Victory, Defeat, Armistice, Taxes, Depression

[jon_j_rambo]

@SeaMonkey --- Nice post dude. Barbary pirates, if 10th grade public school, American History class taught me correct.

I was Legend then.

I am a Legend today.

I will be a Legend tomorrow.

Forever Legend,

-Legend

[SeaMonkey]

Come on guys, let's dismiss all this grandstanding.

So the human condition is worse then a million years ago??? Compared to what?

How many are there now and what was the count when things were better?

All about greed is it? Maybe the media is selective about what they want you to know?

Why would that be?

Ever heard of "conditioned reactions"?

Some of the species are surely content with what they have and some strive for more and yes there are consequences for actions, known and intangibles, good and bad. You can always question intent.

So what's your intent?

"He who lives in glass houses shouldn't throw stones."

[Timskorn]

They're finally making a movie about you:

http://iamlegend.warnerbros.com/

[xwormwood]

Originally posted by jon_j_rambo:

We ain't perfect, but we are the best.

I can only agree.

Even if the Iraq war is quite a disaster and maybe started partly because of the wrong reasons (oil) -

i would always prefer actions against an evil regime instead of endless appeasement (unfortunatly europe will probably never learn the lessons of 1933-1939).

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by Blashy:

You gotta give it to the Dutch, for such a small people they were pretty much all over the world at one point in history.

Then Canada went over there and kick them Germans out and said hello to the ladies .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_Golden_Age

During the Golden age we ruled the world!

Kicking out the Spanish and beating English on several occasions.

Later on we traded South Africa and New York for Suriname I believe.

Very interesting read here

[SeaMonkey]

Hope your right JJR! Course "they" could have been just "conditioning" us with those history classes.

All you can do is look at what you got now, question what you're seeing is factual, and apply it to what the common reference to the past was.

Then....you can ...perhaps, and I use the term loosely.........deduce a conclusion.

Condensed.....Use your common sense!

[SeaMonkey]

Actually xwood its the right reason. Its a medium(oil) for perpetuating a condition....could have been anything that man covets, a bartering agent.

If you want to keep the weeds from growing you have to kill the roots and then eradicate the seeds.

Its called "Roundup".

But the weeds always come back.

[xwormwood]

Originally posted by n0kn0k:

Later on we traded South Africa and New York for Suriname I believe.

If i would be an evil man i would add now

"and even later on traded Srebrenica for some fancy medals"

Please don't take this comment personaly, i DO know (of course) that there is no glory in being german as well.

[n0kn0k]

Originally posted by xwormwood:

</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by n0kn0k:

Later on we traded South Africa and New York for Suriname I believe.

If i would be an evil man i would add now

"and even later on traded Srebrenica for some fancy medals"

Please don't take this comment personaly, i DO know (of course) that there is no glory in being german as well. </font>

[jon_j_rambo]

History talk is fun. Talk about anything can be fun: Nationalism, Sports, TV, Discovery Channel, name it.

But the most interesting is prophesy. This whole technology thing going on is amazing. Play SC2, you hope for a tech roll for a tank. Look at the tech rolls for mankind right now!

Tech rolls = Daniel 12:4

[jon_j_rambo]

@Timskorn --- Thanks for the Will Smith flick. Here's the info:

http://movies.yahoo.com/movie/1809768369/details

It looks like the 3rd or 4th seal to me

I am Legend,

-Legend

[arado234]

I get a kick out of evryone who says we are the good guys trying to rid the bad guys.Then why are we so selctive.I dont see any of us "good guys"offering our military help to oust that evil rotten regime in china.Is it because they can shoot back or maybe(greed)its because we have so many 100s of billions of dollars tied up in expoliting their work force and utter lack of environmental(750,000 chinese die from pollution each year)concerns that it might actually effect our economys.I thought people came first.Or does that only apply when it involves the "good guys"

[SeaMonkey]

Good guys...bad guys, it probably doesn't matter, with 6.7 billion inhabitants of the homo sapien genre we are rapidly approaching the "critical mass" of what this planet can support.

They....yep..."they" again....say at 8 billion there will be a mass scramble for the remains.

You think its developing now? Nature has a way of dealing with over population, infestations, I think we all know what result will be.

Doesn't matter who or what instigates it, good guys, bad bacteria, nice astroid, evil volcano, its natural and natural is good....right?

Problem is irresponsible actions, whether it be the most powerful world leader or a poor destitute Mom having another child she can't take care of.

Bad decision making....over and over again ...times 7 billion

Its people!

[Blashy]

Originally posted by arado234:

I get a kick out of evryone who says we are the good guys trying to rid the bad guys.Then why are we so selctive.I dont see any of us "good guys"offering our military help to oust that evil rotten regime in china.Is it because they can shoot back or maybe(greed)its because we have so many 100s of billions of dollars tied up in expoliting their work force and utter lack of environmental(750,000 chinese die from pollution each year)concerns that it might actually effect our economys.I thought people came first.Or does that only apply when it involves the "good guys"

Nicely said.

[Blashy]

The planet could easily support billions of more people if we lived WITH the planet and not plunder it.

There is still plenty of resources and land for many more billions of humans... if we were in harmony with nature.

If you gave every human on the planet 1 acre of land and put everyone in USA it would cover less than 1/4th of all USA. That just shows how terrible we are to this planet.

The best description of humanity`s path:

Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area, and you multiply, and multiply, until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet, you are a plague

Taken from The Matrix (agent smith).

SeaMonkey, many years ago (about 10) I read that at the rate we consumed and polluted for the planet to regenerate itself we needed to be 2 billion, we were in the 5 billion range back then. We have passed critical mass with our lifestyle a long time ago.

So Victory & Defeat % Armistice all come back to defeat in the long run.

[JerseyJohn]

We've reached that magic moment where the person who started the thread no longer has a clue of what it's about.

-- Good Guys and Bad Guys in government were never as clear cut as the politicians or whoever was in control wanted their citizens or subjects to believe. When there's a war all governments use slogans like God is on our side. Even the formerly Godless Bolsheviks brought the Orthodox church back in the early days of WWII after twenty years of persecuting it.

Generally speaking the United States has followed good directions whenever possible. In the early twentieth century it sent a lot of aid to countries like Japan (earthquakes) and Russia (massive famines). After WWII it did a lot to help ruined countries, though a lot of present revisionists say that's all nonsense. As a boy in the 1950s I met innumerable people who moved to the US from Europe and if American aid didn't do much then those people who used to say openly that it saved their lives must have been hallucinating.

But revision is to expected and isn't a big deal because for every good thing done by the US there would be an equal number of bad things done in its name, such as controling all of South America for decades on behalf of American businesses.

And it's true that American foreign policy has more often than not supported dictators and closed governments that worked against the common people. We still do. We preferred people like the Shah, Pinochet and Franco to people like Fidel Castro on one side and religious extremists on the other. Guess it's a matter of those magic socialist and nationalization words.

At this point I think it's time to just see the United States as being the same as any other nation, no better and no worse. It never really exported democracy, unless it happened to be a convenient and profitable action.

[jon_j_rambo]

Ever since "The Fall", there has been a battle waging on this planet. The fallen state of mankind is quite clear, don't worry though, the problem has been resovled.

The battle has already been fought & victory won!

-Legend

[Blashy]

Well said. And I don't mind giving credit when it is due USA's big economy is what won WW2, even before they joined, Russia received virtually all logistics equipment from USA starting in 1940. It is actually what I consider the single biggest flaw in SC2... a severely under represented US economy.

As for exporting democracy... you can`t export what you don't practice.

A two party system financed by big business on both sides, who will work together to destroy any other up and coming party is 100% not democracy. To think so is delusional and JUST what those two party want you to think.

[jon_j_rambo]

Nice dig Blashy...I voted for Ross Perot, TWICE. I'll be voting 3rd party once again. America had their chance at the polls with Perot. Instead of listening to what he actually said, they just picked on his ears. The USA reaps what they sow just like everybody else.

We are in the Laodecian age...soon folks.

"Don't Stop Believing" --- Journey

[Blashy]

Actually JJvR (I know you like the "von" thingy ).

Perot would most likely have been able to create a challenging 3rd party but BOTH the Democrats and Republicans ganged up on the national TV stations and basically threatened them should they let Perot have air time knowing either of them would win the election, all Perot could do was a good showing in his first elections and create a stable party for years to come, something the red and blue wanted no part of. He offered to pay 3 or more times more for the same air time and the networks kept saying no to him.

They also teamed up to keep him out of debates whenever they could.

He had good REALISTIC goals and ideas. Too bad he quit, he has the money to keep fighting and make it happen.

I'm so glad here in Canada we are slowly going to a proportional representative system (looks like the near future), finally small parties will be able to represent those that voted for them.

IMHO, the cornerstone of any successful democracy is proportional representation... every vote counts and is 99.9% sure of being represented.

[ July 05, 2007, 07:32 PM: Message edited by: Blashy ]

[jon_j_rambo]

With global warming, maybe Canada is the next stop on my World Tour. I was in Victoria last month. Also been to Toronto & Windsor.

[JerseyJohn]

Thank you, Blashy, and I agree. The United States has never been a democracy, it's been a representitive republic from the start. The Founding Fathers built a lot of inconsistencies into the Constitution, the worst being slavery, which is never mentioned specifically. They couldn't afford to abolish it, at least that was their assumption. So they kept it as an institution. It's always been hard for me to believe they couldn't have found a way of getting rid of it right from the start, but they were thinking in terms of a far more limited central government than later generations became accustomed to.

As for a Third Party, even more, party/parties in the United States, I think the only way is for the Federal government to make private contributions illegal, alotting campaign funds from tax money, equal amount to each party that has a viable ticket. And, of course, it has to be illegal for any American media outlet to deny air time to anyone running for office. Maybe set it up so each network needs to donate a bloc of air time for campaigns that is then divided into three equal parts, one for each party.

Without something like that U. S. politics will continue to be an insider's game between the two major parties.

[jon_j_rambo]

Give unto Caesar what is Caesars. Question is, how much should Caesar get? Taxes are a joke. My property taxes just got popped anothg $2k year.

[Guest Mike]

Liam wrote:

LASTLY, with only 2 nukes or even 5 nukes I do not see Germany quitting in '45 or '46, anyone see the Post War photographs of it! Looked more like a Hurricane had leveled Germany, the equivelant of 10-15 Massive ABombs across it's industrial heartland, from above Germany looked like the Moon in places!

It's a moonscape, but apart from a handful of raids the civilian casualties were much lower than would have been caused by atom-bombing, and the raids often failed to destroy machinery.

One of the most destructive conventional raids was on Hamburg in 1943 - about 40-50,000 civilians were killed and a million made homeless. Hitler is reported to have said that another 5 or 6 such raids would knock Germany out of hte war.

Well those 5-6 raids never happened for various reasons, but 5 or 6 A-bombs would have had the same effect.

stalin didn't understand the destructive power of the bombs either - the USSR certainly suffered more devastation in total than Japan, but never in such a concentrated manner as the A-bombs inflicted.

[ July 06, 2007, 10:01 PM: Message edited by: Stalin's Organist ]

[SeaMonkey]

Rampant consumption Gentlemen. The markets have gone wild and are in control....or should I say out of control.

Well this is what we get, even capitalism needs some control, some mechanism of oversight.

Then if we could just get everyone to be a little more considerate of their neighbors...its a start. A basic application of the "Golden Rule" breeds another.

Time to hold the powers accountable, this thing called the internet has far reaching tentacles for establishing grassroot movements.

Believe me, the politicians will have to listen to the public servants, no more career appointments, fair taxes, just regulations, a more simple existence.

Ever notice the rhetoric of laws and regulations passed by the lawyers. Try reading the Code of Federal Regulations. Ever wonder why they complicate matters to such a degree? Confused?

Now I love a society based on capitalism, rewarding human initiative and endeavors brings the specie to higher degree of awareness/achievement.

But capitalism is guilty of creating the unnecessary. Creation of needs, a good definition for this economic model, and then sell it to you and me, spiralling commercialism, cascading pyramids of luxury.

And you think you need them all!