No one can invade Switzerland. Ever.
Capturing a former United States president? I would at least expect Delta Force and SEALs all over that in a heartbeat.
There's a reason no one has really invaded Switzerland.... It just doesn't work. Hilter knew it was impossible and that stupid bastard thought he could take Moscow and
we all know how that worked out.... That's not Godwin's Law, it's just military tactics. If that crazy shit wouldn't even try for the Swiss, then that says something. We can't really control Afganistan, what on earth makes anyone think we could manage the Swiss? We suck at effectively holding boots on the ground territory. Though we seem pretty good at throwing a $40 Million Cruise missile at a $1000 shack....
Moreover, if that's the second move in the game, then consider the third, etc, and if we could sustain the wound it would leave.... Bad things happen to countries that blatantly and repeatedly flout international law, like UN sanctions at the very least.... Our economy sucks right now and would totally fall if the rest of the world cut us off. Hell, how long could we go without oil? We would lose without a shot fired.... Shit,
China alone is dangerously close to being able to beat us currently economically never mind militarily . Fact of the matter is our economy couldn't withstand the entire world being pissed at us if we just conducted an unprovoked military raid/invasion on a European country who was exercising its lawful jurisdiction.
Bush knows this and that's why he canceled his trip/isn't leaving the country anytime soon. He'd be on his own and screwed.
Then again hey, we seem to like getting into no win situations.... The British thought their empire was invincible too....
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[Shortened because honestly the tags being messed up makes it hard to read currently]
I'm thinking about trying to counter that, but the sheer wall-of-text-ness of that post, and the fact that my entire family is conservative (more liberal conservative, but conservative nonetheless.) Means that reading those articles makes my inner skeptic fire right the fuck up, disbarring other-wise credible evidence.
Basically, i'm too close minded to read those articles the right way. So i'll concede that point to you. I'm still interested to hear what you have to say on the other points, though.
This is called an overwhelming body of proof against what you believe. Bush absolutely did some terrible shit and it is all documented, like torturing people and saying it was OK/legal.... I sincerely hope he gets arrested for it the instant he steps outside the country. The difference is they won't torture him to get information out of him, because they're better than he is. As for the other points....
Let's see: "Homeless people are homeless for a reason:" 
See, your biggest problem there is failing to recognize the absolutely enormous difference between what SHOULD happen and what DOES happen. Life is INCREDIBLY unfair and people don't get what they deserve/your effort doesn't always pay off/your misdeeds don't always catch up with you. Simply, shit happens, undeservedly as a rule.
See there are lots of reasons for homelessness, but rarely is it "well they're just lazy...." Think about that. Think about it for one minute and consider what you're actually saying if you believe that. You're saying that there is someone so lazy that they would literally rather starve to death and die in filthy agony than get a fucking job.... Really? Really? This passes your internal bullshit detector? They're that fucking lazy that they are choosing not only not to live, but to slowly, painfully, and terribly waste away and die.... Suicide maybe, if it's quick, might be something people would do, but this...? Really?
There are some reasons people are homeless though, like job loss and foreclosure for one.
Have you heard the news that we're in the freaking Great Depression part II right now or the fact that millions and millions of homes in the US are being foreclosed upon with the highest jobless rate and food stamp usage in decades, in decades? I can't imagine how anyone could be homeless given that "officially" about 8.5% are unemployed and that unemployment by definition understates the real problem, because if after sending out 800 resumes you give up because there's no where else to apply, you're not "unemployed," anymore....
Plus the banks are kicking people out of their homes, despite the fact that the banks made loans they never should've because they were greedy, but hey.... There are other reasons too like mental illness and the fact that we refuse to pay to treat it like we used to....
See President JFK closed all the major mental institutions in this country. He thought that they were so corrupt that they were beyond saving. So, he thought he'd replace them with community mental health centers. The road to hell is paved with good intentions and he made a highway.... See he thought we were better people than we are.... He thought we'd take care of our own mentally insane people; we don't. Rather we let them roam the streets and many of the homeless you see have serious mental illnesses that go untreated because frankly there's no one to treat them. We don't pay for mental health treatment and we literally let them die in the fucking street because we're too greedy to pay taxes to deal with the problem like adults. That's right, those homeless people you see trying to figure out how to eat soup with an envelope belong in a mental institution we're too fucking cheap to pay for.... It's not about, quality of care being better, in smaller institutions, because we know damn good and well that we don't have enough resources to provide that without paying more taxes which we refuse to do....
Finally there's drugs and yes sometimes this is the reason some people are homeless. Check the DSM IV TR substance abuse is a mental disorder and things are chemically and psychologically addictive, both.... This falls under "things we refuse to treat." We've been throwing people in prison for drug crimes for over 40 years at a cost of Trillions of dollars and it hasn't done shit.
Life is not simple. We look at people in less fortunate situations and demonize them because we lack the strength to think about what this means. If we say the homeless man is a "bum" and "lazy" and "whatever other derogatory thing we wanna say," then we don't have to think about how life isn't fair. We also get to compare ourselves favorably to him because "clearly" we earned our position in life.... Yeah, except most people in the US are only about a paycheck or two away from being homeless themselves....
Think about that for a minute.
Vietnam:Don't even get me started.... We lost that war because we stupidly decided we would go all world police/McCarthyism on Communism. You should really study the history of that war, man from French IndoChina to Tet Offensive, to our eventual forced pull out and after. We had no business there and we never had a chance of winning. That's kinda why we lost. The whole thing was a quagmire.
Social Services (your point 5 referring to point three):Ok, let's make this really simple. Let's forget that people paid taxes into the system as part of an insurance policy as a social safety net for years, decades and thus deserve it. Let's forget that we can totally afford it if we rearrange our priorities to provide for the poor. Let's forget the overly pious "Christians" TM forcing their religion on people while pretending to be persecuted, who ask What Would Jesus Do (WWJD) and then openly mock that by going against the poor when that guy was all about helping the poor. Let's forget that recent economic circumstances are here and screwing everyone, none of which these people caused are really to blame and they don't deserve this. Let's forget, all of that.
Fact, there are tens of millions of people out of work and hungry in this country who cannot support themselves currently. Right now we've got
45.8 Million people on food stamps. This is a record high. There aren't enough jobs out there by a long shot so they just can't support themselves currently no matter what.
Here's your choice: A.) Cut them all off and they face the very real and immediate threat of starvation.
B.) Deal with it like adults and make sure they don't die/get desperate. That is: feed them.
C.) THERE IS NO C.
Are you really prepared to do A? You really prepared to have 45.8 Million people in America without enough food to eat? You think America could handle that? 45.8 Million desperate people would do some pretty crazy shit. Quite frankly, I'm not sure the country could survive that.... Are you?
Yeah, ideally, everyone would be able to support themselves. This is the real world and it is far, FAR from ideal. So what's it gonna be? Tens of Millions desperate and starving, or we actually feed people to keep that from happening and our country from collapsing? Chose wisely.
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Topic: Chill and Relaxed Progressive Irritation and Annoyance Thread (Read 853437 times)