gearhog

So you are saying the election was invalid and/or shouldn't have been held? Should those 28K not have been allowed to vote? What's your point here? Are you the world's first WWII election denier? 😀 An election was held during "true, wartime conditions". That's what a real democracy does. And it's not impossible.

"When President Trump posts that Zelensky is a dictator without elections, what are you thinking?" https://x.com/dbsmorocco/status/1892931593947251004

Watch how easy it is for me to completely invalidate your argument: 1864: On election day, Lincoln prevailed handily, winning 212 of 233 total electoral votes. Contributing to his victory were the predominantly Republican votes of Union soldiers, many of whom had been allowed to cast ballots in the field or else had been furloughed to vote in their home districts. https://www.britannica.com/event/United-States-presidential-election-of-1864 1944: During World War II, more than 16 million Americans served in uniform. Approximately 11.5 million men and women served overseas, and the remainder often served thousands of miles away from their homes even when stationed within the United States. To ensure that these service members continued to be represented in their government, Congress passed bills in 1942 and 1944 intended to guarantee that American soldiers could vote in wartime elections for federal offices. Although the bills fell short of their ambitious goal, the 1944 bill permitted millions of soldiers to cast absentee ballots in the federal election that year. https://www.nationalww2museum.org/war/articles/soldier-voting-act-1942-absentee-ballots

Be careful posting “wrong-think” if you happen to be passing through the land of our closest ally in the fight for freedom and democracy.

The problem with your hegemony arguments is you are viewing it through a single biased perspective. The issue is reciprocal hegemony, meaning that even when you frame both sides as opposites, they still reflect one another's motivations and dynamics. Both the US and Russia claim their actions/expansions are defensive. Both justify them with mirrored ideological narratives. Each identifies the other as the aggressor. It's a vicious cycle that will drain prosperity from all parties involved over a very long period of time. In the end, one side or the other maybe be the ultimate victor, but it'll be Phyrric. It's the same playbook repeated over and over and over. I've seen it over my entire adult life and it took me a while realize the pattern. "The whole nation is bad. They're a threat. They're not a democracy. We're going to free the population." Meanwhile, they say "They're the threat, they're meddling in our domestic affairs, they're the invaders." Round and round we go. Money gets spent, lives are lost, etc. But it doesn't always go like that. There are plenty of examples of rivalries being settled through diplomacy. Most conflicts between near-peer nations reach a point of negotiated settlement - where we are now. It doesn't have to be a zero-sum game. There are plenty of ways to achieve a mutually beneficial relationship through technology, economics, and energy (as I went into earlier) Thank God the Cold War never went full hot between NATO and the Warsaw Pact. We never had to directly engage the Soviet Union, but we intensely competed, and they just got tired. It was ultimately de-escalated when Reagan and Gorbachev signed arms agreements. I don't know how old you are, but we did nuclear drills in elementary school. What a relief when cooler heads prevailed, there was peace, and we ultimately prospered. This whole "kill em all!" caveman mentality ensures the cycle will never be broken. The thought pattern you're having now is the same one that billions of people have been stuck in during every conflict in human history. I'd encourage you to conduct a private thought experiment with yourself and step out of that mental trap. It's enlightening. “War is young men dying and old men talking” ― Somebody.

Allright allright, I'll give in. I can tell this is killing you. 😆 First, me having a different opinion than you isn't dangerous, malicious, or harmful. You being a Nav, or RPA guy, or whatever means little just has me being a pilot/military officer means little. Here's the deal. When I got to my first assignment, one of the first guys I flew with was a guy named Rich Hauben, God rest his soul. We became friends and squadronmates. One of the first things we talked about was that he had worked very hard on building a website so that we when showed up to fly, all the information was there. PDF files of flight plans, mission worksheets, calculators, weather, etc. Super proud of it. It also had a forum he encouraged me to join. He experimented with some early waterfall type message boards that were successful, then he bought a site address at DynamicTruth.com, where he sold calling cards, cigarettes, and other stuff online. Made some decent money from what I remember. He hosted two forums on the server. One was "Military Aviation" and the other was "Socio-Political - The Michael Savage forum", of whom he was a fan. It was off the rails. Rich liked to show up to that forum and argue about controversial subjects. It was full of non-military liberals who hated the Michael Savage radio show. Rich posted under an alternate name and liked to get the liberals all worked up over controversial subjects. He'd talk about it often. That forum was absolutely wild. Anything went. http://web.archive.org/web/20020602142642/http://www.boards2go.com/boards/board.cgi?user=baseops https://web.archive.org/web/20040325141830/http://dynamictruth.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=forum;f=9 For the most part, the non-military usernames stayed over in Socio-Political, and most all the flyers stated in Military Aviation except for Rich, me, and a few others. Then the streams started to cross. Some of the rabid liberals started coming over here and injecting their leftist garbage into this forum, getting us military fliers worked up. Rich tried to keep those intense political discussions at the other forum but it didn't work. It's a little fuzzy, but at some point I think he just deleted the entire socio-politcal/Michael Savage forum one day. He had gone over to the other side of the runway doing secret squirrel stuff by that time. Anyway, that's just some fun history of the forum. As for me, I've been here since near the beginning. Over 25 year now, I guess. Thousands of screen names have came and went. Lots of good conversations here, info, help, but there is always sport-bitching, controversies, meltdowns, drama, guys wanting to meetup and fight, etc. It's been fun. Don't take it too seriously. Just words on a screen. Nothing more. I've been moderator. Administrator here for years and quit that. At that time I got a gig that required an SCI and I had thousands and thousands of posts here. I decided to delete "gearpig" from the server, not realizing it would completely remove the hundreds of threads I started here. Caused a bit of a problem. My bad. Sorry bout that. 😄 I am proud that I never banned anyone that I simply had a personal disagreement with or an opinion I didn't like - but it was tempting. A year or so in pilot training. I spent 19 out of 22 years in the Herc. Did white jets for a while. Did all the quals, all the sq jobs, chief of SE, all that. Only wanted to fly but I was made deployed SQ/CC once. First deployment was Oct 2001. Last was 2018. A bunch in between. Started the airlines back 07, been a Captain for several years now. I paid over $160K in FICA, SS, and Medicare alone last year, not including all my property and business taxes, so that motivates me to share my opinions a little. I live on a large rural farm surrounded by family. We raise cattle, show horses, buy and sell tractors, etc. It's fun. I'm not Russian, and I'm not going to hurt you. You don't have to beg others to silence my free speech because you disagree. 😄

LMAO. Get some sleep, dude. You need it.

You making that comment is one the least shocking things you could possibly have said. You did the meme. However, a Nav repeatedly demanding "Go with Quals!" is one of the most shocking and funny things I've read on BO.net lately. So that's it? Just you and nsplayr abandoning your positions in favor of feeble attempts to denigrate my "quals"? That's kinda sad.

LOL

Who typed this post, a nav or a fighter pilot? 😆

LOL. "Obviously not a fighter pilot". I'm not sure if that is intended as a compliment or an insult. Are you saying that because you think I'm not a fighter pilot, that you believe my position is automatically inferior? How does that logic work? So you were just "cavalier" with your words. Haha. 😂 When have I represented myself as a military officer? nsplayr thinks I may not be. How do you know they want to participate in this war if they're not a democracy? I thought this whole thing was about freedom and democracy, but suddenly it doesn't matter? Putin should be the one to bear the cost, but that's not exactly the way it's working out, is it? The Ukrainians are bearing a comparable cost, and we are bearing a financial cost. Consider the reality, not your fantasy. "The cost should be maintained...blah blah blah" Again, you're fantasizing and conveniently ignoring the other side of the coin. Fact of the matter is, what you believe should happen is not what is, in actuality, going to happen. So what are you going to do? Just idly bitch about it? Even if I agreed with you, what would it matter now. The war is going to come to an end and you're just going to have to sit there and be unhappy about it. "Should.." this and "Should..." that. You're pissing up a rope. "War is always an inextricable consequence of human existence." Bull fukn shit. It's always a choice. Just as it is a choice right now. And the US and Russia will choose to end it. Your argument is invalid. You claim I'm using "pro-war" as an insult, but immediately follow by stating you are "pro-war" and "that's ok." You may think that my attitude is met with derision, but my attitude appears to be the predominant one. I don't know what to tell you as to how to cope with that. There aren't enough Ukrainians to deliver defeat to Russia. It's just math. Are you advocating that the US attack Russia directly? You haven't explicitly stated that. Are you, as a fighter pilot, willing to send an new USArmy infantryman to stand beside the last Ukrainian on the front line? Yes or no? You do realize there is nothing stopping you from directly supporting Ukraine yourself. Instead, you're touting yourself as a noble fighter pilot keen on making others fight a war you believe is just. ...Just talk. One minute you're the hard-hearted military pragmatician claiming "war is just a part of life", and the next you and your bleeding heart are your wringing your hands over imagining that some poor souls will somehow suffer more should peace break out. Ridiculous. We can talk in circles about this for the next week. I'm game. But it is going to have absolutely nothing with what is going to happen in reality. Gird your loins.

I just corrected your technical error about the Ukrainian constitution. Why all bent out of shape over it? Are you angry I was correct? Interesting that you're the second liberal who has called himself a dumbass in this thread. Why would I need to argue with you? What does being a pilot have to do with having an perspective on Ukraine? I understand it's far more credible than any opinion of anyone who has never been at the primary flight controls of an aircraft, but it's not that important. Why do I have to be pro-war like yourself to be considered a patriotic American? Like Bashi, I don't have to go with shit, either. If you don't think I'm a USAF pilot, so what? Disregard everything I'm saying. I could not care any less. You're just going to have to live with you not knowing, and me not caring.

You're ashamed of your nation. Noted. Bye. I covered this earlier. "Article 19" is not part of the original Ukrainian constitution, but statutory law that abridged the original constitution in 2015, after the coup. You should spend more than 2 minutes on Google to understand what you're talking about. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martial_law_in_Ukraine Backpedal much? You clearly said we should we should shovel weapons into a war so a society could be fed into a wood chipper. That indicates a choice on our part to achieve a desired outcome. Either own it or admit it was a poor choice of words. This is a pro-war position at best, straight up evil at worst. Anytime a choice is made to cease hostilites... that's backing down? Are for or against minimizing bloodshed? Your language is ambiguous, but you most definitely don't care about anyone's bloodshed.

The Ukrainian constitution is nowhere in same category as the US Constitution. Our Constitution does not allow for the cancelling of elections, nor have we delayed/cancelled them for a war. Lincoln was re-elected during the Civil War and Roosevelt was re-elected during WW2. That's the way a democracy works. If there is a time an election should be held, one could argue it would be of upmost importance during a national crisis. One can equivocate and call it a "fledgling democracy just finding it's legs", but that'd be wrong. The only justification for cancelling elections is because you've failed your people, and you know they're not going to keep you in power. Just because your crappy piece of paper says you can do whatever doesn't mean you're a legitimate democratic government. Edit: It's not even in their constitution: The direct prohibition of elections during martial law comes from statutory law, not the Constitution itself. Article 19 of the Law of Ukraine "On the Legal Regime of Martial Law," first enacted on May 12, 2015, explicitly bans presidential, parliamentary, and local elections while martial law is in effect. This provision was enacted about 20 years after the Ukrainian constitution and after pro-Western coup took over the Ukrainian government. How convenient.

Shameful. Absolutely shameful. As a heavy Bubba the weapons lifts into Poland have been one of the highlights of my career. If not the highlight. I watched the live feeds of the Russians pouring across the border and next thing I knew I was in Poland. Watching pallets get moved off my planes onto trucks and knowing within the week it'd all be gone. Used to put a Russian into an early grave. - How many Ukrs were put in an early grave? It was an action that I can proudly share to any westerner. It was an action that put our country back into a well respected light with any European. - Why are you so keen to please Europeans? Maybe consider your grandkids. We've nearly dismantled one of our two biggest geopolitical enemies of the last 80 years without costing a single American life. - What about those "brothers in arms" you're so bothered about? Inconsistent. Spending a fraction of the snafu that was Afghanistan/Iraq. Boosting the American defense industry immensely both through our tax dollars being spent and through a massive influx of international sales. "- We saved money! We made lots of sales!" And now we're tossing it away? This war has been an Intel,strategy, and systems testing goldmine as well. A goldmine we're just going to walk away from. - "The war was a gold mine!" We're alienating ourselves from our closest allies. We're ceding soft power left and right all for what? A few billion in savings? - Not a few lines earlier, you were concerned about cost savings. Which is it? Inconsistent. Billions that were going to our own military industries. Check the stock market. LM, GD, etc. have all fallen 10% or more over the past month as a result while Rheinmetall, BAE, etc. are seeing 20% growth as Europe realizes they can't trust their oldest and strongest ally. -"Oh, no! The stock market! Our defense contractors are suffering! What a tragedy!" Can't wait to see how many more skilled workers we add to the unemployed list next to the other 10s of thousands who've been fired recently. - "Oh, no! The defense industrial complex is shrinking!" (so is the population of Ukraine) Don't even get me started on our brothers in arms that will die as a result. We've trained with many of those men and are abandoning them now for no reason. - But you're happy to have them conscripted to fight for all the financial reasons you listed above? How we as a nation have come to the point where materially supporting a war against an undeniable tyrant is a bad thing astounds me. Can you imagine if we had stopped the lend-lease act and told the UK "good luck with the war buddy?" This is the nation that stuck with Afghanistan and Iraq for decades despite the lack of progress, yet we can't stomach 3 years of monetary support? - You mean a tyrant that cancels elections and forcibly removes his citizens from the street and sends them to the front lines? We pitched in to help the UK because we believed in effort enough to make sacrifices of our own. No one here is doing that. Rant over. I'm off to go get drunk and pray that I don't have to explain to my grandkids one day why grandpa stopped helping. Why he stepped aside and let Russia walk across the fledgling democracy of Ukraine. - Imagine their pain when they realize the inheritance they receive from grandpa's investment portfolio wasn't what it could have been because we stopped funding the death of millions in foreign conflicts. O! The unbearable shame of it all.

Kash Confirmed. Reports of crowds scrambling to empty supermarket shelves of popcorn nationwide.

Weapons transfers to Ukraine are halted - Ukrainian MP Kostenko. The end is near. https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1892634846104608848

We don't need energy? False. Supply and demand. The more energy available on the global market affects price. China does need that energy. You're calling Ukraine a democracy. Explain to me how Ukraine is a democracy. What values are being abandoned? Meddling in foreign elections? Ensuring Ukrainians don't have a right to choose their fate? Debt spending to help overthrow foreign governments? Supplying weapons to enable the slaughter of soldiers and civilians on both sides? If everyone knows that, what exactly are you arguing? How many miles East or West the line will be drawn? You've just conceded Russia is going to retain some of Ukraine. Ukraine wasn't invited because they were never in charge of their own fate. The war goes the way the US goes. Maximal position? Huh? What does that mean? Do you really think any negotiated settlement would allow for the "waltzing" of Russia into Kiev? That makes zero sense. Let them fight. This is where I would agree with you. If it is, in fact, a fight between them... leave them to it. Let's completely disengage and see where the chips lie in a year. It is an undeniable fact that our leadership at the time had a hand in creating the conditions that led to this conflict and the death of hundreds of thousands of Ukrainians. Poor choices were made. We now have a chance to correct the mistakes and establish peace. https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1868662146122535098 How is it none of you Lindsey Graham neo-con pro-war advocates cheering for the killing of Russians will not acknowledge that it also necessitates the death of Ukrainians? If the Ukrainian cause is near and dear to your heart, why have you not made any voluntary sacrifices for it beyond posts on a message board? I don't believe you really care.

I'm still disgusted. Such talk is incredibly incompetent. A 50,000 word rebuttal instantly formed in my mind on the subject of moral character, but I'm gonna set that aside for now because I hesitate to dignify the above. Instead, I want to approach this from a different, less controversial angle. A few ideas. Here are some basic concepts: Obviously, we are at a critical moment in history. The more we find out about our financial system, the more we realize it's afflicted with various cancers. I think we'd all like to see the United States continue to be the greatest country on Earth. The only way we can achieve that is through prosperity and excising the tumors (bad policies) that are holding us back. Prosperity requires technology, resources, and a capacity to produce. We're also embarking on a period of potential technological advancements that will fundamentally change our world. There's a race on for that technology. Problem 1: The race for that technology requires economic investment. Who has the capacity to challenge our ability to invest in it? Look at this chart and think about how we choose who is and isn't on our team. Who do we cooperate and not cooperate with? Who is already on our team? Who do we spend money on bringing into the fold or relegating to the other side? Problem 2: The energy required run our existing economy is massive. The technology coming from AI, quantum computing, chip manufacturing, and downstream techs require incredible amounts of additional energy. You can't have unlimited growth in a world of finite resources. Thus, competition. Where do we find that energy? We need it now, not however many years into the future it takes to build nuke plants. Where does it lie? Problem 3: Who poses an existential threat to the US? First, what makes the US the US? I'd say a way of life based upon the principles of the Constitution. To find out who our enemy is, ask which countries operate in ways that are the most far removed from the way we want to live. Isn't the most glaring answer to that question China? We don't want anything to do with that system of government. Do we want to live in an Islamic Caliphate, either? We're even watching Europe devolve a collection of leftist governments. The real threats to you and I should be calculated and sorted as: Economic power + Access to energy + System of government disparity. Russia has little economic power, but has massive energy reserves. Their system of government sucks, Putin sucks, but it is not nearly as shitty as others with greater economic power. Put Ukrainians, Russians, Europeans, Americans in room together. You'd have a very difficult time sorting who's who on the basis of the things they value. Russia's energy is going to flow somewhere. Do you think it's just going to stay in the ground? Say Russia collapses. What are we going to do, occupy Russia to deny China's access to energy when they share a border? We are driving Russia into the arms of China, with or without Putin. War destroys prosperity. A nation will gravitate towards relationships that give them prosperity. The most logical approach is to create a security agreement where we stand to gain prosperity from the ability to purchase energy while they stand to gain prosperity from selling it. Why do we want to make China more prosperous? There is a time and place for conflict. But for 20 years I was directly involved in wars that were fought, but never decisively won. Our country experienced a near-exponential increase in debt while our leadership saw a near-exponential increase in wealth while on a government paycheck, all while people here still believe it's all been a net-benefit for our citizens. That's a pretty impressive jedi mind trick. Negotiate an end to the conflict. Start from scratch. Create a comprehensive security agreement that guarantees mutual economic benefits and access to energy while denying China the ability to become and even greater threat.

This is the most honest/understandable representation of the pro-war side of the argument: Cheering for the feeding of an entire society into the wood chipper. https://x.com/ricwe123/status/1630672196510138377

If you’ve paid attention to the facts instead of your feelings, there have been signposts since the beginning indicating the direction this is headed. As I said, you can oppose the reality of what’s happening with fantasies of complete Russian withdrawal/collapse, but you’ll only be upset/embarrassed when it never happens. The outcome is dictated by logic, not your notion of right/wrong.

You really need to decide if your are for or against personal attacks. If you bitch about it then engage in name calling, it makes you looks like a hypocrite. You can wish in one hand, shit in the other, and see which one fills first. It doesn't matter what you think is correct. You really think Crimea is going back to Ukraine? Delusional. LOL You've gotta be drunk. Unintelligible. "Gear cards" and asterisks? You're just asking random pointless nonsense questions. Do you even have a point here? You mean like Cold Stone Austin Steve? Did you intend to say "Trump wins more if Putin wins less?" You should read what you write before you click the submit reply button. Or at least edit your mistakes. I've seen these symptoms before. You might be having a Baseops meltdown.

I think it's reasonable to conclude that the line "We do not support Taiwan independence" was purchased illegally by a foreign adversary from a fifth column here in the US.

US State Department position on Taiwan Before & After