Posted on 10/01/2012 11:59:20 AM PDT by AmericanSamurai
Former presidential contender and billionaire Ross Perot is worried that America is a sitting duck for an unnamed foreign invader. In an interview for his new autobiography, Perot said the nation's weak economy has left us open for a hostile takeover—and neither presidential candidate is the man to save the country.
Citing an impending fiscal cliff, Perot warned of disaster. "If we are that weak, just think of who wants to come here first and take us over," the former CEO of info-tech company Perot Systems told USA Today on Monday.
"The last thing I ever want to see is our country taken over because we're so financially weak, we can't do anything," Perot says.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Would be nice. I think a Vlad the Impaler would be wonders too. He definitely knew how to handle invaders.
I’m with you on the military power of the USA. What we need to watch for is creeping socialism. It’s boiling the pot now.
If the other frogs in the pot don’t jump out with the rest of us then they will be become lunch.
“If a country has nukes, which we do”
Of course if Hussein gets his way we’ll be left with 300 - 400 warheads.
Thank you Captain Obvious.
Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.
It was true in 1838, it is far more true today.
He also pointed out how we could fail, and it's not by foreign conquest.
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/lyceum.htm
You are posting exactly my thoughts of just a few years ago. But now things look a bit different.
Let's game this out from one other possible avenue.
First off, we don't own property if we owe property taxes.
We are merely renting it. Stop paying property tax (in federal dollars) and the local sheriff will come evict you.
Now suppose that Bernanke inflates us enough to where local towns have to raise property taxes to extraordinary levels you can't afford.
Well, they won't evict everyone, but the feds will certainly come in to "save the day" with a bailout just like every other crisis, to solve a problem that they created.
This will be a bailout or perhaps a collateral swap which will pay local governments lost tax revenue (to keep the sheriff busy confiscating) and which might also be crafted to magically pay down federal obligations to foreign creditors.
US: Hey China, we'll swap your bonds for a tranche of these New Fangled Property Tax Debt Obligations.
CHINA: Or what?
US: Or we'll keep inflating higher and erase your debt without a trace.
CHINA: OK, but what if the property owners default anyhow? Can I have the land?
US: No, that'd be like some invasion thing. We couldn't sell it overtly.
US: No worries, though. We can structure that anyhow. We'll just consolidate it here to a US-based bank balance sheet or such, and pay you from the next owner's equity. You're golden.
There's a lot of valuable "rental" property in America to be "had" this way. Foreign powers can't take it directly, and they don't want to have to destroy it (other than the muzzies), but they'd love to be co-landlords with the USGOV, Inc.--enforced by the US National Guard etc.
WWII began with a bunch of novel sneak attack tactics (Blitzkreig, Pearl Harbor). WWIII may not require any military, but it will be a sudden "how'd that happen" attack, I suspect.
“and then who you gonna’ call?”
Holy ghostbusters?
300 warheads would be more than enough to repel any possible invasion. Probably 100 would or even 50.
The reason for having a lot of warheads was never to use them to repel a conventional invasion. It was to have enough left over after a surprise first strike nuclear attack to ensure the attacker would also be destroyed. MADD.
It is doubtful even Russia has enough functioning nukes to launch a successful first strike.
I think a lot of people get confused about military power. It is always relative. It’s not absolute power that counts, it’s your military force relative to that of a potential enemy. While we may holler at each other, nobody seriously believes Britain or any of the western or central European countries would attack us.
So our potential enemies who have both possible intent and capability of attacking us with nukes are very limited.
Russia could, if willing to be destroyed itself, pretty much destroy the US at any time. I think it’s highly unlikely they’re nuts enough to do so. And there are serious doubts about how many of their missiles and warheads would actually function.
China has enough nukes to do major damage to USA, again if willing to be destroyed in return. They don’t have missile capacity to hit most of US.
No other potentially hostile (Pakistan, Iran, N Korea) nuclear power has both nukes and missile capacity. So like China they’d have to smuggle them into US. While by no means impossible, this is obviously a lot more likely to fail than a missile attack. And it would by definition pretty much be a terrorist attack, not a realistic attempt to destroy us. Nobody is going to be able to smuggle in 100 warheads.
While Iran (or rather the Iranian leaders) might very well be willing to be destroyed in response, I don’t think the others are, though Lord only knows who’ll be in control in Pakistan next week.
I really don’t think either India or Israel, like the European powers, would consider attacking us.
Last time I checked we stol had hikes. Plus, a gun behind every blade of grass, or however it is put.
“Invasion” references sovereignty.
What you are talking about is who has “ownership” of a piece of property within that sovereignty. Very different concepts.
I recall how back in the 80s the Japanese were going to “take over” America by buying all the property. LOL
Of all American presidents, do you know which was one most in favor of total nuclear disarmament?
Ronaldus Magnus.
Exactly. No foreign power is going to need to invade us if the sovereign government merely hands over "rent" that the US collects.
If your standard of living gets cut in half to merely hold on to your current property, or worse, you are forced to decide to sell and move to lesser circumstances while the foreign creditors get paid back through your taxes, you'll just "LOL" and insist that you're a free man because the USN is still making port calls in San Fran?
Oh horsecrap. Have you read about his take on Rekjavik in "An American Life?"
The next president most likely to start WWIII since JFK, by his own admission in his own memoirs was RWR.
“We seek the total elimination one day of nuclear weapons from the face of the Earth.” — Ronald Reagan, Inaugural Address, 1985
“Our moral imperative is to work with all our powers for that day when the children of the world grow up without the fear of nuclear war.” — Ronald Reagan, from “Reagan’s Secret War” by Martin and Annelise Anderson
“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. The only value in our two nations possessing nuclear weapons is to make sure they will never be used. But then would it not be better to do away with them entirely?” — Ronald Reagan, 1984 State of the Union
“I know that there are a great many people who are pointing to the unimaginable horror of nuclear war... To those who protest against nuclear war, I can only say, ‘I’m with you.’” Lettow also quotes Reagan as stating, “My dream is to see the day when nuclear weapons will be banished from the face of the Earth.” — Ronald Reagan, from “Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Weapons,” by Paul Lettow
“I can’t believe that this world can go on beyond our generation and on down to succeeding generations with this kind of weapon on both sides poised at each other without someday, some fool, or some maniac, or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all of us. And I just think of what a sigh of relief would go up from everyone on this Earth if someday— and this is what I have— my hope, way in the back of my head— is that if we start down the road to reduction, maybe one day in doing that, somebody will say, ‘Why not all the way? Let’s get rid of all these things’.” — Ronald Reagan, May 16, 1983
“My central arms control objective has been to reduce substantially and ultimately to eliminate nuclear weapons and rid the world of the nuclear threat. The prevention of the spread of nuclear explosives is to additional countries is an indispensable part of our efforts to meet this objective. I intend to continue my pursuit of this goal with untiring determination and a profound sense of personal commitment.” — Ronald Reagan, March 25, 1988, Message to Congress on the NPT
http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/13749-ronald-reagan-republicans-and-nuclear-weapons
Your 1984 SOU quote was just a few months after Reagan pulled the troops out of Beirut. In it he was making a political gesture to blunt the leftist criticism that he was an Scary Barry Goldwater II. Of course he wasn't, but he wasn't a disarmament fan either.
That was a politician and strategist playing a part for global consumption while inside at the NSC meetings, they all knew damn well that the Russians couldn't go for a "zero option."
Reagan made it very clear throughout his career that he was in favor of complete elimination of nuclear weapons. Personally, I don't believe this was his most brilliant position, as I think it almost certain that without nukes we would by now have had WWIII and possibly WWIV or more.
And of course we can't get rid of nukes, because too many people know how to make them. Enforcing such a rule would require the strictest of totalitarian control, and then it probably wouldn't work.
So your position is that for a decade or more Reagan lied to the American people and the world about his goal of ridding the world of nuclear weapons? BTW, there are lots of other quotes.
Absolutely. It's called geopolitical strategy. Good presidents are good at that kind of thing.
And you base this conclusion on what? Your innate ability to see into his soul? Or your assumption that he couldn’t possibly have held different beliefs than you do?
Anyone who actually has the power to DO SOMETHING, rather than just talk about ideals is necessarily a REALIST.
Any sane person would like to see the Nuke Genie back into the bottle. Duh.
IF they can all keep their advantages.
Reagan was not committed to unilateral disarmament, so he continued along with the nuclear reality.
He also spoke out against the tragedy of abortion, but it was beyond his control. In reality there were about 1.5-1.6million abortions in the USA for each of his 8 years.
So he changed the name of the SALT talks from "limitation" to "reduction." But it wasn't "elimination." Because that's not realistic.
He was a good leader because he pointed the direction toward an idealistic goal, but he labored daily in the real world and very well risked the nuclear war he was worried about on a bluff in Rekjavik over SDI. And good on him for it!
Or your assumption that he couldn’t possibly have held different beliefs than you do?
Does it bother you that he could possibly have had identical beliefs as me?
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