Moonbox

It's pretty clear that's not the only thing you don't understand. They way you toss words like sycophancy and Imperialism around, especially in the context of dead/injured Canadian soldiers, makes it pretty clear you're not approaching the topic based on any sense of reason or understanding. Do you read a lot of blogs by any chance?

We're having a post 1945 discussion, so that's the understanding we should be using. Again, no. Fascism in the WW1-WW2 era was deeply rooted in conservatism and essentially contrary to everything that 'progressive' stands for, whether you're using a post-1945 understanding of the term or a renaissance one. Progressivism is a very broad term but in essence it's the improvement of civilization and the human condition. The expansion of collective knowledge, the rule of reason, equality and the paramount value of human life are all pillars of the philosophical concept of progressive thinking. The fascists and communists of the time were the exact polar opposite of progressives, and any statement to the opposite is just misusing or usurping the term. Progress =/ Change That's an important thing to understand in discussion using the terms progressive or conservative. Unfortunately, when it comes to politics, words like progressive, conservative, liberal, radical, freedom etc.. get tossed around so often and so arbitrarily that in the media and in casual discussion they're usually hijacked into near uselessness.

It's a vague term, sure, but it is meant to suggest a plane that's an order of magnitude more advanced than the previous generation of fighters. Nothing from the 1970's or 80's (4th gen) will have a chance against the F-35, so it's therefore considered the next generation of aircraft. Pretty simple stuff here.

and the far left adore people like Stalin and Mao, both of whom eclipsed Hitler in the scale of their crimes.

I wish there was an emoticon that represented a REALLY emphasized " ". Are you reading from Lenin's manifesto? As for your lack of sympathy and your generally lousy understanding of the world, most soldiers don't enlist to impose the "West's Imperialism". They do it for all sorts of different reasons, and I highly doubt that Joe Grunt comes home to tell Ma and Pa that he enlisted for the Glory of the Great Western Empire.

I'm not sure what planet that was on. While fascism appealed to many people as a 'new' way of doing things, at its roots it was just hardcore nationalism and authoritarianism, which weren't new or progressive concepts at all. A large part of its support comprised of hardcore anti-communists. They exploited the old bogey-man tactic of "only we can stop them" and whipped up as much fear as possible. Nothing about it was progressive.

Versailles' reparations certainly contributed to it, as Germany's post-WW1 economy was a complete shambles. Hyperinflation devalued their currency to worthlessness (almost literally) in the early-mid 20's and Germany's already struggling economy was crushed by the recession. When unemployment hits 30% and you can't feed your kids, you'll listen to anything. Hitler had an easy answer for all of it...

$800B is not a blip of Congressional spending, even for the US. That's the equivalent of a ~15% annual increase over that 8 year period, for a (relatively) small and isolated conflict. Either way, we didn't/haven't/won't see $800B worth of innovations from the Iraq war - not by a long shot.

I don't wonder why there are wars, although I don't always think they're great ideas. I don't wonder why there's a war in Gaza now, and I'm very pro-Israel on the matter. I think the comparison of Hamas and the Hell's Angels is completely off-base though and a pretty poor analogy. I don't really think an explanation why is needed.

That the research and innovations resulting from the Iraq/Afghanistan conflicts were insignificant compared to the trillions spent on these 'wars'. Much? There's a vague term. Seeing as though deployed soldiers would have been receiving hazard pay and re-enlistment bonuses, and seeing as though these benefits AND base pay are tax-free during deployment, there was a large spike in personnel costs during the conflicts. The longer and repeated tours of duty and re-enlistments will also see veteran benefit payments in the future correspondingly increase, and then there are the casualty-related costs to add on as well. Similarly, logistical costs skyrocket for deployed units, as you need to ship food, fuel, ammunition, ordnance, spare parts etc to the other side of the world, as well as maintain and replace equipment that gets damaged. The cost of an actively engaged military is much, much higher than one on base at home or in reserve.

The relatively painless (and much cheaper) Desert Storm campaigns may have expedited some new technologies, but it, and subsequent campaigns, certainly don't make up for the $2 trillion spent on Iraq, or the estimated $4-6 Trillion that the combined Iraq/Afghanistan wars will end up costing after veteran benefits etc are included. These aren't 'wrong' comparisons. You can't cherry pick your wars.

The Iraq war cost $2 trillion, and after veterans' benefits are paid, it will end up costing significantly more. The conflict didn't accelerate R&D investment by +$2 trillion. Hiroshima and Nagasaki weren't the finishing blows that people like to make them out to be. The Japanese leadership had accepted long before that they were defeated and had no chance to negotiate anything but an unconditional surrender with the US. They'd hoped that the Soviets would help mediate more acceptable terms, but the Soviet invasion of Manchuria made it clear that they had no other options. Dresden was an even a worse example. This had virtually no impact on the overall war effort and expedited nothing. The Soviets were already across the Vistula (the last real obstacle on the way to Berlin) by the time the first Dresden bombings occurred and were on the outskirts of Berlin by the time the last Dresden bombings happened. Clearly these attacks didn't speed up the surrender as it wasn't until the Reds were deep in Berlin and Hitler had killed himself that the Germans surrendered. Dresden did nothing but flatten a city and kill 25,000 civilians.

I'll agree with that, although most of these innovations were already in the works before the war and merely focused on and accelerated. Whether 6-10 years of massive scale death and destruction was worth 10-15 years of accelerated scientific progress is the subject of plenty of academic papers. The idea to follow up on is the make a distinction between WW1/WW2 and the wars of today. On one hand, you had total-war and virtually full-scale economic mobilization in a war among relative equals (technologically speaking at least), and on the other hand you have superpowers and their allies playing wack-a-mole against third-rate armies. The wars of yesteryear demonstrated the necessity of accelerated research and design. The wars of today prove that NATO is already decades ahead of most of its enemies and will be for some time.

It makes perfect sense, it's just a subjective concept that you're getting hung up on. You have no argument. You're trying to objectively argue against people's vague and subjective feelings, which is ridiculous. It can be, if misdirected, but it can just as easily be a good thing. The same can be said about any type of inclusive/exclusive groupings. Fact is that us and them is an instinctive concept for humans and arguing against it is like arguing against the concept of family, which is just as dangerous or good.

It's not for you to decide what people should or shouldn't feel proud about. Nobody cares what you think, just like you shouldn't care about people feeling proud of their ancestry.

Watergate is a classic example. The Nixon administration/re-election campaign was looking for an edge against the Democrats and subverted the legal and political system to gain it. Favouritism, nepotism or clientelism (Mike Duffy?) are other forms of corruption where there's little/no tangible economic gains, but significant political and or future benefits. Extortion/blackmail are easy examples, where threats and demands can be made with no money changing hands (ie - you pass/vote down this bill otherwise...) Do I need to go on? It's all corruption. The problem is that it's often difficult to prove, or it's not technically illegal.

You're right, but these could have happened and to better effect without the war if voters and politicians were more farsighted and less partisan. That the wars acted as catalysts for the public will and political unity necessary to get these projects done is undeniable. The relationship between war and economic growth, however, is more correlational than causal.

Are you trying to ask dumb questions? Did you know that insider trading (while highly illegal for corporate insiders) was perfectly legal for political insiders until 2012, and legislation curbing the practice only went into effect after Capitol Hill was publicly embarrassed by 60 Minutes? What makes the whole story even better is that the new legislation was full of simple loopholes, where your spouse or children can still make trades for you instead! That's okay though, right!? It's legal! The fact that the only people capable of preventing the practice are the ones benefiting from it doesn't matter! Nope! Those sure are impressive ethical standards Derek! I'd better be careful though. You might accuse me of libel again!

That's a no on helping you dig yourself out of your goof accusation of libel and the shame and embarrassment you should feel for one of the dumbest comments I've seen since joining this board in 2008. You ACTUALLY accused me of libel, on an internet discussion forum! It's hard to understate how pathetic that is, especially considering you can't even explain who this vicious libel was against!

It doesn't instill pride. It's something to draw pride from. Whether or not it's reasonable doesn't really matter. It's something people use to identify themselves and distinguish themselves from others. My background is 3/4 Irish, with the balance being German/Swiss. I'm proud of that for some reason, maybe because I really like blue and green eyes!

Sure, but less money spent on one could mean more for another. I'm not criticizing the Sherman production, especially considering there were 85,000 T-34's in Eastern Europe, but had the war not happened and the government borrowed for infrastructure programs and spent Manhattan Project levels of money on research, it's hard to argue the economy would not have been better off. All of that, of course, assumes that the Axis and Soviets were content within their own borders...

Really? I heard it was divinely inspired, designed by Superman and was powered by cold fusion! I'm SO witty. When 'LRIP' spans over a decade and hundreds of planes, you can't really compare it to LRIP for other planes. Other fighter programs moved from prototype to full-scale production much faster, which much smaller LRIP lots. The F-35 is a huge slice of the pie, and the speculators clearly understood that LM isn't going to be held accountable for their gross failure to stay on budget. They're having a magnificent time at the trough, less so than before Bogdan came on, but still. Success, in this case, involved failing running a program 60% over budget, years late, and succeeding not only in avoiding any financial responsibility, but also making enormous profits from it. Let me get this straight... You made the accusation of libel. I called you out on that miserable and pathetic statement, asking you to explain it. Your 'brilliant' response is then to ask me to give you specific names and ammunition to support your original witless accuasation. That a really impressive display of critical thinking Derek.

The longer the Duffy scandal gets drawn out, the less people will care about it. The Duffy scandal is small potatoes compared to the Ontario Liberal gas plant scandal, and it didn't take long for Ontario voters to forget about that. In the end, it's going to be boil down to TV propaganda commercials, because the average Canadian voter can't handle anything much more complicated than a pageant.

Sort of... Government borrowing and subsequent military spending certainly expanded the economy and gave people jobs, but that money could have been spent on infrastructure instead of 50,000 soon-to-be-replaced Sherman tanks.

Another pro-Justin Trudeau plug? You're certainly enthusiastic about him!