Re: OT: McCain concedes

chris thompson <chris.linthompson@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Nov 5, 11:12 pm, Boikat <boi...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Nov 5, 11:59 am, nmp <addr...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Boikat wrote:
My impression of his
earlier campaign speaches and statements gave the impression that he'd
cut the military so that the rest of the world would not feel
"threatened". Well, there goes the deterance factor.

I would like not feeling threatened by foreign powers, such as the USA,
thank you.

Why would you feel threatened? My next door neighbor is a gun nut
(Though not the nutty "whack-job" kind of nut) and I don't feel
threatened.



Seriously, how do you expect the friendship of people around the world if
you insist on keeping them in the centre of your rifle scope, with your
finger on the trigger?

Why would that be the case? Is your country pointing their guns at
us?

Boikat

I can actually see both sides of this issue. The US has by my count 4
times in recent memory sacrificed substantial numbers of lives and
tons of money to intervene and at least stabilize situations enough
for peace to break out, if not actually end the conflicts (World War I
(greatest price paid, of course, by the British & French),

And Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Belgians, Russians...

World War
II, Korea (with lots of international help)

like Australians, New Zealanders, Canadians, Belgians, Russians...
, and Bosnia.

On the other hand, in just the last eight years, the use of our
military might has been...well, the kindest word I can think of is
"erratic".

Adventurist, imperialistic, paternalistic, militaristic... the
adjectives keep on coming to mind. And I'd extend it to the past 28
years or so. The Balkans was entirely justified (and too late).

And while you can say "Don't conflate the President with the military"
that is not a reasonable admonition. As Commander-in-Chief, the
President, while not in uniform, _is_ part of the military. If (s)he
is nutty, the military will do nutty things.

I suspect that the military hierarchy is as nutty as the current
president in many ways, if only because the non-nutty ones have been
removed or forced to leave.

--
John S. Wilkins, Philosophy, University of Queensland
scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts
But al be that he was a philosophre,
Yet hadde he but litel gold in cofre

.

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