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Messages - More Than Mortal
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6511
« on: March 30, 2015, 09:15:22 AM »
6512
« on: March 30, 2015, 09:00:20 AM »
just like it is our right as consumers to slander, libel and boycott said businesses as well as choose to spend our money elsewhere.
That's true. Consumers are allowed to be as discriminatory as they like. What should be done about rednecks who don't want to shop in a store owned by a black dude?
6513
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:58:44 AM »
Conservative voters could defect to Ukip if defence spending is not maintained, former army boss warns.Lord Dannatt, formerly Britain’s Chief of General Staff, has warned that Conservative voters could defect to Ukip if defence spending is not maintained.
Writing in The Daily Telegraph, he slammed Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond for reportedly saying there were “no votes in defence”, describing this as “wrong, complacent and dangerous”.
“It is wrong because in the past few weeks Cabinet Office polling shows that defence as an issue is moving up the general public’s consciousness. It is complacent because it assumes that election strategists are blinkered only to believe in their own previous judgments. And it is dangerous because it disregards the deteriorating worldwide security situation,” he wrote.
“Furthermore, it betrays an attitude that risks not only the security of our country and our citizens at home and abroad – the safeguarding of which is the accepted first duty of any government – but also European collective defence.”
He called for the UK to commit to spending 2 per cent of the country’s gross domestic product on defence, which all Nato members are supposed to do, although many do not.
“A commitment to spending 2 per cent of GDP by all 26 Nato members would significantly increase Western and central European collective defence capability at a time of rising threats on our eastern and southern flanks,” Lord Dannatt said. “While this judgment seems obvious to many security analysts and commentators, it is apparently being ignored by mainstream political decision-makers.”
The UK currently spends 2 per cent but Labour and the Conservatives have not committed to do so after the election. However, Ukip has and Lord Dannatt said this was “something that is attractive to Right-wing Tories who might just be tempted to switch their votes”.
“Surely that alone should catch the attention of Conservative Central Office?” he added.
He said the UK’s military had been reduced to “a surface fleet of just 19 frigates and destroyers, a regular army that will struggle to put a single division into the field and an air force with fewer squadrons than the fingers on two hands”.
“Talking tough with little of substance inside the mailed glove simply lays open the prospect of ridicule from the likes of Putin’s Russia and the so-called Islamic State [Isis], while a noticeable reduction in the forces that we can field brings a disappointed despair to our principal ally, the United States,” Lord Dannatt said.
“The British people have a right to decide their position in the world and the loser of the upcoming election might rue the judgment that there are no votes in defence.”
6514
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:38:12 AM »
You're arguing this from an ignorant perspective.
Yeah, and so are you. I'm saying, as it stands, I support this law based on certain ideas of private property and the liberties people are afforded with such property. I'm also saying I'm open to changing my mind if the data coming out of Indiana suggests I should. Neither you nor I has seen the data from Indiana; we're both ignorant as far as anybody is concerned.
6515
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:32:29 AM »
Or get pissed off and try to find a normal gas station then carry on with your life because you're too busy to protest and boycott a business.
Well this would be better since the bigoted gas station is not just losing business, but losing it to a competitor. Which is entirely the point of consumer responsibility. We're both arguing this on principle, however. My opinion's open to changing depending on the information that comes out of Indiana in the future.
6516
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:06:42 AM »
For local businesses, maybe, but I don't see chain stores denying LGBT customers.
I'm not even fucking sure how you'd spot an LGB person anyway. Maybe, T. Maybe.
6517
« on: March 30, 2015, 08:04:09 AM »
I'll probably end up voting UKIP.
6518
« on: March 30, 2015, 07:59:05 AM »
Numerous human rights abuses. Which is disgusting and pretty much wholly the fault of the CIA and a lack of oversight. And, as much as I hate to say it, our human rights abuses don't even touch Saddam's. Were we wrong to do it? Obviously. But let's have some proportion. Violating international law to invade Not true, at least in the case of the UN. Kofi Annan can sit around spewing all the bullshit he wants, but the only organisation with the authority to rule on that issue, the Security Council, hasn't. a nation that was essentially neutral. Having a proving record of genocide with chemical weapons, human rights abuses, aggressive expansionism, the ability to cripple the world's economy, not being desirable to co-existence with according to legislation and being a certified fucking psychopath is not neutral. We were certainly not welcomed as liberators. Oh for fuck's sake. I disagree with the notion that the September 11 attacks somehow did not play a role in the invasion They might well have done, but I've already told you Bush was enacting the promises of the Clinton Administration. Bush didn't look at his sky-high ratings and just go "Hmmm, Iraq". His decision didn't exist in some political vacuum. I've said this before and I'll say it again, to endorse the Iraq war is to endorse all the lies and half-truths (and criminality and fearmongering) that came with it.
This is such a fucking stupid thing to say I can't even wrap my head around it. Just because you don't like my nuance on the issue, it doesn't give you the authority to take it away. To endorse something as a whole is not to endorse it wholesale.
6519
« on: March 29, 2015, 05:22:28 PM »
Edit: It's in Europe, so convert mph to stones per fortnight or whatever they use over there.
This made me laugh more than it should've.
6520
« on: March 29, 2015, 05:17:01 PM »
You know how easy it is to just use this as an excuse to disallow gays or minorities into your establishments, right?
So? If you don't like it, be a responsible consumer and boycott the business.
6521
« on: March 29, 2015, 05:07:57 PM »
good, this should honestly be law everywhere. fuck your feelings, if I feel uncomfortable serving you I should have the right to refuse to serve you no matter your religion, sexuality, or favourite colour.
We already tried that, and that's why we have the Civil Rights Act of 1964.
No, we have the Civil Rights Act as a correction to decades of governmentally enforced racism and segregation.
6522
« on: March 29, 2015, 05:07:17 PM »
But what exactly is the religious belief where you're not allowed to serve/interact/share a community with gays?
There isn't one, explicitly. But I guess it's a mild form of betrayal to a Christian if he were to service people he views as sinful.
6523
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:37:49 PM »
I guarantee the condition of the Middle East would be far worse today if that had happened.
And even worse had we let it play out.
6524
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:30:27 PM »
12 years later. American boots on the ground. Um...
Funnily enough, toppling a fascistic regime and lifting the lid on sectarianism in the country--coupled with Iranian-backed insurgency--isn't a two, three or even five year job.
6525
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:24:06 PM »
Of course there wasn't any animus towards Iraq. They were just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Say what you want about oil interests, but I'd take Halliburton's duplicity over Hussein controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Oil is a global security and macroeconomic interest. And I always found the argument of 'we found WMDs in Iraq so we were correct all along' to seem fallacious.
Exactly correct, and Bush and Blair did a disservice to the world in initially trying to scare people. But it doesn't neglect the fact that Bush just enacted the promises of the Clinton administration, and that Iraq was in violation of the U.N. resolutions imposed upon it and that it had a latent WMD capacity and a proven record of genocidal intentions. Bush and Blair didn't need--or shouldn't have needed--to whip up a frenzy to justify an already wholly-justified war. I completely agree that they were wrong, and that our subsequent discovery of WMDs doesn't validate them, but it doesn't change the situation even slightly in relation to the righteousness of the war.
6526
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:07:04 PM »
The pretense was that Iraq had an active WMD program.
Even if that was the immediate case, it's facile to say we were somehow misled into a war. We never should've left him in power in '92, and the passage of the 1998 Iraqi Liberation Act quite explicitly said that co-existence with Saddam's regime was neither possible nor desirable. There wasn't a sudden hysteria of anti-Iraqi feeling among the government, and anybody in the public who feels that way is either being dishonest or wasn't paying attention.
6527
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:02:19 PM »
But I could go on and on about half-truths. *cough*
4 in 10 Americans would be correct.
The operative word in 'active WMD program' is active.
Who fucking cares? It's a point of non-discussion. Of course a stockpile of WMDs is not going to be active when there's no government to run the fucking programme. What matters is that we did find WMDs.
6528
« on: March 29, 2015, 04:00:12 PM »
Less now than if nobody intervened at all.
Tell that to the bodies in the mass graves we're still finding.
6529
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:57:46 PM »
But I could go on and on about half-truths. *cough*
4 in 10 Americans would be correct.
6530
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:53:13 PM »
In all seriousness, rape is probably the most evil crime.
6531
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:42:34 PM »
Thanks for creating ISIS, dipshits.
ISIS has existed since at least 1999.
Not true.
I stopped reading at the blatantly false statement: Three years ago, the Islamic State (Isis) did not exist It was founded by al-Zarqawi in 1999 as the JTJ.
6532
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:35:11 PM »
The US completely fucked up Iraq, you could probably say far more suffered because of the war than under Saddam's rule.
Hussein's rule was destabilising. It was a fomenting vortex of toxicity and ethnic divisions. And when Saddam died, what do you think would've happened? The influence the Turks are trying to garner over their "rightful place" in Kurdistan, the interference of Iran in the Shi'a population and Saudi Arabia in the Sunnis would've been much more pronounced and aggressive.
6533
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:32:55 PM »
Thanks for creating ISIS, dipshits.
ISIS has existed since at least 1999.
6534
« on: March 29, 2015, 03:31:37 PM »
Ever considered, just doing your shit and leaving all the fools to do their fool stuff?
I feel ethically obliged to not do that. Although at this point I'm just reading this shit to both laugh from despair and hilarity.
6535
« on: March 29, 2015, 02:48:12 PM »
ARR MEEJA CONSISTS OF THOSE ASSHOLES
6536
« on: March 29, 2015, 02:44:05 PM »
That was single-handedly the best thing I've ever heard any person say.
6537
« on: March 29, 2015, 02:00:02 PM »
we seriously fucked up on the post war clean up and rehab.
I don't even think this is that consequential a point. Following the liberation, a democratic nation was established and debates were held on at least six television channels and almost one hundred newspapers. When, just years before, it would have been a long, painful death sentence for even owning a satellite dish or trying to distribute a leaflet. Mistakes were made, obviously. But it doesn't begin to negate the wholesale righteousness of the war.
6538
« on: March 29, 2015, 01:46:05 PM »
Fuck off, feminist.
6539
« on: March 29, 2015, 01:45:21 PM »
6540
« on: March 29, 2015, 01:42:44 PM »
I don't really see any SJWs in favor of Russia's current leadership, like at all.
It's not so much Russia at the moment as ISIS, in their refusals to condemn it as a disgusting organisation of barbarous theocrats. But you just know people are going to be stamping on their own bollocks and screaming "Look, even Putin recognises the legitimacy of the Palestinian cause". It's a power play, to appeal to the anti-Israel left and Libertarians. Fuck Putin, and fuck his government.
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