Because the commander in chief in charge of the missles is also in charge of an extremely muddled foreign policy that is built on mixed premises and contradictions, and which is driven primarily by a which-way-is-the-wind-blowing-today rough take on domestic mood and politics as it relates to re-election. If practical outcomes and saving lives were actually part of the equation, then of course a very different course of action would have been pursued, and much earlier. It's pretty sickening, that's for sure.
But it's a good thing we just send a hundred special forces into combat in Uganda, huh?
You're missing the point. The population growth rate would plummet. Just like it is right now in the western world, where if it weren't for immigration, the population would be shrinking dramatically.
ll my life I've been told I'm being held back because of the huge cohort of baby boomers
What a bunch of whiney claptrap. You should be doing something that those people want to buy instead of pouting over the fact that nobody is giving to you something that you imagine is being given to someone else.
I/we have to sit thru another 60 excruciatingly boring years?
Yes, it's always someone else's fault that you're bored. What are you, 12 years old? "The world owes me excitement! Interestingness is being kept from me by other people! Wahhh!"
now it just means unemployment plus student loans instead of just unemployment
Only if you're stupid enough to get deeply into debt to take some classes. Suck it up and earn your degree over a longer period of time, at a local school, and do some landscaping, wait tables, or whatever else scut work needs doing in order to pay that local tuition. Just like people used to do before they were more interested in the fashion statement of a particular degree from a particular place. Nobody is making you spend $20k/year in tuition. A lot of us taxpayers are already subsidizing schools you could use for a lot less. Of course, that money is being made less available to you because some states are now giving it to illegal aliens, instead, not to mention most of them are willing to do hard, un-exciting jobs while they use fraudulant credentials and identiies to use state funds. They may be criminals, but at least they're as whiney as you.
Another problem is no nation has more criminals than the USA
What, per capita? No. You're lying and you know it.
the goal of the prison industrial complex is to make, say, 3% of the population felons per decade.
Yes, that's definitely the case. In your fevered imagination, I mean. That's right up there with "1% of the people own everything."
What happens when people live to 150, that means 45% of the population gets felonized
That's at least misdemeanor extrapolation abuse, possible first degree felony tinfoil-hattery.
So, where did all the productivity go? [blah blah blah billionaires]
It went to "poor" households who none the less have multiple flat-screen TVs and magical wireless communication devices. It went to levels of creature comforts, insanely huge choices of everything from absurdly out-of-season fresh produce to four hundred kinds of sweatpants to wear while wasting time in front of an X-Box. It went to knee replacements, digital cameras, cars with ninety-seven airbags and tires that don't go flat every week, and to vastly fewer jobs that involve back-breaking labor.
You're making the usual nonsensical comparison between productivity then/now without taking into account lifestyle. If people lived like they did before we doubled the workforce and had IT change everything, everyone would be financially sound, living like that time's upper middle class, and be as happy as they would been at the time. But no, we all fritter money away on stuff that people back in your if-only days would have thought stupendously frivalous, and them complain that we can't afford a solid house or retirement the way grandpa could. Live like grandpa, and you'll certainly be able to.
Settle for a house the size he would have built/bought, a single phone, a single TV if he was feeling extravagent, a few vinyl records, board games, a trip to the library for books, and the sure knowledge that simple infections could well be the end of you. Think how happy you'll be! Live like that, and you could bank a fortune, even by today's standards. You're telling people to have perspective, and you have none.
You want things to be "more even," by which you mean you want a lot of people to have less to make you feel better.
OK, so that explains the speakers who talk about peaceful protests not being enough when businesses are involved, and signs that talk about tearing down companies, blah blah blah.
I do like that whole "Fair Share" part, though. Does that mean that the 50% of Americans who pay no incomes are now going to finally have to, like I do? Will the people who not only pay no income taxes, but actually get a "refund" on the taxes they don't pay, finally have to step up and contribute to the society in which they have a vote? Good!
Oh, and the whole fairness doctrine stuff - that's fabulous. Really looking forward to government speech police. And reverseing the CU case? Great idea! It's so much better to go back to a law that allows some people to speak, but makes other people felons for saying the same thing. Excellent! You are a true champion of liberty, with your backing of a government approved free-to-speak list, and it being a crime to express political thoughts, otherwise.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. This isn't, like, Occupy Physics, OK. I just need my phone to work here at this awesome protest so I can Tweet about evil corporations and order some sweet tacos with the Chipotle app on my new iPhone 4S.
I can see how a slashdot person would focus on that aspect of things. But I'm more interested in what that sort of cluelessness says about the rest of these clowns' practical and critical thinking skills as they insist that they know best how to set fiscal policy, fund businesses, hire people, conduct foreign relations, and all the rest. Blah blah blah. Everything would be just, like, you know, great, man, if, like, only the cool people were, like, saying stuff and like there weren't any rules except like, you know, about who has to pedal the phone charger when, you know, like some hot girls show up at the protest.
You really believe that? Were the civil rights protesters during the 60's hypocritical because they wore clothes manufactured by corporations controlled by white people?
Civil rights protestors weren't saying that clothing makers are evil because they incorporate as businesses, they were saying that laws and practices based on skin pigment were. They didn't want to tear down white businesses, they wanted government-sanctioned segregation to end. They wanted to be able run their own businesses without capricious skin-based laws getting in the way of hiring and transacting business. See the difference? The "tear down businesses" people want to end businesses, not start one, or thrive while running one of their own. The civil rights folks didn't want a Nanny State (though some Marxists did use the spotlight to elbow their way into the scene), they wanted equal protection. The current idiots chanting about "fair shares" of things, simply want stuff taken from someone else, and given to them... structurally, permantently, as a way of life. They want slaves.
Were those that fought in the American Revolutionary war hypocritical because they used weapons that were copies of British design?
No, because the cause for which they were fighting wasn't the abolishment of certain musket designs, or the ending of the rights to own them. If they had made ending the use of guns for any reason their cause, then one might note some hypocrisy in using them. But of course that was the last thing they had in mind (rather, one of the things they wanted was - among so many other things - less colonial influence over their right to own and use guns as they saw fit).
Your analogies are way off base. The "occupy" people are - among other things - talking about violence being perhaps necessary to "topple" capitalism. About an actual revolution (at which point we hear thinly veiled references to actual revolutionary war) aimed at eliminating stock markets, centrally controlling jobs and personal earnings, etc. When you spout that sort of crap, and then go and tell a business owner that you want to use his bathroom, but that he's evil for incorporating his pizza shop, you really are dealing actual hypocrites.
So, just to be clear, here, you respond to his perfectly reasonable, informative, and exactly correct information, and say "blah blah blah?"
This is why the "occupy" idiots are going exactly nowhere with anything (except for giving a lot of habitual protesters another venue to talk to themselves and their friends about everything from animal rights to the right to have a podiatrist work for them at no charge) with standing around and mumbling. They, too, can't muster up anything more constructive than, "tear down all successful people" and "blah blah blah." So, you're in good company, anyway.
What if he is? He just made a perfectly good point. These people are standing around sipping their lattes with signs that talk about "toppling" all businesses and whatnot. I'm sure they'll be happy when the case of the clap they got under a blanket at the protest is treated instead with the antibiotics made by the guy down the street with whom they've bartered pumpkin seeds and some hand-drawn manga books, what with The Man and is money-handling and his employees-making-antibiotics-in-actual-laboratories-and-all being Eeeeeeevil.
That you can't pick up on a simple bit of rhetoric... never mind. You did. You just don't like the point he makes, because it's true.
Because then they can at least be warm and comfortable, and not using other people's toilet paper, while not actually accomplishing anything. I mean, it's good news for them, comfort-wise. It's bad news for the people they so hate, because all they're doing it making themselves look and sound ridiculous.
"We demand jobs!"
Ah. That's all it takes! Just demand a job from the people who could be hiring, but who aren't hiring because... don't want to ruin their business and the jobs that it provides to current employees.
"We demand that bankers go to jail!"
Then why aren't they protesting in front of the White House, where the guy who has made the descision not to do anything about that actually lives?
"Leather Shoes Are Murder!"
"Money Is Evil! and, uh,who's running for coffee and a scone?"
"Only Vegans Have The Moral Standing To Vote!"
"Hugo Chavez Has It Right - Nationalize All Media So That The Government Can Only Tell The Truth About How Important And Good They Are!"
"Union Power! Nobody Needs Managers, Financers, Accountants, Legal Teams, Or Anything Else - Just Workers Who Should All Be Rich!"
"Everyone Should Get Everything They Want, Except For The People We Say Shouldn't!"
"US Out Of South Korea! Let North Korea Show They Way!"
"Peaceful Protests Aren't Enough When You're Dealing With Business Owners!"
Yeah, I think the one or two people with the intellectual honesty and integrity to be trying to make anything like a valid point in that crowd will definitely be much better off when all the fair-weather go-to-protests-for-the-food-and-to-rack-up-facebook-friends crowd decide it's a little too chilly out and go away.
Yes, the very same evidence you have (but which you would appear to be anxious to avoid!). Just look at the laundry list of lefty organizations now carrying signs around all of those locations. Follow the money, via their web sites, right back to Tides and several others. MoveOn operates with millions of Soros' dollars, and they're now in the thick of it. Good ol' "AdBusters" (partly financed by Soros) was one of the originators of the whole "occupy" meme, and is busy cheerleading on the topic from Canada.
You can't swing a dead cat at one of these Eat The Rich events without hitting some drone who works for an entity founded or funded by Soros (himself, of course, an extremely rich person, guilty of insider trading and currency manipulation and worse). The irony is great, but unfortunately, he has an actual, toxic agenda, and these people just eat it up because he makes sure they all get t-shirts with logos on them. Alas, he's not writing checks to the restaurants whose restrooms are getting trashed by all of these people. No, those pizza shop owners are The Man, and should torn down! Down with eeeevil business owners, as soon as we use up the rest of their toilet paper, man!
I'm pretty fed up with the GOP bending over backward for Wall Street and weeping about poor Bankers and Wall Street
You do realize you've got that exactly backwards, right? Obama's administration is the one that has chosen not to prosecute anyone in that area, and is the recipient of vast campaign contributions from places like the hedge funds he solicits for support. He's thick as thieves with people in the venture and investment areas, enough to write contracts that favor his buddies on loan repayments over the taxpayers that take most of the risk - clearly illegal. Nice try, though.
We live in a country where [blah blah] and not one person stands trial
So why aren't these clowns protesting the administration that's choosing not to prosecute people over the evidence that you obviously have already collected showing specific crimes by specific people? If it's that easy for you to have proof that a given person should be in jail, and nobody under Eric Holder has managed to come up with that information, then surely you've passed it along? So, isn't it Eric Holder and his boss that should be getting protested, instead of these idiots marching away from the White House, and try to muscle into the Air & Space Museum?
Yet if I were to write a bad check to cover some groceries, I'd be going straight to jail
Actually, you'd be charged $25 by the grocery store, and probably $30 or so by your bank. You know, a fee for being dumb with money.
He was elected to bring us change he refuses to deliver, and we have no way to hold him accountable.
No, he was elected precisely because he refused to be specific about what change it was, and a whole lot of non-critical-thinking people just used him as a blank canvas for their every wish, which is exactly how he played them. And, no way to hold him accountable? You are aware that he's now spending every day campaigning for an election a year from now, and you can choose not to fall for the same game twice, right?
On the other hand, if he's unable, we have a much more serious problem. That means democracy is well and truly dead in this country
Unable to do what, precisely? Deliver on vague, empty hopey changey promises? How does his inability to deliver something that he never defined mean that democracy is dead? He got elected because democracy is alive. Congress just changed hands because it's alive. People who don't like him may very well relieve him of his current job because it's alive and well. If you're not happy about the law enforcement decisions of his AG (who is currently being called out on his direct, purposeful lies to congress about his department's clumsy gun running bust misadventures), then encourage people to protest that guy's boss and his odd decision making in that area.
The corporations have a complete stranglehold on our government. Unfortunately, this is more likely to be the truth.
No, ulitmately that continues to be the same juvenile cartoon villain nonsense that lefties keep trotting out in order to avoid confronting the staggering incompetence of people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama.
No, you were indeed thinking of this outfit. This is about Big Union money, and the thousand arms of George Soros' various lefty initiatives, through which flow millions of dollars to exactly such activity.
A much simpler method is to donate money to the campaigns of politicians. No less corrupt but legal!
>
Just out of curiosity, what is corrupt about supporting a candidate that you think is a better representative for what you think is important than is some other candidate? If I think that somone I like should be able to buy better signage or a more well-oiled campaign web presence, or less cheesy TV ads, etc., what is corrupt about pitching in?
You do realize that nothing was ever taken to court
Once he decided to ramp up his involvement (to personal hands-on in operations) in AQ's murder program, he wisely moved himself out of the US, so that he would be nearly impossible to arrest and subject to law enforcement. That was a deliberate strategy on his part. He was directly involved in ongoing acts of terror, traveling with armed terrorists, and his movement was pointed out to the US by the government of Yemen, who had no interest in or ability to handle him like an arrestable criminal. Likewise it was out of the question to send the FBI into the desert the way they would have been sent into his Northern Virginia home, had he been as involved in AQ operations while still in the US as he became once he moved out.
Things are proven in court during a tial. He arranged things to make such a trial extremely difficult or impossible to arrange, even has he became moreactive in ongoing mass murder attempts. He was stopped. Just like a person who is holding hostages and occasionally lashing out and killing during a bank robbery stand-off is sometimes stopped with violence. People like that don't get a trial, either. Should we no longer have the option use force to stop people in the middle of violent, murderous crime sprees?
has also in reality opened the door to killing ANYONE at ANYTIME for ANY REASON, or no reason at all
What the hell are you talking about? This wasn't the first time this has been done, and won't be the last. And actual human judgement is employed each and every time. What's your point? That people who can wield force might do so for no reason? The exact same thing could be said of reason-less criminal prosecution under more normal circumstances, or of an act of congress authorizing force for (from your point of view) "no reason."
Yes, that's right. Anyone who disagrees with you is a terrorist
No, people who incite, recruit for, help to finance, and (as in Awlawi's case) actively participate in terrorism are terrorists. By definition.
Nevermind that the underwear bomb was hopelessly ill conceived
Ah, so you judge people's morality on their technical expertise, not their intentions? People who attempt murder are OK with you, if the victims survive the attempt? What the hell is wrong with you?
Regardless, the only reason the underwear bomb didn't kill hundreds of people was because the idiot who decided to give his life while murdering for Allah was so nervous that he sweated enough to dampen the device and make it inoperable. An exact recreation of the device, used un-damped, showed that it was perfectly capable of blowing out the side of the aircraft while it was on approach over a large city (it was Awlawi's personal recommendation, by the way, to have the bomber wait until that part of the flight, to cause more deaths). Of course, you know these facts, and you are again lying to in order to defend the man's idealogy.
there was never at any point a forum to discuss them
What opportunity would you give a person killing hostages in a bank to discuss his ongoing crime? If a boatload of Somalis are busy shooting AK-47's and RPGs at the sailors working on a freighter, what venue and process would you propose should be used to "discuss" their ongoing activity before stopping them from killing anyone? When fine fellows like those in AQ strap explosives onto a mentally retarted young woman, whom they have drugged into a near stupor, and send her walking into vegetable market in order to kill and maim dozens of innocent people, what sort of discussion did you have in mind before stopping them, if you have the change right that moment to stop them? They claim credit for such attacks, and Awlawi boasted of his association with, support for, and assistance given to them. You honor and respect him, but don't believe him about that, and about his assertions of continued direct involvement in those acts?
I see. You think he was delusional, and wasn't really running around with armed insurgents in Yemen, but was just sitting in his parent's basement living out a fantasy while communicating with and assisting actual murderers, and then the Eeeeeevil Gummint shipped him to the desert, put him in a convoy of armed AQ militants, and then killed him there as part of an elaborate plot to make you feel bad.
Or is it possible that things are exactly as they seem? AQ is involved in sustained attacks on civilians and government targets in many places around the world, and Awlaki was just what he himself said he was, an ardent supporter, recruiter, and operational assistant in their past, current, and upcoming murders. He left a trail a mile long, but placed himself in a situation where normal law enforcement (such as that used to arrest and try the murderer in Texas to whom gave counsel and support) was out of the question. But you know all of that, too, and are just cranky because your hero, here, got exactly what he deserved through his course of action and the circumstances in which he deliberately placed himself.
The US was not in 'clear and imminent' danger by keeping this nutcase alive.
This unconvincing assertion is at the heart of the matter. But since he's been involved in murders, tried to be involved in many more, and was busy getting involved in new ones (and said that killing lots of Americans was his immediate task), be fits the"imminent" bill nicely.
The fact that you can't tell the difference between someone speaking and someone shooting a weapon speaks volumes to your character.
The fact that you are deliberately pretending that you aren't aware of Awlaki's direct involvement in AQ operations (including the attempted murder of a plane load of people and who knows how many on the ground in Detroit) says a lot about your character, actually. You are lying to defend him. Why is that?
Oh, sorry
No, you're not. You support Awlaki, his agenda, and those who would like more of those deaths to happen. To that end, you're willing to lie. The good news is that it's utterly transparent, so you're not fooling anybody.
When a criminal is holding a gun to the head of an innocent person during a bank robbery, do you consider it "fascism" if, when he's told to put down the gun and instead he kills the hostage and then grabs another, and again points the gun at her head, the police shoot and kill the robber?
How about if, instead of robbing the bank, the person is - for example, a la Beslan - threatening to kill a room full of school kids. Is killing those who are stringing up bombs around the room fascism?
How about a group of guys are who are about to saw the head off of a construction contractor for YouTube in the name of Allah. Given a chance to stop them - with bullets if that's what it would take - fascism?
And what if all of the above were part of a group that does things like that all the time, but hides out in the middle of nowhere, and you'd have to actually mobile troops to go in and get them the brutal, old-fashioned way... or you had a simpler method that would stop them just as thoroughly without any of the rolling-tanks-through-neighborhoods old school stuff? Doing so isn't "fascism" (how old are you, anyway, 12?).
your analogy to an American turncoat fighting for the German army doesn't work
I didn't say "American turncoat" (someone changing one uniform for another). I was describing someone (insufficiently clear on this, I guess) like you or me (I presume you're not in the armed forces?) doing so. Leaving your country to go fight for those that are attacking the country is the same. Really. The looseness of the the organization or nation-state that's doing the attacking doesn't change the moral landscape one bit.
You're confusing that with "stopping cold-blooded killers." And since this particular one was clever enough to no longer operate out of a mosque in Northern Virginia, he mandated a different approach - sending law enforcement officers after him wasn't an option. Which he knew, and took into account when choosing to work on his recruitment and murder campaign using witless recruitees from elsewhere while he tried to stay out of the way. Which didn't work out for him.
OK. Here I go again. How many people die each year in the US because of insufficient medical care
Yes indeed, there you again, assuming that fixing poor medical practices and stopping people who have sworn to kill as many thousands of Americans as possibe are somehow mutually exclusive activities.
Would you pay more attention to a hospital that has a relatively high rate of accidental deaths, or a hospital that appears to have fewer deaths, but those deaths are caused by someone who is deliberately killing people in order to shock everyone into agreeing with him about how there should be no women doctors?
Slashdot Mirror
Because the commander in chief in charge of the missles is also in charge of an extremely muddled foreign policy that is built on mixed premises and contradictions, and which is driven primarily by a which-way-is-the-wind-blowing-today rough take on domestic mood and politics as it relates to re-election. If practical outcomes and saving lives were actually part of the equation, then of course a very different course of action would have been pursued, and much earlier. It's pretty sickening, that's for sure.
But it's a good thing we just send a hundred special forces into combat in Uganda, huh?
That is progress
But if we have to trade that for a future where we can no longer use apostrophes correctly, I'm really torn.
You're missing the point. The population growth rate would plummet. Just like it is right now in the western world, where if it weren't for immigration, the population would be shrinking dramatically.
ll my life I've been told I'm being held back because of the huge cohort of baby boomers
What a bunch of whiney claptrap. You should be doing something that those people want to buy instead of pouting over the fact that nobody is giving to you something that you imagine is being given to someone else.
I/we have to sit thru another 60 excruciatingly boring years?
Yes, it's always someone else's fault that you're bored. What are you, 12 years old? "The world owes me excitement! Interestingness is being kept from me by other people! Wahhh!"
now it just means unemployment plus student loans instead of just unemployment
Only if you're stupid enough to get deeply into debt to take some classes. Suck it up and earn your degree over a longer period of time, at a local school, and do some landscaping, wait tables, or whatever else scut work needs doing in order to pay that local tuition. Just like people used to do before they were more interested in the fashion statement of a particular degree from a particular place. Nobody is making you spend $20k/year in tuition. A lot of us taxpayers are already subsidizing schools you could use for a lot less. Of course, that money is being made less available to you because some states are now giving it to illegal aliens, instead, not to mention most of them are willing to do hard, un-exciting jobs while they use fraudulant credentials and identiies to use state funds. They may be criminals, but at least they're as whiney as you.
Another problem is no nation has more criminals than the USA
What, per capita? No. You're lying and you know it.
the goal of the prison industrial complex is to make, say, 3% of the population felons per decade.
Yes, that's definitely the case. In your fevered imagination, I mean. That's right up there with "1% of the people own everything."
What happens when people live to 150, that means 45% of the population gets felonized
That's at least misdemeanor extrapolation abuse, possible first degree felony tinfoil-hattery.
So, where did all the productivity go? [blah blah blah billionaires]
It went to "poor" households who none the less have multiple flat-screen TVs and magical wireless communication devices. It went to levels of creature comforts, insanely huge choices of everything from absurdly out-of-season fresh produce to four hundred kinds of sweatpants to wear while wasting time in front of an X-Box. It went to knee replacements, digital cameras, cars with ninety-seven airbags and tires that don't go flat every week, and to vastly fewer jobs that involve back-breaking labor.
You're making the usual nonsensical comparison between productivity then/now without taking into account lifestyle. If people lived like they did before we doubled the workforce and had IT change everything, everyone would be financially sound, living like that time's upper middle class, and be as happy as they would been at the time. But no, we all fritter money away on stuff that people back in your if-only days would have thought stupendously frivalous, and them complain that we can't afford a solid house or retirement the way grandpa could. Live like grandpa, and you'll certainly be able to.
Settle for a house the size he would have built/bought, a single phone, a single TV if he was feeling extravagent, a few vinyl records, board games, a trip to the library for books, and the sure knowledge that simple infections could well be the end of you. Think how happy you'll be! Live like that, and you could bank a fortune, even by today's standards. You're telling people to have perspective, and you have none.
You want things to be "more even," by which you mean you want a lot of people to have less to make you feel better.
OK, so that explains the speakers who talk about peaceful protests not being enough when businesses are involved, and signs that talk about tearing down companies, blah blah blah.
I do like that whole "Fair Share" part, though. Does that mean that the 50% of Americans who pay no incomes are now going to finally have to, like I do? Will the people who not only pay no income taxes, but actually get a "refund" on the taxes they don't pay, finally have to step up and contribute to the society in which they have a vote? Good!
Oh, and the whole fairness doctrine stuff - that's fabulous. Really looking forward to government speech police. And reverseing the CU case? Great idea! It's so much better to go back to a law that allows some people to speak, but makes other people felons for saying the same thing. Excellent! You are a true champion of liberty, with your backing of a government approved free-to-speak list, and it being a crime to express political thoughts, otherwise.
Well, that's just, like, your opinion, man. This isn't, like, Occupy Physics, OK. I just need my phone to work here at this awesome protest so I can Tweet about evil corporations and order some sweet tacos with the Chipotle app on my new iPhone 4S.
I can see how a slashdot person would focus on that aspect of things. But I'm more interested in what that sort of cluelessness says about the rest of these clowns' practical and critical thinking skills as they insist that they know best how to set fiscal policy, fund businesses, hire people, conduct foreign relations, and all the rest. Blah blah blah. Everything would be just, like, you know, great, man, if, like, only the cool people were, like, saying stuff and like there weren't any rules except like, you know, about who has to pedal the phone charger when, you know, like some hot girls show up at the protest.
You really believe that? Were the civil rights protesters during the 60's hypocritical because they wore clothes manufactured by corporations controlled by white people?
Civil rights protestors weren't saying that clothing makers are evil because they incorporate as businesses, they were saying that laws and practices based on skin pigment were. They didn't want to tear down white businesses, they wanted government-sanctioned segregation to end. They wanted to be able run their own businesses without capricious skin-based laws getting in the way of hiring and transacting business. See the difference? The "tear down businesses" people want to end businesses, not start one, or thrive while running one of their own. The civil rights folks didn't want a Nanny State (though some Marxists did use the spotlight to elbow their way into the scene), they wanted equal protection. The current idiots chanting about "fair shares" of things, simply want stuff taken from someone else, and given to them ... structurally, permantently, as a way of life. They want slaves.
Were those that fought in the American Revolutionary war hypocritical because they used weapons that were copies of British design?
No, because the cause for which they were fighting wasn't the abolishment of certain musket designs, or the ending of the rights to own them. If they had made ending the use of guns for any reason their cause, then one might note some hypocrisy in using them. But of course that was the last thing they had in mind (rather, one of the things they wanted was - among so many other things - less colonial influence over their right to own and use guns as they saw fit).
Your analogies are way off base. The "occupy" people are - among other things - talking about violence being perhaps necessary to "topple" capitalism. About an actual revolution (at which point we hear thinly veiled references to actual revolutionary war) aimed at eliminating stock markets, centrally controlling jobs and personal earnings, etc. When you spout that sort of crap, and then go and tell a business owner that you want to use his bathroom, but that he's evil for incorporating his pizza shop, you really are dealing actual hypocrites.
So, just to be clear, here, you respond to his perfectly reasonable, informative, and exactly correct information, and say "blah blah blah?"
This is why the "occupy" idiots are going exactly nowhere with anything (except for giving a lot of habitual protesters another venue to talk to themselves and their friends about everything from animal rights to the right to have a podiatrist work for them at no charge) with standing around and mumbling. They, too, can't muster up anything more constructive than, "tear down all successful people" and "blah blah blah." So, you're in good company, anyway.
What if he is? He just made a perfectly good point. These people are standing around sipping their lattes with signs that talk about "toppling" all businesses and whatnot. I'm sure they'll be happy when the case of the clap they got under a blanket at the protest is treated instead with the antibiotics made by the guy down the street with whom they've bartered pumpkin seeds and some hand-drawn manga books, what with The Man and is money-handling and his employees-making-antibiotics-in-actual-laboratories-and-all being Eeeeeeevil.
... never mind. You did. You just don't like the point he makes, because it's true.
That you can't pick up on a simple bit of rhetoric
Because then they can at least be warm and comfortable, and not using other people's toilet paper, while not actually accomplishing anything. I mean, it's good news for them, comfort-wise. It's bad news for the people they so hate, because all they're doing it making themselves look and sound ridiculous.
... don't want to ruin their business and the jobs that it provides to current employees.
"We demand jobs!"
Ah. That's all it takes! Just demand a job from the people who could be hiring, but who aren't hiring because
"We demand that bankers go to jail!"
Then why aren't they protesting in front of the White House, where the guy who has made the descision not to do anything about that actually lives?
"Leather Shoes Are Murder!"
"Money Is Evil! and, uh,who's running for coffee and a scone?"
"Only Vegans Have The Moral Standing To Vote!"
"Hugo Chavez Has It Right - Nationalize All Media So That The Government Can Only Tell The Truth About How Important And Good They Are!"
"Union Power! Nobody Needs Managers, Financers, Accountants, Legal Teams, Or Anything Else - Just Workers Who Should All Be Rich!"
"Everyone Should Get Everything They Want, Except For The People We Say Shouldn't!"
"US Out Of South Korea! Let North Korea Show They Way!"
"Peaceful Protests Aren't Enough When You're Dealing With Business Owners!"
Yeah, I think the one or two people with the intellectual honesty and integrity to be trying to make anything like a valid point in that crowd will definitely be much better off when all the fair-weather go-to-protests-for-the-food-and-to-rack-up-facebook-friends crowd decide it's a little too chilly out and go away.
Do you have actual evidence for this claim
Yes, the very same evidence you have (but which you would appear to be anxious to avoid!). Just look at the laundry list of lefty organizations now carrying signs around all of those locations. Follow the money, via their web sites, right back to Tides and several others. MoveOn operates with millions of Soros' dollars, and they're now in the thick of it. Good ol' "AdBusters" (partly financed by Soros) was one of the originators of the whole "occupy" meme, and is busy cheerleading on the topic from Canada.
You can't swing a dead cat at one of these Eat The Rich events without hitting some drone who works for an entity founded or funded by Soros (himself, of course, an extremely rich person, guilty of insider trading and currency manipulation and worse). The irony is great, but unfortunately, he has an actual, toxic agenda, and these people just eat it up because he makes sure they all get t-shirts with logos on them. Alas, he's not writing checks to the restaurants whose restrooms are getting trashed by all of these people. No, those pizza shop owners are The Man, and should torn down! Down with eeeevil business owners, as soon as we use up the rest of their toilet paper, man!
I'm pretty fed up with the GOP bending over backward for Wall Street and weeping about poor Bankers and Wall Street
You do realize you've got that exactly backwards, right? Obama's administration is the one that has chosen not to prosecute anyone in that area, and is the recipient of vast campaign contributions from places like the hedge funds he solicits for support. He's thick as thieves with people in the venture and investment areas, enough to write contracts that favor his buddies on loan repayments over the taxpayers that take most of the risk - clearly illegal. Nice try, though.
We live in a country where [blah blah] and not one person stands trial
So why aren't these clowns protesting the administration that's choosing not to prosecute people over the evidence that you obviously have already collected showing specific crimes by specific people? If it's that easy for you to have proof that a given person should be in jail, and nobody under Eric Holder has managed to come up with that information, then surely you've passed it along? So, isn't it Eric Holder and his boss that should be getting protested, instead of these idiots marching away from the White House, and try to muscle into the Air & Space Museum?
Yet if I were to write a bad check to cover some groceries, I'd be going straight to jail
Actually, you'd be charged $25 by the grocery store, and probably $30 or so by your bank. You know, a fee for being dumb with money.
He was elected to bring us change he refuses to deliver, and we have no way to hold him accountable.
No, he was elected precisely because he refused to be specific about what change it was, and a whole lot of non-critical-thinking people just used him as a blank canvas for their every wish, which is exactly how he played them. And, no way to hold him accountable? You are aware that he's now spending every day campaigning for an election a year from now, and you can choose not to fall for the same game twice, right?
On the other hand, if he's unable, we have a much more serious problem. That means democracy is well and truly dead in this country
Unable to do what, precisely? Deliver on vague, empty hopey changey promises? How does his inability to deliver something that he never defined mean that democracy is dead? He got elected because democracy is alive. Congress just changed hands because it's alive. People who don't like him may very well relieve him of his current job because it's alive and well. If you're not happy about the law enforcement decisions of his AG (who is currently being called out on his direct, purposeful lies to congress about his department's clumsy gun running bust misadventures), then encourage people to protest that guy's boss and his odd decision making in that area.
The corporations have a complete stranglehold on our government. Unfortunately, this is more likely to be the truth.
No, ulitmately that continues to be the same juvenile cartoon villain nonsense that lefties keep trotting out in order to avoid confronting the staggering incompetence of people like Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Obama.
No, you were indeed thinking of this outfit. This is about Big Union money, and the thousand arms of George Soros' various lefty initiatives, through which flow millions of dollars to exactly such activity.
Actually, the erosion I've noticed is in the awareness that it's people that form, invest in, work for, and patronize companies.
A much simpler method is to donate money to the campaigns of politicians. No less corrupt but legal!
>
Just out of curiosity, what is corrupt about supporting a candidate that you think is a better representative for what you think is important than is some other candidate? If I think that somone I like should be able to buy better signage or a more well-oiled campaign web presence, or less cheesy TV ads, etc., what is corrupt about pitching in?
You do realize that nothing was ever taken to court
Once he decided to ramp up his involvement (to personal hands-on in operations) in AQ's murder program, he wisely moved himself out of the US, so that he would be nearly impossible to arrest and subject to law enforcement. That was a deliberate strategy on his part. He was directly involved in ongoing acts of terror, traveling with armed terrorists, and his movement was pointed out to the US by the government of Yemen, who had no interest in or ability to handle him like an arrestable criminal. Likewise it was out of the question to send the FBI into the desert the way they would have been sent into his Northern Virginia home, had he been as involved in AQ operations while still in the US as he became once he moved out.
Things are proven in court during a tial. He arranged things to make such a trial extremely difficult or impossible to arrange, even has he became moreactive in ongoing mass murder attempts. He was stopped. Just like a person who is holding hostages and occasionally lashing out and killing during a bank robbery stand-off is sometimes stopped with violence. People like that don't get a trial, either. Should we no longer have the option use force to stop people in the middle of violent, murderous crime sprees?
has also in reality opened the door to killing ANYONE at ANYTIME for ANY REASON, or no reason at all
What the hell are you talking about? This wasn't the first time this has been done, and won't be the last. And actual human judgement is employed each and every time. What's your point? That people who can wield force might do so for no reason? The exact same thing could be said of reason-less criminal prosecution under more normal circumstances, or of an act of congress authorizing force for (from your point of view) "no reason."
I hope you are proud of yourself, American slave.
What are you, twelve years old?
Yes, that's right. Anyone who disagrees with you is a terrorist
No, people who incite, recruit for, help to finance, and (as in Awlawi's case) actively participate in terrorism are terrorists. By definition.
Nevermind that the underwear bomb was hopelessly ill conceived
Ah, so you judge people's morality on their technical expertise, not their intentions? People who attempt murder are OK with you, if the victims survive the attempt? What the hell is wrong with you?
Regardless, the only reason the underwear bomb didn't kill hundreds of people was because the idiot who decided to give his life while murdering for Allah was so nervous that he sweated enough to dampen the device and make it inoperable. An exact recreation of the device, used un-damped, showed that it was perfectly capable of blowing out the side of the aircraft while it was on approach over a large city (it was Awlawi's personal recommendation, by the way, to have the bomber wait until that part of the flight, to cause more deaths). Of course, you know these facts, and you are again lying to in order to defend the man's idealogy.
there was never at any point a forum to discuss them
What opportunity would you give a person killing hostages in a bank to discuss his ongoing crime? If a boatload of Somalis are busy shooting AK-47's and RPGs at the sailors working on a freighter, what venue and process would you propose should be used to "discuss" their ongoing activity before stopping them from killing anyone? When fine fellows like those in AQ strap explosives onto a mentally retarted young woman, whom they have drugged into a near stupor, and send her walking into vegetable market in order to kill and maim dozens of innocent people, what sort of discussion did you have in mind before stopping them, if you have the change right that moment to stop them? They claim credit for such attacks, and Awlawi boasted of his association with, support for, and assistance given to them. You honor and respect him, but don't believe him about that, and about his assertions of continued direct involvement in those acts?
I see. You think he was delusional, and wasn't really running around with armed insurgents in Yemen, but was just sitting in his parent's basement living out a fantasy while communicating with and assisting actual murderers, and then the Eeeeeevil Gummint shipped him to the desert, put him in a convoy of armed AQ militants, and then killed him there as part of an elaborate plot to make you feel bad.
Or is it possible that things are exactly as they seem? AQ is involved in sustained attacks on civilians and government targets in many places around the world, and Awlaki was just what he himself said he was, an ardent supporter, recruiter, and operational assistant in their past, current, and upcoming murders. He left a trail a mile long, but placed himself in a situation where normal law enforcement (such as that used to arrest and try the murderer in Texas to whom gave counsel and support) was out of the question. But you know all of that, too, and are just cranky because your hero, here, got exactly what he deserved through his course of action and the circumstances in which he deliberately placed himself.
The US was not in 'clear and imminent' danger by keeping this nutcase alive.
This unconvincing assertion is at the heart of the matter. But since he's been involved in murders, tried to be involved in many more, and was busy getting involved in new ones (and said that killing lots of Americans was his immediate task), be fits the"imminent" bill nicely.
The fact that you can't tell the difference between someone speaking and someone shooting a weapon speaks volumes to your character.
The fact that you are deliberately pretending that you aren't aware of Awlaki's direct involvement in AQ operations (including the attempted murder of a plane load of people and who knows how many on the ground in Detroit) says a lot about your character, actually. You are lying to defend him. Why is that?
Oh, sorry
No, you're not. You support Awlaki, his agenda, and those who would like more of those deaths to happen. To that end, you're willing to lie. The good news is that it's utterly transparent, so you're not fooling anybody.
When a criminal is holding a gun to the head of an innocent person during a bank robbery, do you consider it "fascism" if, when he's told to put down the gun and instead he kills the hostage and then grabs another, and again points the gun at her head, the police shoot and kill the robber?
How about if, instead of robbing the bank, the person is - for example, a la Beslan - threatening to kill a room full of school kids. Is killing those who are stringing up bombs around the room fascism?
How about a group of guys are who are about to saw the head off of a construction contractor for YouTube in the name of Allah. Given a chance to stop them - with bullets if that's what it would take - fascism?
And what if all of the above were part of a group that does things like that all the time, but hides out in the middle of nowhere, and you'd have to actually mobile troops to go in and get them the brutal, old-fashioned way... or you had a simpler method that would stop them just as thoroughly without any of the rolling-tanks-through-neighborhoods old school stuff? Doing so isn't "fascism" (how old are you, anyway, 12?).
your analogy to an American turncoat fighting for the German army doesn't work
I didn't say "American turncoat" (someone changing one uniform for another). I was describing someone (insufficiently clear on this, I guess) like you or me (I presume you're not in the armed forces?) doing so. Leaving your country to go fight for those that are attacking the country is the same. Really. The looseness of the the organization or nation-state that's doing the attacking doesn't change the moral landscape one bit.
stooping to the level of cold-blooded killers
You're confusing that with "stopping cold-blooded killers." And since this particular one was clever enough to no longer operate out of a mosque in Northern Virginia, he mandated a different approach - sending law enforcement officers after him wasn't an option. Which he knew, and took into account when choosing to work on his recruitment and murder campaign using witless recruitees from elsewhere while he tried to stay out of the way. Which didn't work out for him.
OK. Here I go again. How many people die each year in the US because of insufficient medical care
Yes indeed, there you again, assuming that fixing poor medical practices and stopping people who have sworn to kill as many thousands of Americans as possibe are somehow mutually exclusive activities.
Would you pay more attention to a hospital that has a relatively high rate of accidental deaths, or a hospital that appears to have fewer deaths, but those deaths are caused by someone who is deliberately killing people in order to shock everyone into agreeing with him about how there should be no women doctors?