Originally Posted by Ragnarök_62

Maybe Japan wants to "grow a pair". ICBM = phallic symbols of nation states.


Like a real phallus, excitement makes 'em shoot!

About twenty years ago Japan threatened to abandon its rejection of development or acquisition of nuclear weapons if North Korea were to acquire or develop a nuke. There were no protests from any other countries (including the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China) that then also had nukes.

The Dictatorial Unpopular Despotate of Korea backed down, most likely at the behest of China and the USSR. I'm guessing that one of those two threatened to sell some nukes to Japan.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

The young poster left the Forum. That is hardly proof that he 'blew it off'.

Telling someone to commit suicide and give explicit instructions on how to do so, even in jest, is ghastly behavior. I suggested that kia '67 (who seems much like you) delete the offending post and apologize. Another poster still active on these Forums endorsed my statement. kia '67 neither removed the post nor apologized; he could have explained why he said what he did. kia '67 was soon banned. I did not make the decision to ban him.

I have used the expression "Kill that character" toward someone who was using multiple identities, one of those being particularly obnoxious. But that is the sort of order that a Hollywood producer or director might give to a writer for finding that the character is a drag upon a story. In Casablanca the villainous, scheming Ugarte (Peter Lorre) clearly shows that anyone will tire of him, and that there is little room for dramatic development with him. Ugarte does something inexcusable, and Rick Blaine (Humphrey Bogart) throws him to the wolves. Actually, WWII-era Germans make wolves, tigers, sharks, crocodiles, giant constrictor snakes, box jellies, and army ants -- even house cats -- look gentlemanly by contrast.

Don't you get it? Don't you see something wrong with a deed that causes someone to lose his life pointlessly? If I saw someone threatening to jump out of a high window I would think of someone who said "Jump!" a person rightly to be arrested for some form of disorderly conduct, and quite possibly culpable of manslaughter if the person jumped.

You'll find the proof that he blew it off written a few posts afterwards. You must have ignored his later post or didn't care about his opinion on the matter. I asked Craig about it but he didn't seem to care about it either. He only seemed to care about pleasing you. M&L recognized the response for what it was at the time (hyperbole as he called it) and he didn't view it as being horrific or as serious as you did either. You made the decision to remove KIA and Craig obliged and removed KIA for you. The issue was that KIA wasn't permanently banned. Classic X'er and Exile 67 are the proof of that.

If I saw someone threatening to jump out a window, I'd assume that they weren't fully committed to it. I'd assume they were actually trying to seek help or seeking attention for themselves. I view suicide as something that happens during life. I knew people who have committed suicide. One was a close childhood friend. An older brother of one of my best friends. There was no sign that he was going to kill himself, he just killed himself one day. I talked with him at a movie rental place a short time before he killed himself.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

About twenty years ago Japan threatened to abandon its rejection of development or acquisition of nuclear weapons if North Korea were to acquire or develop a nuke. There were no protests from any other countries (including the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China) that then also had nukes.

The Dictatorial Unpopular Despotate of Korea backed down, most likely at the behest of China and the USSR. I'm guessing that one of those two threatened to sell some nukes to Japan.

Japan would need no such help. They have more nuke-ready fissionable material than they know what to do with. They have the best centrifuges. They have the best electronics. The best mechanical fabrication. The best assembly.

Hell ... we should seriously consider outsourcing some of our OWN nuke manufacturing to Japan!

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

Al Qaeda and ISIS do not formally represent Saudi Arabia. It's not in either ones interest to create an opportunity for radical groups like Al Qaeda or ISIS to gain control over the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The US removing its backing of the Kingdom would create such an opportunity. The Kingdom reigning them in openly could also create such an opportunity.

Sorry, but the Wahhabis already control the place, so there is nothing to avoid doing that will have any impact at this juncture. In fact, the Saudis are only able to exist in a limbo between modernity and the 12th century because we have their back ... yet they don't reciprocate at all. If that's their preference, then they should enjoy the full impact of their decision.

BTW, the Israelis have a similar though less egregious problem with the ultra-Orthodox sects there. Having full reign, they've managed to attract others of similar bent, and made any attempt at peace impossible. We may wish to back away from that powder keg too.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

So where to draw the line, then?

Rags says just get out totally. At least that's consistent.

I would add the free Syrians as worthy of our support. Victims of wanton genocide such as them deserve the protection of the international community. How many Rwandas do we want? The plight of Syria is everyone's problem.

The only responsibilities we have are to the people we've disrupted by our actions, or the ones that have been as faithful to us as we have to them. My list was pretty complete, unless you can think of others. I honestly don't know what we owe to any Syrian group. It appears that the loyalties are too murky for us to fathom. I see us doing more harm than good. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Europeans to weigh-in. If not them, perhaps the Chinese.

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

You'll find the proof that he blew it off written a few posts afterwards. You must have ignored his later post or didn't care about his opinion on the matter.

As I recall at the time I saw no later posts by him.

I asked Craig about it but he didn't seem to care about it either. He only seemed to care about pleasing you.

I had no idea that the threadmaster of the time had any special concern for my feelings or sensibilities.

I see nothing funny about suicide or manslaughter. Besides, one can never know who will go off the edge.

M&L recognized the response for what it was at the time (hyperbole as he called it) and he didn't view it as being horrific or as serious as you did either.

I would have asked the threadmaster to loosen up on kia '67 had he apologized.

You made the decision to remove KIA and Craig obliged and removed KIA for you. The issue was that KIA wasn't permanently banned. Classic X'er and Exile 67 are the proof of that.

I did not get kia '67 banned. He got himself banned.

If I saw someone threatening to jump out a window, I'd assume that they weren't fully committed to it.

How would you know? Do you know what suicidal people are like? Do you know why someone would commit suicide?

1. the prospect of a long prison term
2. a diagnosis of a degrading, debilitating terminal disease.
3. spectacular failure whence there is no prospect of recovery.
4. being caught in hopeless disgrace.
5. extreme grief with no chance of consolation other than reunion beyond the grave. (A widow calls to her late husband: "Ed, I'm coming to see you!")
6. depression as the result of chemical imbalance, including separation from drugs or alcohol
7. as a political protest.

Some demonstrate a poor assessment of reality. Think of the PhD candidate whose thesis is rejected and can't imagine having to settle for a career as a truck driver. Well, guess what? Lots of people drive trucks and like it. Think of someone who breaks up with the lover of the time. That's not the only lover possible.

I'd assume they were actually trying to seek help or seeking attention for themselves.

People can seek help in other ways. I've been there, and I am not fully out of danger. Being destitute in a place that I loathe is a horrible situation. But such may be my family responsibility. Curse you, XXXXXXXX County, Michigan, a place where 'culture' is nothing more than what is on TV, where the bars are rough, where fitting in depends on loving the stale and empty while (ideally) knowing nothing else. If one is into high culture like classical music one is practically a hermit while enjoying it. I clearly belong elsewhere.

I view suicide as something that happens during life.

Lots of things happen in life, and suicide is something that almost everyone avoids. If something begins to go right in my life for a change, I will be out of danger barring something like a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer or (having seen what my mother went through) Parkinsonism.

I knew people who have committed suicide. One was a close childhood friend. An older brother of one of my best friends. There was no sign that he was going to kill himself, he just killed himself one day. I talked with him at a movie rental place a short time before he killed himself.

Maybe you had no idea of what was going on in his life.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Japan would need no such help. They have more nuke-ready fissionable material than they know what to do with. They have the best centrifuges. They have the best electronics. The best mechanical fabrication. The best assembly.

Hell ... we should seriously consider outsourcing some of our OWN nuke manufacturing to Japan!

My goof! I should have said "about thirty years ago" instead of "about twenty years ago". The Soviet Union was very much in existence thirty years ago.

Japan then had and now has one of the finest scientific communities in the world. The technology for making a nuke isn't very high now.

If you wonder why the Soviet Union was ready to negotiate nuclear arms limitation it was because the Soviet Union then feared some of the Socialist states getting their own nukes. A country like Poland (which has an excellent scientific community) would suddenly become a world power if it got a nuclear program. Soviet leadership may have pretended to make the negotiations look tough, but the result was foreordained. Leadership of then-satellite states were told exactly what was expected of them. Basically, "You sign, too!"

It is possible that Mikhail Gorbachev greased the skids on Nicolae Ceausescu after the mad Romanian leader talked about having "Agent U-235", "U-235" referring to the fissionable isotope of uranium used in atom bombs. Iraqi agents had been caught in several Western countries including the United States in attempts to get precursor items for nuclear weapons (this was before Gulf War I -- not Gulf War II), something unlikely to impress Soviet or Chinese leadership at the time. A country with a despotic leader with missiles capable of going deep into Soviet territory getting The Bomb suddenly became dangerous.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

As I recall at the time I saw no later posts by him.

I don't understand how you missed it. He responded to my direct response to your threat rather quickly. I assume that you must have ignored it or you just weren't interested in his opinion or M&L's opinion. At the time, there was a lot of infractions being received by posters for their responses to members associated with a group of liberal posters. However, at the time there was little to no attention being paid to the initiators of the responses by the Treadmaster. Were you suicidal at the time? Is that why you responded to it so passionately? or was it just an act to get what you wanted at the time?

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

The only responsibilities we have are to the people we've disrupted by our actions, or the ones that have been as faithful to us as we have to them. My list was pretty complete, unless you can think of others. I honestly don't know what we owe to any Syrian group. It appears that the loyalties are too murky for us to fathom. I see us doing more harm than good. Perhaps this is an opportunity for the Europeans to weigh-in. If not them, perhaps the Chinese.

It's not necessarily a question of who is loyal to whom. When genocide happens, humanity needs to step in. That's the case in Syria. I don't say with intervention, but just some support.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Sorry, but the Wahhabis already control the place, so there is nothing to avoid doing that will have any impact at this juncture. In fact, the Saudis are only able to exist in a limbo between modernity and the 12th century because we have their back ... yet they don't reciprocate at all. If that's their preference, then they should enjoy the full impact of their decision.

BTW, the Israelis have a similar though less egregious problem with the ultra-Orthodox sects there. Having full reign, they've managed to attract others of similar bent, and made any attempt at peace impossible. We may wish to back away from that powder keg too.

I'm with you on those, I think. FWIW

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

I don't understand how you missed it. He responded to my direct response to your threat rather quickly. I assume that you must have ignored it or you just weren't interested in his opinion or M&L's opinion. At the time, there was a lot of infractions being received by posters for their responses to members associated with a group of liberal posters. However, at the time there was little to no attention being paid to the initiators of the responses by the Treadmaster. Were you suicidal at the time? Is that why you responded to it so passionately? or was it just an act to get what you wanted at the time?

Either I missed it, the exchange was by private e-mail, or you lie. It has been long enough ago that I cannot determine which is true.

In any event, I have some principle (I am a Boomer not connected to the economic or political elite of the generation), and I have some principle. One is that human life is precious, and as a corollary anything that puts others' lives at pointless risk has no moral justification. Whether the endangerment comes from drunk driving, drug trafficking, aggressive warfare, violent crime, or encouraging someone to commit suicide such is unconscionable.

I gave kia '67 an apparent out, and he showed no sign of taking it. I reported my complaint to the threadmaster, who found it easier to ban him than to convince him to back off.

In case you wonder -- life was much better then. I had a paying job and I was not tied down to a community that I despise.

Do you know what the differences are between being a caretaker for a parent who has run out of money and being a prisoner?

1. For a prisoner, the State makes life miserable. For a caretaker it is pure luck.

2. A prisoner typically has a defined release date. I have none.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Either I missed it, the exchange was by private e-mail, or you lie.

Yeah, you did miss it, PBro. I just checked and the response to
KIA67 by the poster in question was only about 5 1/2 hours later.

Originally Posted by PBro

It has been long enough ago that I cannot determine which is true.

There's a search function on this website.
It took me literally about a minute to find
the interaction. YMMV, of course!


Prince


PS: Going-forward, you may want to consider thinking twice before choosing
to intervene, where no intervention was necessary(or even desired, it appears).

Personally, I'm making an exception in this case in the vain hope that you might
consider some self-restraint in the future(and to say hey to my boy Classic Xer! ).

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

Sorry, but the Wahhabis already control the place, so there is nothing to avoid doing that will have any impact at this juncture. In fact, the Saudis are only able to exist in a limbo between modernity and the 12th century because we have their back ... yet they don't reciprocate at all. If that's their preference, then they should enjoy the full impact of their decision.

BTW, the Israelis have a similar though less egregious problem with the ultra-Orthodox sects there. Having full reign, they've managed to attract others of similar bent, and made any attempt at peace impossible. We may wish to back away from that powder keg too.

In case you haven't noticed, Palestinians find peace under the international community's stipulations impossible too. Israel agreed to 99% of territorial compromises under Ehud Barak during the 1990s and Yasser Arafat had to say no or he would have been assassinated. Arafat's bodyguard said so in an NPR interview on, I believe The Story (WUNC) in 2008.
Palestinians have no incentive to agree to any sort of peace when the United Nations continues to subsidise Palestinians remaining as refugees (which takes up over 1/3 of the UN's total budget and gives the UN a constituency dependent upon it that it otherwise woudn't have. A real peace agreement would be modeled after the "two state solution" which separated Singapore from Malaysia to prevent Malaysia from having a Chinese majority. Chinese in Singapore got Singaporean citizenship while Chinese in Malaysia (and Hindus in Malaysia) got Malaysian citizenship. Both remained under British law while Muslim Malays fell under Sharia law (though not without the prescribed execution methods--Malaysia still uses hanging).
An Israeli version of this would involve a Palestinian state in Gaza only (which is twice the size of Singapore with 2/3 of Singapore's population and offshore gas reserves). Jerusalem and the West Bank are recognised as annexed to Israel with it's inhabitants entitled to full citizenship (a requirement of any annexation since the Mandate Accords of 1920) with those declining to take Israeli citizenship emigrating to Gaza or elsewhere in the world. That is a two state solution that works and will not lead to Israel's destruction and does not involve the unrealistic idea of two parts of a state separated by the territory of another state. And with a birthrate of 3.0 children per family, Jewish Israel need not fear any demographic time bomb especially since West Bank Palestinian's birthrate is the same or slightly lower. But it requires Palestinians and Europeans to give up on the fashionable notion that the State of Israel was created by mistake in a moment of weakness for the international community.

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

FDR sent that shipload of Jews back to Europe after both the Southern Democrats and the Midwestern Progressives threatened to bolt the party in the 1940 election if FDR let them in. FDR's "cowardice" saved the New Deal - just as similar Democratic "cowardice" now on gun rights and religious freedom will save ObamaCare - and much, maybe even all of the New Deal.

Please remember that the Jews of the St. Louis were originally bound for Cuba, not the United States. It shows just how much Jews were hated in 1940 that Midwestern Progressives and Southern Dems saw that as a threat. Small wonder that Jews would make common cause with African-Americans to root out prejudice and discrimination for both, root and branch after WWII had ended.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Absolute horsey poo from someone who likely gets their history from just a few pretty carefully selected books.

One might be able to suggest land ownership was an element of the fear of 1950s communism, but that would entail arguing for communal farming along the lines of 1950s Russia and China - I seriously doubt you have had any direct experience with such land 'ownership' but I can almost say with certitude you would not like it - unless, of course, you are one of the 'pigs' from Animal Farm who was more equal than others.

Also, as one who was actually exposed to Agent Orange more than once, I can tell you it was, at the time, considered a Godsend. I could say I'm smarter now, but under the exact same situation, I would still label it a Godsend. And neither I or anyone around me gave a frig about who owned the jungle we were in.

Not communal farming. Just "land to the tiller" in private one family farms. Which was a tried and true approach in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and even Malaysia after the Emergency that resulted in opposition to communism and collectivisation--and by putting money in farmer's pockets making it possible for them to buy consumer goods. This approach certainly worked in Japan, where farmers became the backbone of support for the conservative ruling Liberal-Democratic Party. It worked in Thailand where land was in the tiller's hands to begin with. It worked in Malaysia, where rubber has continued to be grown by smallholders rather than on big plantations.
I realise that land to the tiller is considered obsolete in an age of corporate farming and mechanisation moving from farm machinery to agro robots. (In Japan today the result has been older and older farmers hanging onto small pieces of land and farming it with rototillers while their children make their fortunes in the cities. (Those farmers by the way, are the backbone of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal-Democratic Party) For that matter, the average age of farmers in much of the US is 50+). At the time (the 1940s to the 1960s) land reform was a critical tool for doing the communist's work for them and thereby making communism unpalatable. It shows just how much we have moved in the direction of considering private property rights (and corporate property rights) to be sacrosanct after the eras of Reagan and Clinton that you believe that the choice was always between plantation agriculture and communal agriculture. Which proves my point better than anything I could say.
I don't doubt that Agent Orange was a godsend for US troops in the context of surviving guerilla warfare, by defoliating brush that enemy hid behind and within. But protecting troops from VC was not how the use of Agent Orange started in the early 60s.It started as an effort to evict nonpaying tenants from their land into "fortified hamlets" where they could be kept under control. Probably before you arrived in country when US troops were just "advisers" pre 1965. Though that aspect did not stop until the US left South Vietnam in 1973, near as I can tell.
You didn't realise it at the time, but you and your squaddies were in on the ground floor of what would become the Reagan Revolution; a backlash against the New Deal that started with large growers in California in the 1930s and found a home in US defence and foreign policy circles before becoming orthodoxy domestically in the 1980s.

Originally Posted by XYMOX_4AD_84

Japan would need no such help. They have more nuke-ready fissionable material than they know what to do with. They have the best centrifuges. They have the best electronics. The best mechanical fabrication. The best assembly.

Hell ... we should seriously consider outsourcing some of our OWN nuke manufacturing to Japan!

And preserving that nuclear option should circumstances change is one of the reasons why Japan has built such a large nuclear power capacity--and why it is so antiquated. Japan does not send it's nuclear waste abroad to be destroyed, but keeps it as a hoard since fuel rods are not really waste. In the kind of security emergency in which Japan would find it helpful to repeal Article 9 and possess nuclear weapons, neither expertise nor industrial capability would be a limiting factor. Fissible material would be, since Japan has no domestic uranium and actions taken abroad could make it hard for Japan to get uranium. So Japan keeps it's spent fuel rods against the day they will be needed to reprocess into nuclear weapons. And dosen't burn them up in thorium reactors that produce only power (very efficiently) and reduces nuclear material--any nuclear material--to non-radioactive lead.

Originally Posted by Marx & Lennon

No, but we have few reasons to consider them as friends ... yet we do. The Wahhabi faction that runs the Saudi culture is clearly so pre-modern that it is a threat to the regime. Why we continue to back the Kingdom when it refuses to reign-in these religious fanatics is beyond me. Much of the Islamic fundamentalism originated right there. Both al Qaeda and ISIS are off-shoots.

We continue to back the Kingdom because the Kingdom prices it's oil in US dollars. And drags the rest of OPEC with the exception of Iran with it. Thereby making dollars a necessity for any nation needing to buy oil. Which forces nations to find things to sell to the US to get those US dollars, resulting in cheap affordable consumer goods for Americans. Which in turn permits the US to get away with running account deficits, budget deficits and lower interest rates at levels that would have other nations selling off dollars for alternative currencies if those alternatives were viable.
All of which gives the Kingdom leverage over the United States. To the point where the US finds it expeditious to give Saudi citizens the benefit of the doubt when travelling to the US or investing in the US or endowing Islamic charities in the US. I have no doubt that it was this benefit of this doubt that the 9/11 hijackers took advantage of when relocating in the US. It wasn't conspiracy per se, so much as at the time, Saudis having what amounted to favoured status with US immigration authorities. The kind of favoured status that makes it possible for a Saudi prince to rape as many as 5 American women and flee the US when caught and charged on what amounted to unofficial diplomatic immunity http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...d-5-women.html. Or all members of the al Saud and Bin Laden families within the US to get a private plane to take them home when all other flights were grounded on 9/11.
It would have taken real courage to trash the special relationship the US has with Saudi Arabia over 9/11 and withdraw from the petrodollar "cold turkey". It would mean real pain for Americans. And real pain and fewer options for Americans if we do it today, even though we now have enough oil reserves to be self-sufficient. Oil self-sufficiency isn't the issue. The role of the petrodollar in the US economy is the real issue and not an easy issue.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

Either I missed it, the exchange was by private e-mail, or you lie. It has been long enough ago that I cannot determine which is true.

In any event, I have some principle (I am a Boomer not connected to the economic or political elite of the generation), and I have some principle. One is that human life is precious, and as a corollary anything that puts others' lives at pointless risk has no moral justification. Whether the endangerment comes from drunk driving, drug trafficking, aggressive warfare, violent crime, or encouraging someone to commit suicide such is unconscionable.

I gave kia '67 an apparent out, and he showed no sign of taking it. I reported my complaint to the threadmaster, who found it easier to ban him than to convince him to back off.

In case you wonder -- life was much better then. I had a paying job and I was not tied down to a community that I despise.

Do you know what the differences are between being a caretaker for a parent who has run out of money and being a prisoner?

1. For a prisoner, the State makes life miserable. For a caretaker it is pure luck.

2. A prisoner typically has a defined release date. I have none.

I know what it's like to be a caretaker for a parent with Alzheimer's. I did it for over a year. My sister was the official full time caretaker. Her husband and I were both self employed. We took care of mom during the weekdays. My other sister would fill in as needed. It sucked for all of us. But, we sucked it up and did what had to be done for our mother. I never bitched or whined about having to take care of my mother. I also know what it's like to to be the one in charge of making the primary financial decisions relating to the financial level of a parents care and the one keeping track of the primary wealth remaining and the one calculating the number of years of care that mom had left to financially provide for her care. My sisters hated me at times. The three of us were in charge of her care and her financial responsibilities. She died about seven months before she ran out of money. I thanked God for that.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

In case you haven't noticed, Palestinians find peace under the international community's stipulations impossible too. Israel agreed to 99% of territorial compromises under Ehud Barak during the 1990s and Yasser Arafat had to say no or he would have been assassinated. Arafat's bodyguard said so in an NPR interview on, I believe The Story (WUNC) in 2008.
Palestinians have no incentive to agree to any sort of peace when the United Nations continues to subsidise Palestinians remaining as refugees (which takes up over 1/3 of the UN's total budget and gives the UN a constituency dependent upon it that it otherwise woudn't have. A real peace agreement would be modeled after the "two state solution" which separated Singapore from Malaysia to prevent Malaysia from having a Chinese majority. Chinese in Singapore got Singaporean citizenship while Chinese in Malaysia (and Hindus in Malaysia) got Malaysian citizenship. Both remained under British law while Muslim Malays fell under Sharia law (though not without the prescribed execution methods--Malaysia still uses hanging).
An Israeli version of this would involve a Palestinian state in Gaza only (which is twice the size of Singapore with 2/3 of Singapore's population and offshore gas reserves). Jerusalem and the West Bank are recognised as annexed to Israel with it's inhabitants entitled to full citizenship (a requirement of any annexation since the Mandate Accords of 1920) with those declining to take Israeli citizenship emigrating to Gaza or elsewhere in the world. That is a two state solution that works and will not lead to Israel's destruction and does not involve the unrealistic idea of two parts of a state separated by the territory of another state. And with a birthrate of 3.0 children per family, Jewish Israel need not fear any demographic time bomb especially since West Bank Palestinian's birthrate is the same or slightly lower. But it requires Palestinians and Europeans to give up on the fashionable notion that the State of Israel was created by mistake in a moment of weakness for the international community.

I know that the Jews would not likely agree, but I think that The Jews should have been given part of Germany to establish a new Jewish state.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

Not communal farming. Just "land to the tiller" in private one family farms. Which was a tried and true approach in South Korea, Taiwan, Japan and even Malaysia after the Emergency that resulted in opposition to communism and collectivisation--and by putting money in farmer's pockets making it possible for them to buy consumer goods. This approach certainly worked in Japan, where farmers became the backbone of support for the conservative ruling Liberal-Democratic Party. It worked in Thailand where land was in the tiller's hands to begin with. It worked in Malaysia, where rubber has continued to be grown by smallholders rather than on big plantations.
I realise that land to the tiller is considered obsolete in an age of corporate farming and mechanisation moving from farm machinery to agro robots. (In Japan today the result has been older and older farmers hanging onto small pieces of land and farming it with rototillers while their children make their fortunes in the cities. (Those farmers by the way, are the backbone of Japan's ruling conservative Liberal-Democratic Party) For that matter, the average age of farmers in much of the US is 50+). At the time (the 1940s to the 1960s) land reform was a critical tool for doing the communist's work for them and thereby making communism unpalatable. It shows just how much we have moved in the direction of considering private property rights (and corporate property rights) to be sacrosanct after the eras of Reagan and Clinton that you believe that the choice was always between plantation agriculture and communal agriculture. Which proves my point better than anything I could say.

That is very interesting; I'll probably follow-up with some reading particularly if you can offer some suggested material. I had gotten into the whole Hernando de Soto arguments at one time before it seemed to me to have collapse into a heap of what reforms were slightly more important to do first.

However, we didn't defoliate South Korea, Taiwan, Japan or even Malaysia so there must've been something different about Vietnam and our fears (justified or not, particularly in hindsight) that led us to, well, go nuts.

Sometimes trying to roll-in a 'one-off' to make a theory all encompassing can make it a much weaker argument.

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

I don't doubt that Agent Orange was a godsend for US troops in the context of surviving guerilla warfare, by defoliating brush that enemy hid behind and within. But protecting troops from VC was not how the use of Agent Orange started in the early 60s.It started as an effort to evict nonpaying tenants from their land into "fortified hamlets" where they could be kept under control. Probably before you arrived in country when US troops were just "advisers" pre 1965. Though that aspect did not stop until the US left South Vietnam in 1973, near as I can tell.

You didn't realise it at the time, but you and your squaddies were in on the ground floor of what would become the Reagan Revolution; a backlash against the New Deal that started with large growers in California in the 1930s and found a home in US defence and foreign policy circles before becoming orthodoxy domestically in the 1980s.

As I have noted elsewhere, outside of more ancient motivations (e.g. the Sunni/Shia, Persian/Arab, Greek/Trojan, Cain/Abel splits), I blame the French Revolution that spawned Napoleon and his upsetting the world's apple cart. Since that French Revolution was just a bad imitation of the one across the Atlantic, I am firmly with you in the Blame America First camp. You know, as any empowerment speaker will tell you, you got to first own your mistakes in order to reclaim da power!

On the other hand, Thomas Paine was born in England. Trump's right - F'n Immigrants!

Originally Posted by Classic-X'er

I know what it's like to be a caretaker for a parent with Alzheimer's. I did it for over a year. My sister was the official full time caretaker. Her husband and I were both self employed. We took care of mom during the weekdays. My other sister would fill in as needed. It sucked for all of us. But, we sucked it up and did what had to be done for our mother. I never bitched or whined about having to take care of my mother. I also know what it's like to to be the one in charge of making the primary financial decisions relating to the financial level of a parents care and the one keeping track of the primary wealth remaining and the one calculating the number of years of care that mom had left to financially provide for her care. My sisters hated me at times. The three of us were in charge of her care and her financial responsibilities. She died about seven months before she ran out of money. I thanked God for that.

Better dead than Red (Medicare)?

Originally Posted by MordecaiK

We continue to back the Kingdom because the Kingdom prices it's oil in US dollars. And drags the rest of OPEC with the exception of Iran with it. Thereby making dollars a necessity for any nation needing to buy oil. Which forces nations to find things to sell to the US to get those US dollars, resulting in cheap affordable consumer goods for Americans. Which in turn permits the US to get away with running account deficits, budget deficits and lower interest rates at levels that would have other nations selling off dollars for alternative currencies if those alternatives were viable.
All of which gives the Kingdom leverage over the United States. To the point where the US finds it expeditious to give Saudi citizens the benefit of the doubt when travelling to the US or investing in the US or endowing Islamic charities in the US. I have no doubt that it was this benefit of this doubt that the 9/11 hijackers took advantage of when relocating in the US. It wasn't conspiracy per se, so much as at the time, Saudis having what amounted to favoured status with US immigration authorities. The kind of favoured status that makes it possible for a Saudi prince to rape as many as 5 American women and flee the US when caught and charged on what amounted to unofficial diplomatic immunity http://www.thedailybeast.com/article...d-5-women.html. Or all members of the al Saud and Bin Laden families within the US to get a private plane to take them home when all other flights were grounded on 9/11.
It would have taken real courage to trash the special relationship the US has with Saudi Arabia over 9/11 and withdraw from the petrodollar "cold turkey". It would mean real pain for Americans. And real pain and fewer options for Americans if we do it today, even though we now have enough oil reserves to be self-sufficient. Oil self-sufficiency isn't the issue. The role of the petrodollar in the US economy is the real issue and not an easy issue.

Not a big fan of the Saudis myself; basically they've made a devil's bargain with terrorists to support them or at least look the other way just as long as the terrorists do their thing outside of Saudi Arabia.

However, don't get caught up in the nonsense of the world's reserve currency - that's just the VIP room at the naughty nudie palace for those gold bugs who think they're a tad smarter. A nation with a trade surplus is going to accumulate currency in the country it exports to; whatever nation most countries are exporting to then becomes the world's reserve currency - before the dollar, it was the Pound-Sterling; sometime before that it was Roman; some day it will be the big Yuan. That's all there is to it. No conspiracy, no secret deals. Any advantage/disadvantage to being or not being the world's reserve currency is near instantaneously adjusted for in the biggest, most efficient, market in the world - foreign exchange. Any time someone or some nation(s) tries to buck that, they ALWAYS get their head handed to them. If they happen to be a central bank, they know that and they may buck the FX markets purposefully wanting to get their heads handed to them for other purposes (e.g. devaluation to keep exporting jobs - smart; trying to look stable - stupid) - the markets adjust for that too. People like to live as if they were pre-1971; I like taking their money.

Originally Posted by pbrower2a

I did not get kia '67 banned. He got himself banned.

I missed it. Why did KIA '67 get banned?

He was probably discriminated against because he's a Baby Buster!

Originally Posted by '58 Flat

Why did KIA '67 get banned?

Well, he didn't really get banned. At least not in the classic understanding of the word. :

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Well, he didn't really get banned. At least not in the classic understanding of the word. :

I always thought he was Killed In Action, myself.
Puzzling.