patrick.net

but given the high likelihood that some of your fellow liberals here have not read the Constitution, maybe you can explain it for them: If you have read it, that is?

The Constitution is a dead letter.

Bap33 says

I did not say “zone”, I said “role” (actually I said roll - and that was the wrong word - lol). Females should never, ever be in a combat role. As pointed out, neither should men who are soft, they too can serve in non-combat roles as I stated above. Same with old people and those with disablilities - a non-combat role that supports this nations defense should be available.
I disagree with grywlfbg, just being able to fly a plane or shoot a gun does not equate to being a warrior.
If you folks really feel women should be equal to men, then that means you should start demanding the mixing of women and men prisoners. Right? No? Well .. dang, now what?

Forget whee the quote came from but it goes something like this, "Don't argue with idiots. They'll drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience."

You sir are a waste of air. How can you tell me that having a penis makes one a "warrior" (or the lack of one makes one incapable of being such)? Do you have one single shred of reasoning or evidence for your position? Aside from your obvious sexism and fear of strong women.

Sex aside, how do you determine who can be a "warrior"? Have you actually served in the military? Basic training does very little to prepare you for combat. Regardless of gender, until the REAL bullets start flying, you have NO IDEA who will actually pull their own trigger and kill and who will cower. It happens to Males all the time. Heck, there are plenty of Men who can't kill a deer much less another human (see: Buck Fever).

And what do prisons have to do w/ the military? The reason we segregate prisons is for punishment. If one could have a live-in girlfriend/wife in prison it wouldn't be punishment. I'm guessing you're trying to show that men and women are different. Well, of course they are. But let's not forget that men rape each other in prison all the time so I still don't see how your example has any bearing on our discussion. There are weak people and there are strong people. Gender has ZERO to do with it.

Finally, to reiterate my point, if an objective set of requirements are set to be a soldier (must be able to carry X lbs of gear for X miles, must be able to shoot with X accuracy, etc) and someone can meet those requirements, it shouldn't matter what gender they are. End of story.

Austinhousingbubble says

Don’t get me wrong, I’m willing to have my tax dollars to be used to have the strongest and most advanced military in the world.

If you get a chance sometime, read Imaginary Weapons by Sharon Weinberger.

I'll check it out. However as someone who was a military pilot in his younger days I think our tax dollars have brought us some impressive capability. Is there inefficiencies? Of course. But there are in the private sector, road-building, you name it, as well. And the plenty of money has been wasted but at least we have planes, tanks, ships, etc. for our money, unlike what Wall Street has done w/ our money.

The book deals with the DARPA branch of the Pentagon, which spends millions upon millions of taxpayer dollars via grants for opportunists/charlatans to pursue quack science (cold fusion, mind control guns, and ESP warfare among many many others) in the name of National Defense.

Never mind the two bullshit wars we're stuck in right now -- even during peace time our defense budget always seems to get a free pass, despite the Pentagon treating tax dollars like funny paper.

"The Constitution is a dead letter."

Wow! Troy, do you believe this as well? Constitution is a "dead letter" - essentially irrelevant?

If that is the case, why argue about taxes or any other political issue: There is no valid government, is there?

About the topic of this thread: the book "Who Rules America" by Domhoff points out that the only reason we have unemployment insurance, social security, Medicare, etc, is that they are the minimum necessary to prevent violent revolution. Most workers know that the free market exists in America only as long as the very rich are winning. As soon as the rich start losing, they instantly revert to the most anti-free market policies imaginable, such as the massive transfers of money from taxpayers to foolish banks, or the Federal Reserve printing money to buy the failed mortgages from the banks. Workers don't object too much as long as they can eat and get some minimum health care. And because they're not quite sure that the "world is ending" excuse is bullshit. But it is bullshit.

Ironically, what social policies we do have for workers are intended only to protect the people in power.

I'm going to call a bit of BS on that book. Rich people are getting richer just by virtue that they're saving. The really rich are working on conserving wealth, less on generating new wealth. E.G. saudi princes. Their goal is to maintain, less about creating new wealth. Trying finding places to invest billions upon billions? Look at the chinese, they're buying up US debt because it's something that is considered simple and safe. If they could get a 20% return on all that money by investing in other entities, they probably would. But it's harder than it looks to find a place to put 1T dollars.

The really rich simply couldn't coordinate something like this and make it happen. Things get out. They always get out. There might be a few back room conversations where people discuss this, but the concepts and how to perform these acts are fairly complex. Who here could create actual experiments, and look through statistical data and actual evidence, not a google search! and finally create a real report that could be easily convey to a rich person, that would then understand it well enough to pass it along to his buddies to push through?

I'm betting it happens for many of these reasons, but not from the top down. Things get bad and they try and help fix them. Their agenda isn't to screw people, it's to become bigger and better themselves.

I talked with a guy who met with bill gates and steve balmer. This groupdidn't like windows and these guys were all over them to figure out why, and how to make it better. This wasn't in 1990's but early 2000's when windows was/is essentially the only game in town. These guys are at the top, worth billions, have god knows how many employees and they were just so passionate with this group of people.

On top of this line of thought, is a quote I once saw that said the first generation of rich people make it, the second tries to maintain it, the 3rd pilfers it. Which I think holds true in many cases. The first generation works their asses off. The second follows their parents, but wishes they could have done something else, and thus let their children run a bit wild, doing whatever they want. Become artists, wrtiers, or whatever they want.

There just aren't that many people "working" at a super weathly level where pushing down the general public would benefit them.

If a person wants to become SUPER wealthy, without much money, go to a 3rd world country. You'll become an instant king with limited cash! Why not do it? Well who wants to live in a country with !@#$ around them. People dying on the streets, garbage everywhere? They want to live in utopia. The only way to get utopia, is to push everyone else up. What is the best way to make things even better for you? Make them better for everyone else, that will push up your standard of living as well.

Even bill gates has to walk past street beggers once in awhile. Or gets passed on the street by a belching diesel bus. What if the beggars weren't there, or smelled better? What if the buses were cleaner? It would make THEIR life better. They can already buy anything they want in life, the only things they can't buy are things that indirect effect them, like belching diesel busses. That is something they can make "better".

Overall, I don't believe in large conspiracies. Who has been in large company where all the top people were on the same back stabbing page? Backstabbers are always looking out for their own being, which in turns means that these groups can't get that large or complex. Once they do, backstabbers backstab each other. Good wins because good can trust and work together with large numbers of people. Evil wins hands down, when they can manage everything themselves. When they need to expand and get assistance/team up with someone else, they just can't do it. Evil collapses as it grows. Someone "good" gets in there, and ruins it, or someone feels they can do better on their own and backstabs everyone else. Evil can't get that large. Large conspiracies usually require lots of evil intentions.

As soon as the rich start losing, they instantly revert to the most anti-free market policies imaginable

Or in more specific examples, they threaten to take their wealth and factories and leave the country. It's a frequent thread on some stock forums I hang out on, that raising taxes on the wealthy class back to what they USED to be, and they will simply leave the USA without a backward glance. Proof enough for me that love of country and community is not something they possess. The first and last thing they dream of is ever larger wealth, and everything else is just a guise they adopt if needed to get what they want.

George Carlin had it right.

Wow! Troy, do you believe this as well? Constitution is a “dead letter” - essentially irrelevant?

Is there any readily perceptible evidence to the contrary?

Among other technicalities like voting ages, etc., our Constitution sets forth the limit of the governments power over the individual. In essence, it remains a pretty great boilerplate document, but after the last administration ran roughshod all over it, treating it more as a quaint remnant to be parsed and misinterpreted for their agendas, the life went right out of the thing.

If the actual document reflected the esteem it has within our government, it would have a coffee ring and a cigarette burn or two. Maybe a pizza delivery number written on the back.

Back to Jim Bunning, Daily Show has some commentary:

http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-march-2-2010/jim-bunning-is-just-a-dick