Catholicism,Calvinism,Reformed Theology & Addiction Debate

Definately better. But how do you coordinate intelligence without a central entity? I'm more or less accepting of a big military I just get annoyed with hero worship and the military cult that gets pushed on everyone.

 

Because you are a hero!

 

For sure. And not to discount real hero! That do exist! It's just when we call everyone that it loses its meaning. It's actually degrading to the ones who are real heroes.

 

Veterans and vfw's are very different. Citations and medals like purple hearts have meaning more to the insiders than civilians. It's when politicians play up their military record that it just doesn't play well with me. Which war they fought in shouldn't matter. What we think of the mission, I mean. These people are now volunteers and follow orders. We should always respect the military as if they were fighting for a cause we approve because they would have done that the same -- getting sent to fight somewhere we disagree with isn't their fault.

Also, it was very different during the draft days. Those weren't volunteers. And, many yet became heroes despite. That's I think the inconsistency. In those grey areas of subtle differences not really understood.

Does America overuse it's military? Maybe. Who's to say, though?! Do we shove things down everyone's throat per international clams? ...even mostly from socialist nations with garbage morals (on the whole) whose economic success is extremely dependent upon the actual freedoms provided *BY* our military actions? No. They are unappreciative morons. Nearly every POW story is one of how our military treats people with dignity. We've literally converted the world to understand the virtues and sanctity of freedom.

It was a world painted mostly by kings and tyrants, by fiefdom and intractable classes of wrongful nobility. And now, a modern era singularly powered by EXACTLY the level of military might and innovation and mercy that we applied. I'll not question it as much as appreciate where we are and resolve to also improve our methods while also maintaining the current strategy. We ar enot an empire. We are the first true nation ever to accomplish anything like this. Sure, Alexander the Great educated people, sure the British Empire did similarly good things. Most of the empires were brutal robbers. We are not creating an empire but painting new ideals and it is under the Christian constructs so misabused by the Spanish empire and many others.

That's my perspective. Change my mind if you can.

 

@vxlccm I would love to change your mind on this!! LOL! I disagree that we mold things to our values, because if one of our values is self determination and individual liberty, and we actively thwart free people's attempt to form an maintain governments they want but we disapprove of I think we are undermining our integrity. We are letting them chose between Coke and Pepsi and if they pick orange soda we are free to drop bombs on them.

I do agree with your sentiment. I don't think the US is attempting to be an empire or some type of imperialist nation. I don't think soldiers are bad or that the war we fight or have fraught are intrinsically evil. I'd take battles on a cases by case and individual actions on a case by case. That's probably to only other area I'd disagree with you on philosophically.

Fighting and doing things you believe or know to be wrong is your fault absolutely. I don't give a pass for "I was doing my job". I can grant mercy for weakness in the face of pressure and fear of death in the split seconds you have to make awful decisions but I agree with the old hippy saying "What if they threw a war and no one showed up?". There is always a choice. If your commanding officer orders you execute 100 civilians on their knees you can and should tell him to fuck off and shoot him if he tries to make you. Luckily our armed forces are not run by lunatics and our soldiers are intelligent and moral individuals, but philosophically...it's your fault if you do something wrong I don't care who told you to do it. Of course this might not be the point you were making at all

 

@Max Fisher Great addendum -- Nope that wasn't my point.

So, to expand some of those thoughts. I won't continue the diatribe, but this is as clarification.

Soldiers being disrespectful of human rights is exactly the opposite of my point. And, those sadistic freaks shouldn't be in the military. We've tried to police those things, as a nation, but more importantly they within the military have done it fairly well. Not perfectly, but well on average in light of the rest of the human condition.

My point was that, at large, over history, this nation has done right by the world. Many many people have died grinding their ordered little selves against our military might. Do we blame them for following a dictatorship regime in essentially every single case? Nope. Neither do I blame our military for having larger objectives in mind when following orders to eradicate or suppress enemy forces.

My comment about supporting the military only had to do with the political sphere. We either support the military or we don't. It's just a tool -- they follow orders. Making the military only have commands by vote doesn't work, hence the commander-in-chief approach.

Voting for that guy? (so far, it's been guys as potus) Something to be careful about. Very very careful, with plenty of impeachment options. Now, impeaching is a sideshow, not imminent danger. A vote of no confidence in other countries is so cool. Government instability means more freedom secured, as far as I'm concerned. The more entrenched they get, the worse off the people's rights become infringed. Career politicians are to blame for a multitude of wrongs against humanity.

The idea of voting at all? It's largely a separate issue. My topic here was just the overall analysis of world impact of one little document and some good men doing very great things by eschewing entirely the ideas of kings and tyrants and nobility and, really, over-intervention by governments as a rule. Shame on us for squandering things in the past 100 years and creating a massive Federal bureaucracy and letting the states follow suit. The states can blame themselves, it's only the Federal types that really hold my attention in this case. If one of the states wanted to do a lot of Socialist nonsense, that's kind of on them (States have lots of reserve powers and that's by design and should have been left much more alone). So many excuses have been made over the years for interstate highways and interstate commerce and really only the military was supposed to be nationalized. No FBI/Marshals/etc. Border Patrol, Coast Guard, maybe Homeland Security are arguable up to a certain very small size as necessary. I'd argue all government is right about TEN times larger than it should be. So, cut it down to 10% and I'd be a whole lot happier. We would never have had an NSA debacle if they Feds would have stayed in their proper roles and sizes.

I draw certain lines. Whatever our Republic should have been, ir is quite antithetical to Socialism. Mandated health care is very very far over that line. So is a progressive income tax. Any income tax at all? Well: maybe. Case by case as has been said. But: have that conversation with 5% of the current budget and 10% of the current size, still saving money for a rainy day and stockpiling wealth like we should be, instead of stockpiling debt.

Why do we need a state drivers licence? Why are only certain people in so many businesses allowed to do so many trades without a government-sanctioned guild? It's madness. It would not be anarchy to not require someone to have a State-sanctioned license for doing hair or giving medicine or so many other things. Traffic tickets? Really?! Convince me the founders had that in mind.

So many of those questions. All good Libertarians ought to know their dogma and be ready to live by it. Never accept government handouts. Always vote against regulations and borrowing. You know the drill. Change the tide!

 

Completely agree.

 

Oh boy oh boy oh boy oh boy.

Yes.

Yes.

No such country exists.

I'll try to correct this injustice. Thanks for murdering civilians and stealing natural resources so those who survive remain poor and starving.

Yeah. Iraqis, Libyans and Syrians can't get enough of that freedom US has so gracefully exported.

Is the US the worst empire to ever exist? Not by a long shot. Is it still evil as fuck? Yes.

 

Do you mean the "US government"? If you believe it is evil I'm sure you would join us in reducing its size, scope, reach an power. Hopefully you want it smaller and less well funded.

 

I think that's true. We evolved to survive and spread seed, not to serve.

No, Max. I mean you personally, you evil bastard. The politicians are alright.

Sounds nice. But then the world - or parts of it, rather - comes under the hegemony of China. Would the Chinese empire eventually get decentralized too? Who knows. And then there's India.