On 2/6/2011 4:48 PM, Darren New wrote:
> Patrick Elliott wrote:
>> The **exact same** problem exists when arguing, "Historically, there
>> are a lot of examples of people resisting governments." Yes, there
>> are, but most of them haven't been governments with access to nearly
>> limitless high technology.
>
> So, you mean the fact that the USA hasn't actually accomplished very
> many of our military goals doesn't count? Viet Nam wasn't up against
> nearly limitless high technology? Bin Laden isn't up against nearly
> limitless high technology?
>
The limitation is in the willingness to destroy the state you are trying 
to save. We are losing there because a) we didn't go in with a clear 
goal of doing one thing, b) didn't supply enough to make that happen, 
and c) drew back what was needed, and changed mission. Nam.. Its often 
been said that had we been truly serious about stopping the north, we 
had the means to level the whole population, but opted instead to treat 
it as a "police" situation. The mission wasn't to end it, it was to help 
someone else end it, and those people where not in a position to do so. 
The result was lots of people dead on all sides, a complete stalemate, 
which broke the country in half, and an eventual decision that the cost 
of trying to win without flat out crushing the north, and risking a war 
with China in the process, was too high to continue.

You got me as to why the F%$@ we didn't do what was needed in 
Afghanistan from the start, instead of letting the ass move into some 
place we couldn't, again, effectively deal with, get into without 
pissing off neighboring countries, or effectively bomb hard enough to be 
sure we got the guy. Even then, we have had dozens of times we might 
have gotten him, or someone close, and decided not to, purely for 
political reasons, or uncertainty, and, until the recent semi-secret 
drone attacks, almost *0* results. Interestingly, it seemed to be an 
unwillingness to step on certain toes, do certain things, or take 
certain steps. Now.. 90% of our options are gone, because of the stupid 
choices made right from the start.

Had different choices been made then, we wouldn't be talking about a 
hand full of people with a few RPGs, hiding in caves, resisting the US 
military. Short of nuking the whole mountain range between countries, 
and invading the next country, to root out Bin Laden, its not going to 
happen, given the current conditions.

>> its fairly rare for *enlightened* people to be doing the resisting.
>
> Ignoring, you mean, China and Egypt, say?
>
> It always amazes me when you make these arguments ignoring what's in the
> headlines world-wide even as you type them. It makes it hard to have any
> sort of reasonable discussion with you, when you start saying things
> like "you'll never see a spontaneous revolution against a dictatorship
> clamoring for democracy" while an entire country is, even as we speak,
> doing exactly that.
>
Most of the people in Egypt are not putting up armed resistance, just 
resistance. And, with some limited exception, the army hasn't opted to 
institute total suppression either. As for China.. Seriously? Most of 
the stuff going on there is cyber war, spreading information, and stuff 
like they did at Tienanmen, which, in case you forgot, wasn't armed 
citizens resisting tanks, it was **unarmed** people doing so, and the 
army refusing to shoot them. What armed resistance is taking place is in 
outlying lands, which didn't consider themselves part of China in the 
first place, but where the West has opted to not step in and help. Guess 
what... they are losing, for the most part.

> (You did the same thing with an argument about a national fiat currency
> never collapsing even as Iceland was starving because their fiat
> currency had just collapsed.)
>
Not sure which comments you are referring to there.. That said, they can 
fail, if the banks take complete control over them. But, basing it on 
commodities, of any sort, isn't going to help either, since you can't 
guarantee that the commodity will always stay at, or rise, in price 
either. (Not to mention someone managing to spill of lot of it into the 
pool, undermining the price.) If I said never, then I would be wrong. 
What I may have said is that basing it on something with no set price is 
nearly, if not more, stupid.

>> do so tend not to be someone who wants to create/defend a democracy.
>
>> basically little more than an Oligarchy, with pretenses at universal
>> distribution of goods and services.
>
> You really should ask some chinese people what they think of Mao.
>
Which ones, the ones toeing the party line, or the ones neck deep in 
smog that is worse than anything in LA, something that happened 
***after*** China started shifting from a communist economy, rather than 
just government, to a capitalist one, but failed to comprehend that you 
can't do that, since it leaves decisions, like environmental issues, in 
the hands to people the least effected, least interested in addressing 
them, and least competent to have a solution (or interested in ordering 
people to find one)? Mao failed. They may pretend otherwise, but China 
today is not the one Mao attempted, and given 50-100 years more, even 
their government is likely to more resemble ours than Mao's. Heck, a lot 
of China is changing and, as I said, not via armed people, but the 
spread of information. Its why the #1 thing China is worried about, 
outside of outlying recent "acquisitions", like Taiwan, and even to a 
great extent *in* those places, is, "Don't let anyone hear, see, read, 
or think anything we don't want them to."

Mind.. Given the sort of borderline misogynistic, party serving, greedy, 
anti-environmental, freaks we have in certain parties right now in the 
US... it wouldn't take a whole hell of a lot to get there. You know that 
Minnesota has a Republican law up for possible passage, which, in the 
process of trying to mess with a bunch of social services, as usual, 
also tries to repeal the law requiring that employees **pay** women the 
same as men, in the same job position? Supposedly its a "small 
government" thing, since all that bureaucratic keeping track of who is 
trying to cheat the law costs money. Much better to just go libertarian 
(that's the small 'l', conservative version) and just let the system fix 
it itself, like it used to back when certain people where only 3/5s a 
citizen, and more than 50% of the rest couldn't even *have* a job...

Or, as one person put it, "The modern republican party, boldly leading 
us forward into the 18th century."

-- 
void main () {
   If Schrödingers_cat is alive or version > 98 {
     if version = "Vista" {
       call slow_by_half();
       call DRM_everything();
     }
     call functional_code();
   }
   else
     call crash_windows();
}

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