Show me the motto!
 

[eom]

Show me the motto!
 

The disgusting vat of filth that no self-respecting intelligent person with good ideas would ever want to wade into

Show me the motto!
 

too long, it doesnt fit. it ends with "....idea". Do you affirm my edit or you want to edit?

Show me the motto!
 

Let's change "post to..." to "wade into" to preserve all the melifluosity of ncs' prose. Many thanks.

Show me the motto!
 

smashing! FTR, FD: I am a self-loathing intelligent person, which allows me in.

How ' bout all'Y'all?

Show me the motto!
 

::sniff:: It's not about fucking time? ::sniff::

But yes, sorry, we do have bases of varying sorts in Germany. And 20-30 years ago there were still air raid and terrorist attack drills going on, both for mil. personnel and civilians. Okay, right, less for angry Germans and more for Luciferian Russians and others, but still.

Show me the motto!
 

2. I endorse withdrawing our troops from areas where we first put them in during and in furtherance of a war effourt in chronological order, i.e. FiFo, so, first we empty WEurope, then SKorea........Iraq is a ways down the road, probably 2012ish, which equates with the original 10 year projection I made.

Sorry, Penske.
 

Do we have troops in Iraq now to keep the Iranians (they're a nice stand-in for the 200+ Red Army divisions, no?) out? Or because the Iraqis haven't stopped shooting at us/each other?

(from the closed but not to me thread, because I don't want to hide my talent under a basket)

. . . and Alger Hiss was at Yalta!
 

Are you forgeting that we, in fact, did try to come up thru Italy? A narrow and mountanious peninsula, with no room to manuever, made for rough slogging. Two years after landing (at the end of the war) we still were within Italy's borders.

Eisenhower correctly decided that the main push should be the direct one. Look at a map of Europe.

Invading at Normandy also had the benefit of being close to our supply lines and far from the Germans, and close to the bases of our tactical air forces. Neither of that was true about Italy, Greece, or anyplace else in what Sir Winston called "the soft underbelly."

(more wisdom from the closed thread)

I apologize for omitting that crucial detail from my synopsis of our exchange. The synopsis should have read:

• Spanky: Bush busted his derriere to get CAFTA passed.
  
  Me: How so?
  
  Spanky: He invested a lot of political capital to get it through.
  
  Me: In what way did Bush spend political capital on CAFTA?
  
  Spanky: He got it through didn't he?
  
  Me: Can't come up with anything, huh?
  
  Spanky: I already told you twice. . . He spent all sort of political capital to get unanimity. . . . That didn't come cheap.

Like George W. Bush, you seem to think that saying the same superficial nonsense over and over and over again is convincing and responsive.

Bush's record on free trade is a lot of happy talk and lip service (not the Clinton kind), and little to nothing to show for it. This is because he chose to spend his political capital on other things -- tax cuts, invading Iraq, attempting to gut Social Security.

Having explained that the Republican Party is the party of free trade and should be re-elected on that basis, you simultaneously say that Bush spent major capital getting his Congressmen from his own party to vote for free trade. Stop and think about that for a second.

You don't know what you're talking about. Try reading, say, The Economist. After the talks collapsed this summer, the July 24 issue observed:

• The collapse will probably be blamed on America, which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies.

Now, it takes two to tango, and I'm not saying that the U.S. is solely to blame. But your little song and dance of pretending that the U.S. had nothing to do with Doha's failure is about as credible as your insistence that George Bush had to go to the mat to get Republicans to pass CAFTA.

Oops.

Having watched you define "liberal" today, I'm not going to argue with you about whether I am a "free trader," since you seem to use political labels in a different manner than most of the functionally literate population. Suffice it to say that most people would call me a free trader.

That's not what I said, and if you think I said that then you are either inattentive or functionally illiterate.

I didn't say that, either. Is it so hard to read what I say and respond to that instead of foaming at the mouth about random crap? (Please note that this is my bid to seed the next board title when Penske takes the K.)

No. I'm just arguing that Bush has been a huge disappointment from a free-trade perspective. No matter who is elected to Congress tomorrow, that tiger is not about to change his stripes.

Show me the motto!
 

I added the word "would" to make it grammatically correct. I really don't want ncs or anyone else to think we are less functionally literate than we actually are.

Show me the motto!
 

I don't think that the US Army spent much time on patrol in areas controlled by the Baader-Meinhof Gang. I think that they were more concerned with how to defend the Fulda Gap from the Luciferian Russian hordes (a/k/a "the Godless Communists").

Show me the motto!
 

Um, actually, there were terrorist attacks on bases in Germany in the 70s and 80s and as mentoined these were something of concern in everyday life, to a degree. But yes, my original comment was that the Communist threat was clearly a central reason for the continued presence, so I think we're saying the same there. And there have continued to be (imo) meaningful reasons why we should have a presence there.

Show me the motto!
 

2. and GGGGG said we were able to pull all troops out of Germany really quick. I was just proving another thing he said was wrong. We also did get out of Japan too quickly.

398-12

Note to my VGBNBF and co-mod Ty:

You should not bury these little notes to me in the middle of a long post. I rarely read more than the first 6 or 7 words of your posts. In this case I happened to be doing a global site search for the word "foaming" (specifically related to a sexual reference on the FB) and this came up (no pun intended).

Or PM me with this stuff.

Thanks.....your pal,

Penske

Shameful
 

Police arrested 24-year old Michael Burkett of Boise early Sunday morning after officers with Capitol Mall Security reported spotting him vandalizing two flag polls on the grounds of the Idaho Statehouse.

The flags are memorials to soldiers who lost their lives in the war on terror.

"It's certainly upsetting, not just to officers but for any citizen of this county who knows somebody who lost their lives in Iraq or Afghanistan," Lt. Ron Winegar said of the ongoing investigation.

Burkett was charged with resisting arrest and Malicious Injury to Property. He and his 22-year-old brother, Tom Burkett, also charged with the vandalism, are the sons of state Sen. Michael Burkett (D) of Idaho's 19th district.

. . . and Alger Hiss was at Yalta!
 

I was just stating Churchill's position. We had planned to invade France very early on (1942) but after a while Churchill thought it was a bad idea. He thought we should push up through "the soft underbelly of Europe". He wanted to stop Stalin from taking Poland. He also thought an amphibious landing was a huge risk that we didn't have to take since we were already on the continent. Stalin really pushed hard for the Normandy landing.

I have no idea who was right but it is probably important to point out that Churchill planned the Galipoli campaign.

Show me the motto!
 

I thought the conclusion of that conversation was that it was not fucking time. Correct me if I'm wrong. Sidd? Has something happened?

Show me the motto!
 

I don't believe I said differently. I said that our soldiers weren't getting shot at in Germany a couple of years after the Mission was Accomplished.

Yes, it does turn out that by the 70s our soldiers were being shot at just about everywhere. I think that had something to do with Vietnam. During the late 40s and through the 50s, the preferred targets were more often British or French, since they were still very messilly withdrawing from any number of overseas colonies.

I was under the impression that as a matter of routine you had one of your associates run a search for your name and like terms, and forward you a list of the posts that come up. For this reason, my little notes to you in the middle of long notes always include "Penske" or something else that will do the trick, like "jug wine." As always, I remain,

yr pal,

T.S.

W p, P!

No the way it works is I post something substantive and you need to refute my reasons with something, just not say they are wrong. Just repeating I am wrong over and over again does not qualify as a substantive argument. When you say I haven't given you a reason, I repost the reason to show you are wrong.

Again, he got many Republican members of Congress who voted against NAFTA to vote for CAFTA. He actually went to capital hill to shore up votes (how many times did Clinton do that?).


The problem is that you need to think about it. I already have. He had to get every Republican to vote because he got absolutely no help from the Democrats. If the Democrats are trying to pass a gun control bill and they need to spend a lot of capital to get them over the top (to get those last few Dems to vote for it because no Repubs will), does that mean they are not really the party of Gun control, the Republicans are? Didn't Clinton have to spend a lot of political capital to get the Democrat majority congress to pass his budget bill in 1992? But the vote on CAFTA was about as clean cut as you get. There is almost never unaninimoty for parties on any subject for the members of Congress. Not on this issue. Almost every Democrat voted against CAFTA and almost every Repub voted against it. It is now crystal clear which party is the party of free trade. How much more stark can it get?

Ty - you have reached a new low.
 

First of all the quote you use from the Economist totally refutes what you were saying: that Bush was not willing to take the political hit from Sugar farmers in Florida or from the Midwester's who make corn syrup. The quote you used from the economist shows that he not only was he willing to sacrifice those subsidies, he was insisting that the US sacrifice those subsidies.



The operative quote was: which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies.


You also said that Bush wasn't pushing on the Doha round and he was to blame. You sliced up the quote from the Economist to try and and make it look like the economist was saying Bush was at fault for the collapse of the Doha round Actually, if you read the whole quote it is clear the Economist is not blaming Bush. The article also give Bush kudos for being a strong free trader.

"The collapse will probably be blamed on America, which has been pushing for bold action on agricultural tariffs, and resisting a modest compromise deal that includes caps on its own agricultural subsidies. This is ironic, because America has been one of the grave men pushing hard to revive Doha after the round’s first collapse at Cancún in 2003. Despite high-profile deviations, such as slapping tariffs on imported steel, Mr Bush has largely been a committed free trader."

And what was Bush's alleged crime Trying to make the Doha round actually cut more subsidies. Making the deal more beneficial for free trade. And you say Bush isn't committed to free trade? Please.






[/QUOTE]

That's nice, but I'm still waiting for the "substantive" part.

Since Clinton got NAFTA passed over the objections of many in his own party, I'm thinking you didn't want to go there.

Perhaps because of tomorrow's election, you want to have an argument with me about whether the Democratic or Republican party is better on free trade. I am not having that argument with you. I'm just saying that Bush hasn't been good on free trade because he hasn't tried. He pays lip service, but he doesn't invest in it.

I've said this a few times, and your response is that Bush really spent a lot of (unidentified) "political capital" twisting Republican Congressman to vote for CAFTA. I don't buy that this is much of investment at all, compared to real priorities for the Administration like tax cuts, invading Iraq, and attempting to undo Social Security. Moreover, CAFTA is hardly much to write home about.

Only about a hundred Democrats voted for NAFTA. The rest of the votes came from the Repubs. And Clinton had to push hard to get the Democrat votes he did get.


Well you were, until you realized it was a totally losing argument.

Coming from a guy who is not really committed to free trade and who really loathes the Bush administration. Please. You just refuse to give the Bush administration kudos for anything.

Patty Hearst heard the burst of Roland's Thompson gun.
 

Agreed, my favorite little Republican. I just wanted a chance to say "the Fulda Gap" again.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You said Bush was pushing free trade just because he was sucking up to business.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Really. Well here is what you said

So after reading what you said do you still want to say that my quote "You said Bush was pushing free trade just because he was sucking up to business." mischaracterized your statement.

OK. I'm not defending the Democratic Party. I'm pointing out that Bush's records looks pretty crappy compared to Clinton on this one.

You are a moron, and I wasn't. You call me a partisan, but you're the one trying to make this a partisan fight.

Not a word of substance in that response. OK. I've been reasonably specific addressing things like Doha, and you've been, well, misinformed. Six years of this President and what you can say for him is, never mind steel and Doha, he actually hauled his ass to Capitol Hill to ask Republican congressmen to vote for CAFTA. And I'm supposed to give him kudos for that.

Take all of the money and resources and good will and effort that Bush has squandered in Iran. How much better a place would the world be if Bush had turned those efforts to free trade?

Yes. Most obviously, I said there were two "advantages" to Bush and the GOP from what they've done, and you've chosen to ignore the second, which I said was the more significant.

Moreover, I never suggested that Bush didn't believe in free trade. Indeed, in another post I suggested that he does believe in it, which makes it all the more disappointing that he's not willing to invest political capital in it. He has let political expediency trump his avowed principles.

. . . and Alger Hiss was at Yalta!
 

He was a brilliant guy, no doubt about it, and truly a Rennaissance man -- talented writer, artist, soldier, statesman, etc. I just think that Ike was right and he was wrong on this particular issue.

And, in his defense on Gallipoli, they didn't move after the landings when they had the chance. Of course, nothing that happened in Turkey would have changed anything on the ground in the front that mattered then, either, so . . . .

The quotes don't seem to jibe with those statement below (I would find better quotes but I don't know how to search past a year).


"but there are many, many supporters of free-trade -- moderate Democrats, moderate Republicans -- who want to lower barriers to trade but who do not want to sacrifice environmental protections and labor laws and other regulation that this country enjoys."

"While there will surely some Democrats who were happy to stick it to Bush, there were also a lot of Democrats who thought it was bad policy."


"quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
From the Washington Post
But a core group of as many as 50 pro-trade Democrats are voting against CAFTA; those lawmakers say the agreement is a step backward on labor standards after years of steady gains under previous trade accords.

They complain that the administration failed to consult them during negotiations, taking their votes for granted. And they say past trade agreements were accompanied by increased support for worker-retraining programs, education efforts and aid to dislocated workers -- support that the president has not provided.

"Free and open trade is an important component to widening the winner's circle for all Americans, but it's not a Johnny One Note part of the puzzle," said Rep. Ellen Tauscher (Calif.), a co-chairman of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, who voted for the most contentious trade bills of the past half-dozen years.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------




"As I've posted before, it's not a coincidence that CAFTA was written with labor standards that Democrats didn't support. The GOP leadership doesn't want Democrats voting for its bills. They don't want business giving money to Democrats. All the better to draft a bill designed to get Democrats to go the other way."

You and I have unresolved semantic disagreement about whether things like environmental protections and child labor laws are inconsistent with "free trade." I say no, you say yes. Like many Democrats, I would support something like CAFTA, but would use free trade to try to get other countries to improve environmental protections and child labor laws and so forth. I was under the impression that there was a calculated effort by the GOP to make CAFTA unpalatable to Democrats along these lines. When we debated that stuff, you suggested otherwise, and I will confess that I just don't know the details of the statute that well.

eta: I also think that while society generally benefits from free trade, some people are harmed, and we ought to do thinks to protect those people as a part of any deal to open up trade. I know you disagree with that.

Spanky quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Like the Economist article said, a Democrat takeover of Congress would be disastrous for free trade, so a true free trader would not want a Democrat takeover tomorrow.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ty reponse:

Only Nixon could go to China.


Tyrone quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
So progress is going to take a less partisan approach, and will require deal-cutting to get Dems on board. I'm not optomistic that this will happen in the next two years, but it would be for the best.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Spanky response:

Best for whom? Free trade? Are you kidding? Does the Financial Times think a Democratic takeover of the Congress would be good for free trade? I really, really, doubt it. No one with any credibility would argue that a Democrat takeover of congress would be good for free trade. Anyone that prioritises free trade wants the Republicans to stay in controll of congress.

Ty response:

As I said above, only Nixon could go to China.



Spanky quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are the only one on the planet that thinks the Dems will step up on free trade.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ty response:

I didn't say that, either. Is it so hard to read what I say and respond to that instead of foaming at the mouth about random crap?


Spanky quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You are just trying to rationalize a Democrat takeover.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Ty response:

No. I'm just arguing that Bush has been a huge disappointment from a free-trade perspective. No matter who is elected to Congress tomorrow, that tiger is not about to change his stripes.

These are not the arguments of a "free trader". I was not trying to argue whether or not you are right, you just said most people would consider you a free trader and that you did not oppose CAFTA. You did not support CAFTA and these statements above would convince most people you are not a free trader.

A pro-choice person (who thinks abortion should be legal in the first tri-mester) may argue that their position does not preclude them from being pro-life. But most people in the pro-life camp would not buy that. A pro-life person could argue that even though they want to make abortion illegal in the first tri-mester they could still be considered pro-choice because they would allow an abortion for cases of rape and incest. But most pro-choicers would not buy that argument.

You can claim to be a "free trader", but no one in the true free trade camp would buy that with the arguments you make.

I am misinformed on Doha? You were the one that spliced that quote to make it misleading. The article you quoted stated that Bush pushed hard on Doha. That same article you quoted gives Bush kudos for being a committed free trader.

And you say that you are free trader who is disappointed in Bush when you oppossed the main free trade legislation he got through? Give me a break.

As I said, you are just blinded by your hatred of the Bush administration.

I didn't say I didn't support CAFTA. I said I didn't know the details well enough to know whether to believe you or the moderate Dems who oppose it. Nevertheless, I think most people would call me a free trader. Most people do not see environmental protections and child labor laws as barriers to trade, although I understand the economic perspective from which you suggest that's what they are.

Well, you can have fun in the "true free trade" camp, and I'll stay in the "free trade" camp. But this is a semantic argument that was boring the first time around.

You lie like a rug. I spliced nothing. I took a single sentence from that article that shows that the U.S. was part of the problem, not a mere bystander to a dispute between Europe and the third world. Which was the point where I mentioned it, and the point on which you were misinformed. I might add that the FT covered the issue on a daily basis at the time, so I was reasonably sure I could find it somewhere in the Economist's coverage.

I used to read the Economist regularly, and I think it's very good in general, but I think their coverage of U.S. politics shows a FOX-like effort to tell conservatives what they want to hear. Pointing out that the Economist praised Bush is about as convincing to me telling me that FOX did.

. . . and Alger Hiss was at Yalta!
 

Yes, but if the Gallipoli campaign went well, Istanbul might be part of Greece. There might also be a Kurdistan (where much of Turkey is now) and Armenia might be much larger. In other words, it would have been much easier for the allies to impose the original peace treaty on Turkey if they occupied the areas in question (or it would have been harder for Attaturk to oppose the first treaty and force another agreement).

You lie like a rug. You spliced the quote. It clearly said that many people were going to blame America, but that the Economist didn't agree with that position. But if course you left of the sentence where the economist said it was "ironic" that Bush would get blamed.

You said that Bush wouldn't put the sugar subsidies and corn subsidies on the line. That Economist quote showed that he insisted on putting them on the line. He wanted a full revocation of farm subsidies. You were clearly misinformed.

The only place you can possibly blame Bush on Doha is that he actually wanted the treaty to do something. But he never obstructed it because he was taking the "protectionist" side. So to use Doha as an example that he is not committed to free trade is ridiculous.

To say that the Economist sucks up to American conservatives like Fox does is just ludicrous. Who else has that opinion of the Economist? You just can't stand reading anything that would ever praise Bush.

The point is that labor laws and environmental protections have no place in a free trade treaty. Free trade treaties are just that - they are supposed to dismantle government laws that interfere with free trade. Tariffs, subsidies and other NTBs.

The free trade theory is that these barriers are bad for both countries. That they are never any good. When you argue for environmental riders and labor riders, you are protecting trade barriers unless the other government institutes some labor or environmental laws.

It is fine if you want to pass international labor laws or have environmental treaties, but using the threat of the continued employment of tariff barriers to get changes on these issues is not making free trade a priorty.

If we were at war with another country and you wanted the US to only discontinue the war if a free trade treaty was signed, could you say you support peace? Of course not. You would be putting free trade before peace. If I pushed for the treaty without free trade, does that mean I am against free trade. No. It just means I think peace is more important. If you want to make a free trade treaty conditioned upon forcing the other country to pass labor and environmental laws, you really aren't a free trader. You are more concerned with environmental reform and labor reform than free trade. If I don't want environmental or labor riders put on my free trade treaty, does that mean I am against environmental laws or labor laws? No. I just think Free trade treaty is good on its own. In other words, if the other government does not agree to impose more labor standards or environmental standards, it is still better that we have the free trade treaty. Similarly, if I wanted to stop the war without the free trade agreement, that doesn't mean I oppose free trade, I just think we would be better off with peace, regardless if we have a free trade agreement.

People who support free trade do not support labor and environmental riders being added to free trade treaties.