Posted on 01/01/2005 1:59:30 PM PST by Pikamax
There's definitely a long list of freepers to avoid. We should compare notes sometime. LOL
A lot of these people are leftists who come here pretending to be conservatives. Read the book for which Jim Robinson wrote the foreward and was mentioned prominently "Hillary's Secret War". How they operate is all outlined in that book.
One thing's for certain -- many of the folks who are loudly complaining about the relatively small amount of taxpayer dollars being spent on this particular (and much needed) relief effort are relatively silent when it comes to the monstrous waste of taxpayer funds in other spheres. Consistent, they're not.
But there may be critically wounded who need to be evacuated...it is a tough call...
That's for sure.
Actually, the most offensive stuff I've ever seen on FR was on this very subject. I'd also point out that "foreign aid" & "disaster relief" might easily be two different things.
Peach, I've read some of those threads too. The majority posting on those threads are debating whether it's constitutional for our tax monies to be spent for emergency aid.
Ignore them. After all, they don't have the military helicopters to make the food drops or to get needed supplies to those most in need.
I've also read a few posting on various threads saying we shouldn't help anyone who practices Islam. At times I've wanted to respond by asking them how we should differentiate between religous beliefs. Again, my best advice to you is to ignore those bigots.
I'm with you in that I can't begin to imagine how big this devastation is. It boggles my mind. I read the thread where 3 people hiked for 5 days and never saw another live human being. I try my best to put myself in that position by imagining what it would be like to experience that along the Gulf Coast and my mind can't grasp that amount of devastation. It breaks my heart.
Very often I do just ignore those Constitutional purists and faux freepers but sometimes I fear their ignorant comments reflect so badly on Free Republic, and we're quoted so often now in the MSM, that I want to have a counter-balance to the uglier threads and posts.
Happy New Year, Sally.
I replied that our contribution was the largest of all contributing nations, and that we even increased the pledge tenfold from $35 million to $350 million.
She agreed, but reminded me that "per capita, we're not the biggest contributors when compared to the Europeans". I replied that might be relevant if America didn't have more Irish than Ireland and more Germans than Germany. We've got more Scots than Scotland, and the list goes on and on. Besides, if the several dozen citizens of the wealthy little kingdom state of Liechtenstein each sacrificed a gold bracelet to the relief efforts, was she saying that would make Liechtenstein the world's most generous nation although it wouldn't make much difference in the grand scale of the relief effort?
Okay, she reluctantly agreed with that point too, and then I asked her whose aid would actually get to the victims first; America's, the United Nations', or the EU's?
Fast forward to video of US Marine CH-53 Sea Stallions, Sea Knights, and Seahawk choppers delivering at from offshore US Navy Maritime Naval Prepositioning ships. Who's got amphibious forces that can deliver the goods at a moment's notice anywhere in the world and essentially set up a small city anywhere we want? The United States, or Finland? Where's Kofi Annan's naval rapid reaction force, and can he captain them from the ski slopes in Jackson Hole, Wyoming?
I mentioned that at this very moment, we're assisting in several nations. We'll have for them generators, water purification, graves detail, agricultural development, emergency care services, innoculation from disease, and other rebuilding and lifesaving measures. All of this from a military that was so recently accused of being 'stretched too thin'.
You'll know when the EU/UN arrives on the scene when the column of ponytailed hippie ladies that look like Jane Goodall arrive on fancy passenger jets bearing backpacks of tofu sandwiches and carrying sacks of 'cruelty-free' rice.
... And by the way, isn't it interesting how although there are just nearly as many people dead on the shorelines of the tsunami-afflicted nations as there are bodies we've counted in Saddam's mass graves, the world instead bemoans the body count from a thoroughly unavoidable natural disaster and refuses to acknowledge the victims of an entirely preventable inhumanity caused by a mad dictator that much of the world was against us overthrowing?
At this point, my wife yanked me offstage like a dying Vaudeville comic getting the hook, much to everyone's relief.
The moral of this story is to never make any statement that can be even slightly construed to be America-bashing in the vicinity of where The KG9 Kid has been drinkin'.
I agree there is that appearance and today, on another thread, Powell was quoted as saying this is not an auction at which the higehst bidder wins. (Or words to that effect). I thought it was a good response to those of us who were concerned about the appearance of how this played out.
I suspect the picture of the dude walking around in the disaster aftermath in Indonesia sporting an OBL tee shirt gave many pause.
That bothers me too. ....immensely.
"Now, if you had told me a week ago that an American Marine expeditionary force would be in Banda Aceh on New Years Day, my first reaction would have been that the President had decided upon a bold and unexpected strike in the War on Terror, jumping ahead on the timeline of that effort's multi-generational strategy. I might have thought it was a bold and necessary move, and I would have believed you if you had said they had located and captured Osama Bin Laden there. As it was, in our shock, probing in from the parameter toward the epicenter of the Banda Aceh Earthquake, only a few have considered whether the hand of the Almighty reached out and sliced off a decade from what still promises to be a protracted conflict with Islamo-Fascism. "
That's why 61 million plus people voted for George W. Bush in November, despite all the words that the left could raise in anger.
Most of us get it. And the left hates it. Just a little sweetener.
Happy New Year to you too!
I agree with you that the MSM could come in and cherry pick some of the more hateful comments. Unfortunately, that's what makes news. Not how generous or how horrified we are about what the people over there are going through but how 'heartless' FReepers are.
I understand why Jim lets the threads about constitutionality stand since FR is a conservative website. I'm thankful for the posters on those threads who challenge the purists. Just remember, the purists are in the minority and while they're entitled to their views, it in no way detracts from America's response to this tragedy. After all, have we heard about any other nation's helicopters delivering needed aid?
Imagine all those Gore/Kerry voters in Florida. Next time a hurricane hits, let the whole state rot. /sarc
Not ONE other nation delivering food. The UN is holding meetings. Big whoop.
I'm proud of our response and won't let a few naysayers take that away from how I feel. Glad to "meet" you, Sally.
LOL! You tell 'em!
I saw an interview w/one anquished man who cried out, "We need help. Where are the Americans?"
Not 'Where is the UN?' Not even where is his own government, but "Where are the Americans?" They know who they can count on.
Possibly, but I've read too many posts prior to this disaster where certain posters state all who are Islamic should be obliterated from the planet. It's sad that one picture showing one guy wearing a t-shirt with OBL's picture would prompt people to decide not to reach out to other's of the Islamic faith.
For several years I had a next door neighbour who practiced Islam. He and his family were some of the best neighbours I've ever had.
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