For all you non-Americans out there

[Don Gwinn]

With all due respect:

 

Can you name ONE thing Clinton did that made the economy flourish?

 

Can you name ONE thing Bush did that hurt the economy?

 

Do you understand how very little control a President really has over the economy either way? When it comes to the nation's economy, the President is a figurehead. He's basically the quarterback. If things go well during his term, he'll get the credit. If things go badly during his term, he'll get the blame. However, he will probably not have had much to do with either.

 

If a President DID do anything that could have a real effect, that effect would take months or years to show up. The economy was tanking, for instance, when Bush took office. The EFFECTS showed up after he was in and Clinton out, that's all.

 

RE: Rednecks:

 

I am a redneck. I'm proud of it. We are a hardy, practical people. There are murdering scum in every region, class, region, or whatever. I love my pickup truck, my dogs, my old house, my garden, and my guns. You can have these things when you pry them from my cold dead hands.

 

 

[Don Gwinn]

Or that nobody in the west gave a rats a$$ when Muslim and Jew were killing each other in increasingly copious and imaginative ways in the middle east until an atrocity happened on American soil?

 

That would seem like a pretty practical attitude to me. What alternative would you suggest--that we send our military into every conflict around the world? Why?

 

Do you travel around England like Caine in Kung Fu, fighting other people's battles for them and righting wrongs? If not, why do you expect us to do so? Besides, Zin-Ju says the U.S. has, and I quote, "a **** army" compared to the British, so if anyone is going to go around making peace for everyone else, I nominate you blokes. We Americans will sit back and study the technique.

 

Bitseach, you don't seem to know what a redneck is. "Redneck" is a pejorative used to describe people of midwestern or southern extraction (known to non-rednecks as "flyover country.") It comes from the practice of earning your living by working very hard in the hot sun, thus developing a red neck.

 

I am a redneck by birth and by choice and you have nothing to fear from me. If you're ever traveling through central Illinois, find Virden, IL and give me a call. I'll buy you a beer and we'll work through your fear of my kind. EVERYONE from EVERY class and stratus of society has been known to kill just about anybody. In the U.S., Brits are known for killing people who follow other soccer teams. However, reasonable people don't take such generalizations as truth without evidence. The majority of soccer fans are probably decent people, right?

 

And what is this stuff about no one being able to win a war? I have to call Shenanigans on that one. People who have won wars:

 

1. American colonies vs. Britain

 

2. USA vs. Mexico

 

3. USA vs. CSA

 

4. Allies vs. Germany, Austria-Hungary, etc.

 

5. Allies vs. Axis

 

6. Vietnamese vs. French

 

7. Vietnamese vs. USA

 

8. Japan vs. Russia (1905)

 

9. Spanish Nationalists vs. Spanish Communists

 

10. Rome vs. Carthage

 

11. Rome vs. Gaul

 

12. Rome vs. Britannic tribes

 

13. Greece vs. Persia (such an incredible upset that some historians still wonder how it happened.)

 

14. Greece vs. pretty much anybody else you can name

 

15. USA vs Taliban is looking pretty convincing at this point despite some cringe-worthy blunders.

 

16. USA vs Iraq. The war was won convincingly. However, an overabundance of concern for "the coalition" prevented exploitation of the victory to end the Hussein regime (I'm aware that many of you may believe that was a good thing, and that's fine. I'm just pointing out that it occurred.)

 

A couple of predictions:

 

1. If Israel ever actually makes war on the Palestinians, they will win. Overwhelmingly. You may not like this outcome, but it won't help to deny that it could happen.

 

2. If the USA goes into Iraq again (and we will sooner rather than later) we will win the war. It will not be as painless as last time, which in turn was not as painless as most people think it was.

 

Geez, this reminds me of the scene from Starship Troopers where the idiot teenage girl tells the instructor "My mother says violence never solves anything."