Seriously? No thread on the Iowa caucuses yet?

[TheSilencer1313]

And **** you again, because you have no clue which this country was founded upon you neo-conservative moron.

 

[Stoked]

And **** you again, because you have no clue which this country was founded upon you neo-conservative moron.

And you just lost any point you were trying to make by losing your cool. You know what you know so who cares what others think. Relax man

 

[franklin]

Painting the Democrats as blood thirsty and the Republicans as pacifists forced into action by political realities is more than a little disingenuous.

Honestly, pimphand, it looks like you're trying to get under my skin but I'll give you the benefit if the doubt because you deserve it. I agree with what I just quoted. I have a knack of saying things without meaning to so why don't you show me where I've said otherwise so I can correct it. I read back through and all I can see is you buying more into the back and forth between one brow and me than was there.

I pointed out a bipartisan letter to Clinton so I don't see how you think im claiming republicans as pacifist. Maybe you overlooked that.

 

[GVC]

Honestly, pimphand, it looks like you're trying to get under my skin but I'll give you the benefit if the doubt because you deserve it. I agree with what I just quoted. I have a knack of saying things without meaning to so why don't you show me where I've said otherwise so I can correct it. I read back through and all I can see is you buying more into the back and forth between one brow and me than was there.

I pointed out a bipartisan letter to Clinton so I don't see how you think im claiming republicans as pacifist. Maybe you overlooked that.

I actually misread part of the post I initially responded to (having now re-read it...I was also having a little hyperbolic fun). It likely had something to do with you citing Guiliani talking about leveraging war time politics for personal gain (for whatever reason, I can't stand that douche), although I suppose he knows quite a bit about that.

I try not to get involved in discussions like these because I'm ignorant about the subject matter. With that said, it certainly doesn't seem (to me, with my limited knowledge and understanding) that the US's conflict in Iraq which culminated in the Iraq War started in 1998, as you claimed. I find it hard to believe that the US's involvement in the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, Clinton-era actions involving Iraq and the Iraq War doesn't represent an escalation over time of a single conflict.

I realize this is pretty simple analysis, rooted in a lot of conjecture and little knowledge/understanding of American-Iraqi relations (or the motivations the US had in the 3 conflicts...again, I could of course speculate based on the limited facts, if they can be called that, at my disposal), and I'm not trying to be a dick. I was probably just high and bored...The Jazz had 2 days off. I may actually bow out for real now.

But probably not.

 

[TroutBum]

All my posts are real, unless whinylOne is involved. I wear my emotions on my shoulder; deal with it.

I don't understand what you disagree with about the underlined section. Please expound. Maybe I should have put "returned to... from dictator"?

Is this about my health care thread? Because that contains a very fundamental point which is being mostly overlooked out of political expediency. If anyone feels trolled by it then they should take a deep breath and transition from an emotional to an analytical state of mind.

**Edit** One more thing, I should probably invent 8 or 9 different screen names like a few do on here to troll, eh?

I disagree with you, that was my point. I think a lot of people do. Perhaps I'm way off base. And fwiw, it appears that I insulted you, and you're one of a few people that I try not to insult. Apologies, holmes.

Well, despite my fear that you'll lose respect for me more than you already have...

The first Gulf War was an easy call. The entire world was outraged by Iraq's attack and occupation of Kuwait. Some might argue that was the right time to remove Saddam, but Bush senior made the call to accept Saddam's surrender. The surrender was on the condition that he allow international inspectors in to verify that his chemical weapons were destroyed. He never fully cooperated with that condition of his surrender. Clinton removed inspectors in '98 in favor of tougher sanctions. If It was me in the White House the inspectors would have been accompanied by a military escort, and they would have continued their inspections one way or another. If the escort was met with force it would have started the 2nd round of the Gulf War 5 years sooner and would have had clear justification. Sanctions (which I consider worse than honest combat) would have been avoided, saving the lives of many women and children. That would have prevented sanctions to be used as PR against the U.S. creating resentment among Iraqis that has probably motivated at least a few of the IED planters and suicide bombers to attack our troops.

I'm sure as a Navy man, you have a hell of a lot better idea than I do. I just thought that the statement that all Iraqi citizens are happy that the U.S. is occupying their country, killing their sons, daughters, parents, etc. Perhaps the vast majority are happy about it, but that certainly doesn't mean they all are.

 

[TheSilencer1313]

And you just lost any point you were trying to make by losing your cool. You know what you know so who cares what others think. Relax man

Agreed..... I did loose my cool.
It won't happen again.
It's just hard for me to rational how people do not understand how this country was founded.
Hell.... I'm only 26, and I've read all the documents.

 

[LogGrad98]

Obviousl reading the documents can result in different opinions on what they mean or we wouldn't need a supreme court to interpret them for us and keep us consistent. It is naive to assume that your understanding of them is the only one or the only correct one.

 

[babe]

Obviousl reading the documents can result in different opinions on what they mean or we wouldn't need a supreme court to interpret them for us and keep us consistent. It is naive to assume that your understanding of them is the only one or the only correct one.

this is a common misunderstanding of the situation.

The documents are writtten in English and actually have distinct meanings in their carefully-worded language. We actually need a competent, concerned Congress that will exercise some instructive discipline on power-usurping Judges in general, and Supreme Court Justices in particular. If people read about the times of the the founders, and actually understood what the issues and intents were, they'd be voting for better representatives who would actually take the documents seriously.

We are today everything the founders tried to avert with their carefully negotiated documents. Precisely because the Supreme Court doesn't care about original intent or plain English when it is inconvenient. All three branches of our Federal government have been for over a hundred years engaging is successive unconstitutional power grabs for their own convenience.

 

[LogGrad98]

That's just it and what leaves so much open to interpretation, context. Very few people go to any great length to understand the context of our founding fathers and their documents. Also regardless of whether we share a common language, you and I and anyone else will rarely if ever have exactly the same understanding of anything like the constitution. We always bring our personal beliefs, understanding, knowledge, and attitude along for the ride and that combination is distinctly different for everyone. Just look at the "separation of church and state", which wording never even appears in the constitution. This differing interpretation actually has it's Genesis with one of the founding fathers, who expressed his understanding of that meaning in a letter. The finding fathers themselves had already started interpreting the documents before the ink was dry. Granted they likely had a much better grasp of the context, but the fact that there were discussions of this sort back then shows that from the start interpretation was an issue of sorts.

But I largely agree with your assessment of the current state of our nation in regard to the constitution, and how it came to be like that.

 

[babe]

That's just it and what leaves so much open to interpretation, context. Very few people go to any great length to understand the context of our founding fathers and their documents. Also regardless of whether we share a common language, you and I and anyone else will rarely if ever have exactly the same understanding of anything like the constitution. We always bring our personal beliefs, understanding, knowledge, and attitude along for the ride and that combination is distinctly different for everyone. Just look at the "separation of church and state", which wording never even appears in the constitution. This differing interpretation actually has it's Genesis with one of the founding fathers, who expressed his understanding of that meaning in a letter. The finding fathers themselves had already started interpreting the documents before the ink was dry. Granted they likely had a much better grasp of the context, but the fact that there were discussions of this sort back then shows that from the start interpretation was an issue of sorts.

But I largely agree with your assessment of the current state of our nation in regard to the constitution, and how it came to be like that.

There were hard-fought battles over the wording between different representatives of even the same state, not to mention various states. The British didn't believe the colonies could achieve anything remotely as significant as the Constitution is, and expected the fledgling nation to tear itself apart, and were looking for opportunities to re-establish rule. The States wanted to make sure they would continue in essentially the same way they pleased on most of their affairs. But they needed to have a Union strong enough to maintain independence from foreign powers, and to have some bargaining clout in trade relations abroad. The need that actually drove the Constitutional Congress was the need to have a unified tariff and eliminiate the contention being stirred up by foreign, chiefly British, trading interests seeking to secure advantages in the American markets.

The amendment about the federal government not having power to establish a national church was agreed to because there were different state-sanctioned churches in different states, and none would accept outsiders dictating change to them. But freedom of religion became wildly popular, and state sanctions for churches were discontinued one by one.

Yeah, be careful what you write in personal letters. If a Supreme Court Justice finds it useful to justify some decision, it'll become famous and a whole nation will be told by public educators that what you wrote is in the Constitution.

 

[Scat]

Hell.... I'm only 26 and petulant.

Fixed.

 

[franklin]

I disagree with you, that was my point. I think a lot of people do. Perhaps I'm way off base. And fwiw, it appears that I insulted you, and you're one of a few people that I try not to insult. Apologies, holmes.

...I just thought that the statement that all Iraqi citizens are happy that the U.S. is occupying their country, killing their sons, daughters, parents, etc. Perhaps the vast majority are happy about it, but that certainly doesn't mean they all are.

"I don't get offended so you can take your apology and shove it up your ***!" Guess who that's a quote from?

If I'm in left field then show me why. I guarantee you if we were to liberate Iran there would be a ton of Persians who'd be more than thankful. North Korea would be similar, although it would probably take a few years for them to realize there is a world outside the cellar they've been forced to live inside.