Another good way to avoid another 9/11 would be not ignoring the warning signs when they are pointed out to you.
20/20 hindsight doesn't cut it with me. There were warning signs that
something was going to happen. Nobody knew
what. Or, for that matter, where.
Also, a minor detail you missed: there were
two attacks on the World Trade Center. The warnings signs of the
first attack were missed by President Clinton.
Oh, and there's another minor detail: Bush's subsequent attempt to fix the intelligence failures that (allegedly) allowed 9/11 to happen were opposed (mostly, ironically, by people such as yourself) who called his attempt a police-state power grab.
BasketCase said:
I already earned my piece of the pie--I don't want everybody else to get their hands on it. I did the work, it's my slice.
That sounds to me like you don't want any wealth redistribution.
Wrong again. Note the underlined word. With the exception of Bernie Madoff and his ilk, everybody who is rich today, became rich by earning their wealth. CEO's get paid more because their work is much, much harder.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but having a bloated nuclear arsenal didn't stop the towers from being destroyed, and neither did bases in every corner of the globe.
No, you're absolutely right. Our nuclear arsenal and wide array of military bases, instead, are preventing the
next 9/11 from happening. Because now that we've spent ten years beating the living crap out of people, nobody is going to be stupid enough to attempt another 9/11 for a long time. The terrorists
themselves have admitted this. It's the reason they switched to smaller-scale attempts such as that Christmas Bomber guy.
Well, after cutting a hundred or so billion off the military, we can then attack entitlements.
After? Why "after"?
I've seen that a million times before. It's always "cut the military first". Even though everybody who says that already knows military cuts will not be anywhere near enough. They're the same people who were demanding cuts in military spending
before this economic crisis ever began. They're stuck in their same old political agenda, no matter what is changing around them. Prosperous economic times? "Cut the military cuz we don't need it". Difficult economic times? "Cut the military cuz we can't afford it". No terrorist attacks happening anywhere? "Cut the military cuz we don't need it". Terrorist attack? "Cut the military cuz it's creating more terrorists".
Note that absolutely nobody is saying that last one about our meddling in Libya--if you say "our meddling in Iraq is creating terrorists" but you don't say "our meddling in Libya is creating terrorists", then you are (here we go again)
A HYPOCRITE.
Also note that nobody ever said "the U.S. military is creating terrorists" before 9/11 actually happened. The cut-military advocates invented that line in order to find a way to keep their agenda intact after 9/11.
Dude, do you read what I post, or do you assume I'm just another liberal?
Yes on both. I read your posts very carefully, and I assume you to be a conventional liberal as a direct result of what I read. I assume you're "just another liberal" because you act like one.
Case in point:
I am for cutting everything, because it's a lot easier than trying to single one thing out.
You said "
after hundred or so billion off the military". I already called you on this, but it bears repeating. That is conventional liberals; they want to cut the military first. (Most likely their actual plan is to get their military cuts, then go back on their word and block all cuts to entitlement programs).
You seem to think we can only do one thing to fix the budget, cut this or raise that. Why can't we do a little bit of everything
Already explained why. Taxes? New taxes will produce revenue NEXT year. We're going to hit the debt ceiling in ONE MONTH. Also, taxes are nowhere near enough to solve the problem. Tax revenue from the rich would have to TRIPLE. Tax revenue from corporations would have to QUINTUPLE. Neither is possible.
Military cuts? Not enough to solve the problem, and also politically impossible. Even Obama isn't stupid enough to cut the military significantly. I already told you--he had his chance and he didn't do it.
The fact nobody's singled out counts as something. We agree to share the cuts rather than try to pawn them off on eachother.
Go back to the point where I said "offer something to the Republicans so we don't have a default" and take note of something (that is, something
absent from this thread). Neither you, nor anybody else in this thread, made any tangible offers in any non-military category. Even though you know such cuts alone are nowhere near enough. Sure, there are vague suggestions--such as raising the retirement age to 70. How many dollars would that save?? Nobody has any freaking idea. We need to save a trillion and a half dollars. How much do we cut from Medicare? From Social Security? From the NEA? From programs providing clean needles to drug addicts? You proposed to cut a hundred billion dollars from the military and that's it (leaving us $1.4 trillion short.....)
Please do not group me in with the liberals.
Then don't act like them.
@FriendlyFire: chart from a biased left-of-center source. Also, it's impossible to know what the Bush-era tax cuts actually cost us, because the only way to see that would have been to
leave them in place. That chart contains an Arbitrary Hypothetical hidden in it. Therefore bogus.
