you only focused on american actions, not russian actions, you only analyzed american actions in a vacuum of anything else in the world
therefore, your anaylsis is flawed
furthermore:
everything the usa did was done in an attempt to fight the ussr. such actions had toxic backscatter, but the usa also defeated the ussr, such that, in the long run, including a consideration of all the failures and missteps, the usa, overall, did a good job during the cold war. it won the cold war
to go even further:
everything that is happening in the world today is not merely bills come due for cold war american actions
if someone thinks that what al qaeda is doing on the world today is done in the name of antiamericanism, they are a provincial fool. what al qaeda does is done in the name of its own religious bigotry: revive and extend the caliphate. if the usa never existed on this planet, there would still be an al qaeda, still doing what al qaeda does, because al qaeda's motivations and its goals are not centered on the usa, they are centered on a flawed interpretation of islam. there would still be bali bombing, madrid bombings, islamabad bombings. what created and motivates these people is NOT the usa
the usa is not above criticism. but neither is the usa the only thing that should be criticized. you see to many fools in this world criticizing the usa for things that the usa is not at fault for in the least
you forget the power of ultranationalism and demagoguery
if the people's stomachs are empty, fill their minds with myths of glory, and give them a gun, and put them on the front lines
were the words you say above 100% true, then blind imperialism would never exist in this world. but it does. because of the simple dynamic i just outlined. this simple dynamic comes into play when you have nothing else going for you. russia has what? energy exports? which it uses to pump up its military. what else? a national system of governance pretty much modeled on the mafia
that's all russia has going for it. no respect for freedoms of the press, gays. nothing concerned with modern european emphasis on rights and freedoms. russia is a question mark, a grey area, getting darker
so you go ahead, you pillory me for my false alarmism
as if your false sense of security is somehow superior
but since we live in a multipolar world, and always have, and always will, that analysis is useless
most laughably, you articulate american "failure" in the context of a vacuum of anything else happening in the world, as if the usa were just randomly invading countries because it was in a bad mood
reach into the vast stretches of your imagination and figure out if maybe what the usa was doing was done in the context of anything the ussr was doing at the time
given THAT bizarre exotic context (since you seem to have a firmly entrenched opinion of american action without even faintly considering what was actually going on in the world at the time), what say you now?
furthermore, i've voted democrat every election in my life, except for one
so you tell me where the "republicunts" (which i suppose is not a slur on republicans, but an esoteric term for someone who understands reality) got it wrong. pick one that is the truth of our world:
1. peace is a state of balance between two violent forces
2. peace is a state of absence of violent forces
i await my enlightenment from your fountain of wisdom
and, with hope and time, it will become another turkey, rather than another iran (that is, not very religious)
but this a longterm fight
part of what is necessary to get us to that goal is a change in strategy. the bush attitude works great when stupid but steel resolve is what is needed, but at other times you need a deep thinker and a willingness to be flexible to win the day. its a chess game, not just a punching match, and now we are entering a time after iraq has been won when the cowboy must yeild to the chessmaster
that's one of the hidden strengths of democracy. we are not stuck with one unyeilding strategy. every 4 years, we try out a new one, and in this way, adapt and find the best, and have a time for... change we can believe in;-)
its a shame some people confuse republican stupidity with a sound defense strategy
i'd rather have a smart weak defense than big dumb one. obviously, a smart big defense is best, but that's in no way what the republicans offer us. and so i choose barack, the lesser of two evils. let him talk to ahmafruitcake, as if our current course is winning anything over there
will either ramp up defense spending after what happened to georgia, or become a vassal state to moscow if the usa lowers its defense spending. if more in europe think like you than me, it will be a vassal state then
the eu has done all it has done in the realm of peace over the last 50 years due to existing in a world larger than europe: sitting between the poles of moscow and washington, guns pointed at each other. not in the middle of a volatile balancing act of many european powers that existed for hundreds of years before world war ii. that power struggle is dead, subsumed to a larger struggle. so of course integration makes sense, simply because the power struggle lies elsewhere, for the first time in centuries
as for archduke franz ferdinand, yes, of course, armies with a lot of war potential can break down into havoc. yet no armies at all is even worse, since more death and destruction occurs at the civilian level. i mean, its not like the eu doesn't have a police force, right? a police force is nothing but a standing army against the rise of street warfare that a society would succumb too without guns pointed at them, a sad fate we see in corrupt and weak places all over the world today
and finally, the eu has taken a wonderful step towards integration rather than infighting, i celebrate it. and this is a model for the future of the entire world
but it was all made possible by being under the protective umbrella of its huge neighbor across the atlantic, in which all the states had to align, in order to oppose being gobbled up by the ussr
and the russian bear awakes again
so listen to me now, or wait until death and destruction visits europe again before you pick up a gun
but why you think, after i hope at least some tiny bit of exposure to world history, that mankind is a peaceful creature, is beyond me. every generation someone is born who wishes through will of pwoer and force of arms to dominate as much as he can. he is either kept down, or he rises amid bloodshed, and becomes the new keeper of the peace
that's all there is in this world of men
is that sad? yes. is that ugly? yes. its also 100% true and undeniable
make peace with that fact, irony intended, and give up this ridiculous way you think about your world
generating growth without spending on defense exist in peace due to the efforts of the us military. a world without us military spending would be a world of russian imperialism and utter havoc in the middle east, and those "peaceful" countries would radically ramp up their own defense spending, or cease to exist, or become war zones
the usa is the de facto peacekeeper in the world today, for better or worse. some day, it won't be, nothing is forever, and that world will not be a more peaceful one, but a more warlike one, until it transitions to a new peacekeeper
some people don't understand this, and its due to a common misperception: peace is not a state of absence of war potential. peace is a state of balance in war potentials between two or more sides. the world exists in this constant tension, always has, and always will. you would understand this ugly but undeniable truth if you truly understood essential human nature
peace is nothing more than a state of balance between two deadly potentials. remove one of those balances, and in the transition to a new state of balance, much bloodletting occurs. that's all peace is. a balance between war potentials. it is absolutely impossible in this world for peace to exist without any armed forces. such a world would be full of more bloodshed, random warlord. a world of two massive armies with loaded guns pointed at each other is meanwhile perfectly peaceful. i didn't say this is a good thing, i just recognize an unfortunate ugly truth when i see one
but there ar epletny out there, raised in a coccoon of relative peace ot the rest of human history and other parts of this world, who are blind to this reality. they live in a hermietically sealed bubble, and they begin to develop attitudes about peace and war which frankly, is absurd
if you don't agree with this assessment, or don't understand it, you don't really understand the nature of the human beings living around you, and you aren't in very good touch with your own human nature
a lot of people don't understand exactly what creates peace in this world. real peace is a balance between two deadly potentials, not the absense of any deadly potential
understand that about the nature of peace, or live in denial
just beyond the dead space marine after you open the first door (watch out for the imp sniping at you from above) there's a false panel marked "UHC" (not "LHC") on your left. shoot that with your pistol and it opens. but shooting your pistol will wake a cacodemon further down the hall
i am not denying that there are assholes out there making strawman arguments
i am saying that there intellectually dishonest and intellectually lazy assholes out there who bark "strawman!" like pavlov's dogs everytime they hear an analogy or a broadening of the conversation... which are NOT strawman arguments
in fact, much as the boy who cried wolf, all those fools barking "strawman!" water down the identification of genuine strawman arguments that deserve to be pilloried
libertarianism is actually a wonderful delightful philosophy, if you like philosophical masturbation in isolation without any concern for real world issues. but what's the point of that? libertarianism often appeals to college sophomore philosophy majors with too many books read and absolutely zero experience living in the real world. it sounds noble and electrifying. well so do comic books
so i'm sorry to rain on your idealism, but stop trying to think your fantasy life has the slightest fucking chance to work in reality. people don't BEHAVE as libertarianism needs them to do in order to work
i will repeat that: a philosophy that requires human beings to suddenly behave in ways no human being has ever behaved, in any time period, in any culture, in the entirety of history, IS NOT A VALID POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
are you unclear in any way on that obvious fucking point about libertarianism?
the position you seem to be espousing is bureaucratic absolutism
not that it was right the libertarians were removed from the ballot, but it most certainly is wrong to think some sort of revenge of this same nature is good for anyone
i'm not going to get in a pissing match over word definitions with you. the answer is easy: moderation. communism believes in the ascendency of altruism. libertarianism believes in the ascendency of selfishness. both are fatally flawed, to an equal degree
what lies in between? call it a googlymooglyism. why? because i'm not going to pick a common word because it is probably freighted in your propagandized mind with some sort of partisan kneejerk response
but the truth is simple and clear: society must balance between the needs of the group, and the needs of the individual. any society that strays too far to the individual, or too far to the group, fails, and creates suffering
moderate between altruism and selfishness, and you have the ideal society. not that i said that was easy, its a balance, its complex and subtle. life is irreducibly complex and subtle
it is adherence to one of many fundmentalist simplistic notions, such as selfishness trumps all, as with libertarianism, that creates suffering in this world. understand that tension exists and sometimes altruism prevails while other times selfishness prevails, and that simplist fundamentalist adherence to one extreme or the other is where we are doomed
Slashdot Mirror
you only focused on american actions, not russian actions, you only analyzed american actions in a vacuum of anything else in the world
therefore, your anaylsis is flawed
furthermore:
everything the usa did was done in an attempt to fight the ussr. such actions had toxic backscatter, but the usa also defeated the ussr, such that, in the long run, including a consideration of all the failures and missteps, the usa, overall, did a good job during the cold war. it won the cold war
to go even further:
everything that is happening in the world today is not merely bills come due for cold war american actions
if someone thinks that what al qaeda is doing on the world today is done in the name of antiamericanism, they are a provincial fool. what al qaeda does is done in the name of its own religious bigotry: revive and extend the caliphate. if the usa never existed on this planet, there would still be an al qaeda, still doing what al qaeda does, because al qaeda's motivations and its goals are not centered on the usa, they are centered on a flawed interpretation of islam. there would still be bali bombing, madrid bombings, islamabad bombings. what created and motivates these people is NOT the usa
the usa is not above criticism. but neither is the usa the only thing that should be criticized. you see to many fools in this world criticizing the usa for things that the usa is not at fault for in the least
you forget the power of ultranationalism and demagoguery
if the people's stomachs are empty, fill their minds with myths of glory, and give them a gun, and put them on the front lines
were the words you say above 100% true, then blind imperialism would never exist in this world. but it does. because of the simple dynamic i just outlined. this simple dynamic comes into play when you have nothing else going for you. russia has what? energy exports? which it uses to pump up its military. what else? a national system of governance pretty much modeled on the mafia
that's all russia has going for it. no respect for freedoms of the press, gays. nothing concerned with modern european emphasis on rights and freedoms. russia is a question mark, a grey area, getting darker
so you go ahead, you pillory me for my false alarmism
as if your false sense of security is somehow superior
in the idea of a unipolar world
but since we live in a multipolar world, and always have, and always will, that analysis is useless
most laughably, you articulate american "failure" in the context of a vacuum of anything else happening in the world, as if the usa were just randomly invading countries because it was in a bad mood
reach into the vast stretches of your imagination and figure out if maybe what the usa was doing was done in the context of anything the ussr was doing at the time
given THAT bizarre exotic context (since you seem to have a firmly entrenched opinion of american action without even faintly considering what was actually going on in the world at the time), what say you now?
what a ridiculously pompous word
i'm an asshole
and proud of it!
on al qaeda
so that means gravity is wrong?
furthermore, i've voted democrat every election in my life, except for one
so you tell me where the "republicunts" (which i suppose is not a slur on republicans, but an esoteric term for someone who understands reality) got it wrong. pick one that is the truth of our world:
1. peace is a state of balance between two violent forces
2. peace is a state of absence of violent forces
i await my enlightenment from your fountain of wisdom
and, with hope and time, it will become another turkey, rather than another iran (that is, not very religious)
but this a longterm fight
part of what is necessary to get us to that goal is a change in strategy. the bush attitude works great when stupid but steel resolve is what is needed, but at other times you need a deep thinker and a willingness to be flexible to win the day. its a chess game, not just a punching match, and now we are entering a time after iraq has been won when the cowboy must yeild to the chessmaster
that's one of the hidden strengths of democracy. we are not stuck with one unyeilding strategy. every 4 years, we try out a new one, and in this way, adapt and find the best, and have a time for... change we can believe in ;-)
1. peace is a state of balance between two violent forces
2. peace is a state of absence of violent forces
which is true of humanity?
please embellish with examples from these weird places called russia and the mdidle east i have never considered before in my propagandized blindness
i await enlightenment
(snicker)
why do you think i care what the capitalization police say?
i write what i write. if you don't like my poor formatting, don't read what i write
fuck off
its a shame some people confuse republican stupidity with a sound defense strategy
i'd rather have a smart weak defense than big dumb one. obviously, a smart big defense is best, but that's in no way what the republicans offer us. and so i choose barack, the lesser of two evils. let him talk to ahmafruitcake, as if our current course is winning anything over there
will either ramp up defense spending after what happened to georgia, or become a vassal state to moscow if the usa lowers its defense spending. if more in europe think like you than me, it will be a vassal state then
the eu has done all it has done in the realm of peace over the last 50 years due to existing in a world larger than europe: sitting between the poles of moscow and washington, guns pointed at each other. not in the middle of a volatile balancing act of many european powers that existed for hundreds of years before world war ii. that power struggle is dead, subsumed to a larger struggle. so of course integration makes sense, simply because the power struggle lies elsewhere, for the first time in centuries
as for archduke franz ferdinand, yes, of course, armies with a lot of war potential can break down into havoc. yet no armies at all is even worse, since more death and destruction occurs at the civilian level. i mean, its not like the eu doesn't have a police force, right? a police force is nothing but a standing army against the rise of street warfare that a society would succumb too without guns pointed at them, a sad fate we see in corrupt and weak places all over the world today
and finally, the eu has taken a wonderful step towards integration rather than infighting, i celebrate it. and this is a model for the future of the entire world
but it was all made possible by being under the protective umbrella of its huge neighbor across the atlantic, in which all the states had to align, in order to oppose being gobbled up by the ussr
and the russian bear awakes again
so listen to me now, or wait until death and destruction visits europe again before you pick up a gun
but why you think, after i hope at least some tiny bit of exposure to world history, that mankind is a peaceful creature, is beyond me. every generation someone is born who wishes through will of pwoer and force of arms to dominate as much as he can. he is either kept down, or he rises amid bloodshed, and becomes the new keeper of the peace
that's all there is in this world of men
is that sad? yes. is that ugly? yes. its also 100% true and undeniable
make peace with that fact, irony intended, and give up this ridiculous way you think about your world
generating growth without spending on defense exist in peace due to the efforts of the us military. a world without us military spending would be a world of russian imperialism and utter havoc in the middle east, and those "peaceful" countries would radically ramp up their own defense spending, or cease to exist, or become war zones
the usa is the de facto peacekeeper in the world today, for better or worse. some day, it won't be, nothing is forever, and that world will not be a more peaceful one, but a more warlike one, until it transitions to a new peacekeeper
some people don't understand this, and its due to a common misperception: peace is not a state of absence of war potential. peace is a state of balance in war potentials between two or more sides. the world exists in this constant tension, always has, and always will. you would understand this ugly but undeniable truth if you truly understood essential human nature
peace is nothing more than a state of balance between two deadly potentials. remove one of those balances, and in the transition to a new state of balance, much bloodletting occurs. that's all peace is. a balance between war potentials. it is absolutely impossible in this world for peace to exist without any armed forces. such a world would be full of more bloodshed, random warlord. a world of two massive armies with loaded guns pointed at each other is meanwhile perfectly peaceful. i didn't say this is a good thing, i just recognize an unfortunate ugly truth when i see one
but there ar epletny out there, raised in a coccoon of relative peace ot the rest of human history and other parts of this world, who are blind to this reality. they live in a hermietically sealed bubble, and they begin to develop attitudes about peace and war which frankly, is absurd
if you don't agree with this assessment, or don't understand it, you don't really understand the nature of the human beings living around you, and you aren't in very good touch with your own human nature
a lot of people don't understand exactly what creates peace in this world. real peace is a balance between two deadly potentials, not the absense of any deadly potential
understand that about the nature of peace, or live in denial
so some idiot doesn't know moths can't survive in space
oh i know this level
just beyond the dead space marine after you open the first door (watch out for the imp sniping at you from above) there's a false panel marked "UHC" (not "LHC") on your left. shoot that with your pistol and it opens. but shooting your pistol will wake a cacodemon further down the hall
easy
i can imagine a number of various bad things this can lead to
why don't we just throw all of our efforts into fusion research?
use thorium and uranium fission until we get there?
seems like the most environmentally friendly, geopolitically sound thing to do
not libertarianism
duh
osama bin laden?
ted kaczynski?
santa claus?
steven spielberg?
oh, oh, i know!
steve wozniak!
on building underground waterproof bunkers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Hill_60_(Western_Front)
sorry it's not funny, but its the true source of the competition thing you don't get
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republicanism
i am not denying that there are assholes out there making strawman arguments
i am saying that there intellectually dishonest and intellectually lazy assholes out there who bark "strawman!" like pavlov's dogs everytime they hear an analogy or a broadening of the conversation... which are NOT strawman arguments
in fact, much as the boy who cried wolf, all those fools barking "strawman!" water down the identification of genuine strawman arguments that deserve to be pilloried
if you are, haha
if you are not:
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=968167&cid=25057155
as in, its a fantasy, an ideal, a perfection
it doesn't work in messy reality
enough said
libertarianism is actually a wonderful delightful philosophy, if you like philosophical masturbation in isolation without any concern for real world issues. but what's the point of that? libertarianism often appeals to college sophomore philosophy majors with too many books read and absolutely zero experience living in the real world. it sounds noble and electrifying. well so do comic books
so i'm sorry to rain on your idealism, but stop trying to think your fantasy life has the slightest fucking chance to work in reality. people don't BEHAVE as libertarianism needs them to do in order to work
i will repeat that: a philosophy that requires human beings to suddenly behave in ways no human being has ever behaved, in any time period, in any culture, in the entirety of history, IS NOT A VALID POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY
are you unclear in any way on that obvious fucking point about libertarianism?
the position you seem to be espousing is bureaucratic absolutism
not that it was right the libertarians were removed from the ballot, but it most certainly is wrong to think some sort of revenge of this same nature is good for anyone
i'm not going to get in a pissing match over word definitions with you. the answer is easy: moderation. communism believes in the ascendency of altruism. libertarianism believes in the ascendency of selfishness. both are fatally flawed, to an equal degree
what lies in between? call it a googlymooglyism. why? because i'm not going to pick a common word because it is probably freighted in your propagandized mind with some sort of partisan kneejerk response
but the truth is simple and clear: society must balance between the needs of the group, and the needs of the individual. any society that strays too far to the individual, or too far to the group, fails, and creates suffering
moderate between altruism and selfishness, and you have the ideal society. not that i said that was easy, its a balance, its complex and subtle. life is irreducibly complex and subtle
it is adherence to one of many fundmentalist simplistic notions, such as selfishness trumps all, as with libertarianism, that creates suffering in this world. understand that tension exists and sometimes altruism prevails while other times selfishness prevails, and that simplist fundamentalist adherence to one extreme or the other is where we are doomed
word