off shoot of the Ron Paul thread.....USA the worlds police force.....

[rattler]

since i dont want this to get buried in the gay marriage discussion i figured i would start a new thread.

most everyone here seems to agree that the US constantly being the worlds police force is a bad thing. i do. however i dont think many here realize just what that means.

#1. it means we are going to set back and watch certain countries tear themselves apart. we will sit back and watch mass genocide. its been happening for years in Africa and no one seems to care but when ever it happens in a "white" country we step in. what do you think is going to happen when we quit backing Israel? Israel, Syria, Iran and a few others will be out for blood and it will not stop till one is the decisive victor. weither you like Israel or not tens of thousands of ppl are going to die on both sides if we back off. its a turf war and Israel knows to give in means they no longer exist. they will not pull any punches, nuclear weapons will be used. im all for letting Israel have at the middle east. are you willing to sit back and let them? how about eastern Europe? India and Pakistan? Venezuala versus its neighbors? China for crying out loud going head to head with Japan. will all these happen? maybe maybe not but the Israel part is a sure thing and mass genocide will continue unnoticed in Africa.

#2 it means being more self sufficient. if we are not going to step in and try and keep things calm we need to make our own electronics. dont think their is any electronics manufactured wholly in the US anymore. we need to be able to do this. this means cutting taxes for manufactures, make it attractive to come back. Look at what the upper midwest did to car manufacturers, it taxed them out of the area. taxes are so high that it forced the manufacturers to look elsewhere for labor and property for plants. few "US" cars are made in the US....infact some foreign cars are more "Made in the USA" than some of the domestics......why? cause the foreign companies set up shop in states that were much, much more tax friendly than the upper midwest. we need to lower taxes.............how to do that?

#2a down size government.........many ways to do this. i say get rid of the DEA and ATF, neither serve a real purpose other than to supply each other with jobs. legalizing marijuana and other such drugs wll drop prision costs, get rid of billion dollar budgets ect ect ect. instead invest some money into education and rehabilitation centers for those that actually want to quit. legalizing such drugs should drop crime quite a bit cause it bottoms out the prices. are drugs good? no, but billions of dollars are thrown at the problem and anyone can walk a couple blocks and still get their poison of choice. declare the War on (some) Drugs a loss and give up.

#2b. give up on programs such as welfare in its current form, socialized medicine, the indian reservations ect. they dont work for chit. by lower taxes you make more funds available to individuals, more funds means more money to charities....more charities means more help being done and it doesnt require tax payer dollars. not to mention private organizations are much more efficient at helping out than the government with all its red tape and beurocracy. you say 40 million americans dont have health insurance? drop the cost. put a cap on malpractice suit awards. money aint bringing your kid back. a doc high on drugs killed your kid on the OR table, money aint going to fix the problem, here your medical bills are covered, the doc who killed your son is in the back room, heres a bat, yah got 10 minutes.

#3 while we will be able to down size the military some, we cant all the way, turn alot of the army and such stuff over to the state national guards. we will need to keep a large navy. we will need to make sure shipping lanes to other contries are kept open....i like my tropical fruit and chocolate. stay in international waters, protect international shipping lanes but thats it.

#4 realize that chit costs money.......going to Walmart to save a few bucks is what got us dependent on Asia to start with....be willing to shell out more $ for american produced goods instead of cheap asian produced goods. if we dont care if China is ripped apart by cival war cause several companies in the US can provide us with a good quality big screen to watch the super bowl we will be well on the way to not having to play police force for the world.

 

[whowe]

I have to agree with some of your statements.

1. The whole middle east thing in touchy, it can become religious. Lets stay away from that.

2. We used to be the number one, the best industrial nation in the world, until we started rebuilding other economies, now we are slaves to the Chinese economy.

Thats all I have for now. Great post.

 

[rattler]

whowe......which is why i have problems with Ron Pauls foriegn policy...........until we break the economic ties with Asia, we can not stop being the worlds police........

 

[Finch]

You cant break economic ties with asia because we are a globalized world. Wanting to break economic ties with asia, sound more like you want to set the clock back a half century. Well, we cant do that. America is the worlds largest economy, but China is #2 and Japan is #3 (India # 5), and if you think the words three largest economies will suddenly ceace trade relations then that is rather naive.

 

[Outsiders71]

You cant break economic ties with asia because we are a globalized world. Wanting to break economic ties with asia, sound more like you want to set the clock back a half century. Well, we cant do that. America is the worlds largest economy, but China is #2 and Japan is #3, and if you think the words three largest economies will suddenly ceace trade relations then that is rather naive.

Agreed.

The biggest problem this country needs to address is energy. Almost everything here depends on foreign oil. When we gain energy independence it wouldn't be a surprise to see a HUGE boom in manufacturing and industry. Until this happens our economy will continue to diminish IMO.

 

[rattler]

not break ties...............just not be wholly dependent on.......at the moment what happens if a major war breaks out with China as one of the countries even if they are not the aggressor? we are screwed. if we want to stop being the worlds police force we have to quit careing and running to help out add butt in on every lil thing. whats going to happen when China's population hits critical mass and the realize that they need more room? they are going to spread into Russia.........thats going to panic Japan. i dont want isolation ism, i just no longer police force. in order to do that we need to be less dependant on other nations. in order to do that we need to produce more of our own goods......dont need to produce all of them, just enough so when the crap hits the fan we have something to fall back on

 

[rattler]

Agreed.

The biggest problem this country needs to address is energy. Almost everything here depends on foreign oil. When we gain energy independence it wouldn't be a surprise to see a HUGE boom in manufacturing and industry. Until this happens our economy will continue to diminish IMO.

how do propose this? ethonal isnt viable produced by grain. only way to do it effectivly is sugar cane. the US does not have enough sugar cane to do this. contrary to popular belief the US has plenty of oil.....im sitting on top of an oil field bigger than the state of New Jersey thats largely untapped....why? because the refineries are at full capacity. our youngest refineries are 30 some years old. you want independence from foriegn oil? loosen EPA regulations so we can make more refineries. get away from coal fired power plant, allow the building of nuclear power plants. the use of heating oil is killing us aswell.

 

[Outsiders71]

not break ties...............just not be wholly dependent on.......at the moment what happens if a major war breaks out with China as one of the countries even if they are not the aggressor? we are screwed. if we want to stop being the worlds police force we have to quit careing and running to help out add butt in on every lil thing. whats going to happen when China's population hits critical mass and the realize that they need more room? they are going to spread into Russia.........thats going to panic Japan. i dont want isolation ism, i just no longer police force. in order to do that we need to be less dependant on other nations. in order to do that we need to produce more of our own goods......dont need to produce all of them, just enough so when the crap hits the fan we have something to fall back on

If you can find Americans who are willing to work in factories all day long for $3 a day, then we might be able to forget about China.

 

[rattler]

If you can find Americans who are willing to work in factories all day long for $3 a day, then we might be able to forget about China.

put the idiots collecting wellfare and sitting on there arses into the factories. get rid of welfare and we have plenty of ppl who can work.....nation wide minimum wage is idiotic to.......you can live lots cheaper in some areas than others............

 

[rattler]

BTW..........you would rather pay slave wages to a Chinese worker than pay more to keep someone in the US in a job and off welfare? either you pay more for the goods or you pay more in taxes

 

[Outsiders71]

how do propose this? ethonal isnt viable produced by grain. only way to do it effectivly is sugar cane. the US does not have enough sugar cane to do this. contrary to popular belief the US has plenty of oil.....im sitting on top of an oil field bigger than the state of New Jersey thats largely untapped....why? because the refineries are at full capacity. our youngest refineries are 30 some years old. you want independence from foriegn oil? loosen EPA regulations so we can make more refineries. get away from coal fired power plant, allow the building of nuclear power plants. the use of heating oil is killing us aswell.

This country needs to forget about oil all together. It's time for renewable resources, whether it be solar, wind, water, nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells or a mixture of all these technologies. I'm personally an avid fan of solar power, as it is the most abundant free energy waiting to be harnessed. Technology is growing exponentially and improving every day. These new sources of energy however will never be used as long as we keep oil in the picture. It's time to setup deadlines, and get rid of oil.

 

[rattler]

This country needs to forget about oil all together. It's time for renewable resources, whether it be solar, wind, water, nuclear, hydrogen fuel cells or a mixture of all these technologies. I'm personally an avid fan of solar power, as it is the most abundant free energy waiting to be harnessed. Technology is growing exponentially and improving every day. These new sources of energy however will never be used as long as we keep oil in the picture. It's time to setup deadlines, and get rid of oil.

but until then we need oil...................we have oil, we dont have refineries........this would mean we are less interested in whats going on in the sand box, and instead of spending money to fight over there we can spend money on researching alternative fuel sources

 

[Outsiders71]

put the idiots collecting wellfare and sitting on there arses into the factories.

Somehow I just don't see this being possible...

get rid of welfare and we have plenty of ppl who can work.....nation wide minimum wage is idiotic to.......you can live lots cheaper in some areas than others............

I agree that welfare is a broken program that needs a total reworking. However I'm not so sure that removing the system all together is a good idea because there are some genuine people who need temporary assistance. The problem is fixing the system so it can't be abused.

 

[Outsiders71]

BTW..........you would rather pay slave wages to a Chinese worker than pay more to keep someone in the US in a job and off welfare? either you pay more for the goods or you pay more in taxes

No actually I wouldn't rather pay Chinese workers who are abused, which is why I try not to by "Made in China" goods.

 

[rattler]

I agree that welfare is a broken program that needs a total reworking. However I'm not so sure that removing the system all together is a good idea because there are some genuine people who need temporary assistance. The problem is fixing the system so it can't be abused.

lets nuke it and start over...............yah know ive worked with charity organizations and churches to help get ppl back on their feet......always seem to have a better sucess rate than wellfare programs.....private charities on a local level work better than anything the feds can come up with cause the leeches are weeded out

 

[rattler]

No actually I wouldn't rather pay Chinese workers who are abused, which is why I try not to by "Made in China" goods.

excellent!

 

[Outsiders71]

but until then we need oil...................we have oil, we dont have refineries........this would mean we are less interested in whats going on in the sand box, and instead of spending money to fight over there we can spend money on researching alternative fuel sources

I disagree. Oil companies make billions of dollars in profits, quarterly. Do you think they have any kind of interest in allowing alternative fuels to appear?

 

[Finch]

The main problem with china is Taiwan. China considers it a territory and we consider it a country. If Taiwan declares independence china will invade. And we have a contract to defend Taiwan, as it is the largest buyer of our military systems. Its ugly and goes back to the communist/nationalist division in china’s past.

 

[Capslock]

Can't agree on some things here. We need a social safety net, or crime is going to skyrocket, and it will cost us in the end. We need to look around the world at what the successful countries do. And they have things like welfare, and EVERY SINGLE ONE has universal healthcare, which they spend a lot less on because there's no $BILLIONS insurance industry. Those things - decent services and universal healthcare - provide a secure, healthy base on which to build an economy. For some reason, Americans hate to think that other people can do ANYTHING better than we can, and so we refuse to look around. It's too bad, because in traveling the world, it's plain to see that some people do some things WAY better than we do, and we should learn from them.

I agree that we need to trim waste from government, but at the same time we need to cultivate a healthy and productive society, and that doesn't do itself. I know, Rattler, that you think that private charities and so forth do a better job at necessary social services, but that's not supported by any examples around the world at all. It just doesn't happen, and in the case of health care as a vivid example, we're really screwed because of it. Medicare and Medicaid deliver healthcare many times more efficiently as private insurance.

Likewise, it's counter-productive to get rid of the minimum wage. It will only increase poverty, and concentrate even more wealth in the hands of the elite. We need to cultivate a middle class that is prosperous, that can buy goods and participate in the economy. We do not need to concentrate even more money in the hands of the ultra-rich, which has been happening at breakneck speed for a couple decades now. In short, we need to get over the stigma of "socialist"-type programs. The most prosperous countries in the world successfully blend capitalism and socialism.

Capslock

 

[Finch]

I disagree. Oil companies make billions of dollars in profits, quarterly. Do you think they have any kind of interest in allowing alternative fuels to appear?

X2

On ethonal i agree it is non-viable either, just as oil but the oil and corn interests have a huge stake in money and poltics and are not going to give up the game to grass, sun or wind.