The Politics Thread (PLAY NICELY!)

What new Democratic Party? Hahaha, left-leaning, sure.

No I wasn't having a debate. I asked for oppinions. Someone asked why they be against these things? So I gave a couple quick reasons.

Edit: I said in an earlier post I'm doing this on a phone so formating, grammer, and spelling will be horrible as I don't want to spend all day typing and editing.

Editx2: @tatsujb
1. I never implied anything about europeans being upset about nato or american bases. I asked for oppinions. No debate. Reread the thread.
2. An American liberal brought it up to me. I was curious for European liberals oppinion to see if it was the same... it's not but I obviously don't know what a eu liberal is I guess...
3. I kinda agree with my american liberal friend. There doesn't seem to be a purpose for american troops in europe, or Japan, or half the world anymore. And there seems to be no good reason to continue nato at this point.

ok well nobody bit.

So I guess we can conclude together europeans being pissed about nato isn't an actual thing?

My issue with foreign military spending in allied territories is purely financial. There's a need to have troops around the world, but having the minimum amount should be the ideal from a financial standpoint. They need to be there, it's just a question of how much.

I'm not a traditional liberal either, but I could see being viewed as more liberal than conservative. I hate how the US isn't allowed to repurpose nuclear materials in warheads. We have warheads that need to be dismantled because they're past the expiration date that are still perfectly usable for power plants. Same with waste processing, can't do it properly. Darn treaty with Russia.

Enough nukes to salt the earth 3-5 times over is plenty anyways.

If the US want to creep up on somebody's sovereignty they'll send an air craft carrier or two. Or a split fraction of their army. At least going by spending they'll own anybody either way. So since we're overpowered by their ridiculously big army it really makes no difference.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_military_and_paramilitary_personnel

To be fair, we spend more, but our armies the same size as other counties of similar size population. Looking at spending is a bad comparisons bc we have bases around the world (very expensive), spend more per soldier, and include subsidies to other government agencies such as nasa.

I guess saying "big army" was a mistake. More like "strong army".
Spending probably doesn't translate to army strength in a linear fashion, but more spending certainly increases strength.
So yes you don't have much more soldiers than some other nations, but your soldiers have more modern tanks, more modern aircraft, more high tech guns, etc pp.

tanks, guns, aircraft....

guys this isn't the stone age anymore.

what about undetectable cross-OS tiny form-factor viruses that can make your powerplant go into meltdown or shoot your own missiles at yourself without the need of an internet connection once where it needs to be or of human mentoring? black out you entire nation's communications?

what about bioweapons? drones? military satellites?

those per unit are worth a hell of a lot more than any amount of tanks.

that's what the money goes into. that's why comparing personnel numbers for military might (especially when the U.S. is involved) is an absolutely laughable concept.

This isn't this stone age but can you name one conflict won by something other than manpower tanks aircrafts etc?

Yes, American armed forces are not designed for major land conflicts. Thanks mainly to geography. People see how much we spend and get a false idea of what american armed forces can do compared to russia or china.

For example, locus are nice... levelers rule.

you are purposefully ignoring the fact that that's because none of us would be here to talk about it if world war broke out today.

that being said there actually are case figures of the things I listed above in action :

look up stuxnet.
look up the drone use in iraq and afghanistan.

Obviously if there were any case figures of viruses targeting nuclear missiles or bioweapons being unleashed to cite then none of us would be here to debate it.

targetted attacks that required USB drive dropping and stupid employees if I remember correctly? Fancy stuff for secret attacks without starting a war, but if you're looking at an all out war just dropping bombs on the facilities would've done a better and much faster job.

Those are aircraft. In the grand scheme of things it doesn't matter if the aircraft that just dropped a bomb on you was manned or remote controlled or even controlled by an AI. The result is the same: You're in big trouble, probably because your AA capabilities suck.

No need for a virus of any kind when controlling your own arsenal of thousands of nukes ready to end all life as we know it

Well those 8k tanks sure can win some land conflicts

But wtf at the direction this discussion took. The US army is most certainly the strongest on the planet. Last I remember that basically was the US military policy: Be the strongest by a large margin to scare everyone we make out as our enemy, forgot what they named it however.
A strategy brought to you by the Military Industrial Complex.

Wether it is 10 times more powerful than some other army or only 2 times as powerful wasn't important at all for any argument xD

And really the most important argument not to care about US military bases either way is: They're our allies and even Trump isn't insane enough to change that.

Just going to leave this here r.e. healthcare.



Source.

Linked article.

8k in tanks designed in the 1960 and 1970s . M1 abrams our main battle tank a good tank, but it's old.

And agreed this discussion is way off topic.

No one seem to like the plan. Judging from the text it seems like a bad plan. If it looks like it will pass, I will read up on it. Until then I will play pa in my spare time.

Heard a white rhino was poached right from a zoo in France. Impossible, there's no way a gun crime would occur with all the gun control they have.

Fake News!

But yeah more seriously, wtf that's a bold crime.

Think about it. Probably way less protected than an actual rhino reserve.

Rhino reserve, wide open, access to helicopter and response equipment, decent-funded.

French Zoo, closed off, closes at night, no access to helicopters or response firearms, probably no personnel on duty at all after hours, way less well-funded.

Actually I think I read the place had like 3m+ walls, security camera and personal living on the premises all the time, albeit obviously to care for the animals, not for gun fights. Breaking in was no thing some random people would do without preparing for it.

Probably not armed to defend against attackers, but only Americans could possibly come up with the idea that they need armed guards for a ******* zoo

Although really the shooting part seems to have been only a quick way for them to kill the Rhino. That requires somewhat big amounts of force otherwise.

I'm taking a very ecological stance here. If you can't handle care and protection for a multi-million dollar black market endangered animal, including the mercenary profit gained by assaulting one, then you might want to leave it in the wild where it belongs and run a common petting zoo. France Zoo failed to protect any better than a wildlife reserve, it seems.

Then there's the whole "Harambe" thing (It always seems to come full circle to Harambe, doesn't it? Man, he's a God... /sarcasm). If a patron accidentally or otherwise falls into an animal exhibit, and the animal poses a thread, I assume the person dies waiting for advanced enforcement response? Too bad there wasn't some magical tool to use as a last-resort to save a patron from an exhibit animal...

@xankar

CIA doin some meme warfare, you should join up