The Political Discussion Thread

[Coco Pops]

or maybe they know it best

Actually no I don't think they do. At the moment we are seeing a rabid group of humans that are acting less then human.. IMHO

As for the left over toys why can't the USA put in a self destruct if you have to leave them behind? Why leave them behind don't they cost money?

[Womble]

They are killing left, right and center. I doubt they even know what's really in the Kuran.

They know, that's the thing.

ISIS' strength is that it appeals to the region's dominant culture and religion. It's organic to the place, in a sense. They quote directly from the Qur'an with no need to interprete or reconcile the old with the new. Their approach lacks nuance, but that's what makes them effective as they kill their way to victory the old-fashioned way.

The easiest way to explain the Middle East right now is as a three-way civil war between the Shia Muslims, the Sunni Muslims and the Arab autocrats. In Syria, for example, an Arab autocrat allied to the Shia axis (Iran and Hezbollah) is fighting against the Sunni forces (ISIS and Al-Qaeda-inspired rebels such as Al Nusra Front). In Yemen, a Shia tribal militia supported by Iran dethroned an Arab autocrat and an alliance of Arab autocrats stepped in trying to suppress them.

The Arab autocrats have the latest and greatest military technologies and Western instructors because, for all their corruption and undemocratic rule, they are the lesser evil as far as world stability goes. But their armies are manned by Sunni tribals, and so they perform poorly. Statehood in the European, Westphalian sense never quite took hold in the Middle East. They imitated the institutions of statehood but not the identities on which those institutions were founded. There is no "we the people" in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc. are states but not nations. Their armies' loyalty is bought through corruption and family ties, but these do not filter down to the common foot soldier.

Your typical Iraqi army soldier has no great reason to fight and die for his motherland. He will fight and die for his tribe or his faith. If he is Sunni, he will fight to the death against a Shia militia, but why would he fight a Sunni one like ISIS? For his corrupt officers who treat him like crap? For the government in Baghdad? They simply aren't committed enough, so when things get tough, the Iraqi army flees every time ISIS moves in. The Iran-controlled Shia militias and the Kurds are more effective because they are more determined. They have nothing to lose and they fight to the death.

[myhelix]

yeah...for some people being at the bottom might be a transitory thing due to bad luck and they just need some help getting back on their feet again...but other people are at the bottom because they've chosen to be

I don´t think anyone choose to be at the "bottom". Some people prefer to live a bit more freedom and choose not to do what society wants them to do. And that is their given right I think. Other people had a lot of bad luck, a illness, grew up in a poor, unhealthy, criminal area and so on.

And all of those things I have said are capitalism made problem´s. If you live in a society where everyone pay for the benefit of the other (even people who have more money) all those things like pollution, violence, crime rates... will minimize.

Also I don´t think being "rich" is some kind of achievement I had to hail. Folks who is rich could do a lot more for others than they do! Some superstars buy big houses, big cars... that don´t impress me. I am more impressed by people who have a "normal" amount of money and do something for their fellow human beings. Doing something for others while being more rich, than for example, Bill Gates, is not hard to do!

If we all want to live in a peaceful coexistence everyone of us had to take more responsibility´s for our neighbours, our city´s, our environment, the animals, for other country´s as well... We can´t live with the slogan on our back´s devil-may-care!

To bad I am not a native English speaker, I can explain it better in German.

[Falcon Horus]

Doing something for others while being more rich, than for example, Bill Gates, is not hard to do!

Bill Gates has a foundation so he does share his wealth with the world - just saying.

Michael J. Fox has his own foundation, which is active in the research and finding a cure for Parkinson's Disease.

Angelina Jolie is a goodwill ambassador for The UN Refugee Agency. Emma Watson's a goodwill ambassador for the UN.

Our very own stargate actress Amanda Tapping has her Sanctuary For Kids projects.

[Coco Pops]

They know, that's the thing.

ISIS' strength is that it appeals to the region's dominant culture and religion. It's organic to the place, in a sense. They quote directly from the Qur'an with no need to interprete or reconcile the old with the new. Their approach lacks nuance, but that's what makes them effective as they kill their way to victory the old-fashioned way.

The easiest way to explain the Middle East right now is as a three-way civil war between the Shia Muslims, the Sunni Muslims and the Arab autocrats. In Syria, for example, an Arab autocrat allied to the Shia axis (Iran and Hezbollah) is fighting against the Sunni forces (ISIS and Al-Qaeda-inspired rebels such as Al Nusra Front). In Yemen, a Shia tribal militia supported by Iran dethroned an Arab autocrat and an alliance of Arab autocrats stepped in trying to suppress them.

The Arab autocrats have the latest and greatest military technologies and Western instructors because, for all their corruption and undemocratic rule, they are the lesser evil as far as world stability goes. But their armies are manned by Sunni tribals, and so they perform poorly. Statehood in the European, Westphalian sense never quite took hold in the Middle East. They imitated the institutions of statehood but not the identities on which those institutions were founded. There is no "we the people" in the Middle East. Iraq, Syria, Saudi Arabia etc. are states but not nations. Their armies' loyalty is bought through corruption and family ties, but these do not filter down to the common foot soldier.

Your typical Iraqi army soldier has no great reason to fight and die for his motherland. He will fight and die for his tribe or his faith. If he is Sunni, he will fight to the death against a Shia militia, but why would he fight a Sunni one like ISIS? For his corrupt officers who treat him like crap? For the government in Baghdad? They simply aren't committed enough, so when things get tough, the Iraqi army flees every time ISIS moves in. The Iran-controlled Shia militias and the Kurds are more effective because they are more determined. They have nothing to lose and they fight to the death.

Well if it is a 3 way fight between them all why does the US and allies butt in all the time?

[Womble]

Well if it is a 3 way fight between them all why does the US and allies butt in all the time?

Because, like I said, the Arab autocrats - while no one's idea of enlightened democratic rulers - are the lesser evil. The US and allies have an interest in keeping the world stable, among other things so that you would be able to enjoy the level of prosperity you currently are enjoying.

The world, my friend, is so interconnected that even if you have an ice cube for a heart and you can calmly watch on your TV screen as ISIS slaughters unarmed innocents by the tens of thousands and not want to intervene, you still can't afford to be passive. Stability in the Middle East is necessary for economic stability worldwide. The areas in Iraq which ISIS threatens contain some of the world's most important oil reserves, and ISIS takeover of them has the potential of destabilizing oil prices worldwide. If Yemen falls to the Houthis, it means Iranian proxies will have control over the Red Sea and will be able to disturb commercial shipping - not just oil from the Persian Gulf but also anything being shipped from China, India and Southeast Asia to Europe will be under threat. (Another decade of Muslim warfare on that level, and we'll see China projecting force there, too). If ISIS spreads in Libya, which it is beginning to, that's a direct threat to Europe. If Pakistan falls, you'll face a prospect of ISIS madmen with nukes.

Inaction isn't free.

[Annoyed]

I don´t think anyone choose to be at the "bottom". Some people prefer to live a bit more freedom and choose not to do what society wants them to do. And that is their given right I think. Other people had a lot of bad luck, a illness, grew up in a poor, unhealthy, criminal area and so on.

I, and most others I know have no problem giving someone who has fallen a hand getting back up.
The problem arises with the people who want the freedom to do as they choose, and expect society to pay for their sorry existences while they live the way they choose.

If someone wants to to live as a couch potato, doing nothing but breeding more couch potatoes, that is entirely their right, IF they can support themselves and their offspring doing it. The same goes for someone who wants to make a career of staring at their naval, and takes a college regimen to train for such a thing. They had better be able to support themselves doing that.

Freedom to choose also includes the obligation to make responsible choices and to be responsible for the consequences of those choices. If someone can't find a way to support their self by their choices, that freedom also includes the freedom to starve. If someone chooses to be a couch potato, or chooses a career path that cannot support them, don't expect me to willingly support them, either directly or via tax dollars forcibly taken from me.

I have had to make choices that allow me to support myself. I don't necessarily like getting up for work in the morning every day, but doing so is how I put food on the table and a roof over my head. Give me 1 good reason I should have to provide support for someone who chooses a lifestyle that cannot support them.

[myhelix]

I, and most others I know have no problem giving someone who has fallen a hand getting back up.
The problem arises with the people who want the freedom to do as they choose, and expect society to pay for their sorry existences while they live the way they choose.

If someone wants to to live as a couch potato, doing nothing but breeding more couch potatoes, that is entirely their right, IF they can support themselves and their offspring doing it. The same goes for someone who wants to make a career of staring at their naval, and takes a college regimen to train for such a thing. They had better be able to support themselves doing that.

Freedom to choose also includes the obligation to make responsible choices and to be responsible for the consequences of those choices. If someone can't find a way to support their self by their choices, that freedom also includes the freedom to starve. If someone chooses to be a couch potato, or chooses a career path that cannot support them, don't expect me to willingly support them, either directly or via tax dollars forcibly taken from me.

I have had to make choices that allow me to support myself. I don't necessarily like getting up for work in the morning every day, but doing so is how I put food on the table and a roof over my head. Give me 1 good reason I should have to provide support for someone who chooses a lifestyle that cannot support them.

Because I am sure you support so much unnecessary stuff with your taxes that one couch potato is not the real problem here. And you would also finance someone who had a lot of bad luck in life and had to live that way.

What do you support with your taxes right now, I ask you? War´s, a bloated policy and military budget, a secret service that spy´s out it´s own people btw. most of them innocent, big company´s who are to anti-social to pay taxes.... that´s just the beginning of the spending list.

So a system who can afford and tag along people who see no sense in their work or (God forbid) a bit lazy is a good system. Better than a system that makes people starve, homeless or sick, with all the sad situation´s that will follow. If more would think that way the world would be a much friendlier place for everyone. And the statistic´s say that right now almost 46 million American´s are poor (do you think all of them to lazy to do something?) I think the system is flawed.

Why do people always rant about unemployed/or poor folks but not about rich people?! Lot of super rich don´t care about our environment, their workers, or the society itself. Look at a land like Qatar (lot of oil billionaires, a very rich country, but they hold slaves to build the stadium´s for the soccer world cup!)

[Womble]

Western Europeans should never blame Americans for oversized military budgets. If the USA were to scale down its military budget, Western Europe would have to boost their own military budgets times 40 in order to create actual viable militaries instead of relying on American troops, ships, Air Force and supplies. It would quickly become difficult for them to be able to afford their advanced social security systems.

Beyond that, I largely agree with myhelix. People who cannot support themselves are, for the most part, not living this way by choice. To take an extreme example, a family bankrupted due to one of their members having cancer and requiring expensive treatments isn't in need because they live the wrong lifestyle.

And yes, supporting those who need to be supported would inevitably mean tolerating a certain amount of cheaters and lazy people. It's a problem to be overcome, not an argument against social security as such.

[Falcon Horus]

In Belgium unemployement benefits go down the longer you're unemployed (first time after 6 months and then after every 3 months - if you're single, the percentage is lower than when you're married or living together with someone in an official capacity). And if you can't proof you're not doing everything in your power to find a job (any job), they'll take the benefits away from you. It's supposed to encourage people to try really hard, and most really do (even if they end up with nothing - and no need to give me the crap reply "there's always work if you really want to" because that's a frakkin' lie).

However, there's still a large group who'll spend a lifetime on their lazy butts, seeking help from social services to help them survive. Some of them will eventually land back on their feet, but sadly most won't.

[mad_gater]

I don´t think anyone choose to be at the "bottom". Some people prefer to live a bit more freedom and choose not to do what society wants them to do. And that is their given right I think. Other people had a lot of bad luck, a illness, grew up in a poor, unhealthy, criminal area and so on.

And all of those things I have said are capitalism made problem´s. If you live in a society where everyone pay for the benefit of the other (even people who have more money) all those things like pollution, violence, crime rates... will minimize.

Also I don´t think being "rich" is some kind of achievement I had to hail. Folks who is rich could do a lot more for others than they do! Some superstars buy big houses, big cars... that don´t impress me. I am more impressed by people who have a "normal" amount of money and do something for their fellow human beings. Doing something for others while being more rich, than for example, Bill Gates, is not hard to do!

If we all want to live in a peaceful coexistence everyone of us had to take more responsibility´s for our neighbours, our city´s, our environment, the animals, for other country´s as well... We can´t live with the slogan on our back´s devil-may-care!

To bad I am not a native English speaker, I can explain it better in German.

maybe your welfare system is different but ours has been corrupted beyond all recognition...it used to be a system that gave people a hand UP.....now by and large it's become a system that gives people a handOUT

[Annoyed]

Another dirty little secret of our welfare system as that there is a sizable number of well paid government employees who make their livings tending to the needs of the freeloading leeches.
You will even find the government buying advertising in order to advertise what benefits are available, such as a free cell phone (why the hell is a cell phone considered a necessity that we taxpayers should pick up the tab for is quite beyond me) in order to get more people suckling at the government teat.
None of this comes cheap. A whopping 85% of the annual budget for the county in which I live consists of unfunded state mandated spending, most of that on social services.
Spending is dictated by the urban areas of downstate, NYC and Albany, but it is up to the local counties to levy the taxes to pay for that spending.

Is it any wonder that my area is one of the most heavily taxed areas of the U.S.? And that tax burden does not fall on the wealthy; as I've pointed out in prior posts, the wealthy have and always will have means to avoid the taxman. So it is the average working class stiff who pays for all this.

[SGalisa]

Because the I.S. keeps executing people...? Depends on who the I.S. wants to keep alive or not. And since they stole most of the USA's military equipment that these nations the USA is supposed to be helping, and the people controlling those areas have fled -- leaving our USA goodie supplies behind for the I.S. to just swoop up, learn how to use it, and go on their killing sprees, that's basically the scenario that results.

Why the hell leave all the toys behind? Surely it's not hard to rig a self destruct?

. . .
As for the left over toys why can't the USA put in a self destruct if you have to leave them behind? Why leave them behind don't they cost money?

Actually, yes, those very expensive *toys* do cost money, which is how the goodies got purchased by the natives over there in the first place. Possibly that and/or rather than the USA spending more money transporting ALL of their materials back home, some sort of trade agreement was most likely made to leave the stuff there and give (on-the-job) training (by our USA military to the natives over there) on how to use it, and was provided for a few months or whatever the leaders agreed upon.

This sort of training process has been used in the past elsewhere, so it's nothing new. It's just a different country and time era, where this sort of trade/training procedure is accomplished. There were probably instruction manuals also provided along with that training as well. When our (USA) guys thought those natives they trained knew their equipment well enough, our guys were sent somewhere else by TPTB. (There is only so much coddling of a trainee that the trainer does, before figuring the trainee can or should walk on their own -- and then it's time for (proving being grown up) Splitsville!

Imagine our own parents living into their 100's and still coddling us into our 50's and 60's...
Similar type of principle being illustrated there.

As for including a self-destruct to the more important and integral parts of the items in question, well, now that is also *assuming* that the good guys will remember to hit such a button, before jumping ship and abandoning those same questionable items for the enemy to confiscate and eventually (learn how to) use.

People who freak out (panic) in a moment of desperation do not always remember to do the proper things to insure their own family/friends (community's) safety or survival. Important *things-to-do* often always get forgotten in the details. That is a problematic nature in life, in almost any situation, not just in matters where life and death circumstances.

Besides, even if/when some of the more important *toys* get caught and taken over by what is considered hostile territory, the info is also often reverse engineered by those geniuses in China or wherever, and sent back to the country paying to keep their prized possession. Such was the suspected case of a USA drone that Iran claimed to capture a few years ago, and remade (had reversed engineered by someone) to make more drones, which got shown off to the entire world as a kind of "in your face" sort of statement. Nothing is completely fool-proofed in our current age of technology.

[Womble]

why the hell is a cell phone considered a necessity that we taxpayers should pick up the tab for is quite beyond me)

Used to be beyond me as well.

For 7% of American population, the only access to the internet - and therefore to viable job search - is through their mobile phone. That figure is much higher for young adult under 29 (15%) and lower-income households who make $30 000 or less per year (13%).

Mobile phones are crucial for modern life, including job search, banking and health. 62% of smartphone owners use their phones to search information on a health condition. 43% look up info about jobs, 44% about places to live. 18% of smartphone owners have submitted a job application via mobile phone (32% for low income households).

And 44% of mobile phone owners with household income below $30 000 have discontinued or suspended their mobile service because they couldn't afford the cost.

Now do the math.

[Coco Pops]

Another dirty little secret of our welfare system as that there is a sizable number of well paid government employees who make their livings tending to the needs of the freeloading leeches.
You will even find the government buying advertising in order to advertise what benefits are available, such as a free cell phone (why the hell is a cell phone considered a necessity that we taxpayers should pick up the tab for is quite beyond me) in order to get more people suckling at the government teat.
None of this comes cheap. A whopping 85% of the annual budget for the county in which I live consists of unfunded state mandated spending, most of that on social services.
Spending is dictated by the urban areas of downstate, NYC and Albany, but it is up to the local counties to levy the taxes to pay for that spending.

Is it any wonder that my area is one of the most heavily taxed areas of the U.S.? And that tax burden does not fall on the wealthy; as I've pointed out in prior posts, the wealthy have and always will have means to avoid the taxman. So it is the average working class stiff who pays for all this.

In Australia that's one of the biggest divides. The well off hardly pay any tax (if at all) and the middle to low income workers of the country shoulder most of the burden. It's not a fair system but what do you do?

You can't tighten the tax laws because then the rich will Whine and complain like stuck pigs...

Plus a lot of them donate to political parties to keep things the way they are..