“Meanwhile, our Rules of Engagement have hamstrung our ability to effectively strike those targets.”
Agreed we’re hamstrung. Tactical nukes should have been used in some cases instead of losing troops in the past 8 years. We’ve lost too many so far due to trying to please the world.
“You’ve been here for six months and you’re trying to label FReepers as “Haters.””
Never said that, not sure where you came up with that. Go back to “1” for what I actually said. There are some on here (just like is to be expected) that are indeed “haters”, but when you say “FReepers as Haters” you imply I’m calling them all that.
“I’ll bet you’ve never served in the US Armed Forces. If you found “hatred” anywhere in my post you must be excessively thin-skinned and would wilt away in a heart beat.”
Oh, so you’re one of the “if you’ve never served in the military...” crowd. You haven’t a clue about my life or how close to death I’ve come or if I’ve ever been courageous in my life. Don’t speculate, your crystal ball isn’t very accurate.
“Again you peaked my curiosity, what did Barack Hussein Obama do right? When you respond, remember that personal triumphs during his endless vacations don’t count.”
You read my answer and commented without objecting.
Also, double check the definition of fascist before you throw the term around so loosely. That word is generally associated with right wing extremist, not the left.
Not sure who Darkwing (person you keep copying) is that you’re waiting to come help in your argument, but tell them I said hi.
“Ann Coulter”
She’s no hero of mine, she’s trying to sell books and using hatred to do so. If she’s a mentor of yours, you might want to reconsider.
Please man, slow down on your posts. 5 to my 1? Did I really get your goat that badly? No way I’ll take the time to respond to everything.
Happy New Year!
You don't seem to have actually responded; rather, you seem to skirt around issues. That's a common tactic for those with weak arguments.
You don't know who Darkwing is, after six months on FR? Darkwing manages the Zot pinglist. FReepers ping Darkwing when they suspect a Troll.
Epic
Put down the Kool-Aid and back away from the keyboard.
Here's what Benito Mussolini had to say about Fascism:
" Anti-individualistic, the Fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in so far as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal, will of man as a historic entity (11). It is opposed to classical liberalism which arose as a reaction to absolutism and exhausted its historical function when the State became the expression of the conscience and will of the people. Liberalism denied the State in the name of the individual; Fascism reasserts The rights of the State as expressing the real essence of the individual (12). And if liberty is to he the attribute of living men and not of abstract dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then Fascism stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the liberty of the State and of the individual within the State (13). The Fascist conception of the State is all embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State - a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values - interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people (14)."
True, Fascism rejects Communism: but only because it substitutes the State for the Party, and sees militarism as an end in itself, and not just to promote the Party. Fascism also rejects the "class struggle" of the Marxist as the hidden mainspring of history:
Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle. Fascism is likewise opposed to trade unionism as a class weapon. But when brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State (16).
But the thing which makes Fascim leftist is that it does not allow for representative democracy as we know it -- as the following makes clear:
Grouped according to their several interests, individuals form classes; they form trade-unions when organized according to their several economic activities; but first and foremost they form the State, which is no mere matter of numbers, the suns of the individuals forming the majority. Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number (17); but it is the purest form of democracy if the nation be considered as it should be from the point of view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and ending to express itself in the conscience and the will of the mass, of the whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical conditions into a nation, advancing, as one conscience and one will, along the self same line of development and spiritual formation (18). Not a race, nor a geographically defined region, but a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will to power, self-consciousness, personality (19).
This immediately brings to mind the Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer of Adolph Hitler; and it is completely unlike the "Melting Pot" of the United States.
Do keep in mind that the objection to large numbers of immigrants is not that they have a different language or color: it is that they (with the aid of Marxists and Democrats, but I repeat myself) refuse to assimilate, and do not voluntarily join in internalizing and promoting American values.
Which ties into "what did Obama do right?" Not much; and certainly, bowing is not one of the things he did right. Americans DO NOT BOW.
Cheers! Nice try, though.
Cheers!
Tactical nukes are good for fixed targets, armoured columns, chokepoints such as a bridge with divisions massing behind it. Not so good for scattered groups of guerillas who blend into and hide among an indigent civilian population.
And of course, have you considered the untoward consequences should one of our tactical nukes gets captured by jihadists? We can't just assume that they'd apologize and hand it back, can we? /sarc>
Cheers!
Hu R U?
“Also, double check the definition of fascist before you throw the term around so loosely. That word is generally associated with right wing extremist, not the left.”
______________________________________________________________
Let’s look at the political spectrum. The political spectrum is a construct, while a population distribution chart’s bell curve comes from the actual positions of actual people on a particular subject. The idea of a spectrum, with ‘extremes’ surrounding a ‘moderate’ position, sounds reasonable because it sounds like a bell curve, and implies that most people are found in the middle. However, an artificial spectrum that dictates the result, like the ‘political spectrum,’ is just like a push poll in place of an actual opinion poll.
The political spectrum taught to American high-school civics students has Communism, Socialism, Democracy, and Fascism shown “from left to right.” Therefore, moving from the Democratic Party (sorry, Democracy) to Socialism is just moderation, and certainly nothing to be worried about. The need to move left is even more pronounced when Fascism is removed from the spectrum because no decent person should be that far right (watch out for those Republicans!) Supposedly, this spectrum has survived ever since its beginning in the French revolution, when defenders of the king sat on the right and the Terrorists sat on the left. Its application to American politics, if any, is never explained.
Political choices for Americans amounted to a simple ‘free’ against the various flavors of ‘not free’ in the 20th century. Did Hitler try to restore the Kaiser to power? Of course not; Hitler was never on the right side of the spectrum. “Fascism” obscures the truth of the Nazi party: “Nazi” is a contraction of “National Socialist.” That means that socialists are both on the left and right of “Democracy,” and the whole concept of a spectrum is fatally flawed.
“Oh, but they weren’t real socialists!” I can hear victims of high-school civics crying in shock. Yes, Virginia, they really were, just like the New Dealers here in America, and the Apartheid regime in South Africa. The Russian and Chinese Communists also worked to nurture socialism. That this is embarrassing to modern political parties does not change history. (I haven’t read it yet, so I don’t know how deeply he discusses other countries, but Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism is sure to discuss these connections and embarrassments in America in a detailed and entertaining way.)