Getbig.com: American Bodybuilding, Fitness and Figure
Getbig Main Boards => Gossip & Opinions => Topic started by: King Shizzo on June 09, 2012, 03:41:21 PM
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"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but...will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor)
Wise words from a man who lived 2,000 years ago. He echoes my sentiments exactly.
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much wisdom in those words
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Agreed. Too bad his successor was such a piece of shit.
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Agreed. Too bad his successor was such a piece of shit.
It's really no different today. Look at the history of U.S. presidents. Most were average at best. That brings up an interesting question. Who were our best presidents? Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, Roosevelt? I'm sure very few presidents have been liked.
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It's really no different today. Look at the history of U.S. presidents. Most were average at best. That brings up an interesting question. Who were our best presidents? Washington, Lincoln, Reagan, Roosevelt? I'm sure very few presidents have been liked.
Not sure if Serious. ???
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This is what we have on our advertising and banner.....
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Not sure if Serious. ???
Maybe he don't know about Iran-Contra?
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"time and space are not conditions in which we live but are modes in which we think"
-einstein
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This is what we have on our advertising and banner.....
(http://www.getbig.com/boards/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=428126.0;attach=472677;image)
sharpen?
you mean like this way?
(http://www.thereheis.com/nucleus3.22/media/gallery/20071221-butt_sharpener.jpg)
;D
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Not sure if Serious. ???
I was just asking the question my friend. I have no real knowledge (beside basic) of the history of our presidents. I have never even voted. I have always thought that they are just pawns anyway. Some of you guys are far more reliable on this subject. Please enlighten me guys. Who were the best presidents.
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I was just asking the question my friend. I have no real knowledge (beside basic) of the history of our presidents. I have never even voted. I have always thought that they are just pawns anyway. Some of you guys are far more reliable on this subject. Please enlighten me guys. Who were the best presidents.
Yeah..listen to TA. Reagan did nothing for this country..hahahahaha!
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Yeah..listen to TA. Reagan did nothing for this country..hahahahaha!
I'm not sure. I thought Reagan was very well liked.
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I'm not sure. I thought Reagan was very well liked.
Everyone becomes a Saint when they die. Anyways, he didn`t do anything really of note and made some really crappy movies as a covert pawn of the Government wherein his job was to sniff out suspected Communists in Hollywood for Joe McCarthy.
He was very mediocre.
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Everyone becomes a Saint when they die. Anyways, he didn`t do anything really of note and made some really crappy movies as a covert pawn of the Government wherein his job was to sniff out suspected Communists in Hollywood for Joe McCarthy.
He was very mediocre.
Who really did anything of note beside our forefathers? They are the ones who laid the foundation. Most of the other presidents have been along for the ride.
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Who really did anything of note beside our forefathers? They are the ones who laid the foundation. Most of the other presidents have been along for the ride.
Depends on what you consider what is "of note".
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Reagan was senile way before we knew about it. He was a simpleton and a puppet. Didn't want to hear about the aids crisis til his second term. And pope John Paul II had more to do with " mr. Gorbachev bringing down the wall" then Ronnie.
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I'm not sure. I thought Reagan was very well liked.
He was and still is. Liberals will always find fault with someone that has helped the country because they couldn't do it themselves.
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Depends on what you consider what is "of note".
Anything besides controversy, which is all I have heard from every president since I have been alive (30) I am in favor of giving a president more power (if it's the right man) We need someone who can actually have the power to make significant changes in the future.
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They had some awesome leaders.
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I'm not sure. I thought Reagan was very well liked.
john hinkley jr might have something to say about that ;D
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Everyone becomes a Saint when they die. Anyways, he didn`t do anything really of note and made some really crappy movies as a covert pawn of the Government wherein his job was to sniff out suspected Communists in Hollywood for Joe McCarthy.
He was very mediocre.
::)
Abstract: "The fall of the [Soviet] empire," former Czech president Vaclav Havel wrote, "is an event on the same scale of historical importance as the fall of the Roman Empire." It is true that Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine--that the Soviet Union will use force if necessary to ensure that a socialist state remains socialist--and in so doing undercut the Communist leaders and regimes of Eastern and Central Europe in the critical year of 1989. But why did Gorbachev abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine? One Western leader above all others forced the Soviets to give up the Brezhnev Doctrine and abandon the arms race, brought down the Berlin Wall, and ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield: President Ronald Reagan.
Soviet Communism, the dark tyranny that controlled nearly 40 nations and was responsible for the deaths of an estimated 100 million victims during the 20th century, suddenly collapsed 20 years ago without a shot being fired.
In just two years--from 1989 to 1901--the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union disintegrated, and Marxism- Leninism was dumped unceremoniously on the ash heap of history. There was dancing in the street and champagne toasts on top of the Brandenburg Gate. And then most of the world got on with living without asking:
Why did Communism collapse so quickly?
Why did a totalitarian system that appeared to be so militarily and economically strong disappear almost overnight?
What role did Western strategy and leadership play in the fall--or was it all due, as the Communists might put it, to a correlation of objective forces?
A decade ago, I edited a collection of essays by some of the world's leading authorities on Communism who suggested that a wide range of forces-- political, economic, strategic, and religious--along with the leadership of principled statesmen and brave dissidents brought about the collapse of Soviet Communism.
In my essay, I suggested that when Communist leaders in Eastern and Central Europe admitted they no longer believed in Communism, they dissolved the glue of ideology that had maintained their façade of power and authority.
I pointed out that the Communists failed, literally, to deliver the goods to the people. They promised bread but produced food shortages and rationing-- except for Party members and the nomenklatura. They promised the people land but delivered them into collectives. They promised peace but sent young men off to die in foreign wars in distant lands.
In this information age, I wrote, the Communists could not stop the mass media from sustaining and spreading the desire for freedom among the captive peoples. Far from being an impregnable fortress, Eastern and Central Europe was a Potemkin village easily penetrated by electronic messages of democracy and capitalism from the West.
Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski, the former national security adviser to President Carter, argued that Marxism-Leninism was an alien doctrine imposed by an imperial power culturally repugnant to the dominated peoples of Eastern and Central Europe. Disaffection was strongest in the cluster of states with the deepest cultural ties with Western Europe--East Germany, Czechoslovakia, Poland, and Hungary.
Harvard Professor of History Richard Pipes said there were incidental causes of the Soviet Union's dissolution like the invasion of Afghanistan, the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, and the vacillating personality of Mikhail Gorbachev. And there were more profound levels of causation like economic stagnation, the aspiration of national identities, and intellectual dissent. But the decisive catalyst, Pipes said, was the very nature of Communism, which was at one and the same time utopian and coercive.
The political philosopher Michael Novak discussed the long-term effect of atheism--a sine qua non of Communism--on the morale of people and their economic performance. Communism, he said, set out to destroy the "human capital" on which a free economy and a polity are based and in so doing sowed the seeds of its own destruction.
Soviet economics, economist Andrzej Brzeski wrote, was fatally flawed from the beginning. Replacing private property rights with state ownership gave rise to a huge class of functionaries committed only to preserving their domains and pleasing their political bosses.
Only the sustained use of force, credible terror, and a sense of isolation, Brzeski wrote, could keep the Communist system from collapsing.
One Leader Above All Others
"The fall of the [Soviet] empire," former Czech president Vaclav Havel wrote, "is an event on the same scale of historical importance as the fall of the Roman Empire." And yet what do many historians say about the collapse of Soviet Communism?
That it was inevitable. That it happened in spite of and not because of President Truman's historic policy of containment and President Reagan's prudential policy of peace through strength. And the most misleading and untrue of all the conclusions: That the real hero of the Cold War was Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
It is true that Gorbachev publicly repudiated the Brezhnev Doctrine--that the Soviet Union will use force if necessary to ensure that a socialist state remains socialist--and in so doing undercut the Communist leaders and regimes of Eastern and Central Europe in the critical year of 1989. But why did Gorbachev abandon the Brezhnev Doctrine?
We must understand: He was not a liberal democrat but a modern Leninist who was trying to use glasnost and perestroika to preserve a one-party state with himself as the unelected head. Gorbachev discarded the Brezhnev Doctrine and adopted the Sinatra Doctrine--let the satellite states of Eastern and Central Europe practice Communism their way--for two reasons:
The Soviet Union no longer possessed in 1989 the military might that it had in 1956 when it brutally suppressed the Hungarian Revolution or in 1968 when it snuffed out the Prague Spring.
The Soviet Union desperately needed the trade and technology of the West to avoid economic collapse that it knew it would not obtain if it enforced the Brezhnev Doctrine.
There is one Western leader above all others who forced the Soviets to give up the Brezhnev Doctrine and abandon the arms race, who brought down the Berlin Wall, and who ended the Cold War at the bargaining table and not on the battlefield. The one leader responsible more than any other for leading the West to victory in the Cold War is President Ronald Reagan.
"We Win and They Lose"
In 1980, after 35 years of containment, the Cold War seemed to be going poorly for the West. From martial law in Poland and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan to the Marxist Sandinistas in Nicaragua and Communist rule in Mozambique and Angola, Marxism-Leninism was on the march.
The Atlantic alliance was seriously strained, some said broken. The Soviets had deployed SS-20s armed with nuclear warheads and aimed at major European cities. Western European governments wavered in their resolve to counter the Soviets, even on their own soil.
America and the West clearly needed a new strategy. And one was forthcoming, but not from an Ivy League university professor or a Washington think tank analyst or the editor of The New York Times but from a one-time film actor and governor.
In January 1977, four years before he was sworn in as the 40th President of the United States, Ronald Reagan told a visitor that he had been thinking about the Cold War and he had a solution: "We win and they lose."
For 40 years, the United States and the West had been following a policy of containment, détente, accommodation. Ronald Reagan decided it was time to stop playing for a tie and seek victory in the Cold War.
From his first week in office, President Reagan went on the offensive against the Soviet Union. In his first presidential news conference, Reagan denounced the Soviet leadership as still dedicated to "world revolution and a one-world Socialist-Communist state."
The establishment was appalled at what it called saber-rattling and uninformed analysis. Harvard intellectuals like Arthur Schlesinger Jr. and John Kenneth Galbraith insisted that the Soviet Union was economically strong and militarily powerful-- the only responsible policy was a continuation of détente leading at some future time to convergence between Communism and democracy.
Reagan did not agree. Based on intelligence reports and his own analysis, the President concluded that Communism was cracking and ready to crumble. He took personal control of the new victory strategy, chairing 57 meetings of the National Security Council in his first year in the White House.
The President was determined to reassure those who had lived behind the Iron Curtain for nearly 40 years that they had not been forgotten and that a new day of freedom would soon dawn for them. He never tired, for example, of praising the Hungarian people for their courageous stand for freedom and against tyranny in 1956. In October 1981, on the 25th anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution, he said that the Freedom Fighters' example had given "new strength" to America's commitment to freedom and justice for all people. In his address to the British Parliament in 1982, Reagan described how "man's instinctive desire for freedom and self-determination" surfaces again and again as shown in Hungary in 1956.
He first went public with his Cold War analysis in May 1982 when he declared in a speech at his alma mater that the Soviet empire was "faltering because rigid centralized control has destroyed incentives for innovation, efficiency, and individual achievement."
A month later, he told the British Parliament at Westminster that the Soviet Union was gripped by a "great revolutionary crisis" and that a "global campaign for freedom" would ultimately prevail. In memorable language, he predicted that "the march of freedom and democracy...will leave Marxism- Leninism on the ash heap of history as it has left other tyrannies which stifle the freedom and muzzle the self-expression of the people."
Reagan directed his national security team to come up with the necessary tactics to implement his victory strategy. The result was a series of top-secret national security decision directives (NSDDs).
NSDD-32 declared that the United States would seek to "neutralize" Soviet control over Eastern and Central Europe and authorized the use of covert action and other means to support anti-Soviet groups in the region, especially in Poland.
NSDD-66 stated that it would be U.S. policy to disrupt the Soviet economy by attacking a "strategic triad" of critical resources--financial credits, high technology, and natural gas. The directive was tantamount to a "secret declaration of economic war on the Soviet Union."
NSDD-75 stated that the U.S. would no longer coexist with the Soviet system but would seek to change it fundamentally. America intended to roll back Soviet influence at every opportunity.
"Mr. Gorbachev, Tear Down This Wall!"
A subset of the Reagan strategy was U.S. support of pro-freedom forces in Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Angola, and Cambodia. A key decision was to supply Stinger ground-to-air missiles to the mujahideen in Afghanistan, who used them to shoot down the Soviet helicopters that had kept them on the defensive for years.
The year 1983 was a critical one for President Reagan and the course of the Cold War. In March, he told a group of evangelical ministers that the Soviets "are the focus of evil in this modern world" and the masters of "an evil empire."
The same month, the President announced that development and deployment of a comprehensive anti-ballistic missile system would be his top defense priority. The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was called "Star Wars" by liberal detractors, but Soviet leader Yuri Andropov took SDI very seriously, calling it a "strike weapon" and a preparation for a U.S. nuclear attack.
Moscow's intense opposition to SDI showed that Soviet scientists regarded the initiative not as a pipe dream but as a technological feat they could not match. A decade later, the general who headed the department of strategic analysis in the Soviet Ministry of Defense revealed what he had told the Politburo in 1983: "Not only could we not defeat SDI, SDI defeated all our possible countermeasures."
In October 1983, Reagan dispatched 2,000 American troops, along with military units from six Caribbean states, to the island of Grenada to oust a Marxist regime that had seized power. It was the first time in nearly 40 years of the Cold War that America had acted to restore democracy to a Communist country. The Brezhnev Doctrine was successfully challenged, anticipating Gorbachev's abandonment of it six years later.
When Gorbachev became chairman of the Soviet Politburo in March 1985, he took command of a disintegrating empire. President Reagan understood this fundamental fact and, negotiating from strength, forced Gorbachev over the course of four summit meetings to concede that the Soviet Union could not win an arms race but had to sue for peace.
In addition to the summits, two events stand out in the second half of the Reagan presidency.
In June 1987, Reagan stood before the Brandenburg Gate and challenged the Soviet leader: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" No Western leader had ever before dared to issue such a direct challenge.
In the spring of 1988, President Reagan traveled to Moscow and beneath a gigantic white bust of Lenin at Moscow State University delivered an eloquent address on the blessings of democracy, individual freedom, and free enterprise. He quoted the beloved Russian poet Pushkin: "It's time, my friend, it's time." It was clear the President meant it was time for a free Russia.
The following year, the Berlin Wall came tumbling down and Communism collapsed in Eastern and Central Europe. A pivotal event of "The Year of Miracles" came in September when Hungary opened its borders with Austria for more than 13,000 East Germans--the first breaching of the once-impregnable Berlin Wall.
President Reagan forced the Soviet Union to abandon its goal of world socialization by challenging the Soviet regime's legitimacy, by regaining superiority in the arms race, and by using human rights as a weapon as powerful as any in the U.S. or Soviet arsenal.
"We...Owe Him Our Liberty"
The crucial role of leadership in any war, including a cold one, is demonstrated by the example of Ronald Reagan.
The Soviet dissident Natan Sharansky was in an eight-by-ten foot cell in a Siberian prison in early 1983 when his Soviet jailers permitted him to read the latest issue of Pravda, the official Communist Party newspaper.
Splashed across the front page, Sharansky recalled, was a condemnation of Reagan for calling the Soviet Union an "evil empire." Tapping on the walls and talking through toilets, political prisoners spread the word of Reagan's "provocation." The dissidents were ecstatic. Finally, Sharansky wrote, the leader of the free world had spoken the truth--a truth that burned inside the heart of each and every one of us.
Lech Walesa, the founder of the Solidarity movement that brought down Communism in Poland and prepared the way for the end of Communism throughout Eastern and Central Europe, put his feelings about Reagan simply: "We in Poland...owe him our liberty."
So too do the many millions who lived behind the Iron Curtain and were caught up in one of the longest conflicts in history--the Cold War--which, because of leaders like Ronald Reagan, ended in victory for the forces of freedom.
Lee Edwards, Ph.D., is Distinguished Fellow in Conservative Thought at The Heritage Foundation and Chairman of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. He delivered these remarks at a meeting of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences in Budapest.
http://www.heritage.org/research/lecture/ronald-reagan-and-the-fall-of-communism?query=Ronald+Reagan+and+the+Fall+of+Communism
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john hinkley jr might have something to say about that ;D
Our greatest presidents have either been assassinated, or an attempt has been mad. The powers that be don't like free thinkers.
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Geez coach. You are just a wealth of republican propaganda. You do know he didn't even wright that speech, unlike John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Now that, that is what I call a president.
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Geez coach. You are just a wealth of republican propaganda. You do know he didn't even wright that speech, unlike John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Now that, that is what I call a president.
Another who didn't go along with the scripted agenda. We all know what happened to him and his brother.
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"A stitch in time saves nine".
Just sayin` !! :D
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Died for their country, and the greater good of man.
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"A stitch in time saves nine".
Just sayin` !! :D
I honestly don't get it Wes :D I have heard of that saying before though.
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do you guys think lee harvey oswald acted alone or was there another guy in the grassy knoll? sometimes i cant help but wonder
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do you guys think lee harvey oswald acted alone or was there another guy in the grassy knoll? sometimes i cant help but wonder
Here we go! :D I think it was a conspiracy. No way he acted alone.
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I honestly don't get it Wes :D I have heard of that saying before though.
It`s my version of a religious quote,just like "A penny saved is a penny earned".
"The best things in life are free"............etc. etc.
Obscure posts revealing that I`m not religious.......more of a spiritual person personally,kind of like YAGR.
No I`m not drinking,just bugging!! :D
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A CIA operate on his death bed confessed that they did it. "it was called the big event" he listed another guy Sanchez who is also known to have put the bullet in Che gueveraz head. And wore his che's Rolex as a trophy.
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It`s my version of a religious quote,just like "A penny saved is a penny earned".
"The best things in life are free"............etc. etc.
Obscure posts revealing that I`m not religious.......more of a spiritual person personally,kind of like YAGR.
No I`m not drinking,just bugging!! :D
Dementia is a bitch! :P
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my 8th grade teacher(yes i actually made it to 8th grade guys :o) was an investigator into the jfk assassination on his off time and used to talk to us about it, he made us really doubt oswald acted alone. he was in new york doing a lecture on it and took a bullet in the shoulder
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Only retarded people would even think retard Oswald who couldnt even pass a marine marksman test Kyle hav done it. ITS A LIE!!
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Only retarded people would even think retard Oswald who couldnt even pass a marine marksman test Kyle hav done it. ITS A LIE!!
I thought Oswald was a former Marine?
He wouldnt be a Marine if he couldnt pass a Markmanship test.
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his score BARELY qualified him as a marksman. marines demand more than that usually, do they not?
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and yes he was a marine, so was gomer pile.
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his score BARELY qualified him as a marksman. marines demand more than that usually, do they not?
Marines WANT more than that, but qualified, is qualified.
That means he could hit targets proficiently @ 200, 300, 500 yards with open sights.
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Marines WANT more than that, but qualified, is qualified.
That means he could hit targets proficiently @ 200, 300, 500 yards with open sights.
Yes but it's widely discussed that there were multiple shots fired from different angles. Not possible with a single gunman.
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apparantly he obtained a score of 212, 2 points above the min for sharp shooter
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Reagan was senile way before we knew about it. He was a simpleton and a puppet. Didn't want to hear about the aids crisis til his second term. And pope John Paul II had more to do with " mr. Gorbachev bringing down the wall" then Ronnie.
What "aids crisis?" Nothing more than the latest Hollywood band-wagon pitty-party for the 1980's. Much better spending more tax dollars to research heart disease and cancer which will touch almost ALL of us at some point.
And the "Pope?" C'mon....get that shit out of here.
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What "aids crisis?" Nothing more than the latest Hollywood band-wagon pitty-party for the 1980's. Much better spending more tax dollars to research heart disease and cancer which will touch almost ALL of us at some point.
And the "Pope?" C'mon....get that shit out of here.
you are an idiot.
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apparantly he obtained a score of 212, 2 points above the min for sharp shooter
Yeah, thats just a tad better than just barely qualifying.
Good enough to hit Kennedy in a slow moving car with an accurate bolt action rifle.
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Dementia is a bitch! :P
Yes it can be! LOL :D
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you are an idiot.
Why am I not surprised that was the best you could do, champ..... ::)
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because your post is not worthy of any response. shockwave please help.
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because your post is not worthy of any response. shockwave please help.
So because .6% of the population has AIDS/HIV it's a "crisis?" Whatever, dumbass... I guess you lost some of your bath-house buddies back in the 80's.
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Our greatest presidents have either been assassinated, or an attempt has been mad. The powers that be don't like free thinkers.
Organized Religion.
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hm hes basicaly saying there"be a niceslave to the system"
... I didnt get that at all.
I got that you should live a good life, live honorably and dont be a piece of shit. Lol.
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Marcus Aurelius was a genius...
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In fact, when asked if he believed in a higher power generally, Dr. Tyson responded: “Every account of a higher power that I’ve seen described, of all religions that I’ve seen, include many statements with regard to the benevolence of that power. When I look at the universe and all the ways the universe wants to kill us, I find it hard to reconcile that with statements of beneficence.”
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He was and still is. Liberals will always find fault with someone that has helped the country because they couldn't do it themselves.
Saying a president whose average approval rating was 53% was "very well liked" seems like a stretch. That's a whopping +6% over Obama's current level.
(http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr040607i.gif)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx (http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx)
Further:
-Reagan began the unfortunate trend of deficit spending that is so problematic now, setting a precedent: The federal debt tripled under Reagan.
-At the end of the Carter Administration (an evil liberal!!!11), the USG spent 27.9% of federal income; this grew to 28.7% under Reagan.
-Despite promises to cut taxes and "starve the beast," tax revenue for the USG pretty much stayed the same under Reagan (earlier cuts were matched with later increases, including the largest tax increase since WWII in 1982).
-Reagan presided over an increase in the size of the federal workforce by some 200,000+ plus employees.
-Reagan granted amnesty to over 3 million illegal aliens in 1986.
-Very little to no deregulation took place under Reagan; the much-maligned Department of Education persisted and VA (at the time the largest independent agency in the government) was added as a cabinet-level department.
-Reagan was very protectionist, increasing quotas and import restrictions significantly.
That's to say nothing of foreign policy. Doesn't almost all of the above sound like the sort of stuff a "liberal" president would do, Coach? If so, you need to talk about how much you hate Reagan in order to maintain logical consistency among your beliefs. Either Reagan was great and you can tolerate liberal policy after all or otherwise such policy is unacceptable and therefore Reagan was a pretty bad president.
Everything you've said about those damned "liberals" and politics in general makes me think you're a shit-for-brains (if that's a noun), but maybe you can clarify that for us here.
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my 8th grade teacher(yes i actually made it to 8th grade guys :o) was an investigator into the jfk assassination on his off time and used to talk to us about it, he made us really doubt oswald acted alone. he was in new york doing a lecture on it and took a bullet in the shoulder
^^
Did they arrest the shooter? Any connections to gov't or just a nut?
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Saying a president whose average approval rating was 53% was "very well liked" seems like a stretch. That's a whopping +6% over Obama's current level.
(http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr040607i.gif)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx (http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx)
Further:
-Reagan began the unfortunate trend of deficit spending that is so problematic now, setting a precedent: The federal debt tripled under Reagan.
-At the end of the Carter Administration (an evil liberal!!!11), the USG spent 27.9% of federal income; this grew to 28.7% under Reagan.
-Despite promises to cut taxes and "starve the beast," tax revenue for the USG pretty much stayed the same under Reagan (earlier cuts were matched with later increases, including the largest tax increase since WWII in 1982).
-Reagan presided over an increase in the size of the federal workforce by some 200,000+ plus employees.
-Reagan granted amnesty to over 3 million illegal aliens in 1986.
-Very little to no deregulation took place under Reagan; the much-maligned Department of Education persisted and VA (at the time the largest independent agency in the government) was added as a cabinet-level department.
-Reagan was very protectionist, increasing quotas and import restrictions significantly.
That's to say nothing of foreign policy. Doesn't almost all of the above sound like the sort of stuff a "liberal" president would do, Coach? If so, you need to talk about how much you hate Reagan in order to maintain logical consistency among your beliefs. Either Reagan was great and you can tolerate liberal policy after all or otherwise such policy is unacceptable and therefore Reagan was a pretty bad president.
Everything you've said about those damned "liberals" and politics in general makes me think you're a shit-for-brains (if that's a noun), but maybe you can clarify that for us here.
Caught my attention THROUGH YOUR PM to remind me. Since I have a business to run (62 clients today for example...capitalism is GREAT!) and can't go through your post line by line, I'll let you take a gander at this. Call me whatever you want, liberalism fails 99.5% of the time. Again, libs lack economic and social commonsense. Hope this helps junior.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/
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Saying a president whose average approval rating was 53% was "very well liked" seems like a stretch. That's a whopping +6% over Obama's current level.
(http://media.gallup.com/POLL/Releases/pr040607i.gif)
http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx (http://www.gallup.com/poll/11887/ronald-reagan-from-peoples-perspective-gallup-poll-review.aspx)
Further:
-Reagan began the unfortunate trend of deficit spending that is so problematic now, setting a precedent: The federal debt tripled under Reagan.
-At the end of the Carter Administration (an evil liberal!!!11), the USG spent 27.9% of federal income; this grew to 28.7% under Reagan.
-Despite promises to cut taxes and "starve the beast," tax revenue for the USG pretty much stayed the same under Reagan (earlier cuts were matched with later increases, including the largest tax increase since WWII in 1982).
-Reagan presided over an increase in the size of the federal workforce by some 200,000+ plus employees.
-Reagan granted amnesty to over 3 million illegal aliens in 1986.
-Very little to no deregulation took place under Reagan; the much-maligned Department of Education persisted and VA (at the time the largest independent agency in the government) was added as a cabinet-level department.
-Reagan was very protectionist, increasing quotas and import restrictions significantly.
That's to say nothing of foreign policy. Doesn't almost all of the above sound like the sort of stuff a "liberal" president would do, Coach? If so, you need to talk about how much you hate Reagan in order to maintain logical consistency among your beliefs. Either Reagan was great and you can tolerate liberal policy after all or otherwise such policy is unacceptable and therefore Reagan was a pretty bad president.
Everything you've said about those damned "liberals" and politics in general makes me think you're a shit-for-brains (if that's a noun), but maybe you can clarify that for us here.
i don't even know where to begin with this post. you can almost see the words spinning.
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^^
Did they arrest the shooter? Any connections to gov't or just a nut?
my teacher said he was warned by phone call to drop the research on the jfk assassination, a week later he was on his way to do his lecture in new york and got shot. they never found out who did it but he thinks it was the cia
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Caught my attention THROUGH YOUR PM to remind me. Since I have a business to run (62 clients today for example...capitalism is GREAT!) and can't go through your post line by line, I'll let you take a gander at this. Call me whatever you want, liberalism fails 99.5% of the time. Again, libs lack economic and social commonsense. Hope this helps junior.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/peterferrara/2011/05/05/reaganomics-vs-obamanomics-facts-and-figures/
1. You're the one claiming the sorts of liberal policies Reagan implemented are always crap, so I thought that you would be able to respond, explaining why you're hot for Reagan rather than linking to a discussion about the efficacy of Reagonomics, which, while interesting, has no bearing at all on what I've said.
2. Even then, what you link to is, for the most part, disingenuous. For example, the author talks about spending reductions, but then cites "nondefense discretionary" spending. LOL, of course the size of the government relative to GDP shrank if we conveniently exclude defense and entitlement spending from our calculations. The author then performs a major of sleight of hand by saying, 'even when we include defense spending, the government shrank.' This still leaves out entitlement spending, and this is no accident: entitlement spending went from $197.1 billion in 1981 to $477 billion in 1987, largely due to bills Reagan explicitly signed into law. Once this fact is accounted for, all of the statistics I cited hold true: under Reagan the government grew significantly, began taking a bigger piece of the national income in tax revenue, increased its workforce, added departments, and tripled the national debt.
3. The author cites the economic growth under Reagan, which I think is terrific. However, correlation does not equal causation, and the author makes literally zero effort to demonstrate the causal efficacy of government policy with regards to the aforementioned growth. He just says, "Hey, we at the administration moderately cut taxes and spending (later to be offset by huge increases in spending and moderate increase in governmental share of income); sometime later, the economy recovered from stagflation; therefore, we cured staglation!!!" Deploy this argument form in any other context and you'll see how inadequate it is.
4. Glad you referred to capitalism. A central component of capitalism is that private actors and not the government propel growth, investment decisions, and so forth. Therefore, the growth under Reagan cannot, for the most part, be attributed to him, since private actors drove the recovery, not the Reagan Administration. U.S. presidents may not be as powerful as you think; they certainly cannot harness policy to affect economic variables significantly, despite their always taking credit for the good and deflecting the bad (this practice has apparently managed to fool you).
5. Having a job means you can't take a few minutes to address my post? LOL. You post 2.5x as much as me on a daily basis but when your beliefs are challenged (i.e., their logical inconsistency pointed out) you have to hightail it back to work. I have a better explanation for why you can't address my points.
6. Finally, you make up a statistic and continue hurling insults at "liberals," even though by your own criteria (and most others') Reagan was a liberal when it came to domestic policy.
Hope This Helps, Grandpa.
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Oswald killed JFK, end of story.
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The Coach getting owned to smithereens in this thread.
Great stuff!
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1. You're the one claiming the sorts of liberal policies Reagan implemented are always crap, so I thought that you would be able to respond, explaining why you're hot for Reagan rather than linking to a discussion about the efficacy of Reagonomics, which, while interesting, has no bearing at all on what I've said.
2. Even then, what you link to is, for the most part, disingenuous. For example, the author talks about spending reductions, but then cites "nondefense discretionary" spending. LOL, of course the size of the government relative to GDP shrank if we conveniently exclude defense and entitlement spending from our calculations. The author then performs a major of sleight of hand by saying, 'even when we include defense spending, the government shrank.' This still leaves out entitlement spending, and this is no accident: entitlement spending went from $197.1 billion in 1981 to $477 billion in 1987, largely due to bills Reagan explicitly signed into law. Once this fact is accounted for, all of the statistics I cited hold true: under Reagan the government grew significantly, began taking a bigger piece of the national income in tax revenue, increased its workforce, added departments, and tripled the national debt.
3. The author cites the economic growth under Reagan, which I think is terrific. However, correlation does not equal causation, and the author makes literally zero effort to demonstrate the causal efficacy of government policy with regards to the aforementioned growth. He just says, "Hey, we at the administration moderately cut taxes and spending (later to be offset by huge increases in spending and moderate increase in governmental share of income); sometime later, the economy recovered from stagflation; therefore, we cured staglation!!!" Deploy this argument form in any other context and you'll see how inadequate it is.
4. Glad you referred to capitalism. A central component of capitalism is that private actors and not the government propel growth, investment decisions, and so forth. Therefore, the growth under Reagan cannot, for the most part, be attributed to him, since private actors drove the recovery, not the Reagan Administration. U.S. presidents may not be as powerful as you think; they certainly cannot harness policy to affect economic variables significantly, despite their always taking credit for the good and deflecting the bad (this practice has apparently managed to fool you).
5. Having a job means you can't take a few minutes to address my post? LOL. You post 2.5x as much as me on a daily basis but when your beliefs are challenged (i.e., their logical inconsistency pointed out) you have to hightail it back to work. I have a better explanation for why you can't address my points.
6. Finally, you make up a statistic and continue hurling insults at "liberals," even though by your own criteria (and most others') Reagan was a liberal when it came to domestic policy.
Hope This Helps, Grandpa.
1. Site your sources and we'll go from there. Because the majority of it is liberal university spin guaranteed.
2. Yes, I don't have a job I have a business.
3 calling me "grandpa" only means you weren't even born during that era and since the ACLU who approves the propaganda of changes in our ps systems......you fell for it! Congrats son, you're brainwashed.
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Btw, saying I'm on Herr twice as.much as you is funny since you claim.not to be a.gimmick but in the week or so you've been here already racked.up almost 250 posts. Pretty good for posting between classes.
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1. Site your sources and we'll go from there. Because the majority of it is liberal university spin guaranteed.
2. Yes, I don't have a job I have a business.
3 calling me "grandpa" only means you weren't even born during that era and since the ACLU who approves the propaganda of changes in our ps systems......you fell for it! Congrats son, you're brainwashed.
Haha. YOU are calling people brainwashed.
You have the most uninformed "opinions" I've ever seen. It's obvious that you simply listen to Rush and watch Fox News and then walk away feeling educated. You don't have the slightest grasp on things whatsoever.
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The Coach's brain in pursuit of a logical thought that could potentially refute anything I've said:
(http://s8.postimage.org/mzzhcyy4z/xj_My_A.gif)
Again, site your sources. Apparently I wasn't wrong about you. While you're at it give me one GOOD reason why we should elect this asshole again? Is it because you're looking for free shit as well?
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Again, site your sources. Apparently I wasn't wrong about you. While you're at it give me one GOOD reason why we should elect this asshole again? Is it because you're looking for free shit as well?
LOL at you thinking your delaying tactics will halt this owning. Now, you need to explain why you idolize such a liberal president (sometimes the "liberal vs conservative" paradigm is of questionable value, but in any case here I am using your version of the term "liberal").
1. Reagan and the national debt
Year Debt Level
09/29/1989 2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 2,125,302,616,658.42
09/30/1985 1,823,103,000,000.00
09/30/1984 1,572,266,000,000.00
09/30/1983 1,377,210,000,000.00
09/30/1982 1,142,034,000,000.00
09/30/1981 997,855,000,000.00
http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm (http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo4.htm)
Since budgets are submitted a year in advance (e.g., FY1981's budget was submitted in 1980), Reagan's budgets run from 1981-1989. As you can see, the national debt nearly tripled during this period, starting out at $997.9 billion and ending up at $2.8 trillion. The last tripling of the debt had taken 31 years.
Has the Treasury Department been hijacked by "liberal professors"?
2. Reagan and spending as a percentage of GDP
Year GDP Population Spending % of GDP
1981 3126.8 228.670 33.64 %
1982 3253.2 230.815 36.25 %
1983 3534.6 232.979 36.31 %
1984 3930.9 235.164 34.44 %
1985 4217.5 237.369 35.48 %
1986 4460.1 239.595 35.71 %
1987 4736.4 241.842 35.09 %
1988 5100.4 244.110 34.73 %
1989 5482.1 246.399 34.93 %
http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1900_2010&units=p&title=Spending%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP (http://www.usgovernmentspending.com/downchart_gs.php?year=1900_2010&units=p&title=Spending%20as%20percent%20of%20GDP)
These numbers are slightly different than my original post because this man in particular used interpolation. In any case, he derived the values from the appropriate governmental sources as far as I can tell; his findings are in line with what everybody else discovers: government spending as a percentage of GDP only went up under Reagan (by 3.7% according to these numbers and 2.8% according to my other post's numbers).
This guy is apparently a conservative author, tea party sympathizer, and climate skeptic. Can you explain how the ACLU managed to brainwash him into producing these statistics?
3. Reagan's amnesty, in addition to his growth of the federal workforce, are commonplace news items and therefore I don't think I need to provide sources. You can easily find them in a moment's notice online in your free time.
4. Reagan's "tax cuts"
Reagan cut taxes early on, but all the while the overwhelming majority of the cuts were balanced out by the elimination and reduction of deductions, plus tax increases later on.
Year Receipts As Percentage of GDP
1981 599.3 19.6%
1982 617.8 19.2%
1983 600.6 17.5%
1984 666.4 17.3%
1985 734.0 17.7%
1986 769.2 17.2%
1987 854.3 18.4%
1988 909.2 18.2%
1989 991.1 18.4%
http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200 (http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfacts/displayafact.cfm?Docid=200)
The overwhelming majority of government revenue comes from taxes; as you can see, the government derived only a little less tax revenue from the American people under Reagan than when he first came into office (a little over 6% less by the end of the Reagan era). In other words, Reagan kept the percentage above the historical average of 18.1%, and never seriously considered pushing it below the average.
The Tax Policy Center is an outgrowth of the Brookings Institution, a centrist think tank. Did they get hijacked by evil liberals while these statistics were being produced (actually, the statistics are ultimately from the Office of Management and Budget, but I'm sure the damned liberals run that place too).
5. Finally, a favorite of liberal presidents, entitlement spending
Year Billions spent on SS and Medicare As % of GDP
1981 179.1 5.9%
1982 203.1 6.3%
1983 224.0 6.5%
1984 237.0 6.2%
1985 256.1 6.2%
1986 270.7 6.1%
1987 285.0 6.1%
1988 302.5 6.0%
1989 324.4 6.0%
Avg percentage of GDP: 6.14%
Avg percentage under Carter: 5.44%
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/ (http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/Historicals/) (Tables 15.4-15.5)
Reagan increased entitlement spending by hundreds of billions of dollars, doing so at a clip Carter would have been envious of (as evinced by the percentage of GDP values).
In short, your idol was a very "liberal" president, based on your own criteria of liberalism. The man went hog wild with governmental spending, increasing the share of GDP the government spent, tripling the deficit (the previous tripling had taken 31 years), expanding the federal workforce, granting amnesty to millions of illegals, pumping up entitlement spending in absolute and relative terms, and doing precisely nothing to decrease the amount of tax revenue the government siphons from the people below its historical average.
Now, we come to the logical contradiction in your original beliefs: either you must abandon some of the blind praise you give Reagan and realize that by your own criteria he was very liberal and thus not a good president, or you can drop the belief that the sorts of liberal policies he engaged in are always stupid and misguided.
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my teacher said he was warned by phone call to drop the research on the jfk assassination, a week later he was on his way to do his lecture in new york and got shot. they never found out who did it but he thinks it was the cia
It was "Benchmaster" on the grassy knoll.... ;D
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Again, site your sources. Apparently I wasn't wrong about you. While you're at it give me one GOOD reason why we should elect this asshole again? Is it because you're looking for free shit as well?
And this my dear friends is what is called a "false dichotomy." Mr. "I can count to baked potato" here has labeled me an Obama supporter because of my posts here evincing that Reagan was a liberal and terribly, terribly overrated president. Either one is a blind supporter of Reagan or otherwise must be hanging off of Obama's nuts, so Coach's imaginary dichotomy goes.
Unfortunately, you'll never find any evidence of my supporting Obama, because it doesn't exist (will be voting Romney 2012). Thus, your effort to characterize me as some young liberal douche fails.
I almost feel bad shredding an old man like this, but then I see his soon-to-be-diaper-wearing self constantly haranguing on everything not in agreement with his neanderthal, Fox News-derived worldview with the logical precision of a corpse. Sorry, someone has to call you on this bullshit, and today is that day.
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You did good junior. You've proven that not only have you have more time than me to research, you've also proven you're good at it. Bravo. It's too bad no one prospered during the Reagan era. Have to change my mind. I now hate Reagan. Hahah. Good night junior, I have a long day tomorrow.
Let me leave you with this parting gift....
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/03/the-real-reagan-economic-record
Good night sunshine, I'm feeling sooo shredded right now..LOL.
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You did good junior. You've proven that not only have you have more time than me to researchyouve also proven you're good at it. Bravo. It's too bad no one prospered durjng the Reagan era. Have to change my.mind. I now hate Reagan. Hahah. Good night junior, I have a long day tomorrow.
Thanks, gramps. ;D
P.S. It's not that nobody prospered during the Reagan era, but that maybe we shouldn't attribute all of that prosperity to the Gipper, seeing as he didn't do all that much differently than other presidents (especially the liberal ones).
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In case you missed my edit :)
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/03/the-real-reagan-economic-record
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1. Site your sources and we'll go from there. Because the majority of it is liberal university spin guaranteed.
Guaranteed? Really? What will you do if this liberal university spin isn't confirmed? Create it? I mean, that's kind of what a guarantee is, after all.
Also a rant about the whole "liberal university spin" stuff. Chances are I've spent more time at a University in one semester than you have in your entire life and I've not really seen this liberal spin. Granted, I was in science and engineering, so perhaps I missed all the liberals at the <i>(cue scary music)</i> liberal arts department... But still, this notion that Universities are bastions of liberalism seems a little undeserved to me. If anything, the mood at my campus seems to be decidedly libertarian. But perhaps I'm wrong.
Oh, and it's cite, not site. You're never too old to learn.
2. Yes, I don't have a job I have a business.
So does the illegal immigrant running a pushcart selling hot dogs franks made from ge-new-ine New York sewer rats. What's your point? Are we supposed to be amazed at your business acumen? It's not like you're running a Fortune 500 company...
3 calling me "grandpa" only means you weren't even born during that era and since the ACLU who approves the propaganda of changes in our ps systems......you fell for it! Congrats son, you're brainwashed.
Ooh, the ACLU. Cue the scary music again. Seriously Coach, you're a joke.
You did good junior. You've proven that not only have you have more time than me to research, you've also proven you're good at it. Bravo. It's too bad no one prospered during the Reagan era. Have to change my mind. I now hate Reagan. Hahah. Good night junior, I have a long day tomorrow.
Whether someone prospered or not isn't the point. Whether the assertions you made about Reagan were true is the point.
Let me leave you with this parting gift....
If it's all the same to you, I'd rather you don't.
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2001/03/the-real-reagan-economic-record
Oh, the "real" Reagan economic record (as if the actual numbers aren't real enough). a conservative think tank that took center stage during Reagan's Presidency and which has, since then, devoted itself to Reagan hagiography. Guaranteed bias-free. By Coach. Who owns a business. (Cue the oohs and aahs here).
Good night sunshine, I'm feeling sooo shredded right now..LOL.
Shredded is good, but I'm pretty sure if you look at yourself objectively you'll detect at least a thin film of water... ;D
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Hey Coach,
Thanks for the parting gift -- an item of propaganda that was rather easily refuted on my part. It was an instructive read in some sense, however, and so I appreciate it.
Let's briefly look at the blatant contradictions in the linked article by parsing what I shall here call the Magical Happy Reagan Was Amazing narrative from the actual data.
Here's the happytime narrative:
1. "...by 1983, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation were in place. The result was unprecedented economic growth."
--Ok, so Reagan had a cluster of policies that reduced taxes, spending, regulation, and inflation. Once in place, these policies propelled the economy to an "unprecedented" period of growth.
2. "From 1950 to 1973, real economic growth in the U.S. economy averaged 3.6 percent per year. From 1973 to 1982, it averaged only 1.6 percent. The Reagan economic boom restored the more usual growth rate as the economy averaged 3.5 percent in real growth from the beginning of 1983 to the end of 1990."
--Some details about this "unprecedented" panacea of economic growth.
3. The propaganda piece concludes, "No matter how advocates of big government try to rewrite history, Ronald Reagan's record of fiscal responsibility...."
--Advocates of big government oppose Reagan's great record of fiscal responsibility and wish to tarnish it as best as they are able, for fear of another such period under George W. Bush which will permanently shrink the size of government (lol).
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Great, now here are the facts, pulled from the very same propaganda piece as the above narrative:
1a. Recall part 1 of the narrative, "...by 1983, the Reagan policies of reducing taxes [and] spending ... were in place. The result was unprecedented economic growth."
Pieces of data mentioned in the very same article:
"Federal spending more than doubled, growing from almost $591 billion in 1980 to $1.25 trillion in 1990. In constant inflation-adjusted dollars, this was an increase of 35.8 percent."
--Uh...ok.
"Revenues from individual income taxes climbed from just over $244 billion in 1980 to nearly $467 billion in 1990.5 In inflation-adjusted dollars, this amounts to a 25 percent increase."
--Great, so the government was deriving even more revenue from taxing citizens than it was before Reagan.
1. is not consistent with 1a., both of which are from the same article. Logic fail. Mind you, this is from an elite conservative think tank based in the capital of this country....
Regarding 2, the article admits the "unprecedented" growth really amounted to an average rate of 3.5% per year, which is below the average rate between 1950-1973. Also, given the statistics I've mentioned earlier, it's hard to see how Reagan's tax cuts could be causally responsible for this. Tax revenue as a percentage of GDP (money the government is siphoning from the productive economy) barely nudged downward. Did that stimulate the growth or are there better explanations rooted in secular economic trends? In any case, Reagan hagiographers (thanks avxo) simply act as if it's obvious and undeniable that it was the cuts that were causally efficacious without any argument.
3. The final component of the myth: Reagan was a fiscally responsible man. Again, from the same article:
"Federal spending more than doubled, growing from almost $591 billion in 1980 to $1.25 trillion in 1990. In constant inflation-adjusted dollars, this was an increase of 35.8 percent" (already mentioned above).
Regarding fiscal responsibility, the author of the article somehow forgot to mention the increase in size of the federal workforce and the tripling of the national debt. How ironic, then, that he mentions in the conclusion that "His [Reagan's] efforts to restrain the expansion of federal government helped to limit the growth of domestic spending." If this article isn't a demonstration of a slew of cognitive disorders at work then I don't know what is. The guy isn't even capable of engaging in confirmation bias, or only showing the evidence that supports his ideas: he simply mentions the factual data and then ignores their logical incompatibility with his chosen narrative, LOL.
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Oh, the "real" Reagan economic record (as if the actual numbers aren't real enough). a conservative think tank that took center stage during Reagan's Presidency and which has, since then, devoted itself to Reagan hagiography
If I may chip in my humble two cents. The Heritage Foundation would be engaged in Reagan hagiography if R.W.R. was a conservative "saint." However, as Syntax has pointed out, given that the conservative consensus is far from uniform about Reagan's GOP bona fides, the HF think tank seems to be devoted toward #40's hagiopoiesis, i.e., saint-making, or conservative canonization. ;)
"Even Hell has its heroes, señor." The Ninth Gate (1999)
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If I may chip in my humble two cents. The Heritage Foundation would be engaged in Reagan hagiography if R.W.R. was a conservative "saint." However, as Syntax has pointed out, given that the conservative consensus is far from uniform about Reagan's GOP bona fides, the HF think tank seems to be devoted toward #40's hagiopoiesis, i.e., saint-making, or conservative canonization. ;)
"Even Hell has its heroes, señor." The Ninth Gate (1999)
That's actually a fair point.
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"For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16 - NKJV Bible)
That religious quote saved my sorry soul from hell.
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Meh...we could refute this shit all day long. You call my postings propaganda I call yours propaganda, blah blah. It would be never ending. But.....I don't have all day long.
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Did johnnynoname show up in this thread yet?
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"Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but...will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.”
Marcus Aurelius (Roman Emperor)
Wise words from a man who lived 2,000 years ago. He echoes my sentiments exactly.
It reminds me of the words of Baltasar Gracian (January 8, 1601 – December 6, 1658) who was a Spanish Jesuit and baroque prose writer who wrote "The Art of Worldly Wisdom" - Here are his words
"In a word, be a saint - that says everything. Virtue is a chain of all perfections, the centre of all happiness. She makes you prudent, discreet, shrewd, sensible, wise, brave, cautious, honest, happy, praiseworthy, true.... A Universal Hero. Three things make one blessed, saintliness, wisdom and prudence. Virtue is the son of the lesser world, and it's hemisphere is a good conscience. It is so lovely that it wins Gods Grace and that of others. There is nothing as lovable as virtue, nor as hateful as vice. Virtue alone is for real, all else is sham. Talent and Greatness depend on virtue, not on fortune. Only virtue is sufficient unto herself . She makes us love the living and remember the dead"
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"For God so loved the world, He gave His only begotten Son, so that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have everlasting life." (John 3:16 - NKJV Bible)
That religious quote saved my sorry soul from hell.
but you aren't dead yet!
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but you aren't dead yet!
One train is heading toward a station that is burning at 200 degrees, 5 miles away (you can't see it yet), do you get off at the next station and switch trains to go the other way, or stay on to find out what fire tastes like?
Same way you can't wait until your dead to repent and live right.
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Meh... we could refute this shit all day long.
I don't think refute means what you think it means.
You call my postings propaganda I call yours propaganda, blah blah.
Actually, I don't know about what others call your posts, but I call some of them baseless and unsubstantiated.
I don't have all day long.
Surely a man as busy as you, what with running a business and whatnot, would have at least one executive assistant to handle the details. So if you wanted, you could have all day!
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Surely a man as busy as you, what with running a business and whatnot, would have at least one executive assistant to handle the details. So if you wanted, you could have all day!
I do, but it gives me the time to do what I'm supposed to do.......research my training, program design and train people.
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I do, but it gives me the time to do what I'm supposed to do.......research my traiing and train people.
Cool. Carry on.
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Meh...we could refute this shit all day long. You call my postings propaganda I call yours propaganda, blah blah. It would be never ending. But.....I don't have all day long.
Hm, the refutations seems to be a tad bit one-sided. I didn't just call the linked article propaganda, I pointed out its logical incoherence. Since it's your particular beliefs being refuted, I think that you would respond properly if you could. You don't, therefore you can't.
Of course, the other possibility is that you are a well-spring of knowledge that could easily slap me down with some logic and the appropriate facts, but choose not to post because you are just too busy. But, given the sum of posts you have decided to make, everyone here knows how likely this alternative scenario is.
P.S. The stuff I typed up on the article took maybe ten minutes, not quite "all day."
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Hm, the refutations seems to be a tad bit one-sided. I didn't just call the linked article propaganda, I pointed out its logical incoherence. Since it's your particular beliefs being refuted, I think that you would respond properly if you could. You don't, therefore you can't.
Of course, the other possibility is that you are a well-spring of knowledge that could easily slap me down with some logic and the appropriate facts, but choose not to post because you are just too busy. But, given the sum of posts you have decided to make, everyone here knows how likely this alternative scenario is.
P.S. The stuff I typed up on the article took maybe ten minutes, not quite "all day."
Actually not quite. You were still on for at least an hour and a half in this thread writing your post. My guess is that while you were writing that post you were also researching what to say hence the cut and paste of the numbers. It's okay, we all do it. Wondering why you're on here trying to come off as some Rhodes scholar as if to prove some kind of point? Very articulate, much better than I.
BTW, this post took all of a minute to wright. Gotta go!
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BTW, this post took all of a minute to wright. Gotta go!
And it took about the same amount of time to reed.
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And it took about the same amount of time to reed.
Whatever sister, I found typo's in his posts as well, but since it doesn't matter......
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Whatever sister, I found typo's in his posts as well, but since it doesn't matter......
Sounds like someone is going through menopause...
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I hope you're joking, because (to keep the analogy going) there is no evidence at all that there's a fire at the next station, just a simple stop and that's it.
One Holy Book that has been preached and believe by millions over the last 2000 years says there is a fire, but don't worry 'in your opinion - you hope that the next station is safe'
Good luck.
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One Holy Book that has been preached and believe by millions over the last 2000 years says there is a fire, but don't worry 'in your opinion - you hope that the next station is safe'
Good luck.
Personally, Hell could not be worse than the hell most people find their lives to be under a corrupt elitist violent institution called Western Democracy - it's hard to be scared of hell when you are already there!
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Personally, Hell could not be worse than the hell most people find their lives to be under a corrupt elitist violent institution called Western Democracy - it's hard to be scared of hell when you are already there!
Sounds like you're in a hell of your own making.
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'Hell is other people.'
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Sounds like you're in a hell of your own making.
I wasn't just talking about my life (talking about humanity in general), but also the lives of the Millions of people unfairly punished, tortured or killed because of a evil small concentration of power long ago decided they wanted to control the lives of the rest of the world. If you think this world isn't hell, you just haven't investigated reality enough or you are quite young or you are still stuck with the internalised propaganda you were raised with. The problem is, the elitist clever bastards have enslaved humanity and convinced the peasants they are free. Most people are so UNAWARE - they call HELL a Paradise because they were told that it is, over and over again until they internalised it. Perfect system, enslave humans and convince them they are FREE, that way they will never ask to be FREED! because they don't realise they are enslaved. From my experience, HELL is created by external Powerful Forces, (mostly Governments) taking advantage of those with no Power! The beauty of the system is you take the child from the parent at a very young age, indoctrinate him and call it education, force him over and over to obey authority so that when he is an adult he will not question, not seek, not imagine what is happening in the world and just selfishly seek out his own narcisstic ends! Even if my life was Perfect, I would still call this Planet Hell, as I have heard to many Witness Accounts to confirm it!
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if heaven is a place where religious nutcases gather, im not sure i wanna go there ???
i think allah god has couple dozen virgins to offer at his place, sounds promising.
what the jews get?
christianity not sure either.
maybe its all the same god anway, there can only be one id guess
In heaven, all the interesting people are missing.
Friedrich Nietzsche
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friedrich neitzsche 1890 or so "god is dead"
god 2012 or so "freidrich nietzsche is dead"
;D
At least freidrich nietzsche made an appearance, which is more than you can say for "GOD"
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Personally, Hell could not be worse than the hell most people find their lives to be under a corrupt elitist violent institution called Western Democracy - it's hard to be scared of hell when you are already there!
Are you completely out of your fucken mind?..... the worst parts of western democracy are heaven in comparison to all third world coutries, nearly 1 in 4 people in Africa have aids, people are still getting tortured, burnt alive, eyes poked out, children being molested and sacrificed, people getting their limbs ripped off every fucken day all over the place, millions die of starvation yearly, and the worst fate you can come up with is a standard life in western society, LMFAO.
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Are you completely out of your fucken mind?..... the worst parts of western democracy are heaven in comparison to all third world coutries, nearly 1 in 4 people in Africa have aids, people are still getting tortured, burnt alive, eyes poked out, children being molested and sacrificed, people getting their limbs ripped off every fucken day all over the place, millions die of starvation yearly, and the worst fate you can come up with is a standard life in western society, LMFAO.
And who do you think is causing that misery - Western Democracy's - The western world enjoys there fat cat lifestyles while the rest of the world suffers - only a narcisstic fool would call the murder, rape and exploitation of the third world so that he can get fat, lazy and apathetic while watching a documentary about it a "HEAVEN". I was referring to humanity in general - Humanity itself is in a HELL that is the making of a small concentration of sick sadistic power mongers - So enjoy getting stoned on your western Democratic lifestyle and continue to feel grateful that it is the third world being destroyed because Americans believe they have the right to rape, murder and pillage - you should feel grateful that you have found a way to way to enjoy living in a Fascist Corrupt Democracy where the Elites fuck everyone else up the arse! For those of us who are informed and have moved beyond the ignorance of Bliss - we have discovered that the Planet Earth is a living hell for a large percentage of its inhabitants! Funny how Americans and other Loveless Western Democracies have so much misery, unhappiness, disease, anxiety, suicides, violence, murder and war - if that is what you think HEAVEN is - you are welcome to it!
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the more screwed up shit you see in this world the harder it is to beleive there is a god out there, i used to be a beleiver until one year ago. now im a follower of lucifer and the demons of hell
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One Holy Book that has been preached and believe by millions over the last 2000 years says there is a fire, but don't worry 'in your opinion - you hope that the next station is safe'
Good luck.
It's debatable if the book is holy - let's not jump ahead of ourselves.
As for whether it's been preached for the last 2000 years and is believed by millions, even if it has and even if millions - or even billions - believe it, the question boils down to: so what? This isn't a popularity contest.
And I don't worry - the collected writings of ancient superstitious sheepherders on the meaning of life are of no concern to me. What of the station being on fire? I don't worry about that either because there is no "next station". Death is the end of the line in the finite journey of life - a journey that begins and then ends. What's "after" the end of the journey is no different than what was "before" the beginning of it.
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And who do you think is causing that misery - Western Democracy's - The western world enjoys there fat cat lifestyles while the rest of the world suffers - only a narcisstic fool would call the murder, rape and exploitation of the third world so that he can get fat, lazy and apathetic while watching a documentary about it a "HEAVEN". I was referring to humanity in general - Humanity itself is in a HELL that is the making of a small concentration of sick sadistic power mongers - So enjoy getting stoned on your western Democratic lifestyle and continue to feel grateful that it is the third world being destroyed because Americans believe they have the right to rape, murder and pillage - you should feel grateful that you have found a way to way to enjoy living in a Fascist Corrupt Democracy where the Elites fuck everyone else up the arse! For those of us who are informed and have moved beyond the ignorance of Bliss - we have discovered that the Planet Earth is a living hell for a large percentage of its inhabitants! Funny how Americans and other Loveless Western Democracies have so much misery, unhappiness, disease, anxiety, suicides, violence, murder and war - if that is what you think HEAVEN is - you are welcome to it!
No I realized what you meant after reading your other post, but that is not what you said in the post I responded to, I hold the western world responsible for their demonic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 45 and their stupidity sending troops into battle without a strong moral in disadvantage fighting ground. There is a lot that can be accounted for, but make no mistake about it, the western world is very civilized and very little cruelty and sufferment gets bestowed upon the people, Parts of the globe that are barbaric that have nothing to do with the western world.
Do I think it's wrong for them going into Iraq and Afganistan, well ya but every country in the world is guilty of conquest, and to be honest they did it with very little collateral damage, study your history and compare military tactics to that of the western world and you will see that the westerner are gentlemen in comparison. Oh and where the fuck did you get "rape" from
Blaming The western world for the cruelty that occurs around the globe is ludicris. Bro sound like you haven't done much studying in particular, history and are completely wrong on what you mentioned about suicide rate and violencs. THE US HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST MURDER RATES ON THE PLANET, at least 30-40 countries have way higher murder rate then the us.
The only problem people from the western world have is obesity and brother that is a sign that life is good over here.
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exploitation of the third world so that he can get fat, lazy and apathetic while watching a documentary about it a "HEAVEN".
Sounds like the good life to me.
So enjoy getting stoned on your western Democratic lifestyle and continue to feel grateful that it is the third world being destroyed
Sounds good to me, Ill continue to follow your advice.
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Sounds like the good life to me.
Sounds good to me, Ill continue to follow your advice.
;D outed
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all third world coutries, nearly 1 in 4 people in Africa have aids, people are still getting tortured, burnt alive, eyes poked out, children being molested and sacrificed, people getting their limbs ripped off every fucken day all over the place, millions die of starvation yearly, plus rape, etc.,...and you think there is some kind, fair, and loving, God?
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all third world coutries, nearly 1 in 4 people in Africa have aids, people are still getting tortured, burnt alive, eyes poked out, children being molested and sacrificed, people getting their limbs ripped off every fucken day all over the place, millions die of starvation yearly, plus rape, etc.,...and you think there is some kind, fair, and loving, God?
Well that is not my argument at the moment, but you must now that your assessment is like saying cause there is a high crime rate, that means their are no cops.
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all third world coutries, nearly 1 in 4 people in Africa have aids, people are still getting tortured, burnt alive, eyes poked out, children being molested and sacrificed, people getting their limbs ripped off every fucken day all over the place, millions die of starvation yearly, plus rape, etc.,...and you think there is some kind, fair, and loving, God?
why do we celebrate Easter with a bunny and eggs?, Why do we celebbrate pagan holidays like Halloween? Why is Christmas celebrated on Dec. 25, when it is not when Jesus is supposed to have been born. Christians are dumb.
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why do we celebrate Easter with a bunny and eggs?, Why do we celebbrate pagan holidays like Halloween? Why is Christmas celebrated on Dec. 25, when it is not when Jesus is supposed to have been born. Christians are dumb.
more people that are not Christians then Christians celebrate those holidays, so what's your point Millions of Christians have University degrees, lawyer, doctors, there are Christian's in every single profession, so they are dumb?... what you said was dumb.
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more people that are not Christians then Christians celebrate those holidays, so what's your point Millions of Christians have University degrees, lawyer, doctors, there are Christian's in every single profession, so they are dumb?... what you said was dumb.
A true Christian would not celebrate Pagan holidays. Period.
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No I realized what you meant after reading your other post, but that is not what you said in the post I responded to, I hold the western world responsible for their demonic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the summer of 45 and their stupidity sending troops into battle without a strong moral in disadvantage fighting ground. There is a lot that can be accounted for, but make no mistake about it, the western world is very civilized and very little cruelty and sufferment gets bestowed upon the people, Parts of the globe that are barbaric that have nothing to do with the western world.
Do I think it's wrong for them going into Iraq and Afganistan, well ya but every country in the world is guilty of conquest, and to be honest they did it with very little collateral damage, study your history and compare military tactics to that of the western world and you will see that the westerner are gentlemen in comparison. Oh and where the fuck did you get "rape" from
Blaming The western world for the cruelty that occurs around the globe is ludicris. Bro sound like you haven't done much studying in particular, history and are completely wrong on what you mentioned about suicide rate and violencs. THE US HAS ONE OF THE LOWEST MURDER RATES ON THE PLANET, at least 30-40 countries have way higher murder rate then the us.
The only problem people from the western world have is obesity and brother that is a sign that life is good over here.
250,000 iraq citizens killed - you call that a little collateral damage, I think you need to check where your getting your information - if you think 1/4 million, some say much more, is a little collateral damage, well, what can I say! According to a report from UNICEF, the United States has the highest rate of deaths from child abuse and neglect of any industrialized nation. The US homicide rate, although it has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. To think that America are gentlemen in War is the most NAIVE statement I have ever heard, you sound like an American Propoganda Publication. Even Noam Chomsky considers America to be the greatest terrorist state in the world and also the greatest threat to world peace. The most evil and disgusting users of force ever is the USA, no question, were talking about a country that has interfered in almost every country worldwide, bombing 50 of them since the end of world war 2. If you are believing what your government tells you, you have rocks in your head. America is literally hated by the rest of the world, but your propaganda media system will never tell you the truth, they prefer to tell there citizens how great they are, while they RAPE, murder and assault the rest of the world. RAPE is used all the time by the US military to intimidate during WAR! All the Time! It is hard to converse with someone who is under the delusion that America is somehow a "gentlemen" - America will go down in History as the most EVIL empire ever formed, in the future, people will compare America and Germany for their atrocities, with America winning by a landslide! perhaps you should investigate further the atrocities America has been committing around the world for the last 100 years. Most parts of the world that are barbaric has a lot do to with the USA, since it is the USA that has armed and financed every dictator it favors for a very long time now. Perhaps if you want to know the truth, start with Noam Chomsky - you can't go wrong there!
Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.
Noam Chomsky
Either you repeat the same conventional doctrines everybody is saying, or else you say something true, and it will sound like it's from Neptune.
Noam Chomsky
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky
I have often thought that if a rational Fascist dictatorship were to exist, then it would choose the American system.
Noam Chomsky
If the Nuremberg laws were applied, then every post-war American president would have been hanged.
Noam Chomsky
“It's not radical Islam that worries the US -- it's independence”
Noam Chomsky
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250,000 iraq citizens killed - you call that a little collateral damage, I think you need to check where your getting your information - if you think 1/4 million, some say much more, is a little collateral damage, well, what can I say! According to a report from UNICEF, the United States has the highest rate of deaths from child abuse and neglect of any industrialized nation. The US homicide rate, although it has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. To think that America are gentlemen in War is the most NAIVE statement I have ever heard, you sound like an American Propoganda Publication. Even Noam Chomsky considers America to be the greatest terrorist state in the world and also the greatest threat to world peace. The most evil and disgusting users of force ever is the USA, no question, were talking about a country that has interfered in almost every country worldwide, bombing 50 of them since the end of world war 2. If you are believing what your government tells you, you have rocks in your head. America is literally hated by the rest of the world, but your propaganda media system will never tell you the truth, they prefer to tell there citizens how great they are, while they RAPE, murder and assault the rest of the world. RAPE is used all the time by the US military to intimidate during WAR! All the Time! It is hard to converse with someone who is under the delusion that America is somehow a "gentlemen" - America will go down in History as the most EVIL empire ever formed, in the future, people will compare America and Germany for their atrocities, with America winning by a landslide! perhaps you should investigate further the atrocities America has been committing around the world for the last 100 years. Most parts of the world that are barbaric has a lot do to with the USA, since it is the USA that has armed and financed every dictator it favors for a very long time now. Perhaps if you want to know the truth, start with Noam Chomsky - you can't go wrong there!
.
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250,000 iraq citizens killed - you call that a little collateral damage, I think you need to check where your getting your information - if you think 1/4 million, some say much more, is a little collateral damage, well, what can I say! According to a report from UNICEF, the United States has the highest rate of deaths from child abuse and neglect of any industrialized nation. The US homicide rate, although it has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. To think that America are gentlemen in War is the most NAIVE statement I have ever heard, you sound like an American Propoganda Publication. Even Noam Chomsky considers America to be the greatest terrorist state in the world and also the greatest threat to world peace. The most evil and disgusting users of force ever is the USA, no question, were talking about a country that has interfered in almost every country worldwide, bombing 50 of them since the end of world war 2. If you are believing what your government tells you, you have rocks in your head. America is literally hated by the rest of the world, but your propaganda media system will never tell you the truth, they prefer to tell there citizens how great they are, while they RAPE, murder and assault the rest of the world. RAPE is used all the time by the US military to intimidate during WAR! All the Time! It is hard to converse with someone who is under the delusion that America is somehow a "gentlemen" - America will go down in History as the most EVIL empire ever formed, in the future, people will compare America and Germany for their atrocities, with America winning by a landslide! perhaps you should investigate further the atrocities America has been committing around the world for the last 100 years. Most parts of the world that are barbaric has a lot do to with the USA, since it is the USA that has armed and financed every dictator it favors for a very long time now. Perhaps if you want to know the truth, start with Noam Chomsky - you can't go wrong there!
Yes. Yes, you can. Treat all sources with skepticism. Chomsky is good, but he's a moral relativist.
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250,000 iraq citizens killed - you call that a little collateral damage, I think you need to check where your getting your information - if you think 1/4 million, some say much more, is a little collateral damage, well, what can I say! According to a report from UNICEF, the United States has the highest rate of deaths from child abuse and neglect of any industrialized nation. The US homicide rate, although it has declined substantially since 1991 from a rate per 100,000 persons of 9.8 to 4.8 in 2010, is still among the highest in the industrialized world. To think that America are gentlemen in War is the most NAIVE statement I have ever heard, you sound like an American Propoganda Publication. Even Noam Chomsky considers America to be the greatest terrorist state in the world and also the greatest threat to world peace. The most evil and disgusting users of force ever is the USA, no question, were talking about a country that has interfered in almost every country worldwide, bombing 50 of them since the end of world war 2. If you are believing what your government tells you, you have rocks in your head. America is literally hated by the rest of the world, but your propaganda media system will never tell you the truth, they prefer to tell there citizens how great they are, while they RAPE, murder and assault the rest of the world. RAPE is used all the time by the US military to intimidate during WAR! All the Time! It is hard to converse with someone who is under the delusion that America is somehow a "gentlemen" - America will go down in History as the most EVIL empire ever formed, in the future, people will compare America and Germany for their atrocities, with America winning by a landslide! perhaps you should investigate further the atrocities America has been committing around the world for the last 100 years. Most parts of the world that are barbaric has a lot do to with the USA, since it is the USA that has armed and financed every dictator it favors for a very long time now. Perhaps if you want to know the truth, start with Noam Chomsky - you can't go wrong there!
Newsflash - the world isnt a popularity contest.
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Yes. Yes, you can. Treat all sources with skepticism. Chomsky is good, but he's a moral relativist.
Yes. Yes, you can. Treat all sources with skepticism. Chomsky is good, but he's a moral relativist.
I dont believe Chomsky is a moral relativist - he comes across that way, as it would be highly dangerous for him to be openly critical of American Morality. It's pretty obvious what Chomsky thinks of American Morals and the resulting foreign polices of Terror. I dont think Chomsky is highlighting his own governments atrocities and then saying We have no way of knowing for sure whether Americas brand of terrorism is ethically right or wrong. Any decent human being who studies Chomsky will come to the conclusion that he is a moral Universalist, suggesting that terrorism (especially that created by the USA) is always morally wrong. People can make there on conclusions, but his message seems loud and clear to me.
Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it.
Noam Chomsky
I'm pretty sure I know what country the above statement is aimed at!
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Chomsky is a f'n tool.
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Where does Chomsky live?
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Where does Chomsky live?
America - and for those that think the American Government gives a SH!T about human rights of it's own citizens, check this link out!
http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/04/7500-words-chinese-government-us-human-rights-abuse/36553/ (http://www.theatlanticwire.com/global/2011/04/7500-words-chinese-government-us-human-rights-abuse/36553/)
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America
If it's such a bastion of tyrrany, why doesn't he get locked up?
In fact, why would he even want to live there in the first place?
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A true Christian would not celebrate Pagan holidays. Period.
Point taken, but that wouldn`t make them dumb, that would just mean they don`t know the origins of these celebration, that`s all. Not many people know that.
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If it's such a bastion of tyrrany, why doesn't he get locked up?
In fact, why would he even want to live there in the first place?
The tyranny he talks about is abroad, and if he wasn't so high profile, I am sure he would have been locked up long ago and never heard off, I guess the authorities are just waiting for the old man to die. Chomsky (along with other activists) also recently challenged the American Govt in a lawsuit for fear that he may be locked up for expressing his views due to new legislation that was introduced by the American Govt. He has also stated before, that he chooses to live in America, because it is were he was born and that it is his home, and he still believed America is a great country or has the capacity to be so again. There is nothing wrong with being pissed off that your government overtly murders and abuses human rights all over the world and standing up to it, what surprises me, is that there are few American citizens that stand up to this tyrannical empire, it appears that the Average American must be more than OK with the huge atrocities America commits worldwide, otherwise they would surely say something. The average American has so much blood on his hands, but is either unaware or couldn't care less. It appears to be a combination of both Ignorance and EVIL!
The facts illustrate that the United States has a dismal record on its own human rights and could not be justified to pose as the world’s “human rights justice.” However, it released the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other countries for their human rights practices. The United States ignores its own serious human rights problems, but has been keen on advocating the so-called “human rights diplomacy,” to take human rights as a political instrument to defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests.
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Bro I study history and have studied every civiliazation known to man, over a thousand battles and have written on over 500 generals, so let me give you a quick history lesson sense you are clearly lacking in this field.
2000 BC Summerian strong hold in the fertile cresent, oppisition from Accadians,Mesopatamian, and Babylonians
1500, Rise of the Elamites, Canaanites, and egyptians and Hebrew tribes known today as the Jews and the Arabs, yes the Arabs are Hebrew.
1000 BC, Rise of Israeli rule by Solomon, lasted 500 years till the Babylonian exile
Assyrian power by Sennecherib and his Successor
followed by Babylonian rule, king Nebudchadnezzar, 550bc
followed by Persian rule, Cyrus the great.460 bc
followed by Greek rule Alexander the great 330bc
followed by Roman rule, Julius Caeser 50bc
then Germanic tribe, Heathens, and Anglo Saxons, Between 400 and 600 ad
Arab invasions, In the Days of Mohammed, 8th century
10th century Ad capture of Jurusalem over Islam
turn of the century turned over by Saladin to Syrian rule
Post 12th century, Ottomen Empire
18 Century, French rule, Napolean
21 Century America
NOW LET`S COMPARE
Israel rule---Conquest of 40 nations and 200+ wars
Assyrian Rule ----Conquest of 32 nations 150 wars
Babylonian Rule---Conquest of 25 nations and 100 wars
Greek rule ----Conquest of 35 nations and 150 wars
Roman Rule---Conquest of 50 nations and 250 wars
America--- Conquest of 6 nations and 12- 15 wars
These are the facts my friend from the beginning of time every reigning super power has abused it`s power but America has done it the least, they hold back because modern day America is not barbaric like you claim.
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NOW LET`S COMPARE
Israel rule---Conquest of 40 nations and 200+ wars
Assyrian Rule ----Conquest of 32 nations 150 wars
Babylonian Rule---Conquest of 25 nations and 100 wars
Greek rule ----Conquest of 35 nations and 150 wars
Roman Rule---Conquest of 50 nations and 250 wars
America--- Conquest of 6 nations and 12- 15 wars
These are the facts my friend from the beginning of time every reigning super power has abused it`s power but America has done it the least, they hold back because modern day America is not barbaric like you claim.
I don't disagree with your analysis or your conclusion, but you're only using the number of wars and conquests as a metric. But there's something else to factor into it. As we have progressed and our technological (and war-making) prowess has improved, wars have become increasingly lethal. If I remember correctly, World War I had about 30 million casualties and World War II had about 70 million casualties. Combined those two wars resulted in 100 million casualties - that is the entire population of earth at around 100 B.C.
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I don't disagree with your analysis or your conclusion, but you're only using the number of wars and conquests as a metric. But there's something else to factor into it. As we have progressed and our technological (and war-making) prowess has improved, wars have become increasingly lethal. If I remember correctly, World War I had about 30 million casualties and World War II had about 70 million casualties. Combined those two wars resulted in 100 million casualties - that is the entire population of earth at around 100 B.C.
100% correct sir, in fact I hate arguing with you cause you are one of the smartest posters on getbig ;)
Anyhow the numbers you brought up are still related to the amount of people living at this time in the same way as the casualties of war in antiquity are related to the amount of people living then. Take the Romans for example, they conquered as much as 30% of the known world so 1 in 15 men living would have died in battle at that time at some point, that is a far greater fraction then the casualties in world war 2.
Governments in every era create conflict and propaganda so they can wage war for to further progress their nation, however it wouldn't be hard for America to use these tactics as well, but they haven`t at the level shown by their predecessors,.. I am not even American but I can`t think of another nation taken it`s place and the world not resulting in Chaos.
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I don't disagree with your analysis or your conclusion, but you're only using the number of wars and conquests as a metric. But there's something else to factor into it. As we have progressed and our technological (and war-making) prowess has improved, wars have become increasingly lethal. If I remember correctly, World War I had about 30 million casualties and World War II had about 70 million casualties. Combined those two wars resulted in 100 million casualties - that is the entire population of earth at around 100 B.C.
Interesting point, except that WWI and II encompassed a far larger percentage of the world than the ancient wars. Id be interested to know the percentages rather than the absolute numbers.
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America--- Conquest of 6 nations and 12- 15 wars
These are the facts my friend from the beginning of time every reigning super power has abused it`s power but America has done it the least, they hold back because modern day America is not barbaric like you claim.
Meh. The US has interfered with, or subverted, foreign gov'ts 00's of times in the 20th century alone. Wars aren't needed if you can achieve your ends by other means.
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Meh. The US has interfered with, or subverted, foreign gov'ts 00's of times in the 20th century alone. Wars aren't needed if you can achieve your ends by other means.
Wars are the horrors of civilization, everything else is the lesser of 2 evils and pales in comparison. How many races have been obliterated off the globe from war, completed extinct how many people have been thrown into a massacre and raped, how many children have been thrown into a pile stacked 40 feet high and set ablaze, how many woman have grieved over these atrocities in war.
Considering the US has had the power to do so just like other nations that have been in the front seat and have broken the pattern of humanity, paved the way to a more civilized world should say something, you guys need to go and study your history then you will realize that this era is the only era that has seen lack of war from nations to nations and don't think for a second the one in the driver seat has nothing to with it.
The evils are many in life but make no mistake warfare is the main event, the pinnacle and climax of evil and sufferment and in a category of itself, trust me when America losses it's power and it will (every superpower has) you will see all hell break lose from these barbaric and uncivilized nations and the world once again will be in torment..
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Meh. The US has interfered with, or subverted, foreign gov'ts 00's of times in the 20th century alone. Wars aren't needed if you can achieve your ends by other means.
Isnt this a good thing?
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Isnt this a good thing?
Thank you, holy shit finally someone gets it, America is not a good or bad nation cause of the good it does or the minor evils it does, it is a good nation (overall that is) cause of the atrocities and horror, torment and sufferment it prevents on a global scale.
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I'm not sure. I thought Reagan was very well liked.
In Holland (and most of Europe) Reagan was the most hated president ever back in the 80s. I hated him too...
25 Yrs later, I think he contributed immensly in ending the cold war. And in comparison to today's Republicans, he was almost a liberal.. ;D
Reagan rocked !!
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Wars are the horrors of civilization, everything else is the lesser of 2 evils and pales in comparison. How many races have been obliterated off the globe from war, completed extinct how many people have been thrown into a massacre and raped, how many children have been thrown into a pile stacked 40 feet high and set ablaze, how many woman have grieved over these atrocities in war.
Considering the US has had the power to do so just like other nations that have been in the front seat and have broken the pattern of humanity, paved the way to a more civilized world should say something, you guys need to go and study your history then you will realize that this era is the only era that has seen lack of war from nations to nations and don't think for a second the one in the driver seat has nothing to with it.
The evils are many in life but make no mistake warfare is the main event, the pinnacle and climax of evil and sufferment and in a category of itself, trust me when America losses it's power and it will (every superpower has) you will see all hell break lose from these barbaric and uncivilized nations and the world once again will be in torment..
Consider myself lectured to. *sigh*
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well hes a linguistic professor with views on israel which dont agree with usa's "flaming torch" foreign policy
i like the guy
I like him for that reason,too. He was one of the first that I can think of, offhandedly, that openly disagreed with Israel's policies, both domestic and foreign. It was then a polar position; now it is one that is getting second looks, on a regular basis.
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The tyranny he talks about is abroad, and if he wasn't so high profile, I am sure he would have been locked up long ago and never heard off, I guess the authorities are just waiting for the old man to die. Chomsky (along with other activists) also recently challenged the American Govt in a lawsuit for fear that he may be locked up for expressing his views due to new legislation that was introduced by the American Govt. He has also stated before, that he chooses to live in America, because it is were he was born and that it is his home, and he still believed America is a great country or has the capacity to be so again. There is nothing wrong with being pissed off that your government overtly murders and abuses human rights all over the world and standing up to it, what surprises me, is that there are few American citizens that stand up to this tyrannical empire, it appears that the Average American must be more than OK with the huge atrocities America commits worldwide, otherwise they would surely say something. The average American has so much blood on his hands, but is either unaware or couldn't care less. It appears to be a combination of both Ignorance and EVIL!
The facts illustrate that the United States has a dismal record on its own human rights and could not be justified to pose as the world’s “human rights justice.” However, it released the Country Reports on Human Rights Practices year after year to accuse and blame other countries for their human rights practices. The United States ignores its own serious human rights problems, but has been keen on advocating the so-called “human rights diplomacy,” to take human rights as a political instrument to defame other nations’ image and seek its own strategic interests.
The great evil empire is waiting for him to grow old and die?
What an evil plan! Apparently, nothing is beneath them. Great point.
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The great evil empire is waiting for him to grow old and die?
What an evil plan! Apparently, nothing is beneath them. Great point.
Why not, the Chinese have openly admitted they are waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, they have tried assassinating him, used massive propaganda to turn the whole country against him, but so far have been unable to take him out. The American Government would love to get rid of Chomsky, but like I said, it isn't always the wisest thing to do to take out someone so high profile, it can bring many many supporters to his cause, and so far the Government and media have done a great job suppressing his message and keeping the truth from the people, so until his message becomes mainstream, they will continue doing what they are doing, shutting him out and keeping his message unheard - I good start for the uninformed is the doco "Manufactured Consent", Chomsky himself will tell you how his government keeps him silent!
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Why not, the Chinese have openly admitted they are waiting for the Dalai Lama to die, they have tried assassinating him, used massive propaganda to turn the whole country against him, but so far have been unable to take him out. The American Government would love to get rid of Chomsky, but like I said, it isn't always the wisest thing to do to take out someone so high profile, it can bring many many supporters to his cause, and so far the Government and media have done a great job suppressing his message and keeping the truth from the people, so until his message becomes mainstream, they will continue doing what they are doing, shutting him out and keeping his message unheard - I good start for the uninformed is the doco "Manufactured Consent", Chomsky himself will tell you how his government keeps him silent!
What do you disagree with him on?
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What do you disagree with him on?
That America is still a great country!
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Chomsky is a f'n tool.
That's a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you disagree with his political positions & viewpoints - I know I do - but that doesn't make him a fool. The simple fact, as a matter of fact, is that he isn't a fool. He's actually quite bright, and some of his research in the field of languages has been truly ground-breaking and has far-reaching consequences. His formal hierarchy of grammars, for example, which he formulated in the mid-50s is the corner stone of language theory in computer science, an active field of study in theoretical computer science and one with many practical applications.
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That's a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you disagree with his political positions & viewpoints - I know I do - but that doesn't make him a fool. The simple fact, as a matter of fact, is that he isn't a fool. He's actually quite bright, and some of his research in the field of languages has been truly ground-breaking and has far-reaching consequences. His formal hierarchy of grammars, for example, which he formulated in the mid-50s is the corner stone of language theory in computer science, an active field of study in theoretical computer science and one with many practical applications.
"The Ugly" is a fool - not to be taken seriously
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That America is still a great country!
Face it, you're a fundamentalist. You're not going to take a balanced approach to anything. Your mind is made up and you will simply manipulate evidence to conform to your viewpoint.
You're no different than a religious nutjob.
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Face it, you're a fundamentalist. You're not going to take a balanced approach to anything. Your mind is made up and you will simply manipulate evidence to conform to your viewpoint.
You're no different than a religious nutjob.
If you consider a fundamentalist is espousing a philosophy of holding life sacred, that humans are our greatest resource, that war is evil, no matter the justification and that there is no path to peace and that peace is the path, if strictly adhering to the concept of promoting non-suffering is considered fundamentalist, well, I am guilty as charged and proud of it. I am always amazed how aggressively people advocate for war and then attack anybody who stands up to them. What did the Warmongers think, humans were just going to watch while they destroyed the civilised world, Idiots! Behaviours that murder and take away peoples human rights should be stood up to, and any citizen who doesn't should be ashamed!
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If you consider a fundamentalist is espousing a philosophy of holding life sacred, that humans are our greatest resource, that war is evil, no matter the justification and that there is no path to peace and that peace is the path, if strictly adhering to the concept of promoting non-suffering is considered fundamentalist, well, I am guilty as charged and proud of it. I am always amazed how aggressively people advocate for war and then attack anybody who stands up to them. What did the Warmongers think, humans were just going to watch while they destroyed the civilised world, Idiots! Behaviours that murder and take away peoples human rights should be stood up to, and any citizen who doesn't should be ashamed!
I haven't advocated anything, and that's exactly my point.
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That America is still a great country!
Even better: it's "God's own country.."
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That's a ridiculous statement. Perhaps you disagree with his political positions & viewpoints - I know I do - but that doesn't make him a fool. The simple fact, as a matter of fact, is that he isn't a fool. He's actually quite bright, and some of his research in the field of languages has been truly ground-breaking and has far-reaching consequences. His formal hierarchy of grammars, for example, which he formulated in the mid-50s is the corner stone of language theory in computer science, an active field of study in theoretical computer science and one with many practical applications.
He said tool not fool. ::)
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He said tool not fool. ::)
You're right. I totally misread that.
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I don't dig his politics is all. Don't like his moral relativism or revisionist anti-Americanism. I'm not talking about his work with linguistics. National and international politics - the dude's a self-hating tool. My opinion, big deal.
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I don't dig his politics is all. Don't like his moral relativism or revisionist anti-Americanism. I'm not talking about his work with linguistics. National and international politics - the dude's a self-hating tool. My opinion, big deal.
It is interesting that you attribute moral relativism to Chomsky, particularly because he is constantly arguing that it is "wrong" to violate human rights and that certain governmental policy is objectively abhorrent. No moral relativist could say such things; so, is Chomsky unaware of the inconsistency between his statements and his particular view of morality or have you incorrectly attributed relativism to him? I'm guessing it's the latter.