Any insight on why "use tax" is okay but "sales tax" is not?
If a state requires you to report out of state transactions and pay a special tax on them it seems to definitely be a restriction on inter-state commerce.
Haha wow, your dream for this country really sucks.
Would you still call it "land of the free" or is that just too silly at the point where the government is constantly scrutinizing every aspect of every person's life in search of wrongdoing and jailable offenses?
I make 30k/yr, I pay about 2k of that in Federal income tax, and I'm poor.
So you're probably single with no dependents? If you were to marry your financial equal you'd have 60k household income which puts you well into the top half of households.
Well I don't know your life but I honestly get the feeling that you don't need to be a poor as you feel. 30k is not chump change unless you're living somewhere like Manhattan, in which case I don't have much sympathy for you. (There's a reason it's expensive in places like that. It's because those places are awesome.)
and no safety net
Are you banned from getting unemployment benefits and going on welfare? Qualifying for section 8 housing?
My former neighbor was very proud of how she took advantage of the safety net here. She had free tuition at community college, free housing, free food, and the town I live in has free public transportation.
Faulty categorization. Why focus only on countries suffering from terrorism?
Because this thread was about terrorism. I didn't realize you were talking about suffering in general.
But focusing on terrorism, Cuba was plagued by terrorists (although perhaps not as bad as 9/11), some of whom found harbor in the US. The US is refusing to turn over suspects, and is also refusing to prosecute - which is an even worse stance than the Taliban took over Bin Laden.
So you're suggesting Cuba going to war would have been better for its people?
That's a good point, there are times when the stronger country is the one engaging in (or at least supporting) terrorism. In that case it wouldn't make sense to go to war.
I think that on the balance most international terrorism is done by weak countries against strong countries though.
(Sarcasm) Yes, just like their previous 2-3 wars solved that problem. (End sarcasm)
You missed my point... India fought wars with Pakistan and absolutely destroyed them on the field. But they didn't ever press their advantages. India would have benefited massively from invading Pakistan, disassembling their military, confiscating or destroying all heavy weapons, etc. They certainly never should have let Pakistan get nukes.
To minimal effect on 99.9% of the population. They're more likely to be hurt by antiterrorism policies than actual terrorism.
Um I don't think you're counting effects other than pure loss of life. The average Indian suffers greatly from the problems caused by Pakistan -- economically. India is far superior to Pakistan militarily so there is little direct threat to life.
And speaking of India, suicides by farmers due to questionable policies kill more than the terrorists from Pakistan do.
That's meaningless. It's like saying more people die in car accidents than are murdered in the US every year, so murder isn't a problem and law enforcement shouldn't be so damn obsessed with catching murderers. They're insignificant!
Internal strife (various riots, massacres, conflicts) kill more than the terrorists from Pakistan do.
Absolutely. India doesn't have just one problem (Pakistan) but a whole range. The question is whether they would be better off had they pressed their advantages in their previous wars with Pakistan (all of the wars were decisively won by India).
The real answer is that the tax system shouldn't be favoring one kind of crop over another.
Someone has to nudge us in the right direction by manipulating prices, otherwise we might buy stuff that's most useful to us without considering the effects on special interest groups. That's practically anarchy.
Unfortunately, I fear how this will end for the USA if we don't figure out that we can't win this game without changing the rules.
We did change the rules. The USSR favored things like carpet bombing and executing civilians to make examples. We are "winning hearts and minds". Maybe it's not working but it's definitely different.
If this doesn't work, there's always nukes. And without another superpower to defend them, it would probably work out pretty well.
Many countries go through worse and choose not to go to war.
Out of curiosity, which countries are you referring to? Do you have a strong case that countries plagued by worse terrorism are better off by not going to war?
I think India, for instance, should have crushed Pakistan years ago. They had plenty of opportunities. They didn't, and so Pakistan is launching terrorist attacks against India to this day.
Another big difference between our situation and the Russians' is that we are fighting this war through R&D.
We aren't carpet bombing hundreds of square miles of desert, we're developing new tech like drones, new types of bombs, new body and vehicle armor, new HUD units, tech to detect IEDs, etc. So it's not like we're flushing money down the toilet.
Noone is seriously pushing for Sharia law in Europe or the US.
Well that's demonstrably false. Oklahoma passed an anti-sharia ballot measure saying sharia law could not be used in US courts. Seems pretty simple -- religious law should not be used in the US secular judicial system.
Muslims immediately filed suit against it.
You're also ignoring the social aspects of sharia, which do not require the government's involvement at all. Muslims can implement aspects of sharia in their personal lives. There's absolutely no doubt that they are "seriously pushing" for that -- look at the incidents of honor killings, sending their children "back home" if they are getting too Westernized, etc.
There is nobody who does not have "the humblest of means", that doesn't even make sense.
If you want to read something sad and sickening, read the interviews they did with the surviving Pakistani attacker involved in the Mumbai attacks. They were sold as children by their families and raised in a terrorist training camp. Though grown up they were mentally like children in my opinion. They cried and were very dependent on their handler who they called "father". Listen to the cell phone recordings. Their handler is a monster.
Suicide bombers/attackers are not country bumpkins with no means who decided to pick up some bombs and guns and go out in a blaze. They are tools created by other people.
All the retoric (from the terrorists themselves) aside, what they really hate is being fucked by the West.
Yes the poor billionaire Bin Laden family, awfully screwed by the evil West. Why do you buy into their schtick? Hasn't that theory of the downtrodden terrorist been pretty much discarded since -- 1. Times Square bomber from an upper class Pakistani family with high level Air Force connections 2. The Underwear Bomber from one of the richest families in Nigeria, whose father was the chairman of a large bank 3. Major Nidal the well educated army psychiatrist 4. The 9/11 conspirators such as Mohammed Atta, son of a wealthy lawyer, educated in top schools in Egypt and Germany etc
Why are you ignoring all the evidence and assuming terrorism is no more than revenge for crimes committed by the West? The reality is that the only Muslims who have successfully attacked the US are well-connected people with ample resources, including wealth and education.
The other type of terrorism which is mainly confined to Muslim countries is carried out by the uneducated poor. For the vast majority of these attacks, "the West" has almost nothing to do with the attack. In Pakistan, for instance, a great deal of terrorist attacks are committed due to Shia-Sunni divides, attacks on Ahmedis, Christians, and other religious minorities (those are the main groups because most of the other groups have long since fled!), attacks on Sufis and their shrines, attacks on religious processions, and so on.
And guess what. The attacks in Pakistan and India against Western targets have all... wait I'm going to let you guess here.. no I'll tell you. They've all been linked to state support by the ISI and army in Pakistan! The attacks on Mumbai were not the work of a few poor Pakistani peasants who decided that they "have nothing to lose" so they need to travel to another country and kill some Hindus and any Westerners they can find. That's complete bullshit. They were trained as part of the ISI's longstanding and ongoing terrorist support network that allows them to manipulate domestic and foreign politics.
Of course religion plays a role here. It functions as a rallying cry. And comfort in your desperation over the non-existent chances of any true success (world caliphate? noone believes that?) and necessary suicide tactics. But mostly, it plays the role of lumping all those disparate grievances together, so they seem to have been perpetrated on the same "us".
You are completely ignorant of the reality of terrorism. Most of it is inter-religious. Not just Pakistan like I mentioned above -- look at the attacks in Iraq. For every attack directly on the "evil occupying forces", there were a dozen that involved a Sunni group bombing a Shia market, a Shia group shooting up a Sunni neighborhood, and so on.
And "necessary suicide tactics?" You are supporting suicide attacks by terrorists as necessary?
The perfect solution is to go back thirty years and not kill and steal.
That is a ridiculous argument. How is trade stealing?
Hey you know what, those damn oil sheikhs are the ones stealing from us! Let's have a crusade against them! They didn't create the oil, they did nothing to earn it, why are we paying for it?
But we obviously can afford a house and 5 SUVs... they were built, people are living in them / driving them, all the people who built them were paid and are able to eat and have their own house and 5 SUVs... (or they live in another country with a lower standard of living because they don't have the easy money we do)
There may be some rich people holding the IOUs for those items, but that's just paper. The wealth itself has already been created and/or transferred.
So what you're suggesting is to introduce even more artificial scarcity into the economy so that people can't "afford" the SUVs and houses (that have already been built)? Why? You want everybody to have a lower standard of living?
the value of the silver in the coins was rather less than both the price charged and the face value of the coins. That's kinda illegal in most countries.
Why is that illegal? Unless he's trying to counterfeit existing currency I really don't see a problem.
Is this something specific to metal coins? I know some places offer local paper currency as a way to keep economic activity within the community. I don't think that's illegal. Would it be illegal if they used wood, plastic, or metal tokens instead of paper?
Exactly. Japan tried the bad way because they thought it would be easier and quicker, and it wasn't.
We have to teach the Somali pirates that the bad way is not easy. The good way is the only way we will tolerate. Those who try to profit by killing, raping, and kidnapping will be killed. The rest of the society will say "Hmm maybe there's another way" -- and they will be correct.
And part of that teaching process is to refrain from pitying the "poor murderers" and "heroic kidnappers" just because they are from a poor country with few (explored) natural resources. A murderer in Somalia is not more noble than a murderer in France just because he has fewer options or any such nonsense. We all have the basic option of being a good person or not.
Argh. Lots of people don't want the US coming in and rebuilding their country in the US image
I get that and agree that it's stupid and wrong. However it's not what you could call subjugation. What freedoms has the average Iraqi lost due to the American presence? Has Islam been banned? Have onerous taxes been levied, stripping the Iraqis of the ability to prosper?
Do you have one piece of credible evidence that millions are being terrorised, or would you like to adjust each of the italicised words in order to better reflect reality?
There are millions of Copts and they are all under attack by Muslim radicals. I don't mean that they are being exterminated.
Clearly you understand that you don't need constant 100% imminent threat of death to be (or to feel) subjugated. Even you wouldn't claim that Iraqis are being systematically exterminated by the US occupation forces, would you? So what do you see as the great burden on Iraqis that entitles them to be called "subjugated" that doesn't exist for non-Muslim Egyptians?
My reasoning in calling the Copts subjugated is that they are segregated within Egyptian society and they lack freedoms that Muslims in the same society have. They are exposed to violence and not protected or given justice by the government. They are discriminated against legally. They truly are a people living under the rule of another people without freedom. That's subjugation.
If Muslims were going into Copt areas and saying "Look we really want to get out of here, we're building new churches for you, we're building new schools, then we want you to rule yourselves" I guarantee I would not be calling the Copts subjugated! And yet you find some reason to call Iraqis subjugated? It makes no sense to me.
My point in bringing up Japan was that people in a resource-poor country still have the option to become good and productive citizens who improve their own society without harming others. It may take longer, it's not easy money, but in the long run it's much better. If you can put yourself in the pirates' situation and decide that you would also rather be a murderer than earn an honest living, just because murder pays more, there's something wrong with you!
The path of Native Americans, Irish Republicans, Basque separatists, etc., all possessed a common feature: they stopped attacking the ruling group when the ruling group was prepared to do some redressing for their grievances and allow them a degree of voice and independence rather than total military subjugation.
Completely true but you're ignoring that every Muslim society is already in that end-game where peace with the West is an option. They're not being attacked or genocided. There are absolutely zero US army operations designed to "convert by the sword" all the Muslims in an area.
There's currently no greater global subjugation than by the US neocon movement against "the Islamic threat"
That doesn't make any sense. Who is being subjugated? Are peace loving non-terrorist Iraqis paying US income tax? Last I heard we're paying for everything, including rebuilding their country.
I'd say the greatest global subjugation today is the plight of religious minorities in Muslim countries. Millions of Christians fled Iraq, not because US forces were persecuting them but because Muslims were persecuting them. When you look at the millions of Copts who are being terrorized in Egypt, that's subjugation. They are under the control of the Muslim state and are being abused even though they have submitted completely. And there are STILL no suicide bombing children sent by the Copts to blow up Muslim mosques, but maybe that will change.
It would probably be cheaper and more effective just to give the pirates reasonably well paid jobs, lack of which explains why they are involved in piracy in the first place.
That only partially explains it. When you don't have a job you can either get a job that harms others or get a job that benefits others. Japan tried to solve their natural resource problems by invading others with more resources, and it didn't work. What made them one of the largest economies in the world was not fishing, farming, oil production, or any kind of natural resource lottery, it was a willingness to swallow their pride and be friendly with people with abundant natural resources to trade. Honey vs vinegar.
In this country, General Wade was once despatched with an army to deal with the rebellious, raiding Highlanders. When he got there he decided that the problem was poverty. He set them to building roads in the Highlands, bringing trade to the area. It worked.
Can you explain why the Highlanders couldn't build roads and increase trade themselves? What about today, when even Somalia has the Internet and access to the entire world's history and educational resources, as well as billions of dollars of international charity and aid?
And that's why we have to show them they are wrong. The pirates cannot protect them from douchebags like us. The best option has to be cooperation. It's the "stronger douchebag" theory of international relations, and history shows that it works.
Slashdot Mirror
Well put.
Any insight on why "use tax" is okay but "sales tax" is not?
If a state requires you to report out of state transactions and pay a special tax on them it seems to definitely be a restriction on inter-state commerce.
Haha wow, your dream for this country really sucks.
Would you still call it "land of the free" or is that just too silly at the point where the government is constantly scrutinizing every aspect of every person's life in search of wrongdoing and jailable offenses?
Those who have benefited most greatly from society can damn well pay most greatly for its upkeep.
I bet you didn't know that the top 1% already pay more than the bottom 95%!
Can you explain your usage of the words "pay" and "most" and show why you're not satisfied?
I make 30k/yr, I pay about 2k of that in Federal income tax, and I'm poor.
So you're probably single with no dependents? If you were to marry your financial equal you'd have 60k household income which puts you well into the top half of households.
Well I don't know your life but I honestly get the feeling that you don't need to be a poor as you feel. 30k is not chump change unless you're living somewhere like Manhattan, in which case I don't have much sympathy for you. (There's a reason it's expensive in places like that. It's because those places are awesome.)
and no safety net
Are you banned from getting unemployment benefits and going on welfare? Qualifying for section 8 housing?
My former neighbor was very proud of how she took advantage of the safety net here. She had free tuition at community college, free housing, free food, and the town I live in has free public transportation.
So your solution to "too much religion in a supposedly secular system" is... more religion? Doesn't make sense.
Or are you suggesting the US is a Christian theocracy and should have Bibles, religious law, etc?
Either way, banning sharia is the right thing to do.
Faulty categorization. Why focus only on countries suffering from terrorism?
Because this thread was about terrorism. I didn't realize you were talking about suffering in general.
But focusing on terrorism, Cuba was plagued by terrorists (although perhaps not as bad as 9/11), some of whom found harbor in the US. The US is refusing to turn over suspects, and is also refusing to prosecute - which is an even worse stance than the Taliban took over Bin Laden.
So you're suggesting Cuba going to war would have been better for its people?
That's a good point, there are times when the stronger country is the one engaging in (or at least supporting) terrorism. In that case it wouldn't make sense to go to war.
I think that on the balance most international terrorism is done by weak countries against strong countries though.
(Sarcasm) Yes, just like their previous 2-3 wars solved that problem. (End sarcasm)
You missed my point... India fought wars with Pakistan and absolutely destroyed them on the field. But they didn't ever press their advantages. India would have benefited massively from invading Pakistan, disassembling their military, confiscating or destroying all heavy weapons, etc. They certainly never should have let Pakistan get nukes.
To minimal effect on 99.9% of the population. They're more likely to be hurt by antiterrorism policies than actual terrorism.
Um I don't think you're counting effects other than pure loss of life. The average Indian suffers greatly from the problems caused by Pakistan -- economically. India is far superior to Pakistan militarily so there is little direct threat to life.
And speaking of India, suicides by farmers due to questionable policies kill more than the terrorists from Pakistan do.
That's meaningless. It's like saying more people die in car accidents than are murdered in the US every year, so murder isn't a problem and law enforcement shouldn't be so damn obsessed with catching murderers. They're insignificant!
Internal strife (various riots, massacres, conflicts) kill more than the terrorists from Pakistan do.
Absolutely. India doesn't have just one problem (Pakistan) but a whole range. The question is whether they would be better off had they pressed their advantages in their previous wars with Pakistan (all of the wars were decisively won by India).
The real answer is that the tax system shouldn't be favoring one kind of crop over another.
Someone has to nudge us in the right direction by manipulating prices, otherwise we might buy stuff that's most useful to us without considering the effects on special interest groups. That's practically anarchy.
A poll tax is a per-person fixed amount, isn't it? A flat tax is still a percentage of income.
Unfortunately, I fear how this will end for the USA if we don't figure out that we can't win this game without changing the rules.
We did change the rules. The USSR favored things like carpet bombing and executing civilians to make examples. We are "winning hearts and minds". Maybe it's not working but it's definitely different.
If this doesn't work, there's always nukes. And without another superpower to defend them, it would probably work out pretty well.
Many countries go through worse and choose not to go to war.
Out of curiosity, which countries are you referring to? Do you have a strong case that countries plagued by worse terrorism are better off by not going to war?
I think India, for instance, should have crushed Pakistan years ago. They had plenty of opportunities. They didn't, and so Pakistan is launching terrorist attacks against India to this day.
Another big difference between our situation and the Russians' is that we are fighting this war through R&D.
We aren't carpet bombing hundreds of square miles of desert, we're developing new tech like drones, new types of bombs, new body and vehicle armor, new HUD units, tech to detect IEDs, etc. So it's not like we're flushing money down the toilet.
it looks like an unwinnable war was chosen as the most efficient way to pump wealth from workers to private industry
This just in, private industry is composed of workers! Turns out workers pumped wealth to themselves!
Noone is seriously pushing for Sharia law in Europe or the US.
Well that's demonstrably false. Oklahoma passed an anti-sharia ballot measure saying sharia law could not be used in US courts. Seems pretty simple -- religious law should not be used in the US secular judicial system.
Muslims immediately filed suit against it.
You're also ignoring the social aspects of sharia, which do not require the government's involvement at all. Muslims can implement aspects of sharia in their personal lives. There's absolutely no doubt that they are "seriously pushing" for that -- look at the incidents of honor killings, sending their children "back home" if they are getting too Westernized, etc.
There is nobody who does not have "the humblest of means", that doesn't even make sense.
If you want to read something sad and sickening, read the interviews they did with the surviving Pakistani attacker involved in the Mumbai attacks. They were sold as children by their families and raised in a terrorist training camp. Though grown up they were mentally like children in my opinion. They cried and were very dependent on their handler who they called "father". Listen to the cell phone recordings. Their handler is a monster.
Suicide bombers/attackers are not country bumpkins with no means who decided to pick up some bombs and guns and go out in a blaze. They are tools created by other people.
All the retoric (from the terrorists themselves) aside, what they really hate is being fucked by the West.
Yes the poor billionaire Bin Laden family, awfully screwed by the evil West. Why do you buy into their schtick? Hasn't that theory of the downtrodden terrorist been pretty much discarded since --
1. Times Square bomber from an upper class Pakistani family with high level Air Force connections
2. The Underwear Bomber from one of the richest families in Nigeria, whose father was the chairman of a large bank
3. Major Nidal the well educated army psychiatrist
4. The 9/11 conspirators such as Mohammed Atta, son of a wealthy lawyer, educated in top schools in Egypt and Germany
etc
Why are you ignoring all the evidence and assuming terrorism is no more than revenge for crimes committed by the West? The reality is that the only Muslims who have successfully attacked the US are well-connected people with ample resources, including wealth and education.
The other type of terrorism which is mainly confined to Muslim countries is carried out by the uneducated poor. For the vast majority of these attacks, "the West" has almost nothing to do with the attack. In Pakistan, for instance, a great deal of terrorist attacks are committed due to Shia-Sunni divides, attacks on Ahmedis, Christians, and other religious minorities (those are the main groups because most of the other groups have long since fled!), attacks on Sufis and their shrines, attacks on religious processions, and so on.
And guess what. The attacks in Pakistan and India against Western targets have all... wait I'm going to let you guess here.. no I'll tell you. They've all been linked to state support by the ISI and army in Pakistan! The attacks on Mumbai were not the work of a few poor Pakistani peasants who decided that they "have nothing to lose" so they need to travel to another country and kill some Hindus and any Westerners they can find. That's complete bullshit. They were trained as part of the ISI's longstanding and ongoing terrorist support network that allows them to manipulate domestic and foreign politics.
Of course religion plays a role here. It functions as a rallying cry. And comfort in your desperation over the non-existent chances of any true success (world caliphate? noone believes that?) and necessary suicide tactics. But mostly, it plays the role of lumping all those disparate grievances together, so they seem to have been perpetrated on the same "us".
You are completely ignorant of the reality of terrorism. Most of it is inter-religious. Not just Pakistan like I mentioned above -- look at the attacks in Iraq. For every attack directly on the "evil occupying forces", there were a dozen that involved a Sunni group bombing a Shia market, a Shia group shooting up a Sunni neighborhood, and so on.
And "necessary suicide tactics?" You are supporting suicide attacks by terrorists as necessary?
The perfect solution is to go back thirty years and not kill and steal.
That is a ridiculous argument. How is trade stealing?
Hey you know what, those damn oil sheikhs are the ones stealing from us! Let's have a crusade against them! They didn't create the oil, they did nothing to earn it, why are we paying for it?
That sort of stupid rhetoric can go both ways.
But we obviously can afford a house and 5 SUVs... they were built, people are living in them / driving them, all the people who built them were paid and are able to eat and have their own house and 5 SUVs... (or they live in another country with a lower standard of living because they don't have the easy money we do)
There may be some rich people holding the IOUs for those items, but that's just paper. The wealth itself has already been created and/or transferred.
So what you're suggesting is to introduce even more artificial scarcity into the economy so that people can't "afford" the SUVs and houses (that have already been built)? Why? You want everybody to have a lower standard of living?
the value of the silver in the coins was rather less than both the price charged and the face value of the coins. That's kinda illegal in most countries.
Why is that illegal? Unless he's trying to counterfeit existing currency I really don't see a problem.
Is this something specific to metal coins? I know some places offer local paper currency as a way to keep economic activity within the community. I don't think that's illegal. Would it be illegal if they used wood, plastic, or metal tokens instead of paper?
What if? It's plainly stated in Article 1 Section 8 under the Powers of Congress:
To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;
That's about as clear as can be.
It says Congress can coin money. It doesn't say I can't coin money.
Exactly. Japan tried the bad way because they thought it would be easier and quicker, and it wasn't.
We have to teach the Somali pirates that the bad way is not easy. The good way is the only way we will tolerate. Those who try to profit by killing, raping, and kidnapping will be killed. The rest of the society will say "Hmm maybe there's another way" -- and they will be correct.
And part of that teaching process is to refrain from pitying the "poor murderers" and "heroic kidnappers" just because they are from a poor country with few (explored) natural resources. A murderer in Somalia is not more noble than a murderer in France just because he has fewer options or any such nonsense. We all have the basic option of being a good person or not.
Argh. Lots of people don't want the US coming in and rebuilding their country in the US image
I get that and agree that it's stupid and wrong. However it's not what you could call subjugation. What freedoms has the average Iraqi lost due to the American presence? Has Islam been banned? Have onerous taxes been levied, stripping the Iraqis of the ability to prosper?
Do you have one piece of credible evidence that millions are being terrorised, or would you like to adjust each of the italicised words in order to better reflect reality?
There are millions of Copts and they are all under attack by Muslim radicals. I don't mean that they are being exterminated.
Clearly you understand that you don't need constant 100% imminent threat of death to be (or to feel) subjugated. Even you wouldn't claim that Iraqis are being systematically exterminated by the US occupation forces, would you? So what do you see as the great burden on Iraqis that entitles them to be called "subjugated" that doesn't exist for non-Muslim Egyptians?
My reasoning in calling the Copts subjugated is that they are segregated within Egyptian society and they lack freedoms that Muslims in the same society have. They are exposed to violence and not protected or given justice by the government. They are discriminated against legally. They truly are a people living under the rule of another people without freedom. That's subjugation.
If Muslims were going into Copt areas and saying "Look we really want to get out of here, we're building new churches for you, we're building new schools, then we want you to rule yourselves" I guarantee I would not be calling the Copts subjugated! And yet you find some reason to call Iraqis subjugated? It makes no sense to me.
My point in bringing up Japan was that people in a resource-poor country still have the option to become good and productive citizens who improve their own society without harming others. It may take longer, it's not easy money, but in the long run it's much better. If you can put yourself in the pirates' situation and decide that you would also rather be a murderer than earn an honest living, just because murder pays more, there's something wrong with you!
The path of Native Americans, Irish Republicans, Basque separatists, etc., all possessed a common feature: they stopped attacking the ruling group when the ruling group was prepared to do some redressing for their grievances and allow them a degree of voice and independence rather than total military subjugation.
Completely true but you're ignoring that every Muslim society is already in that end-game where peace with the West is an option. They're not being attacked or genocided. There are absolutely zero US army operations designed to "convert by the sword" all the Muslims in an area.
There's currently no greater global subjugation than by the US neocon movement against "the Islamic threat"
That doesn't make any sense. Who is being subjugated? Are peace loving non-terrorist Iraqis paying US income tax? Last I heard we're paying for everything, including rebuilding their country.
I'd say the greatest global subjugation today is the plight of religious minorities in Muslim countries. Millions of Christians fled Iraq, not because US forces were persecuting them but because Muslims were persecuting them. When you look at the millions of Copts who are being terrorized in Egypt, that's subjugation. They are under the control of the Muslim state and are being abused even though they have submitted completely. And there are STILL no suicide bombing children sent by the Copts to blow up Muslim mosques, but maybe that will change.
It would probably be cheaper and more effective just to give the pirates reasonably well paid jobs, lack of which explains why they are involved in piracy in the first place.
That only partially explains it. When you don't have a job you can either get a job that harms others or get a job that benefits others. Japan tried to solve their natural resource problems by invading others with more resources, and it didn't work. What made them one of the largest economies in the world was not fishing, farming, oil production, or any kind of natural resource lottery, it was a willingness to swallow their pride and be friendly with people with abundant natural resources to trade. Honey vs vinegar.
In this country, General Wade was once despatched with an army to deal with the rebellious, raiding Highlanders. When he got there he decided that the problem was poverty. He set them to building roads in the Highlands, bringing trade to the area. It worked.
Can you explain why the Highlanders couldn't build roads and increase trade themselves? What about today, when even Somalia has the Internet and access to the entire world's history and educational resources, as well as billions of dollars of international charity and aid?
And that's why we have to show them they are wrong. The pirates cannot protect them from douchebags like us. The best option has to be cooperation. It's the "stronger douchebag" theory of international relations, and history shows that it works.