Lord Ratner

You know there is still a South Korea, right? You have the most curiously simplistic view I've seen in a long time. That's not to say the argument against Ukraine aid is necessarily simplistic. It's mostly just you.

I see zero fingers...

Of all the hand guns, I think I dislike the M9 the most. Ruger has some cool stuff though. I'm thinking about a Mark IV lite with a silencer for plinking at the range.

Thanks a lot, Sherlock Holmes.

How many hours of actually FAR flying time do SWA guys do per month? What's the range for normal lines, and what do the hustlers pull off? Remember that fucked up divorce you went through? How's life now?

$10,000 fine per worker per day for any business that hires any employee without verification of the employee through a federally-operated verification system. The problem goes away overnight. Neither side (politicians, not voters) wants the problem solved.

It *might* be funny, but I'm 99% sure it's going to take itself too seriously, and therefore, suck Is this the liberal response to the Daily Wire making a bunch of movies?

I designed this one. Probably my biggest achievement in an otherwise unremarkable career 😂🤣

Ah yes, the "wait, I thought you were doing the patch, it's due today!" design.

He wasn't dumb. He saw what his superiors valued, and he put on the mask. Just another "great dude" as a captain who only ever wanted to be a general, at any cost.

I'm just trying to figure out where your boundaries are. I'm sure it seems crystal clear to you, but the rest of us are struggling with it. Did you happen to come up with any examples of free countries that survived a peer- or near-peer attack without conscription? I was unable to. Same for taxation. Though the income tax came later, even the founders understood the necessity of compulsory taxation. I'm not seeing where the "if it was really worth it people would just do it" basis for a political foundation is actually demonstrated in any sort of successful society. Kind of makes it easy to lump with communism due to its apparent unrealistic idealism. I also haven't seen anybody support putting people in prison due to their ethnic background. You brought up internment, but no one actually argued that that policy was justified or moral. You just kind of threw it in there with conscription because they were both examples of things the government has done. But I don't think anybody here has argued that just because conscription is okay, all government action must therefore be okay.

Nevermind the obvious paradox that freedom and liberty are only possible because of the wars fought by conscripted soldiers.

Should littering be legal?

Every time a movie has a political foundation, it sucks. This one will be no different.

Jet Bridge Jesus strikes again!

Yeah dude, because it turns out that freedom and liberty are not provided for by an all-loving and generous universe. They are luxuries of societies that are either isolated from intruders, protected by an external guardian, or so strong themselves as to ward off foreign threats. This would be simpler if you just pointed to the societies in history that survived on individual choice for funding and defense. No mandatory taxes or conscription, but the successful defeat of a foreign invader. After all, if they won't voluntarily pay for it, it's not worth it, right? The system works because people don't actually care about freedom and liberty as their primary concerns. They care about fairness and family/tribe. You can force me to do many things as long as I perceive the same obligation being imposed on those around me. Literally to include an almost certain death, because that death ultimately supports the long-term survival of my family/tribe. Political ideology never trumps human nature.

This is why libertarianism is ultimately a failed ideology. Honestly I put it into the same category as communism. Romanticized ideals of how the world should be, that never survive contact with real societies.

Yeah that's just not how countries have ever worked. Including the freeest bestest country in the world, the United States. Conscription is a age-old and normal component of statehood. World war II would have worked a lot differently without draft. And I don't think the world would have been better off if the axis had won...

I don't tie the border to my support for international policy. Both sides are being really cute trying to connect the two, but let's face it, the border isn't being dealt with because the Democrats don't want to deal with it. And when Republicans had the opportunity to, they didn't. By this twisted logic, the United States should deal with no international issues unless the domestic issues are suitably addressed. But when your party loses elections, you don't get to decide what domestic issues get addressed. You're basically arguing for an all or nothing approach, but you certainly can do, but I find it to be a completely unrealistic political philosophy.

Says who? One of the primary reasons I support Ukraine is because they are willing to die for their country. Western Europe is no where in my calculus.

Exactly! Me "dipping my toe" in to check the temp:

The pace of 2A cases is eye watering. For most of my life it was a "subordinate" right, despite being the second enumerated right. Suddenly it is treated with the same reverence as the first amendment, as it always should have been.

Nice to see the senior ranks are finally feeling some pain from the pearl-clutching alcohol hysteria aimed at the worker bees for all these years. I always loved getting lectured on responsible drinking by a Colonel who had a bottle of scotch in his desk and some less-than-sober pictures scattered around "heritage rooms" from their CGO days.

"According to Dedonder, 'it's the military's societal role to provide young, inexperienced, and less qualified individuals with an opportunity to enter the job market'. An argument could be made that this is precisely not the role of the military. On the contrary, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that Dedonder's attempt to integrate the role of an educational institution into the Belgian Army's mission, given the context of manpower shortages and capability disparities compared to other NATO nations, is fundamentally misguided." The country is run by people who believe that the mere existence of militaries is the root cause of conflict, and a direct impediment to their cosmopolitan goal of a single world government. It seems like intentional sabotage because it is.

At a certain point you realize that most people don't actually have political views. They have political positions. The difference is that a view requires research, dialogue, analysis, and for many things political, there's not a lot of reason for someone to do that. Why learn about abortion if you're not getting an abortion? Should the average American really have an opinion on Palestine when they don't even know where it is on a map? So whereas the military leadership class used to be conservative, it wasn't because they had conservative views, it was just because they wanted to be a part of the group of people who had conservative positions. Their superiors. Now that we are in a rapidly changing political environment thanks to the spread of populism, the military leadership class is suddenly seeming much more liberal than the lower ranks, because the political establishment of Washington is fiercely anti-populist, including most of the legacy Republicans. They were never conservative, and they're not truly liberals or progressives now. They're just yes-men. Groupies. Sycophants who will morph into whatever they believe will please their bosses most. And since Charlie Kirk runs on a platform of "government is the problem" and makes no exception for big-government Republicans, obviously the power players on Washington are going to despise him. And like good little soldiers hoping for a reward, the generals will follow suit, threatening the careers of anyone who dares question or criticize the political "leaders" the generals hope to please and one day join.