Two More Army Divisions?

[Army Fencer]

Originally Posted by jeff

Funny, that's what I was going to say about you, or that you have such an inability to admit when you're wrong that you'll twist any argument on itself to avoid having to do so.

You're not the only one he's done that to. I wouldn't feel too special.

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

This is a bit oversimplistic, I think. The idea that more money=better is appealing, but think it over a bit: has paying CEOs more gotten us better CEOs, or worse? Has paying Senators and Congressmen more, year after year, gotten us better leadership, or worse?

Yes, paying more attracts better candidates. It also attracts worse candidates, and mediocre ones---they like money, too. You still have to figure out how to tell one rom the other consistently...and that's always been the rub.

One final point: government is seldom the most efficient agent for any given activity. It is not cracked up for it; it has too many dysfunctions and counterproductive systemic tendencies. Giving yet more functions over to government---and the military is part of the government---strikes me as something rather to be avoided than courted.

Well, that's very LIBERTARIAN of you Inq...

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Bush has since stated flatly that there would be no draft,

He also "stated flatly" that he would not build nations, $120,000,000,000 (that's billion) later we haven't even cleared the land yet, let alone poured the foundation.

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

So explain the "global test", Jeff. Seemed pretty clear to me. I'd have put it down to inelegant phrasing, except that Kerry, unlike Bush, is never guilty of that. Or I'd attribute it to a simple mistake, but in that case Kerry would surely admit to it, since it's only Bush who cannot admit his mistakes, of course. Or I'd say that maybe it was just one of those "nuanced" positions of his, except he's always had one consistent position and never tries to have it both ways....

What DID he mean in saying that US foreign policy ought to "pass a global test", Jeff?

So now we're (meaning you) using Bush stump speeches as the source for Kerry's positions? I would have let this pass if it wasn't such a blatant misrepresentation.

The president always has the right, and always has had the right, for preemptive strike. That was a great doctrine throughout the Cold War. And it was always one of the things we argued about with respect to arms control.

"No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

"But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

OOOPS, he (John Kerry) must have left the part where the U.S. sends an approval form to France before going to war. Oh wait, this is the complete answer, not just the two words that Bush has decided to use.

Using this method, I have determined that Bush has admitted to eating dead fetuses. I determined this by taking 1 word from 4 (maybe 3 )different speeches. Ok, I didn't really do that but I'm pretty sure I could.

Bush: I eat dead fetuses!

I'll have to thank you though Inq, while finding the ACTUAL text and not a "thought" lifted wholly from a known deliberate misrepresentation, I stumbled across something else.

Here is the Congressional "Test" that Bush stated he passed to initiate the war in Iraq. This is from a letter to Congress from March 18, 2003:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...0030319-1.html

"Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

"(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

"(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001."

Seems to me this is MORE than just an IMPLICATION that the President directly connected Iraq with 9/11! I'm sure you will interpret it differently. Perhaps you feel that I am being unfair to the President to quote, VERBATIM (I didn't just take 2 words from the paragraphs and then apply my own definition), from the President's OWN WEBSITE.

[jeff]

Originally Posted by Army Fencer

You're not the only one he's done that to. I wouldn't feel too special.

I look at it as being part of a select group of individuals. We the few, the proud... I better stop here before I launch into the Henry V "St. Crispian" speech.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by jeff

Funny, that's what I was going to say about you, or that you have such an inability to admit when you're wrong that you'll twist any argument on itself to avoid having to do so

It's very simple. You have only to cite data demonstrating the truth of your premises. Real, honest factual evidence. Not speculation. Not devastating logic. Not "dot-connecting" ( which is the same sort of thing you seem to love to pillory the Administration for doing, the only difference being apparently that their efforts in that regard always go wrong while yours are always right ). Show me the proof. If the proof IS proof, and not in itself extrapolation or rooted in shaky sources, and if indeed it establishes what you say it does, then and only then I will be only too happy to admit it. Until then, I regret to inform you that I shall continue to do what you are always complaining that Bush did NOT do: waiting, questioning assertions, looking at things from ALL angles ( not just the ones you'd like me to see ) and generally looking before I leap, like you, into the abyss of I Just Know It...

Sorry if that vexes you.

(or simply leave the piste, as you did with the Economics thread).

Say what?

If I make an explicit statement, it may or may not be a lie, depending on whether the statement is factual, and if not, if I knew it when I stated it.

So far, so good...

I believe that many statements made by Bush are deliberately counter-factual: eg, lies. When I claim that Bush lies, I back it up by showing the statement he made.

And you're off the rails again. You've omitted a crucial step: showing intent. How the devil does "showing the statement" prove the intent behind it? How is favoring us with your judgement about what the statement meant and whence it arose "backing up" anything?

when he says that it's not largely to benefit of the rich, then it is a lie and I've shown why at length.

No, you've "shown" why you believe it to be a lie. Are you seriously expecting me, or anyone, to accept that as a standard of proof!?

We've debated reasons before, and come to no satisfactory conclusion either way, or so I thought. That you firmly believe otherwise is, I am sorry, not overly convincing in and of itself...

For this particular instance with the debate: Kerry says "I will not do X". Should he be elected and then do X, then it will be clear he lied. Bush today says "Kerry says he will do X", after hearing him say the opposite. That's a lie.

Only if it can be shown that he has in fact not at some other time said X, or something so ambiguously worded as to be reasonably construed as X. That is the problem when one bloviates as often, as long and as complexly as Kerry does: he is thus made more likely to give numerous shaded versions of a given position, some of which may appear contradictory, or at least inconsistent. Then he explains, again at length and complexly, why the statements are NOT inconsistent, and often manages to make matters worse.

Now even then, you will note, I do not so compliment my own ability to scry the Truth as to say that he has lied. There are a lot of reasons why one can make inconsistent statements, especially over time: one uses different analogies, different examples, different verbal tropes, one forgets details and adds others, one exaggerates or minimizes, one replies to a question not precisely worded. Sometimes one reconsiders, or changes the thrust or angle of a statement, without really changing the underlying position. You can't really expect a political opponent to let these things pass as the harmless and usually meaningless adjustments they are---it is the nature of the creature to seize on and twist such little shifts and recastings and employ them to advantage. And Kerry, I will hazard, knows this as well as any of his brethren, certainly as well as Bush; but it is not in the nature of the politician to admt that, either, but rather to throw it back at the attacker as an attack itself. But the advocates of each, ah, now, they will tend only to see or credit the attack from one direction...

Which, I must say, is what I think you're doing in this case. And not inconceivably what I'm doing as well...

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

It's very simple. You have only to cite data demonstrating the truth of your premises. Real, honest factual evidence. Not speculation. Not devastating logic. Not "dot-connecting" ( which is the same sort of thing you seem to love to pillory the Administration for doing, the only difference being apparently that their efforts in that regard always go wrong while yours are always right ). Show me the proof. If the proof IS proof, and not in itself extrapolation or rooted in shaky sources, and if indeed it establishes what you say it does, then and only then I will be only too happy to admit it. Until then, I regret to inform you that I shall continue to do what you are always complaining that Bush did NOT do: waiting, questioning assertions, looking at things from ALL angles ( not just the ones you'd like me to see ) and generally looking before I leap, like you, into the abyss of I Just Know It...

Why then, do you not demand these same things from the admistration you're here purporting to defend?

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by jeff

Not because of this thread - he's against the strip boundary

Wouldn't it be nice for you if you got to referee from the strip? You'd be sure to win every bout. But alas....

I referred to an older thread titled "The US Economy and Politics" where we had a very long (ahem) discussion on taxation and economic policy, tailing off approximately a month ago with a bunch of points I made left unanswered

Yeah, that's a fair cop.

In my own defense, sometimes there are a lot of threads running at once, and I am often left to argue a position alone against three or four opponents. That means a lot of posts to answer, which, together with my propensity for grandiloquence and my one-finger typing method, often means a whole night spent answering half of the posts calling for attention. And so the next night there's unfinished business AND new material; and so on. Never mind the backlog when I dare to miss a day or two of posting, or have to post from the library, which imposes a 1-hour time limit on computer use...

Never mind the research that's often necessary.

Not to mention the occasions when the computer swallows a long, sedulously composed screed whole.

Do you know, I have spent a good four to five hours on today's debates, and still haven't even opened the first three threads on the political board alone? And here I was hoping to get to another discussion forum later on....

I know---excuses, excuses!

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

Well, that's very LIBERTARIAN of you Inq...

Why, yes, I suppose it is...
Even a blind pig finds an acorn now and then.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

He also "stated flatly" that he would not build nations, $120,000,000,000 (that's billion) later we haven't even cleared the land yet, let alone poured the foundation.

Yes. An event like 9-11 can certainly alter ones priorities, can't it?

However, if you wish, I will cede that as an instance of a "flip flop". Not that it alters my essential opinion of his overall worth---any more than any of Kerry's, taken in isolation, alter my opinion of his. But there seems to me to have been an accretion of such instances in Kerry's record, no doubt due to the exigencies of the Senate process, where accomplishment is only pssible by horse-trading, vote-swapping and obeying leadership even against one's better judgement. Otherwise I don't think the flip-flop charge would resonate unconsciously with so much of the electorate, while it seems to bounce off of Bush...

At any rate, Kerry's perceived flaws still do not outweigh for me the urgent criteria that is motivating me to hold my nose and vote for him: the need to have offsetting powers in government, Democratic control of either the Legislative or the Executive branch to set against Republican control of the other. And since it does not look as though the Republicans are very likely to lose control of the Congress, then perforce Kerry must be ensconced in the White House. Where I most fervently hope that the Congress will stymie all of his grand plans, even as he stymies those of the Fools on the Hill...

Plus I cannot deny a certain glee at the prospect of watching the Republicans in the Senate block all of his nominees to the highest Federal Courts, just as the Democrats have blocked Bush's.

[Drifter]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Yes. An event like 9-11 can certainly alter ones priorities, can't it?

However, if you wish, I will cede that as an instance of a "flip flop". Not that it alters my essential opinion of his overall worth---any more than any of Kerry's, taken in isolation, alter my opinion of his. But there seems to me to have been an accretion of such instances in Kerry's record, no doubt due to the exigencies of the Senate process, where accomplishment is only pssible by horse-trading, vote-swapping and obeying leadership even against one's better judgement. Otherwise I don't think the flip-flop charge would resonate unconsciously with so much of the electorate, while it seems to bounce off of Bush...

At any rate, Kerry's perceived flaws still do not outweigh for me the urgent criteria that is motivating me to hold my nose and vote for him: the need to have offsetting powers in government, Democratic control of either the Legislative or the Executive branch to set against Republican control of the other. And since it does not look as though the Republicans are very likely to lose control of the Congress, then perforce Kerry must be ensconced in the White House. Where I most fervently hope that the Congress will stymie all of his grand plans, even as he stymies those of the Fools on the Hill...

Plus I cannot deny a certain glee at the prospect of watching the Republicans in the Senate block all of his nominees to the highest Federal Courts, just as the Democrats have blocked Bush's.

I must confess I had you marked wrong my friend. A most admirable position to say the least.

[Soldier]

Originally Posted by jeff

Funny, that's what I was going to say about you, or that you have such an inability to admit when you're wrong that you'll twist any argument on itself to avoid having to do so (or simply leave the piste, as you did with the Economics thread).

You also make a trivial error in logic. If I make an explicit statement, it may or may not be a lie, depending on whether the statement is factual, and if not, if I knew it when I stated it. I believe that many statements made by Bush are deliberately counter-factual: eg, lies. When I claim that Bush lies, I back it up by showing the statement he made. When I claim he is wrong or disengenuous, I back that up as well. As an example, when Bush says he'll lower taxes, I don't claim that as a lie; when he says that it's not largely to benefit of the rich, then it is a lie and I've shown why at length.

For this particular instance with the debate: Kerry says "I will not do X". Should he be elected and then do X, then it will be clear he lied. Bush today says "Kerry says he will do X", after hearing him say the opposite. That's a lie.

If I may chime in, from what I believe to be a position of some experience...

With the Honor Code here at the Academy, we've got an entire system devoted to determining whether or not people lied. Through easily the first two years, including especially basic, we get briefings ad nauseum on the Honor Code and the system surrounding it.

To have told a lie requires act and intent. I would imagine act should be rather apparent; intent is what can be debated more in any case.

What Bush has said may be counter-factual; however, that does not necessarily make it a lie. It is only a lie if he knew at the time that they were counter-factual.

You say: 'Kerry says "I will not do X". Should he be elected and then do X, then it will be clear he lied.'

This is not true (though that does not make you a liar). People are allowed to change their minds. If, when Kerry says, "I will not do X", he knows right then that he will do X, that is a lie. But if later he changes his mind and decides to do X after all, it does not make him a liar. This is because at the time of the statement, there was no intention of lying.

Everybody is so quick to call Bush a liar because he said there were WMDs in Iraq, and now we can't find them. But he is only a liar if he knew at the time that there were no WMDs. And I have no idea how anybody can prove this.

[Maeve_Mari]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Only if it can be shown that he has in fact not at some other time said X, or something so ambiguously worded as to be reasonably construed as X. That is the problem when one bloviates as often, as long and as complexly as Kerry does: he is thus made more likely to give numerous shaded versions of a given position, some of which may appear contradictory, or at least inconsistent. Then he explains, again at length and complexly, why the statements are NOT inconsistent, and often manages to make matters worse.

Okay, you're really reaching out now trying to prove your argument. And it's not working. In proving the lie, the test of everything else ever spoken on the topic does not apply.

Kerry warns Bush, "Get off the stage, the podium from which you are currently speaking from is on fire." Bush declares that Kerry is lying. His proof? Bush had once, in the past, heard Kerry say the podium is a fine structure and very much not on fire, therefore Bush has proven that his podium is not on fire.

Bush continues to stand there at the podium, even stomping his foot as he growls in defiance, and stubbornly refusing to admit the truth, which is now glaring in his face (literally) and burns himself to a crisp.

Argument over.

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by esskreemr

OOOPS, he (John Kerry) must have left the part where the U.S. sends an approval form to France before going to war.

Exaggerating my psition again, as usual, I see. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd point out where I mentioned approval or France. I suspect it'll be a long wait, but I'm used to it with you...

But what he did say looks pretty plain to me: he's saying that before making a preemptive military strike it is mandatory ( "have to" ) that you not only explain the rationale to your own people but to "prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons". What is exculpatory about that? If you can't "prove to the world" that it's for a "legitimate" reason, you can't do it. No? And if his criticisms of Bush are any indication, that means if the world says it isn't convinced he'd not do it. What am I missing here?

Seems to me this is MORE than just an IMPLICATION that the President directly connected Iraq with 9/11!

Pardon me, but in the words of Ronald Reagan, "Well, there you go again".

You seem to have mistaken me with someone else. I don't recall having asserted that he had done otherwise.

I suppose that I may have forgotten it somehow, in the vasty bounds of this thread or another. If so will you kindly point it out? And I will be glad to repent of it...

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Soldier

Everybody is so quick to call Bush a liar because he said there were WMDs in Iraq, and now we can't find them. But he is only a liar if he knew at the time that there were no WMDs. And I have no idea how anybody can prove this.

Valid points concerning the honor system. If intent is not proven, when does incompetance intervene?

I suppose we'll have to wait until this surfaces, to start the process:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...mment-opinions

[esskreemr]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Exaggerating my psition again, as usual, I see. I'd be ever so grateful if you'd point out where I mentioned approval or France. I suspect it'll be a long wait, but I'm used to it with you...

When you asked Jeff to explain Kerry's "Global Test". I was exaggerating it by implying that we had to send aproval forms to France. Apparently we both have humor that is overly nuanced

Originally Posted by Inq

But what he did say looks pretty plain to me: he's saying that before making a preemptive military strike it is mandatory ( "have to" ) that you not only explain the rationale to your own people but to "prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons". What is exculpatory about that? If you can't "prove to the world" that it's for a "legitimate" reason, you can't do it. No? And if his criticisms of Bush are any indication, that means if the world says it isn't convinced he'd not do it. What am I missing here?

"But if and when you do it, Jim, you have to do it in a way that passes the test, that passes the global test where your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing and you can prove to the world that you did it for legitimate reasons."

The global test consists of "your countrymen, your people understand fully why you're doing what you're doing" and that "you can prove to the world that you did if for legitimate reasons."

To me this represents a flexibility, a willingness to consider the opinions of other countries not to require them to approve a 10 point checklist (gross exaggeration for emphasis):

No president, through all of American history, has ever ceded, and nor would I, the right to preempt in any way necessary to protect the United States of America.

This, IMO, represents a pretty cut and dry statement.

You seem to have mistaken me with someone else. I don't recall having asserted that he had done otherwise.

I suppose that I may have forgotten it somehow, in the vasty bounds of this thread or another. If so will you kindly point it out? And I will be glad to repent of it...

It's possible, someone did request proof that the President had ever said that there was a direct connection between Iraq and 9/11. I'll have to look.

On a good note, I'll be exceedingly busy over the next couple days and may not be able to post. When I get behind in a thread, I don't post in that thread until I've caught up, which sometimes means never.