dre

I actually find the "idea" of benign interventionalism to be appealing and sort of romantic. The problem is from a practical perspective it usually brings about the exact opposite of the intended result.

Exactly... like the wholesale description of "islam" being bent on world domination. Tough to fix stupid I guess.

Because the emperor was in charge, genius.

Not as different as you think. Christians and Muslims have a lot in common... its true that both are stupid and gullible enough to believe in all this idiotic folk lore. But beyond that most of them are just trying to make a living and survive.

Pure crap. Islam is not a homogeneous demographic and it doesn't have any sort of effective central leadership. The overwhelming majority of muslims could care less about world domination. This is just more moronic mindless pap.

There was no reason to risk any lives of the troops. Didnt you read what any of the military leaders said at the time? The Islands were completely blockaded and even before the bombs were dropped the Japanese were signalling that they were willing to surrender if they were allowed to keep the office of emperor (which the US rejected but Potsdam eventually gave them anyways). The Japanese were done. They could not export or import anything what-so-ever. There was no need to invade or risk the lives of more allied troops. The purpose of the atomic bombings was political.. not military. It was about punishing the Japenese people and sending a message to the Russians. It was immaterial in terms of winning the war which was already over. It was as necessary in terms of defeating Japan as firebombing Dresden was in defeating Germany.

I think that's revisionist history. Here is what the people actually involved have said... Admiral William Leahy (Chief of Staff to Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman) Herbert Hoover General Douglas Macarthur Genearal Carter Clarke General Carl Spatz (commandar of airforce operations in the pacific) ELLIS ZACHARIAS - Directory of Naval Intelligence General Paul Nitze (stragic bombing survey) The general consensus from military people at the time was "Are you insane? We already won!". People who try to come up with a post-hoc justification are not only uninformed but disgusting people. They should kill themselves. This was one of the most evil acts ever commited in the history of the human race. A deliberate and calculated mass-murder of innocent people that was entirely punitive in nature. And the political purpose of it was not to win the war but to force the Japanese to give up their emperor and Potsdam ended up letting them keep it anyways. Truly dispicable. An act of depravity so brazen that the perpetrators of 911 would be considered peace loving hippies in contrast.

I KNOW how our government uses them and I don't like it, and I don't want to pay for it. If you support interventionalist foreign policy, then you can send as much money as you like to [email protected] or 613-995-2534. Put your money where your mouth is...

That's just fine. Different countries have different defense needs. Setting defense spending as a % of GDP is stupid anyways. Our nation does not cost more to defend just because we produce more widgets. Some of these other countries exist in hostile regions, and have multiple international borders with potential adversaries. There may be valid reasons for us to increase defense spending but meeting NATO guidelines is not one of them.

If I want advice on which celebrity chef to fire Mr Trump will be the first one I talk to. His opinion on Canada's military spending? Couldn't care less.

It IS non binding. Go and read the guidelines yourself.

There is no "stated rate". There's non binding "guidelines".

They don't have to be in line. Spending targets are not mandatory. The fact is we give way more than we get back. If I give you $5 and ask nothing in return, am I "freeloading" just because you would have rather had $10?

Canada has not been free loading. We have given a great deal to the organization and never asked for one single thing in return. If that's freeloading, can you please freeload off of me?

That depends on how often it happens and how systemic this is. The worry of course is that the banks are trying to dump a lot of credit products on people that dont need them or cant afford them. Nobody thought it was scandalous when banks were loaning 1/2 a million dollars to people who had 50k per year incomes either... but look where THAT got us. Also YOU are the one using the word Scandal. I read the CBC article and I didnt think it was written in a way that was overly sensational or alarmist. People are reporting that their jobs are being threatened if they fail to sell products. Scandal or not, do you think its something that should not be reported?

Well I read the part about the 80 year old women getting a 150k credit line pushed on her when she just needed some tiny loan. They gave her bad advice. There could be consequences from that and if that behavior is system and theres too many credit products being given the wrong people it could cause problems. In the US they were giving loans to dogs and stuff. Again commercial banks are not regular private company. They are funded by the taxpayer and given a role in the management of our economy. They should not try to sell people things they dont need.

Banks are a bit different because people often look to them to provide advice, and because even private commercial banks are almost completely capitalized by the government/taxpayer. If they want to act like private companies thats fine... They can only lend what money is actually in their vault, the government can get out of the business of insuring their deposits, and the BOC can stop backing banks that lend out money they don't even have. If however banks commercial banks want to keep being funded by the tax payer, and then bailed out when they made bad decisions, they probably should not be engaging in predatory lending. Also if the banks sell credit products to people who don't need them or cant afford them that puts the economy at risk'. That's exactly what caused the recession in 2007. That's why this SHOULD be a scandal. Banks should either be public or private. Right now commercial banks are basically public, so they shouldnt act like they are private. Investment banks ARE private and they sell credit products using their own money, so they can do whatever the hell they want.

Like I said, you're paying anyways... probably more. Also healthcare is a massive line item in the budgets of both provincial and federal government. It either gets funded by taxes, or by debt and in either case you are on the hook. Its naive to think there isn't a link between healthcare costs and taxes.

<facepalm>

The thing is you are already paying, you just pay more in taxes and premiums to support UHC for a nation with high obesity rates. It would probably be cheaper overall and cost you less, as opposed to just waiting for people to get expensive diseases and medical conditions.

Talking about wars and invasions in the context of legality is kind of pointless. There's not really such a thing as "international law". Just a patchwork of treaties, and a small group of countries with the might to make whatever decisions they want (permanent UNSC members). The "law" only applies to you if there's an able and interested posse willing to enforce it.

Actually the Taliban thought Binladen was a pain in the ass, and they warned the US prior to 911 that he was planning an attack on US soil. They were also in talks with the US to turn him over prior to the attack, but the Americans botched the whole thing. Also including to Pakistani officials that managed back-channel communications between the US and the Taliban, the US position on Afghanistan had morphed into "regime change" a long time before 911. It will be a long time before we know the whole story... it took 40 years to find out that the US faked the incident that lead to the Vietnam war. I dont buy into any of the various conspiracy theories out there, but one thing we for certain is this... Any positions or statements by the US government have to be taken with a grain of salt. This is not an honest or scrupulous organization. Maybe after 20 or 30 years of documents trickling out due to FOI requests we will have a better picture of the whole thing.

Part of that is because people respond really well to fear mongerers. For example lots of people support Trumps "muslim immigration ban" or whatever they are calling it now, because Trump has successful pitched Muslims as a threat to the safety of Americans. But if you look at the actually data the opposite is true. Muslims are statistically LESS likely to kill Americans than other Americans. That means that every time a Muslim immigrates to the US Americans are actually statistically a bit safer. So the entire thing is based on an easily demonstrable false premise. But people don't care because firebrand rhetoric is fun, but data and statistics are boring. Same thing In Canada where a large segment of the population supports this moronic "Canadian Values" test. A solution is being proposed before it has even been demonstrated that there is a statistically significant problem. Same thing goes for the war on terror where the west has spent about 6 trillion dollars combating a threat that is 1/7th as likely to kill them as being struck by lightening. We don't live in an evidence based reality anymore.

Both should get help. But the tractor driver should get help from the farm or corporation that hes working for. Soldiers or other civil servants should get help from the Government. But you are right. Soldiers should not get any more "help" than anyone else. However government workers should get excellent compensation if they are injured on the job, whether its mental or physical. One nice thing about treating veterans very well, is that it will make elective wars less affordable, and discourage the government from engaging in un-necessary and ill conceived adventures. In any case I hope we can all agree that its pretty damn sad that so many veterans are in such a poor state. Homeless, sick, destitute. That should not be the case. I agree with Army Guy on this. The difference though is I'm PRO troop, and hes ANTI troop. He supports our military being used for non-defensive, elective wars, dreamed up by civilian leaders that know nothing about the regions subject to these "interventions" or the people that live there. The very most "pro-troop" position any person can have is to come down against wasting our troops lives on adventures in stupidity and idiocy. Which is why during the last presidential election in the US Ron Paul won the military vote in a landslide campaigning on a non-interventionalist, defense military doctrine.

Thats ok, when the Christian god made females from one of Adams ribs he made them ready to get #$%ked and make a baby at age 10-13. Not surprising that the three Abrahamic religions are so disgusting - that despicable maggot Abraham was going to casually burn his son to death because voices in his head told him to.