adaher, I was in the military. I can guarantee you that a big chunk of the US military fights for the US because we believe we are a great country. If we did something that absolutely ruined that belief, like an unprovoked nuclear attack, a big chunk of the US military would cease to be willing to fight. I know that I wouldn’t fight for Nazi Germany. I’d rather die.
That’s possible, but once you’re willing to use nukes, how much do you really need a military except for homeland defense?
This is a ridiculous discussion anyway. You made a whole debate about my response to a throwaway comment of yours. We’re not nuking anyone unless we get nuked first.
Remember the international protests against the Iraq war, and Bush? Multiply that by several thousand, and you might be kind of close to the international response to an unprovoked nuclear attack by the US.
It will be all worth it if it makes you think a little harder about your “throwaway” comments in the future.
We all say stupid things sometimes – why not just take it back and say “oops, that was dumb, I only spent 10 seconds thinking on it and it probably deserved a bit more”?
IMHO the whole world will think that retaliation will be more likely to come to the USA so less business will want to come here then.
If it was the terrorists the ones who used nukes I would not be surprised that the whole world would understand why we then would drop a big one in the area where everyone would agree that the perpetrator was located.
That I agree with completely, which is why I said it would damage us morally. Our world standing would go way, way down. But c’mon, we know Westerners. They’ll protest, but they won’t actually do anything that requires sacrifice.
That’s nuts. You’re basically saying that the US could do anything at all to anyone without suffering consequences, since it pretty much doesn’t get worse than unprovoked nukings.
Crazy stupid. There would be mass boycotts, war crimes trials, sanctions… there are actually some things that Western people will make sacrifices for. They really wouldn’t do business with Nazi Germany – at least most of them wouldn’t.
Again, you push contradictions with gusto.
Many indeed are willing to sacrifice their positions by facing you and your fellows punishment at the ballot box.
NPR noted that the Republicans are making noise to tell us that they are willing to cause a default by attaching their chicken anti refugee bill to the monetary policy one.
I can not help but seeing them go by this motto: “We are brave enough to fight for our cowardice!”
Only Sith deal in absolutes.
Um, pretty much, although “suffering consequences” is a pretty broad category. What you said initially was “weaken us”. Yet I see no evidence that even GWB’s disastrous policies weakened us compared to Obama’s supposedly intelligent, nuanced policies. We’re better liked(except for the Muslim world), but we’re no stronger or weaker than we were.
Nazi Germany wasn’t the center of trade and at that point most countries had already improverished themselves with misguided protectionist policies. If the world won’t stand up to China, they won’t stand up to us.
Some issues are actually absolutes. What is the benefit to the US of taking 10,000 refugees as opposed to 100,000?
The benefit for me is to find that the 100,000 number and other higher ones is a lie, and that the Republican candidates are making it.
Oh, and that we found that you are carrying water for those liars.
Kinda my point. “See, it’s only 10K, nothing outrageous like 100K or 200K”. So there are apparently pretty stingy limits to liberals’ compassion. Coming to the US will be basically like winning the lottery for these folks.
The point was and remains, even 10,000 is too much for the coward liars, and they have to scare the American people even more to reach their goal to use fear so as to gain power.
That’s like nuking Oklahoma City to get back at Timothy McVeigh.
The food is bad. Bad! I wouldn’t feed swill like this to a dog.
And the portions are so small!
Are you kidding? Our economy was weaker (by the end of W’s run) – so we were weaker. Our international standing was weaker – so we were weaker. Our military was weaker (because it was overstretched and because soldiers were being killed regularly), so we were weaker.
Such differences are tiny compared to what they would be before and after an unprovoked nuclear attack, but they are real and significant.
You’re just being stubborn. This isn’t anything close to serious analysis. Military actions have ramifications in international relations, and those ramifications can strengthen or weaken America. There’s nothing that could be worse, and no action that could weaken us more, then launching an unprovoked nuclear attack on someone and killing millions.
It’s not serious to think that America wouldn’t be weakened by this.
China hasn’t done anything close to as bad as launching an unprovoked nuclear attack.
I don’t think iiandyiiii made this debate by himself. In fact, I think the reason it’s a ridiculous discussion is your bizarre, pathological need to go all-in on defending your “throwaway comment,” rather than just admitting you were wrong and didn’t think it through.
So stealing this line…
I don’t think not wanting Syrian refugees in the US makes you a coward but it does make you ignorant and short-sighted. I think ISIL has shown that they don’t need to “sneak” people anywhere. They have more than enough adherents that WANT to be part of what they do and go thru any lengths to carry out their objectives.
Sneaking in a sleeper cell in 10,000 woman and children is probably not the way they will get to the US. They know we are looking there, so why waste the time resources on something that probably wouldn’t work anyway?
And hey … All that ISIS has to do is to SAY that they’re sneaking terrorists into the refugees and the cowards and traitors in the west will repeat their propaganda for them for free.
These assholes who parrot propaganda and lies are doing the work of ISIS for them. Fucking terrorist supporters.