[OFB Cafe] Who's Still on Here?

[Fred Smith]

On Thu, Jun 26, 2008 at 6:00 PM, Timothy Butler <tbutler at ofb.biz> wrote:
>> * Uncontrolled military spending = NOT CONSERVATIVE, it wastes
>> taxpayer money. The military should only be as big as it has to be to
>> keep the defensively country safe. In war, the best offense is a good
>> defense, as in "You send your nukes; I'll send mine.", or maybe "each
>> flight will have an armed air marshall that will blow the face off of
>> anyone who tries to hijack it". That might have saved a few lives on
>> 9/11/2001, since the hijackers would have been bringing box cutters to
>> a gun fight.
>
>        Mostly agreed. I'm not one for cutting the military down too much,
> but I'm not a fan of nation building.

Why not cut the military down?  It's around 1000 times the size it
needs to be to defend the country, so it gets bored and starts all
these fights so it has something to do. And then it can't even defend
the borders against attacks. I say take everyone but the Coast Guard
and give them their walking papers plus 1 year severance.

>        As I've said before, it makes little sense to argue over whether
> going into Iraq was right or not. I do think it is somewhat
> disingenuous to argue from hindsight too strongly, since the vast
> majority of politicos on both sides felt that Iraq was a real threat
> and it was the official policy of the U.S. under the Clinton
> administration to remove Hussein from office.

Anyone with a brain saw that the evidence was fabricated the day they
put it out there. Some greedy people with brains decided that they
could possibly make some money if they ran with the lie. But to say
that anyone really thought that Iraq was a threat is disingenuous.  If
you thought that, you're a moron.

>        I'd rather we stay over there -- responsibly with more work to
> eliminate torture and a focus on improving conditions (ala McCain's
> plan)

If someone should be over there, it sure as hell shouldn't be the US
Army.  They're nothing but a bunch of brainless, heartless thugs. When
all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and the hammer
of the US Army is the M16 rifle. If they come across a problem, their
only solution is to shoot at it. Iraqi kids lost their parents to a US
checkpoint stop?  Shoot the kids too.  Someone caught stealing bread?
Shoot 'em. Herd of sheep on the side of the road?  Well, that's not
really a problem, but sheep are funny looking.  Shoot 'em.  Lost puppy
wandering around?  Shoot...  er, wait, no, throw that one off a cliff,
then try and shoot it as it falls.  These are all real events that the
Army thugs thought were so cool, they'd upload videos of 'em to
Youtube.

>> * Unchecked government growth = NOT CONSERVATIVE, it wastes taxpayer
>> money.
>
>        Absolutely agreed. McCain's plan would check that growth.

Really?  Everything McCain has put out there for economic policies has
been welfare, welfare, welfare.  US Army welfare, corporate welfare,
gas tank welfare, etc.  McCain's plan will increase taxes across the
board, and increase deficit spending beyond what even GWB has done.