown up.
The simple fact is that big corporations are job creators. They also generate a lot of tax revenue. US corporations operate under the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Corporations should be held accountable for any wrong doing but demonizing the big bad evil corporations 24x7 can put a lot of jobs in danger. The higher ups may have golden parachutes in case the corporation goes belly up but all the other rank and file employees don't. BP has close to 83,000 employees who would lose their job if the corporation was forced into bankruptcy by excessively high punitive monetary amounts. BP has been ordered to pay for the environmental cleanup, damages to local businesses effected by the spill, compensation to the families of those killed, hefty fines, and restrictions on their operations.
Can you provide any details to back up your assertion? Examples of US citizens being denied the 4th amendment protections? Any prosecution and conviction based on evidence gathered by breaking the fourth amendment? The judicial segment of the US government provides remedies to those who feel their constitutional rights have been violated. The Patriot Act and similar laws issued by the executive and legislative branches can be challenged in court. It's not a perfect system but there are plenty of examples of legislative and executive branch laws being ruled illegal and overturned. The new immigration laws passed in several states is a good example of the judiciary invalidating laws that infringe on peoples constitutional rights even when if they are not US citizens.
You mean when the feckless Arab armies attacked Isreal over the borders partitioned out in 1948? The Arabs are now trying to claim land set a side for a Palestinian state by a treaty they categorically rejected. The only peace on the planet has been maintained by pure unrelenting force. The Arabs tried playing the game and lost multiple times and expect the world to give them "a do over". When Turkey withdraws from Cypress, China withdraws from Tibet, Turkey and Iraq give the Kurds their ancestral lands back, England leaves the Falklands, and the US returns Texas, Arizona, and California back to Mexico the palestinians might have a case. Until then the Israelis should use up their old stockpiles of unguided munitions and discriminately pound Gaza or the West Bank next time a missile is aimed their way. The last conflict has shown their are a lot of people who have no problem with this type of warfare so Isreal can save the expensive munitions for certain well deserving individuals.
Your right stereotyping is not helpful but sometimes it might just piss someone off enough that they take actions to prove the stereotype false. I see nothing other than token efforts from the Arab population at large when it comes to denouncing the psychopaths running around with AK-47's and RPGs yelling "Death to America". One example would be groups such as CAIR who put a ton of effort into decrying discrimination of Muslims but totally ignore the genesis of that discrimination.
There were Jews already living in the area known as Isreal before 1948, way before 1948 but that does not matter today. The people making the decisions on all sides circa 1948 are safely dead so their decisions can't be undone. Any conflict today needs to deal with the facts on the ground. Skipping back through history trying to one up the other side is meaningless. Now how can you use the term "ethnically cleansed" when the Arab non-Jewish population has expanded 10 fold since this nonsense started?
The Arabs rejected the creation of 2 states in 48 and thus rejected the proposed state of Palestine. They launched a war. They LOST. The Arabs who stayed comprise 20% of today's Israeli population and have the same rights as all the Jewish population. Before the 48 war the Jews bought large swaths of land from the Arab owners. The quite a few Arabs left the area voluntarily at the urging of the 5 Arab armies that were attacking Isreal and told they could return after the Arab victory. Oops! And sure some of the Arabs and Jews were carrying on a armed conflict even before the war but that seems to SOP for that region of the world. In 67 Nasser used Arab nationalism and fanatic propaganda to gather forces to attack Isreal. They LOST. Oops! once again. This time the Egyptians and Jordanians abandoned it's citizens living in what is now called the West Bank and Gaza. Isreal tried returning those areas to their rightful owners and were rejected and those left behind were now magically called "Palestinians". In 73 the Arabs, with massive Soviet aid put together another attack on Isreal and guess what? They LOST. Triple Oops! The lesson being "THERE ARE NO DO OVERS" when you engage in an offensive war and it doesn't go exactly as planned. Why would Isreal allow a group of people who have been energitically trying to kill them for 60 years to move any closer than necessary. Since then the Arabs have changed tactics because it became glaringly apparent their militarises couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They switched to killing civilians by bombing public buses, night clubs, and shopping malls. Throw in the massacre at the 72 Olympics, hijack a couple of planes and cruise ship, and launch missiles against nothing but civilian targets and you get to where we are today. Palestinian history consists of nothing more than a gigantic sheep herd being led by the nose from one violent confrontation to the next with no end in sight. Of course the Palestinian leaders issuing the calls for martyrdom are safely ensconced in their villas and bunkers in other countries. People such as yourself who have latched on to poor and downtrodden palestinians are hampered by acute tunnel vision and a refusal to even consider anything that might contradict your righteous and preconceived notions. The thing that really pisses some people off is that Isreal is here to stay and there is not a damned thing anyone can do about it. If Isreal goes so will a wide swath of the middle east and that might be a blessing in disguise. The only way forward is for the Arabs and their dhimmi supporters to stop the violence and show the world that they can indeed live in the world without their designer bomb vests and using 30 year old missile tech that has killed more palestinians than Israelis in this current flare of violence. If they do that they may one day see a measure of peace but until then fuck'em.
Dude, Murdering Jews is enshrined in the Hamas charter in writing. The Fatah political headquarters prominently displays a large map of Palestine with no Isreal in the picture with a caption promising this is the dream. And they have never hidden the fact that their goal is the total removal of Isreal. If Isreal withdrew to the 67 borders and gave the Arabs everything they are asking the next day you would hear the Arabs pronouncing that they have scored a great victory on their way to removing Isreal. They would certainly have much closer artillery positions to work with. If somehow an Arab army was to overrun Isreal they would kill every man, women, and child. Do you think the Arabs would suddenly change their bloody mindset once they get the upper hand? Of course this won't happen becuase I am pretty sure if Isreal was in danger of being overrun they would nuke every capital and religious city in the middle east on their way out and I would not blame them in the least. Isreal may have problems like all other countries but look at the countries surrounding them and witness the in-fighting, religious inspired violence, and overt hostility to anyone who doesn't tow their ideological line.
Stalingrad and Leningrad are not in Germany. They suffered such grievous casualties because they basically used peasants in human wave attacks against German armor and infantry. They basically had more bodies than the Germans had bullets and once winter set in the Germans could not resupply.
The fact is they have had a nuclear capability for a while and have proven they are not trigger happy and they are capable of securing the nuclear weapons. Check out a map and see just how small a country it is. Any nuclear attack on Gaza or the West Bank would be the equivalent of nuking themselves. They did use the threat of nuclear retaliation in 1973 but that was a ruse to get Nixon to take his head out of his ass and re-supply the IDF. They purposely let leak through unencrypted radio transmissions that they were activating their Samson plan which was the code for arming their nukes on their F-4's and Jericho missiles. Not that they really needed to do so since they had already pushed the Syrians and Egyptians back into their own countries. Nixon didn't want to get involved becuase at the time the Soviets were heavily invested with the Egyptians and Syrians and he was afraid of escalating the problem.
The 73 war is probably the most humiliating loss the Arab countries have suffered in all their conflicts with Isreal. The Arabs had total surprise, overwhelming numerical advantages, Soviet wire guided anti-tank missiles, night vision scopes with IR targeting in their tanks (again thanks to the Soviets), and advanced first line SAM systems once again courtesy of the Soviets. They also came up with an ingenious way of tackling the gigantic sand berms using water cannons so their tanks could advance after crossing the canal. Too bad the Israelis held off 1000+ tanks off in the Golan Heights for 24 hours using only 37 Israeli tanks because of very poor tactical leadership on the Syrian side. They held long enough for reinforcements to arrive using the landscape, superb shoot and re-position tank tactics, and main gun range superiority. The Egyptians advanced without re-positioning their SAM coverage and thus became vulnerable to air attacks and they some how allowed the Israelis to float a temporary bridge across the canal and flank then en-circle the Egyptian army in the Sinai. I can only assume someone on the Egyptian side fell asleep during the Israeli crossing. The funny thing is the school books in Egypt make it sound like Egypt won that war when they clearly didn't. If there is any Marshall plan in the middle east it should be left entirely to the Arab league not any western countries. The Arab countries have booted the Palestinians out of their countries and prohibited migration since day 1. They had pretty good reasons seeing as how the Palestinians in Jordan initiated a coup to remove the government as soon as they got there. The Palestinians were cheerleaders for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and after that war Kuwait evicted close to 100,000 Palestinians out of the country. Isreal is not and never has been the sole responsible party for palestinian suffering. It started with the inept British making promises to anyone who would listen to prop up their empire after WW1 and during WW2, Egypt abandon Egyptian citizens in the area now known as Gaza during their retreat in 67, and Jordan did the same thing resulting in the West Bank enclave. The Iraqis and Afghan's have already had and wasted their Marshall Plan. In both cases the US and others removed the governments that were victimizing their own citizens and gave them a chance to rebuild their country in relative safety and they pissed it all away with in-fighting, bureaucratic corruption, and killing those trying to give them at least a fighting chance to build a better country. If the Japanese were able to swallow their pride and work with the US after WW2 I don't see how others could not do the same. Because this whole mess is more about Arab wounded pride than any land or religious disputes.
Listen sport I never said or implied Arabs were mentally deficient or stupid only that I will not slot Arabs into a hardliner or moderate category until I see a notable difference between the 2 extremes. I know it is a very small percentage of Arabs who show up drooling hate from their beards but until the majority stands up to those ruining their communities and reputations they will continue to engender distrust and hostility from others. Right now the worst are those bastards in Hamas and their supporters who are using fake photographs and jaw dropping lies to gain sympathy in their fight with the Israeli's. Those fuckers in Cairo and Lebanon in their $1000 suits need to re-locate to downtown Gaza and negotiate from there and see how fast an agreement can be reached. The two faced lying President of Egypt needs to say the same thing in English as he does in Arabic. That sorry fuck is busy denigrating anything Israeli in public but the fact that the US has not called him on it means he is whistling another tune in private. Politicians of all sorts lie every day but the whoppers coming out of the Arab leaders are legendary. Baghdad Bob must have opened a finishing school in Arab public speaking because only a trained professional could spout some of the jaw dropping lies being spewed to the Arabic masses.
Well Hamas was also voted in because they killed all of their rivals and anyone else that didn't tow the party line. There will be no palestinian state and it's about time people accepted that and moved on. Let Israel claim it's borders right where the currently are and tell Egypt Gaza is their responsibility and tell Jordon the West Bank is their responsibility. That's they situation as it was pre 1967 before someone figured they would stick it to the Israelis and leave behind a hostel population to cause trouble. It was the only way the Arab countries could get a little self respect back after being soundly defeated 3 times by the Israelis. This entire mess has nothing to do with religion or land. It is about Arab pride and their inability to accept defeat by an adversary they deemed weak. And while everyone mentions the 1967 war you hardly hear anything about the 1973 war. In 73 the arabs had total surprise, the latest soviet military technology, a decent strategy, and overwhelming numbers and they still lost. And the US may have re-supplied Israel in 73 but the outcome of the war had already been settled. The Arabs had been pushed back in both Egypt and Syria before the US re-supply effort arrived. The US didn't even want to re-supply the Israelis because the Soviets were arming the arabs and the US didn't want to escalate the situation with the Russians. The US was still on the fence until after the Israelis issued orders over an open frequency (hoping for US and USSR interception) to start arming their F-4's and Jericho missiles with their nuclear ordinance. It was only after this action that Nixon approved the re-supply effort.
If the Israelis send in a ground force this time it will be interesting to see how their new Trophy tank point defense weapon system performs. The Trophy system can interdict guided and unguided projectile fire using signal jamming and spoofing and direct fire projectiles designed to emit a large sonic wave blast in front of the incoming projectile.
Part of their attitudes and actions include blaming anyone except themselves for their hardships and when the US or Isreal isn't handy they seem perfectly content to kill one another. This whole Palestinian issue will never resolve itself until there is a lasting unity between Hamas and the PA first. Why would anyone sanction a new state when there is already a civil war in progress? As things stand right now it looks like they will have to add a 3-state solution to supplant the 2-state solution.
Everyone making the decisions pre-1948 are for the most part safely dead. Those directly effected by those decisions are also dead. Those decisions and actions occurred in a different era that has little in common with today's world. The worst arab mistake was attacking the Jews in 1948 and expecting to win. The Jews in 1948 were probably not in the mood to be pushed around or killed without a fight. At the time Isreal was being populated by boat loads of refugees with tattoo ID's on their arms. No matter how Israel came into being the fact is IT DID and it is not going anywhere unless the world is ready to see the entire middle east glassed. The arabs have did a good enough job lumping themselves into one group because of their similarity in attitudes and actions. When I see even one small group of arabs stand up and acknowledge the fact that they may indeed be responsible for at least some of their own problems due to their own poor decisions and actions I will reassess my views. The people being killed in Gaza today are nothing but political fodder being sacrificed by influential arabs living well away from the battle zone and preaching non-stop martyrdom and of course the local dead enders running around shooting missiles from the day care center playground hoping Israel retaliates and kills a sufficient number of children to make the media rounds. Although when they can't find enough dead children they will use children killed by their own missiles and re-use photos taking in Syria. Major news outlets (CNN,BBC, Reuters, Guardian) and Twitter have already been caught out misrepresenting casualties to woo public opinion and the most sickening part of that is no one is taking them to task when they do so.
The US will cede Texas and California back to Mexico before the arabs get anything out of the Israelis. The arabs chose war in 48 and have never been shy about spouting their number one goal which is to destroy Israel. They were militarily defeated and will have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Damn near every border in the world has been drawn in blood, some borders more than once. Asking Israel to allow it's avowed enemies better firing positions against their population centers is ridiculous.
Back when IE had 95% of the browser market they became the de facto "standard" to use if you wanted a functional web application. Why waste time on the other 5%? Now that the browser market has some viable alternatives the standards become a bigger part of the picture. For all the bitching and moaning on this site in regards to IE nobody remembers that IE (for good or bad) did not have any serious competitors. They had no competition until FireFox resurrected Netscape. This practically guaranteed corporate adoption of IE as their browser standard. Most corporations (large and small) have intranet applications that are only accessible to the corporations employees so why would a corporate IT manager waste the time and money creating intranet applications that work with every browser running today? On the other hand an Internet application would need to satisfy at least the top 3 browsers people are using today. The decision on whether to strictly adhere to "standards" when developing web applications depends on the intended user base.
I have neither seen or heard any evidence that the Arabs would cease their attacks if Isreal gives up land and recognized a Palestinian state. Hamas and the other militant groups have not been shy when announcing they will not accept anything less than the total destruction of Isreal.
And Isreal probably should remove the sea blockade because judging by the amount of weapons in Gaza the blockade is not working.
I am afraid it is more than just the extremist generating the hate and violence. The majority Muslim population at large has done nothing to eradicate the extremists in their own communities. Yesterday the Taliban set off a bomb during a wedding in Afghanistan that killed 17 people and no one is protesting or criticizing that atrocity. At the time the Israelis had only killed 13 and they were aiming at militant targets. Apparently Muslim on Muslim or Arab on Arab violence is OK and accepted as a normal event. If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem and unless the majority of Muslims do more than just mouth a few weak comments now and then and blame Isreal or the "west" for all their ills. The Arabs calling themselves palestinians have used nothing but violence for over 60 years and gotten their asses kicked every time by tiny little Isreal. The palestinians are those people who Egypt, Jordan, and Syria abandoned when retreating from the IDF in 48,67, and 73. Creating this Palestinian crisis was the Arabs way of hitting back at Isreal and lessen the humiliation they felt when they where defeated. You don't get a "do over" when it comes to fighting a war and that is precisely what the Arabs are constantly demanding. The Arabs really want Isreal to give back land won fair and square so they can setup better artillery and missile batteries. Gaza is a prime example. Isreal leaves Gaza and forcibly remove Israelis and the Arabs are closer to the main population centers in Isreal for their attacks. The palestinians are divided into 2 groups that cannot reconcile themselves with one another and spout 2 different narratives of the situation. Why in the hell would anyone make a state using people that have shown no hesitation in killing one another when it suits their goal. Does the world really need another failed Arab state? The top Palestinian leaders and supporters live in their comfortable villas in other countries and preach martyrdom to the local population. Their leaders make an incredible amount of money by "taxing" the goods flowing through tunnels into Gaza and skimming all they can from the millions of dollars they receive in foreign aid packages. And for all those who blindly support the palestinians, if the Arabs were somehow able to overrun Isreal they would kill every man, women, and child they come across. How would the Palestinian supporters deal with this very real scenario? Would the world just accept another 5 million Jewish deaths and promise to do better in the future?
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Oh please! Stop comparing Romania and other relatively small states against the US. Pull up a map of the world and compare the size of Europe against the size of the US. And yes China and Russia are similar in size to the continental US but the Gobi desert in China and large areas of northern Russia are not exactly loaded with people needing an Internet connection. The government and businesses have already sunk a shitload of money into the existing system. An existing system that has, for better or worse, been built piece by piece over many years. Before you run an entirely new network keep in mind you will still need to pay for and continue to support the existing networks. And asking for the government to be responsible for an entirely new network is stupid in the extreme. Have you seen any indication the US government is competent enough to pull off a project like this? It would take hundreds of committee meetings and a billion dollars for them just to re-wire my neighborhood. Also keep in mind that the "government" doesn't have a Department of Network Installation and Support. They contract with 3rd party companies to do the work and you end up where we are today. So lobby the government or start your own company but stop acting like a fast internet connection is laid out in the bill of rights or is any shape or form a human right.
Civilian deaths should always be part of the decision making process when deciding who to target but it should not be the only criteria. The drone program has introduced fear and uncertainty in those planning or executing attacks and that is a good thing.
I support the US actions just so I can watch people like you implode in a fit a mindless rage while using half-truths and outright lies to support your ravings. The best sign the US is not all lost is it's growing reluctance to concede any decision making power to the UN which as an orgranization is worthless and should have been shown the door a long time ago,
The online services did a risk assessment and decided the risk was to great to continue accepting funds related to Wikileaks. At the time there were serious concerns about the legality of releasing some of the information. If the services had continued to accept funds they could have been charged as being complicit in distributing information protected under certain laws and regulations. Just being charged can require spending large amounts of money to defend a company even if the charges are bullshit. The legal issues are much clearer today and the lack of criminal charges proves it. If there was even a chance something was illegal some government nimrod would have tried to prosecute those involved by now. The only person being charged is Manning and he is charged with violating military law. The most that Wikileaks could have ever been charged with would have been receiving stolen property and even that charge has been a non-starter. I have not heard of anyone petitioning the online services to reverse their decision since the legal issues have been examined and the risk to the online services has been eliminated.
Every major economic block in the world would suffer tremendous damage if the US economy really tanked. People were panicking when it looked like Greece would bring down the entire EU financial system. There are neighborhoods in the US that have higher GDP than Greece. When it comes to China they make nothing the US could not get somewhere else. However China has a growing dependency on US food exports that have grown by a factor of 5 over the past 10 years. The US has already re-opened several rare earth extraction sites to avoid total reliance on China. The US represents 30% of China's total export market so they would take a major hit if they lost the US as a customer. China is also starting to face it's own competition when it comes to cheap labour. There are several south west Asian countries that can compete with China in the labor market. The current US energy boom with natural gas and growing oil production is also going to make the US economy stronger over the next 10 years. All of the projections of China's economy passing the US economy has not taken into account the growing US energy export increases. The US public has also started speaking out against anything made in China. (Witness the Olympic uniform manufacturer uproar) Apples latest initiative to start manufacturing some of their product lines in the US is good marketing PR even if the benefits are not as great as some people think in terms of providing new jobs. And by the way the US already undergoes regime change every 4 or 8 years like clockwork. It's not a perfect system but show me a system that is.
You are aware that the US is still the number one manufacturer in the world today? Even after supposedly shipping all the manufacturing jobs overseas.
Are people being convicted of crimes using information from warrant less wiretapping? Are there any examples of evidence collected by warrant less wiretapping being used at someones trial to convict them? Law enforcement agencies are all subject to having their evidence vetted by the courts as part of someones legal defense. Courts throw out illegally obtained or tainted evidence quite frequently. Courts have also nullified laws passed by the legislative and executive branches of government. Like I said before the system is certainly not perfect but the legal mechanism and framework that protects a citizens civil rights is in place and used regularly. As far as I know no provisions or protections in the constitution or bill of rights has been removed. People who cite "privacy" violations often equate "privacy" with "anonymity". The government has always had the means to collect personal data on the average citizen, the electronic age has just made the process easier and faster.
There are precedents of the government suspending or ignoring certain laws and rights. If you look at US history you will find several examples of the government blatantly ignoring constitutional rights. Pre-WW2 Congress passed a bill expressly forbidding warrant less wiretapping and Roosevelt issued a written presidential memo later the same day instructing the justice department to ignore Congress and they did. At the time Roosevelt was concerned that German agents were infiltrating and running operations in the US. Roosevelt also blatantly ignored the Congressional mandate when it came to providing Britain with war related materials and services. Congress had voted not to become involved with supplying Britain with anything that might cause the US to abandon it's stated policy of neutrality. The Lend-Lease program was designed and implemented to circumvent the express will of the Congress and it worked. Roosevelt also unilaterly declared that US territorial waters extended half way across the Atlantic so ships could supply Britain without being torpedoed by Germany. He pushed until the Germans, by accident, torpedoed an American merchant ship and the incident was used to get the US public to support his war policies. The internment of the Japanese-Americans was also a huge violation in citizens rights that dwarfs any perceived abandonment of constitutional mandated laws in today's world. I saw a documentary where Carter, Bush 1, Clinton, and Bush 2 were interviewed and asked would they have made the same decisions that Roosevelt did and they all said they would have done the same thing even though the decisions were without a question illegal. They all commented on how US national security super seeded certain laws and rights. Another example of the government really violating civil rights was when Lincoln unabashedly suspended habeas corpus during the civil war.
"Except that the entire government is obsessed with safety over freedom; even the people don't seem to care"
It is the "people" who had conniption fits after 9/11 because the government did not prevent the attack. All the people complaining about airport security today would crucify the airlines and government if the scanning and searching procedures were halted or relaxed and an airplane gets blown up.
The simple fact is that big corporations are job creators. They also generate a lot of tax revenue. US corporations operate under the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Corporations should be held accountable for any wrong doing but demonizing the big bad evil corporations 24x7 can put a lot of jobs in danger. The higher ups may have golden parachutes in case the corporation goes belly up but all the other rank and file employees don't. BP has close to 83,000 employees who would lose their job if the corporation was forced into bankruptcy by excessively high punitive monetary amounts. BP has been ordered to pay for the environmental cleanup, damages to local businesses effected by the spill, compensation to the families of those killed, hefty fines, and restrictions on their operations.
Can you provide any details to back up your assertion? Examples of US citizens being denied the 4th amendment protections? Any prosecution and conviction based on evidence gathered by breaking the fourth amendment? The judicial segment of the US government provides remedies to those who feel their constitutional rights have been violated. The Patriot Act and similar laws issued by the executive and legislative branches can be challenged in court. It's not a perfect system but there are plenty of examples of legislative and executive branch laws being ruled illegal and overturned. The new immigration laws passed in several states is a good example of the judiciary invalidating laws that infringe on peoples constitutional rights even when if they are not US citizens.
"US Government takes away more and more of our rights"
Exactly what rights have been taken away?
You mean when the feckless Arab armies attacked Isreal over the borders partitioned out in 1948? The Arabs are now trying to claim land set a side for a Palestinian state by a treaty they categorically rejected. The only peace on the planet has been maintained by pure unrelenting force. The Arabs tried playing the game and lost multiple times and expect the world to give them "a do over". When Turkey withdraws from Cypress, China withdraws from Tibet, Turkey and Iraq give the Kurds their ancestral lands back, England leaves the Falklands, and the US returns Texas, Arizona, and California back to Mexico the palestinians might have a case. Until then the Israelis should use up their old stockpiles of unguided munitions and discriminately pound Gaza or the West Bank next time a missile is aimed their way. The last conflict has shown their are a lot of people who have no problem with this type of warfare so Isreal can save the expensive munitions for certain well deserving individuals.
Your right stereotyping is not helpful but sometimes it might just piss someone off enough that they take actions to prove the stereotype false. I see nothing other than token efforts from the Arab population at large when it comes to denouncing the psychopaths running around with AK-47's and RPGs yelling "Death to America". One example would be groups such as CAIR who put a ton of effort into decrying discrimination of Muslims but totally ignore the genesis of that discrimination.
There were Jews already living in the area known as Isreal before 1948, way before 1948 but that does not matter today. The people making the decisions on all sides circa 1948 are safely dead so their decisions can't be undone. Any conflict today needs to deal with the facts on the ground. Skipping back through history trying to one up the other side is meaningless. Now how can you use the term "ethnically cleansed" when the Arab non-Jewish population has expanded 10 fold since this nonsense started?
The Arabs rejected the creation of 2 states in 48 and thus rejected the proposed state of Palestine. They launched a war. They LOST. The Arabs who stayed comprise 20% of today's Israeli population and have the same rights as all the Jewish population. Before the 48 war the Jews bought large swaths of land from the Arab owners. The quite a few Arabs left the area voluntarily at the urging of the 5 Arab armies that were attacking Isreal and told they could return after the Arab victory. Oops! And sure some of the Arabs and Jews were carrying on a armed conflict even before the war but that seems to SOP for that region of the world. In 67 Nasser used Arab nationalism and fanatic propaganda to gather forces to attack Isreal. They LOST. Oops! once again. This time the Egyptians and Jordanians abandoned it's citizens living in what is now called the West Bank and Gaza. Isreal tried returning those areas to their rightful owners and were rejected and those left behind were now magically called "Palestinians". In 73 the Arabs, with massive Soviet aid put together another attack on Isreal and guess what? They LOST. Triple Oops! The lesson being "THERE ARE NO DO OVERS" when you engage in an offensive war and it doesn't go exactly as planned. Why would Isreal allow a group of people who have been energitically trying to kill them for 60 years to move any closer than necessary. Since then the Arabs have changed tactics because it became glaringly apparent their militarises couldn't fight their way out of a wet paper bag. They switched to killing civilians by bombing public buses, night clubs, and shopping malls. Throw in the massacre at the 72 Olympics, hijack a couple of planes and cruise ship, and launch missiles against nothing but civilian targets and you get to where we are today. Palestinian history consists of nothing more than a gigantic sheep herd being led by the nose from one violent confrontation to the next with no end in sight. Of course the Palestinian leaders issuing the calls for martyrdom are safely ensconced in their villas and bunkers in other countries. People such as yourself who have latched on to poor and downtrodden palestinians are hampered by acute tunnel vision and a refusal to even consider anything that might contradict your righteous and preconceived notions. The thing that really pisses some people off is that Isreal is here to stay and there is not a damned thing anyone can do about it. If Isreal goes so will a wide swath of the middle east and that might be a blessing in disguise. The only way forward is for the Arabs and their dhimmi supporters to stop the violence and show the world that they can indeed live in the world without their designer bomb vests and using 30 year old missile tech that has killed more palestinians than Israelis in this current flare of violence. If they do that they may one day see a measure of peace but until then fuck'em.
Dude,
Murdering Jews is enshrined in the Hamas charter in writing. The Fatah political headquarters prominently displays a large map of Palestine with no Isreal in the picture with a caption promising this is the dream. And they have never hidden the fact that their goal is the total removal of Isreal. If Isreal withdrew to the 67 borders and gave the Arabs everything they are asking the next day you would hear the Arabs pronouncing that they have scored a great victory on their way to removing Isreal. They would certainly have much closer artillery positions to work with. If somehow an Arab army was to overrun Isreal they would kill every man, women, and child. Do you think the Arabs would suddenly change their bloody mindset once they get the upper hand? Of course this won't happen becuase I am pretty sure if Isreal was in danger of being overrun they would nuke every capital and religious city in the middle east on their way out and I would not blame them in the least. Isreal may have problems like all other countries but look at the countries surrounding them and witness the in-fighting, religious inspired violence, and overt hostility to anyone who doesn't tow their ideological line.
Stalingrad and Leningrad are not in Germany. They suffered such grievous casualties because they basically used peasants in human wave attacks against German armor and infantry. They basically had more bodies than the Germans had bullets and once winter set in the Germans could not resupply.
The fact is they have had a nuclear capability for a while and have proven they are not trigger happy and they are capable of securing the nuclear weapons. Check out a map and see just how small a country it is. Any nuclear attack on Gaza or the West Bank would be the equivalent of nuking themselves.
They did use the threat of nuclear retaliation in 1973 but that was a ruse to get Nixon to take his head out of his ass and re-supply the IDF. They purposely let leak through unencrypted radio transmissions that they were activating their Samson plan which was the code for arming their nukes on their F-4's and Jericho missiles. Not that they really needed to do so since they had already pushed the Syrians and Egyptians back into their own countries. Nixon didn't want to get involved becuase at the time the Soviets were heavily invested with the Egyptians and Syrians and he was afraid of escalating the problem.
The 73 war is probably the most humiliating loss the Arab countries have suffered in all their conflicts with Isreal. The Arabs had total surprise, overwhelming numerical advantages, Soviet wire guided anti-tank missiles, night vision scopes with IR targeting in their tanks (again thanks to the Soviets), and advanced first line SAM systems once again courtesy of the Soviets. They also came up with an ingenious way of tackling the gigantic sand berms using water cannons so their tanks could advance after crossing the canal. Too bad the Israelis held off 1000+ tanks off in the Golan Heights for 24 hours using only 37 Israeli tanks because of very poor tactical leadership on the Syrian side. They held long enough for reinforcements to arrive using the landscape, superb shoot and re-position tank tactics, and main gun range superiority. The Egyptians advanced without re-positioning their SAM coverage and thus became vulnerable to air attacks and they some how allowed the Israelis to float a temporary bridge across the canal and flank then en-circle the Egyptian army in the Sinai. I can only assume someone on the Egyptian side fell asleep during the Israeli crossing. The funny thing is the school books in Egypt make it sound like Egypt won that war when they clearly didn't.
If there is any Marshall plan in the middle east it should be left entirely to the Arab league not any western countries. The Arab countries have booted the Palestinians out of their countries and prohibited migration since day 1. They had pretty good reasons seeing as how the Palestinians in Jordan initiated a coup to remove the government as soon as they got there. The Palestinians were cheerleaders for Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and after that war Kuwait evicted close to 100,000 Palestinians out of the country. Isreal is not and never has been the sole responsible party for palestinian suffering. It started with the inept British making promises to anyone who would listen to prop up their empire after WW1 and during WW2, Egypt abandon Egyptian citizens in the area now known as Gaza during their retreat in 67, and Jordan did the same thing resulting in the West Bank enclave.
The Iraqis and Afghan's have already had and wasted their Marshall Plan. In both cases the US and others removed the governments that were victimizing their own citizens and gave them a chance to rebuild their country in relative safety and they pissed it all away with in-fighting, bureaucratic corruption, and killing those trying to give them at least a fighting chance to build a better country. If the Japanese were able to swallow their pride and work with the US after WW2 I don't see how others could not do the same. Because this whole mess is more about Arab wounded pride than any land or religious disputes.
Listen sport I never said or implied Arabs were mentally deficient or stupid only that I will not slot Arabs into a hardliner or moderate category until I see a notable difference between the 2 extremes. I know it is a very small percentage of Arabs who show up drooling hate from their beards but until the majority stands up to those ruining their communities and reputations they will continue to engender distrust and hostility from others. Right now the worst are those bastards in Hamas and their supporters who are using fake photographs and jaw dropping lies to gain sympathy in their fight with the Israeli's. Those fuckers in Cairo and Lebanon in their $1000 suits need to re-locate to downtown Gaza and negotiate from there and see how fast an agreement can be reached. The two faced lying President of Egypt needs to say the same thing in English as he does in Arabic. That sorry fuck is busy denigrating anything Israeli in public but the fact that the US has not called him on it means he is whistling another tune in private. Politicians of all sorts lie every day but the whoppers coming out of the Arab leaders are legendary. Baghdad Bob must have opened a finishing school in Arab public speaking because only a trained professional could spout some of the jaw dropping lies being spewed to the Arabic masses.
Well Hamas was also voted in because they killed all of their rivals and anyone else that didn't tow the party line. There will be no palestinian state and it's about time people accepted that and moved on. Let Israel claim it's borders right where the currently are and tell Egypt Gaza is their responsibility and tell Jordon the West Bank is their responsibility. That's they situation as it was pre 1967 before someone figured they would stick it to the Israelis and leave behind a hostel population to cause trouble. It was the only way the Arab countries could get a little self respect back after being soundly defeated 3 times by the Israelis. This entire mess has nothing to do with religion or land. It is about Arab pride and their inability to accept defeat by an adversary they deemed weak. And while everyone mentions the 1967 war you hardly hear anything about the 1973 war. In 73 the arabs had total surprise, the latest soviet military technology, a decent strategy, and overwhelming numbers and they still lost. And the US may have re-supplied Israel in 73 but the outcome of the war had already been settled. The Arabs had been pushed back in both Egypt and Syria before the US re-supply effort arrived. The US didn't even want to re-supply the Israelis because the Soviets were arming the arabs and the US didn't want to escalate the situation with the Russians. The US was still on the fence until after the Israelis issued orders over an open frequency (hoping for US and USSR interception) to start arming their F-4's and Jericho missiles with their nuclear ordinance. It was only after this action that Nixon approved the re-supply effort.
If the Israelis send in a ground force this time it will be interesting to see how their new Trophy tank point defense weapon system performs. The Trophy system can interdict guided and unguided projectile fire using signal jamming and spoofing and direct fire projectiles designed to emit a large sonic wave blast in front of the incoming projectile.
Most of the smarter arabs left the middle east years ago for the US and other western countries.
Part of their attitudes and actions include blaming anyone except themselves for their hardships and when the US or Isreal isn't handy they seem perfectly content to kill one another. This whole Palestinian issue will never resolve itself until there is a lasting unity between Hamas and the PA first. Why would anyone sanction a new state when there is already a civil war in progress? As things stand right now it looks like they will have to add a 3-state solution to supplant the 2-state solution.
Everyone making the decisions pre-1948 are for the most part safely dead. Those directly effected by those decisions are also dead. Those decisions and actions occurred in a different era that has little in common with today's world. The worst arab mistake was attacking the Jews in 1948 and expecting to win. The Jews in 1948 were probably not in the mood to be pushed around or killed without a fight. At the time Isreal was being populated by boat loads of refugees with tattoo ID's on their arms. No matter how Israel came into being the fact is IT DID and it is not going anywhere unless the world is ready to see the entire middle east glassed.
The arabs have did a good enough job lumping themselves into one group because of their similarity in attitudes and actions. When I see even one small group of arabs stand up and acknowledge the fact that they may indeed be responsible for at least some of their own problems due to their own poor decisions and actions I will reassess my views. The people being killed in Gaza today are nothing but political fodder being sacrificed by influential arabs living well away from the battle zone and preaching non-stop martyrdom and of course the local dead enders running around shooting missiles from the day care center playground hoping Israel retaliates and kills a sufficient number of children to make the media rounds. Although when they can't find enough dead children they will use children killed by their own missiles and re-use photos taking in Syria. Major news outlets (CNN,BBC, Reuters, Guardian) and Twitter have already been caught out misrepresenting casualties to woo public opinion and the most sickening part of that is no one is taking them to task when they do so.
The US will cede Texas and California back to Mexico before the arabs get anything out of the Israelis. The arabs chose war in 48 and have never been shy about spouting their number one goal which is to destroy Israel. They were militarily defeated and will have to deal with the consequences of their actions. Damn near every border in the world has been drawn in blood, some borders more than once. Asking Israel to allow it's avowed enemies better firing positions against their population centers is ridiculous.
Back when IE had 95% of the browser market they became the de facto "standard" to use if you wanted a functional web application. Why waste time on the other 5%? Now that the browser market has some viable alternatives the standards become a bigger part of the picture. For all the bitching and moaning on this site in regards to IE nobody remembers that IE (for good or bad) did not have any serious competitors. They had no competition until FireFox resurrected Netscape. This practically guaranteed corporate adoption of IE as their browser standard. Most corporations (large and small) have intranet applications that are only accessible to the corporations employees so why would a corporate IT manager waste the time and money creating intranet applications that work with every browser running today? On the other hand an Internet application would need to satisfy at least the top 3 browsers people are using today. The decision on whether to strictly adhere to "standards" when developing web applications depends on the intended user base.
I have neither seen or heard any evidence that the Arabs would cease their attacks if Isreal gives up land and recognized a Palestinian state. Hamas and the other militant groups have not been shy when announcing they will not accept anything less than the total destruction of Isreal.
And Isreal probably should remove the sea blockade because judging by the amount of weapons in Gaza the blockade is not working.
I am afraid it is more than just the extremist generating the hate and violence. The majority Muslim population at large has done nothing to eradicate the extremists in their own communities. Yesterday the Taliban set off a bomb during a wedding in Afghanistan that killed 17 people and no one is protesting or criticizing that atrocity. At the time the Israelis had only killed 13 and they were aiming at militant targets. Apparently Muslim on Muslim or Arab on Arab violence is OK and accepted as a normal event. If you are not part of the solution then you are part of the problem and unless the majority of Muslims do more than just mouth a few weak comments now and then and blame Isreal or the "west" for all their ills.
The Arabs calling themselves palestinians have used nothing but violence for over 60 years and gotten their asses kicked every time by tiny little Isreal. The palestinians are those people who Egypt, Jordan, and Syria abandoned when retreating from the IDF in 48,67, and 73. Creating this Palestinian crisis was the Arabs way of hitting back at Isreal and lessen the humiliation they felt when they where defeated. You don't get a "do over" when it comes to fighting a war and that is precisely what the Arabs are constantly demanding. The Arabs really want Isreal to give back land won fair and square so they can setup better artillery and missile batteries. Gaza is a prime example. Isreal leaves Gaza and forcibly remove Israelis and the Arabs are closer to the main population centers in Isreal for their attacks. The palestinians are divided into 2 groups that cannot reconcile themselves with one another and spout 2 different narratives of the situation. Why in the hell would anyone make a state using people that have shown no hesitation in killing one another when it suits their goal. Does the world really need another failed Arab state? The top Palestinian leaders and supporters live in their comfortable villas in other countries and preach martyrdom to the local population. Their leaders make an incredible amount of money by "taxing" the goods flowing through tunnels into Gaza and skimming all they can from the millions of dollars they receive in foreign aid packages. And for all those who blindly support the palestinians, if the Arabs were somehow able to overrun Isreal they would kill every man, women, and child they come across. How would the Palestinian supporters deal with this very real scenario? Would the world just accept another 5 million Jewish deaths and promise to do better in the future?