NYT caught faking it again...

[Rick Lee]

Pat, Bush certainly isn't as conservative as I'd like him to be, but he cares about national security and gets liberals' and Europeans' blood boiling just enough to make me like the guy. If I could draft and anoint anyone president, it would be either Congressmen Ron Paul (R-TX), Walter Jones (R-NC) or Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK). Those guys are true conservatives and care even less than Bush does about making folks like them, which makes me like them more.

Edit: Lendaddy, I couldn't agree more. Bush's spending is what makes MY blood boil. Sadly though, he spends less than Dems want him to.

[Rodeo]

Yea, sure. I'm a Super Bowl caliber quarterback. I just don't throw like one.

Edit: was responding to daddy's assertion that "Bush is a Conservative, but has not always acted as such"

[Nathans_Dad]

I also sputtered in my coffee a bit at Rodeo's outrage at Bush's spending. If I am not mistaken the Democrats have been complaining the entire way about any "cut" to the budget yet now they are bashing Bush for spending too much?

I don't like what is going on with the spending in Washington under the Republican's watch and I think the Repubs in office will hear it from their constituents about the spending come election time.

[tabascobobcat]

I think that there is a point which needs clarified, at least for me. Is it the amount that Bush is spending, or what he is spending it on, or a combination of the 2 ??? The Dem's don't like spending because it actually assumes something in return. They much prefer giving......

[RoninLB]

Beltway bs spending pay offs is called earmarks. It's corruption by law imo.

[Rick Lee]

RoninLB, +10000000.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by RoninLB
Beltway bs spending pay offs is called earmarks. It's corruption by law imo.

Of course. When the R's took over the house in 1994, early 1995, the congressman who became chairman controlling federal highway spending immediately resumed doing exactly what the Dems had been doing for 40 years. There was hardly a ripple in the corruption, a portion of the money went to supporters of the R's instead of Dem's.

That's just one of the building blocks of my campaign to eliminate government as much as possible from out lives.

The corruption touches and ruins so much.

[snowman]

So the winners, the ones who write the history books, the ones that write the laws, or re write the laws to their satisfaciton, are not right? Please inform them of that fact and tell us what their response to you is. Might makes right. Don't agree? Then you make a suggestion that will change this basic human flaw. This is a simple fact, nothing else. Yet the left is blind to facts, human nature.

Bush is basically a democrat. His ideas are all ripoffs of the democrats ideas, eg medicare drug plan. He votes like a drunken democrat for more spending for everything. He just claims to be republican.

As a republican, sort of, I object to Bush, a wolf in sheeps clothing. But the alternative the democrats offer is basically the communist manefesto, which is much worse. I long for someone who really represents the middle of this country, not just the left or the communist party. As to a right wing, there is no such thing at this point. The democrats are calling middle of the road people right wing zelots, all is nearly lost in this country.

As to defense, Bush is right on, dead center of where he needs to be. He is truly looking out for all of us here and we need to support him in this endevor. And our troops. You cannot do one without the other.

[yellowline]

Originally posted by snowman
Might makes right.

While I agree with you on your other principles, I take issue with this phrase.

60 years ago, if the Germans hadn't made mistakes of their own, Western Europe would have been theirs for the taking. They were strong enough to do it. Britain remained uncaptured on sheer luck. Had the Germans not made mistakes, who knows how much harder it would have been to free Europe, or if it would even have been possible. Might only made right when our troops and the Soviets made inroads.

It is not a universal principle.

[snowman]

Yes might makes right is a universal principle. If the Germans had won. If they had concurred the world, their position would be the correct position today, the English, French, the US would all be wrong. However we triumphed and our opinion is now "right", theirs is "wrong". Give ONE example, in human history, where the winner wasn't "right". The only case is where the winner is very temporarily, but all sustained winners are still "right".

A simple way to look at this is as follows; If you express an opinion and act in a certain way and you end up in jail or are executed, you were "wrong". You no longer have any say because you are dead. The one still living is clearly "right" because he is alive and you are not.

Might makes right is one of the most basic, universal human principles.

Please note that I did not state that it makes MORALY right, as that is a religious principle, which the left objects to using.

[yellowline]

Originally posted by snowman
However we triumphed and our opinion is now "right", theirs is "wrong".

Genocide is an absolute wrong, no matter who wins or loses.

edit: I also noted your religious exception after posting, but getting into pure ethics, how and when it is right to for one human to take the life of an innocent human? Hitler can be judged in the popular eye as an extremist, so it somewhat discredits his comments on Jews being guilty of manipulation of Germany.

Give ONE example, in human history, where the winner wasn't "right". The only case is where the winner is very temporarily, but all sustained winners are still "right".

If we were in 1986 and didn't know the future, the Bolshevik Revolution would be "right" by that logic. They "won" over non-communist factions for nearly 70 years at that point, is that sustained enough?

We agree on more than we disagree, this is tangent to the main point. If someone presents a threat and we need to defend ourselves, use the military.

[Mulhollanddose]

[snowman]

Originally posted by yellowline
Genocide is an absolute wrong, no matter who wins or loses.

....

Tell that to the dead on the loosing side.

Unless you consider an afterlife, they have already lost, forever. Therefore, without religious considerations,your know, the poppycock, the superstitions, the fairytales, the ones the left will not consider, they lost.

I happen to beleive the left is wrong, but then again I can't prove it, so I will have to go with what can be proven, what the left beleives is true.

[jorian]

Is it too late to vote for snowman as troll of the year?

[snowman]

I am not a troll, so I am not elegible.

Is that some kind of Karate move? I am a Showdan and have never seen it before. I know I am from Judo, but I have seen most Karate and Aikido moves, yours is puzzling.

[Rick Lee]

Snowman is absolutely right, so make me runner-up troll of the year. Another version of "might makes right" is "every country has the government it deserves". Boshevik in Russian means majority and the "Bolsheviks" were certainly a misnomer, as they weren't even close to a majority. But they seized the initiative and were bold and therefore ruled a country, indeed an empire, for 70+ years. The enslaved population was too timid to fight back and so they stayed enslaved.

BTW, Germany was not at all the most (militarily) powerful country in Europe when they started making trouble. Hitler later admitted that, had French and British troops fired a single shot when he sent troops to reoccupy the Rhineland in 1936, he'd have been finished. The fact that Britain and France did not have the stomach to get tough, when doing so would have made short work of the infant Third Reich, is what allowed Hitler to become more powerful. And Hitler's two biggest mistakes, invading Russia and declaring war on the US, proved he was not the brilliant strategist that could have made Germany a hegemonic power.

BTW, check out Richard Harris's "Fatherland", which is a murder mystery that takes place in Berlin in the 1960's BUT it assumes Nazi Germany won WWII and the Cold War was between the US and Germany. Pretty amazing stuff. If you've read Shirer's "Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" first, it makes "Fatherland" even better.

[fastpat]

Originally posted by Rick Lee


BTW, Germany was not at all the most (militarily) powerful country in Europe when they started making trouble. Hitler later admitted that, had French and British troops fired a single shot when he sent troops to reoccupy the Rhineland in 1936, he'd have been finished. The fact that Britain and France did not have the stomach to get tough, when doing so would have made short work of the infant Third Reich, is what allowed Hitler to become more powerful. And Hitler's two biggest mistakes, invading Russia and declaring war on the US, proved he was not the brilliant strategist that could have made Germany a hegemonic power.

You might want to study the economics of National Socialist Germany someday. It puts lie to most common assumptions about German successes, particularly how long Germany could have continued had they not invaded Russia and declared war on America.

One of the main methods Hitler used to fund Germany was a continual influx of capital confiscated from the various countries Germany invaded and conquered. Once those ran out, the German government which ran a long, uninterupted series of socialist building projects, healthcare for most Germans, daycare for working women, roads, and other make-work scheme's that would make any Rooseveltian envious, would have sputtered to a halt. In fact, it nearly did so several times in the 1930's.

[Rick Lee]

Yes Pat, I know that too. Even our beloved Dr. Porsche was imprisoned by the French after the war for using slave laborors from the eastern territories. In Harris's book which takes place around Hitler's 75th b-day, which would have been 1964, there are no Jews left at all and all remaining slavs are slave laborors, with some minor partians/insurgents in Eurasia. Germany didn't get a chance to run out of slave laborors before Hitler's imprudent invasion of Russia and subsequent declaration of war against the US gave him two fronts to deal with.

When I went to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum (which was more informative than Auschwitz), I couldn't help but wonder how things might have turned out if all of Hitler's eventual victims had been as defiant as those Polish resistance fighters. Years later I went to an exhibit in Halle titled "Crimes of the Wehrmacht" in which there were thousands of photos and documents. So many of those folks literally dug their own graves. I just can't imagine why anyone would do that. Saw the same thing when I went to the Japanses Massacre Museum in Nanjing last year. Some people just don't have the fight in them and those are the ones that usually get conquered.

[RoninLB]

[Mulhollanddose]

Originally posted by fastpat
Once those ran out, the German government which ran a long, uninterupted series of socialist building projects, healthcare for most Germans, daycare for working women, roads, and other make-work scheme's that would make any Rooseveltian envious, would have sputtered to a halt. In fact, it nearly did so several times in the 1930's.

Gee, sounds a lot like the modern American democrat party. No matter how many times it fails (or much worse), the people are suckers for the populist/socialist message and platform.

The Road to Serfdom.