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Duke Leto
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 12:01 pm |
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Location: Philadelphia
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vampirebunbun wrote: I think he meant cracking down on the huge plantations. Which would be effective. Yes. Effective at raising the price of the accursed stuff, convincing either a lot of small farmers to grow it or resulting in the establishment of large plantations in some other country that likes its money, and increasing the already ridiculous profit margins that the distributors get and thus allowing the sons of bitches to buy more influence and weapons, and kill more of the honest cops and innocent bystanders that get in their way. And it'll cost MORE money to fight the WORSE crime and corruption the insane policy creates, and the only thing, THE ONLY DAMNED THING, society gets out of the bargain, is that some "Nice" people get to have the moral satisfaction of knowing that they are fighting to make the world a more righteous place. And the sick thing is that these are the same "Nice" gentleman and old ladies complaining about how blacks and hispanics are generally a bunch of drug-addled degenerates who aren't real Americans, and are generally descended from the same people who 100 years ago said that Catholic immigrants were a bunch of alcoholic degenerates who were not real Americans. Except of course that a lot of them are descended from those same Catholic immigrants and know nothing of the Know-Nothings.
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Simon_Jester
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 1:26 pm |
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:58 am Posts: 7718
AOL: SimonJester1v1
Location: Look at me still talking when there's Science to do!
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Duke Leto wrote: And the sick thing is that these ... "Nice" gentleman and old ladies ... are generally descended from the same people who 100 years ago said that Catholic immigrants were a bunch of alcoholic degenerates who were not real Americans. Quote: Except of course that a lot of them are descended from those same Catholic immigrants and know nothing of the Know-Nothings. To complete the process of ringing the changes on irony, the descendants of the old Catholic bashers and the descendants of the bashed Catholics are often the same people.
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Duke Leto
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 06, 2009 2:52 pm |
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Well then here's to the J Bullington Bullworth school of social integration! As a Mayflower descendant and a descendant of "drunks", I think I 'll go hit on a hispanic girl.
Or maybe get out from in front of a computer and hit the gym so that the major attracting force women feel to me body is no longer inversely proportional to the square of their distance from me.
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Passiflora
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:20 am |
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Kajin wrote: Look at mexico. People complain all the time about the illegal immigrants that come from there regularly. One of the solutions to the problem? Absorb mexico into the U.S. Send in the military and crack down the iron fist on the corruption thats causing the people to flee in the first place. Kick out the corrupt officials, hunt down the drug lords, bring order to the chaos. It'd be costly and time consuming. Very much so. But it can be done. Yeah... because regime change worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless you want to expend vast amounts of money and personnel ruling these territories as if they were colonies of your empire, you'd generally want them to end up self-governing. And I think we've learned over the last eight years that sending in the military to kick butt is not a very good way of creating new, effective, and clean governments.
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Malice
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:08 am |
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Kea wrote: Kajin wrote: Look at mexico. People complain all the time about the illegal immigrants that come from there regularly. One of the solutions to the problem? Absorb mexico into the U.S. Send in the military and crack down the iron fist on the corruption thats causing the people to flee in the first place. Kick out the corrupt officials, hunt down the drug lords, bring order to the chaos. It'd be costly and time consuming. Very much so. But it can be done. Yeah... because regime change worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless you want to expend vast amounts of money and personnel ruling these territories as if they were colonies of your empire, you'd generally want them to end up self-governing. And I think we've learned over the last eight years that sending in the military to kick butt is not a very good way of creating new, effective, and clean governments. Sending in the military didn't work in Iraq because we had literally no idea what to do next, and it didn't work in Afghanistan because we stopped paying attention in order to focus on Iraq. Of course a re-building project won't work if you quit halfway through, or get the corruption out and then sit on your hands. You have to follow through. But if you do, it can certainly work.
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Passiflora
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 8:31 am |
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Well, if you haven't got the attention span or the budget to rule two measly countries properly, what makes you think you could rule the whole world?
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Duke Leto
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 3:03 pm |
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Well we aren't collecting revenue from the countries we are protecting.
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OldCrow
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 4:26 pm |
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Dis is a nice country ya got here...
Lot's of antiquities and such...
Shame if somethin' was to happen to it...
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Duke Leto
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 5:43 pm |
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That is only partly tongue in cheek, to some extent we in the US are supporting out of our own economy the majority of the military expenditures of the entire NATO alliance system, and that has played a major role in why we have a lower standard of living than the Western bit of the EU. If NATO was a true combine wherein we shared military expenditures and responsibilities proportional to our economies the situation in the US would be much better. That would mean a combined military system and a surrender of a degree of US sovereignty, so it will never happen in the foreseeable future.
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Malice
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:21 pm |
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Kea wrote: Well, if you haven't got the attention span or the budget to rule two measly countries properly, what makes you think you could rule the whole world? The trick, as always, is to never fight a war on more than one front. That's why the suggested plan is: 1. Acquire ailing country. 2. Kick ass in ailing country. 3. Follow through by fixing ailing country. 4. Use the economic benefits towards repeating with a new ailing country. Not: 1. Conquer as much of the world as possible. 2. Flail helplessly as your resources don't even come close to matching your expenses. 3. ??? 4. United States of the World! (also, profit)
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Passiflora
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Post Posted: Sun Feb 08, 2009 11:52 pm |
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There's only the small problem of whether those countries want you to invade. What country in their right mind would sign up to be part of the United States of the World if they knew you were going to march in and throw out their existing power structure by force?
Also, what counts as an "ailing" country? Aside from obvious basketcases like Somalia and Zimbabwe, most poor countries are a mixed bag of progress and failure.
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Kajin
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Post Posted: Wed Feb 11, 2009 7:20 pm |
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Wow, I just love the responses I'm getting from this thread! Good for a laugh, but otherwise very informative. Mostly I just throw a piece of meat in with the rabid dogs and then come back in a week or so to see who's killed each other over that piece of meat Kea wrote: Kajin wrote: Look at mexico. People complain all the time about the illegal immigrants that come from there regularly. One of the solutions to the problem? Absorb mexico into the U.S. Send in the military and crack down the iron fist on the corruption thats causing the people to flee in the first place. Kick out the corrupt officials, hunt down the drug lords, bring order to the chaos. It'd be costly and time consuming. Very much so. But it can be done. Yeah... because regime change worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unless you want to expend vast amounts of money and personnel ruling these territories as if they were colonies of your empire, you'd generally want them to end up self-governing. And I think we've learned over the last eight years that sending in the military to kick butt is not a very good way of creating new, effective, and clean governments. The original theory behind my pushing this idea forward was "A merging of the world's countries for peace and prosperity" as opposed to "The U.S. and A. conquering the world so that we may tax it." I actually just kept U.S.W because I didn't feel like coming up with a new name, but this interests me Quote: The trick, as always, is to never fight a war on more than one front. That's why the suggested plan is:
1. Acquire ailing country. 2. Kick ass in ailing country. 3. Follow through by fixing ailing country. 4. Use the economic benefits towards repeating with a new ailing country.
Not:
1. Conquer as much of the world as possible. 2. Flail helplessly as your resources don't even come close to matching your expenses. 3. ??? 4. United States of the World! (also, profit) Incredibly well put. I blame this entirely on the fact that George Bush was a C student in high school. Not that he wasn't dedicated in his pursuits, he was just a ****ing retard.
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OldCrow
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 9:59 am |
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Simon_Jester
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Post Posted: Fri Feb 13, 2009 10:39 am |
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Joined: Fri Jun 03, 2005 5:58 am Posts: 7718
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I do not envy that woman. Not one bit.
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Crazed123
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Post Posted: Tue Feb 17, 2009 10:44 am |
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GORRAM IT, why is everyone suddenly acting like open imperialism in the name of bringing "peace and prosperity" to the "ailing countries" is a good thing? What happened to separate countries and sovereignty and all that stuff they taught me about in elementary-school social studies? And what happens to the countries that don't want to join the USW?
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