Lord Ratner

But it is Europe's fight, yes? So France and Poland have an interest and right to participate as they see fit? Or does NATO membership mean the US dictates everything? I don't want it, but I'm much more sanguine about it. WWIII is inevitable. The details are flexible but the catastrophic nature is not. I would rather get it over with while we are morally weak but physically strong, rather than both morally and physically weak. Another decade or two of "peace" and I think we will look much more like the European countries do today. I don't want to give China any more advantage than they already have. Interventionism doesn't have a bad track record, weak commitment does. Our intervening in world war II led to a pretty incredible period of prosperity and calm. South Korea, Japan, Germany, Italy, Israel, and even Taiwan are evidence. Righteous intervention can yield good results. Fucking around in the Middle East without a goal or real leadership is proof that mindless intervention can be catastrophic. Let's not forget that the Western governments had no interest in intervening in Ukraine with military support. It was only when the populations expressed shocking and very loud support for the Ukrainian cause that the politicians jumped on board. Everybody assumed that after 20 years of pointless wars the citizenship would be permanently biased against any form of intervention, but the cartoonishly evil nature of the Russian invasion hit a part of the human psyche that we forgot we had. Before world war II the youth of that generation were all hot and bothered over the Oxford pledge, yet when the actual war came, that generation became the "GI generation" and then the "greatest generation" and formed a sense of community that they rode to the grave.

You absolutely will, always, have a reasonable expectation of dying if you are trying to force your way through a locked door with law enforcement behind it. That doesn't make it right. But it is absolutely a reasonable expectation. You have to be fucking delusional to think otherwise.

Being right about covid is like being right against a flat earther. Not a very high bar. So now your argument is that because the European countries are a part of NATO, they are not allowed to engage in military conflict outside of the alliance without the permission of the US? Or of all NATO countries combined? So basically the existence of NATO means, non-nato countries are expressly excluded from any form of direct military support from NATO countries, because that would, in your opinion, necessitate the intervention of NATO as a whole, including the US. What a fantastically interesting argument, and then why wouldn't Russia want other countries excluded from joining NATO? Not only are they not part of the alliance that Russia overtly hates, but they are now fair game for conquest because NATO countries cannot defend non-nato countries by your logic, regardless of their regional interests in the war. Now, if you want to make an argument that the United States should declare ahead of time that they will not invoke Article 5 if NATO ground forces participating *in* Ukraine are attacked *on* Ukrainian soil, that's a more reasonable position. But your arguments is the best advertisement I've heard yet for other countries joining NATO. If you don't join NATO, there are literally no circumstances under which friendly NATO countries will intervene on your behalf. You're on your own, good luck. You're just arguing for pure isolationism. That doesn't have an impressive track record.

No. I thought the whole point was America shouldn't be meddling in European affairs. Now the European countries are deciding they don't want to tolerate Russian expansionism in their back yard. That's their choice, right? But you're against that too? So countries should be able to defend themselves without external assistance, or be taken by whoever decides to invade. That'll play out well 😂🤣 So now you're not an America First isolationist, you're just pro-Russian. You've always had the weakest arguments on this board, but this is a particularly interesting development.

Wait, are you against non-US NATO countries sending ground troops into Ukraine?

This has been building for decades. The election of an idiot political class is part of the process, not the cause. Francis Fukuyama is going to have to release a revision to his book. I'm just glad my kids will be too young for what's coming.

Small blessing. His mental breakdown involved just killing himself, rather than shooting up a base.

You'll notice this dude was shit-canned as soon as he started hinting that the disappearance of expensive equipment would need to be reported. As soon as his "antics" transitioned from obnoxiously advocating for his unit to potentially tarnishing the reputation of his leadership, he was toast. You don't get to the top in today's military (college, government, etc) through competence, results, and successful leadership of your subordinates, you get there by protecting those above you. When the consequences for failure are restored, the institutions will resume filtering for and rewarding competence. It's going to get a lot worse before that happens, I fear.

This sounds like the O6 leadership at every base I was stationed at. At some point people are going to realize that the corporate, academic, and political rot within the leadership class has completely infiltrated the military as well. It's a bummer, but it should not be surprising.

An economist would ask: what is the organization maximizing? They aren't hitting foul balls, they're just not playing the game you think they are.

That'll be the innovation part. 20 years ago we could track debris the size of a baseball, and that was just the unclassified level. Model the debris, predict the hole, and launch. We got bombers made of century-old tech to fly through oceans of flak, this won't be the challenge some are predicting it to be. Not ideal, but it never is. I can't even think of a capabilities scare that came true. Peak oil, deforestation, the ozone hole, Moore's Law, overpopulation, etc. Our problems will always be socio-political, not technological.

Sorry, by everything I meant the new, replacement stuff. I worded that very poorly. 😂🤣 Existing satellites are fucked. But the replacement cost will be much lower. I'm not saying it won't be an issue, but there's a whole lot of room left for orbital innovation, and usually a disaster is the perfect catalyst. In fact, I'd wager an "orbital reset" would put the US into a near space monopoly, over the medium term. The rest of the world can barely get assets in orbit now, imagine if it required an entirely new regime of space tech?

We'd just move everything to the next orbital level, each with exponentially-increasing room for more satellites. And no real effort has been put into cleaning up space trash. There will be innovation there for sure. It'll be costly, but not prohibitively so. We can thank Elon for proving that. Still, not ideal.

You sound like the twat in this interaction. Take that for what it's worth, which isn't much.

The article doesn't give much detail, but if the legislation distinguishes between someone with a viral load and someone who has taken the appropriate medication to suppress their infection, then I don't see the problem. The laws and approach in general to AIDS have to adapt to the medical reality that this is now a manageable disease. That doesn't mean there shouldn't be disclosure obligations, but it's not as simple as claiming that HIV is a death sentence and as such giving it to someone else is akin to attempted murder.

Which is why border legislation is so necessary. The previous/current system allows a president to simply "open the floodgates" as it were. That needs to be reined in legislatively.

🎯 This is how you know the "elites" don't want the problem fixed. You could shut down illegal immigration in less than a year, to include the self-deportation of millions of illegals, without building anything. No additional agents, no increased court resources, nothing. Just redirect 5% of immigration agents to random workplace inspections across the country. Fine the employer $10,000 per illegal, per day of employment. After your third separate violation to go to jail. And as a bonus, the countries that actually need working age men working towards an improved society get them back. Seriously do we ever expect the countries of Central and South America to advance to stability if we keep poaching their most motivated workers?

You know, That's actually an interesting point. A much more effective and effort-efficient way of prepping would be to make sure you have a bunch of books that describe how to do the things that you only need to do if shit really goes to hell in a handbasket. Like the chemistry of making primers. 99% chance you never read the books, but for a couple hundred bucks you could probably put together a pretty extensive survivalist library. I'm going to have to add that to the project board. 🤣😂

If your argument is "you have to read the entire bill in its legislative text form before you are allowed to have an opinion on it" then there is a follow-on issue with your claim that the Republican senators in favor of it should be some sort of endorsement. I assure you, they did not read the bill in its entirety. Unfortunately the conflict in Ukraine is not exempted from the process of politics. You ask why Israel gets a pass on their funding, that's because both sides believe in funding them. That's it. Ukraine does not share the same support, so it must go through a more negotiated process. I would love to live in the world where political brinksmanship wasn't the standard on every issue everyday. But we are nearing the end of this saeculum, and that's just how it works. In 20 to 30 years, if we are both still around, we can marvel at the newfound efficiency that follows great global conflicts, and the cycle will repeat once more.

Fine. Fix that bill. Then you can have the Ukraine bill. I think you're trying to lump too many people into one group. At no point have I objected to spending the money on Ukraine, and I do not object to it now. In fact I have disagreed with those who claim we shouldn't be spending money on Ukraine because we have problems at home. We can do both. What we can't do is only support Ukraine, and continue to let our domestic issues languish. Both, or nothing. Politics is about negotiating, an inescapable, if sometimes unpleasant, reality. The Republicans are not crazy about funding Ukraine, and the Democrats are not crazy about fixing the border.

It's a garbage bill. Plain and simple. It does not fix the problems at the border, and exists solely to take away the Republican talking point going into the election. I 100% support torpedoing that bill. I'm completely in favor of supporting Ukraine, but they exist to me as just one issue facing this country, not *the* issue. For better or worse, Ukraine is not an issue that unites the Republican party. However it seems like the issue is of minimal importance to the Democrats as well. There are at least well-reasoned arguments on both sides surrounding the Ukraine debate. There are absolutely no well-reasoned arguments supporting the absolute dumpster fire situation at our Southern border. Democrats would condition aid for Ukraine on perpetuating an overtly anti-American border policy, and as such they can be trusted with *nothing* that isn't codified in legislation. How many times are Republicans going to fall for Democratic border "solutions?" No more. The Democrats dug themselves into this hole, and they can easily dig themselves out by simply fixing the border problem. Instead, for whatever unfathomable reason, they wish to perpetuate the millions of illegal aliens coming to this country, while still hoping to neutralize the issue going into the presidential election. Let's say that they are successful, and as a result are able to retain control of the White House for another 4 years. I believe that would be terrible for the country, and far worse than whatever is going to happen to Ukraine, especially considering that even the positive possible outcomes in the Ukraine conflict are nullified by incompetent American leadership in the following years.

I've said before that there's no reason why we can't support Ukraine *and* deal with the border crisis at the same time. We are capable as a country of multitasking. However if this bill does not include the border provisions, then we are by definition choosing Ukraine over our own border, and that I do not support at all. I hope the Republicans in the house tank this bill.

If they truly change the inspection system to be random and unannounced, that will greatly improve the lives of airmen. A lot of nonsense will have to be cut out for fear of ruining the records of Wing commanders everywhere. I wouldn't count on it

I'd bet dollars to donuts that this guy thinks cutting services will somehow cause his constituents to apply national level pressure to Texas to stop the flow. Of course it won't work that way, but I think a lot of people are gradually coming around to the realization that we have been electing sociopathic clowns to all positions of power for quite a while now. Legitimately, these are people who are exceptionally good actors, matched only by their exceptionally weak intellects.

I knew it was coming, but it's still a thrill 🤣😂