Weekly Open Thread

@GaffaUK…

I find it laughable that anyone residing in the Socialist UK finds the stones to offer advice, criticism or anything useful on life in the US. Don’t you have a full plate over across the pond?

I have some British Forces in my neighborhood here now that they have withdrawn from Marjef, proper spelling, to be involved in the snake pit in Kandahar. I jumped into Kandahar at the start of OEF a few years back and find it ironic that Her Majesty’s Officers are looking at a full blooded NATO effort under pussy ROE to pay for that real estate a second time. There are Canadian Forces that are at Kandahar now. I am about 30 Km away right now.

Did your Home Guard Regiment get mobilized?

Will I see you there to help fight the “bloody wogs” or will you be doing some sniping at FA on Our St Crispins Day in the Stans or safe at home abed?

06:45 here in the land of rocks and sand. Good Friday as well. Services at 08:00 and then I have business to attend to. Some Officers from the French 2nd REI (Para) will be over for lunch. Let me know if your Home Guard Regiment is coming.

Regards,
Old Trooper

The trouble with knowing a little about a lot is being confused over whether you have all the facts in a particular subject. (I have a MENSA bright buddy I turn to for help on many subjects including history.) For example, you are correct in believing that a good number of the ideas our founding fathers used were taken from Britain, as well as other civilizations (Romans, Greeks, etc,) Even Adam Smith from Scotland.

But only in America did the ideas thought about by the Brits take shape as a government. Why? Because even as the Brits knew in theory what freedom should be like, they could not break free on their own. Too much history. As time passed they continued down the path to a socialist society that ends up with a woman getting arrested for selling a goldfish because it violated some insane law pushed by the same communist/socialist aggressive government types.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1262250/Great-grandmother-tagged-selling-goldfish.html

Think about what Britain just did. How it reached a point where this law was considered, passed, and enforced. What else have you done wrong??? NHS that kills patient by dehydrating them to death? Bad medicine. Unclean, undermanned hospitals. I could go on but it would be useless. Either you get it or you don’t.

Here we are fighting not to follow your lead. Silly concept, but here we value common sense and freedom. Yes, we’ve taken our eye off the ball and you can see where it has gotten us. But that will have to change.

As far as communists in the government. Absolutely. Remember history. At first blush, communism was not considered a bad thing, even kind of cheeky back then. Many prominent intellectuals, policy makers, cabinet members and others like Walter Duranty of the NYT thought it was the next thing coming down the road after the troubles of capitalism, corruption in government etc. (Read the wiki- it goes easy on him, but still shows his crimes.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_Duranty

Here is another.

http://www.findingdulcinea.com/news/on-this-day/On-this-Day–Alger-Hiss-Convicted-of-Perjury-.html

And another current example

http://therealbarackobama.wordpress.com/2009/04/06/loudon-obama-appoints-former-communist-to-white-house-green-job/

At the time communism’s theory wandered around the country the horrors it wrought were being concealed or denied. Only after years of witnesses and tons of documentation have we really grasped madness that is communism. It is estimated that communism murdered over a hundred million people, mostly their own citizens. Yet, even today the communists exist in America and in other nations. Why? Because beyond its glorious language of equality, communism provides one thing for the leaders of the movement- Power. That is what attracted Van Jones- the promise of riches, control and power. It is what really attracts most people to communism. Think about the power you have when you can seize the property of an innocent for your own needs. Wow.

Also as far as the “Republican” President being at the root of the attack in West Virginia, your bias shows, as does your limited ability to understand the bigger picture. This is not meant as an insult if you are sincere. It is what we all suffer from at times. The big picture is that ANY government that strikes down citizens inside its own borders has violated the the trust. The people who were rising up against what is now known as literally a sort of slavery were in the right, if even their methods were violent. It could be argued they had run out of other options. However, there were ways to solve this without dropping gas and bombs on civilians. Harding was conservative in many areas, somewhat corrupt and unethical, and was not a supporter of unions. Not many parts of the government were at that time.

Here is a quote from one source— June 5, 1922

In United Mine Workers v. Coronado Coal Co., the Supreme Court rules, under the Sherman Act, that striking miners are liable for damage inflicted upon company property. The ruling is the first in a number of federal efforts to control organized labor that have become increasingly volatile during the postwar recession. The next month, another strike will break out after the Railroad Labor Board reduces wages. In September, the attorney general will win an injunction against the striking railroad workers as the two sides continue to battle.

I hope we have moved past those times. But that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen and can’t happen again. Being vigilant and wary of any government is how we remain free and not start down that road to a thousand years of indentured servitude that Europe and Britain suffers from.

Archer, the Thomas Paine Award goes to you today! Congratulations sir! (Check out the Verona Cables, and The Body of Secrets along with KGB files declassified and our own declassified files)

GaffaUK…

No canned goods, I keep beans, rice, wheat and other dehydrated foods. No I don’t plan on hanging around the house when and if anything ever goes down. I have my spot all picked out and yes it is in the mountains. I have 2 wheeled transportation that is capable of getting me, my wife and my supplies to where I need to go. And like I said before, the threat is those that have failed to prepare, not so much the government.

@OT

I don’t live in the socialist UK. And hopefully in a few months time Gordon Brown will be kicked out and UK will be to the right of the current administration in the US.

Warmest Regards to You all. Have a Blessed Easter and I need to brush up on my Francais as that French Foreign Legion Para Regiment, at my request, has seen fit to throw in their lot with my Group somewhat like Lafayette did over two centuries ago.

They are arriving here at “Camp Missoula” in full force tonight. Their Commander, a Colonel Le Beau, sent a dozen lambs for the Easter meal, two Chaplains, 12 cases of wine and a Field Bakery Unit and several crates of cheese. I have fresh fruit and other rations here that require no hydration in abundance and room for more Troopers to bivouac.

No better Allies and no worse Enemies to be found anywhere. They are tough fighters and were happy to be sent here. I am pleased to have them here.

Take Care!
My prayers tonight are for Socialist occupied America.

“Yes Thomas Paine – another great British thinker.” I hope you are not so presumptuous as to consider yourself one of the great British thinkers; Paine had the ‘Common Sense’ to distance himself from England; however, your divorce of Queen and country is surely of a more practical nature, although the ‘Age of Reason’ has not escaped you completely, judging by your antagonism to G-d.

I find gambling to be a fool’s game, unless you have an edge, for a moral man to gamble his soul for the privilege of denying G-d is betting against the house and perhaps the ultimate folly; but then again, you may judge yourself to be one of those brilliant English thinkers and that is your edge.

Frankly Scarlet, I don’t give a damn.

UK-

One quick point then to the main point. First- regardless of where we get the story from, the fact that Britain and to a lesser extent Australia as a nation has gone bonkers with eco-nut silliness and political correctness does not allow you to escape from the fact it is happening. (Britain’s insanity over ignoring the Muslim threat is so hard to explain it actually gives me a headache!) Britain has absolutely lost its collective mind. Why? They were already farther down the rabbit hole before the last push. Australia, which is a nation I would love to visit, is quickly following her older aunt. So, don’t start with the “Oh, it is only a few examples” excuse. We know far better than that.

On to the main, but related issue.

Exactly what lesson did McCarthy teach you? Seriously, I’m curious as to what you were taught in YOUR schools about OUR history… As I have already pointed out our system of public education has been under assault by the left (i.e. communist/socialist sympathizers) for decades, slowly rewriting the history of the nation to reflect their current agendas.

We started out with civics lessons I learned in the sixties that explained the entire history, including the British contributions, of how our founding fathers struggled to create the constitution and why they did it. Manga carta, Adam Smith, Thomas Paine, John Adams, Jefferson, etc. Now it was public school so it was pretty straightforward back then. We were the good guys, the Brits were good guys, the Soviets were bad guys as were the Chinese and here’s why. By the time we were done we understood the value of the nation and the duty a good citizen had to the nation to keep it healthy. We learned that the relationship between the two, which if broken by either party, would signal the death of both parties. We got it.

Now I know kids today who are totally ignorant of our history and who really think that Jefferson’s (if they even know who he is) total contribution to the founding of the nation was he owned slaves, that Ben Franklin is on a hundred dollar bill- but not sure why, and I know that many, many kids don’t even know what the Constitution is or never heard of the Bill of Rights. And I’m talking about high school graduates!

Why are they so dumb AFTER coming out of school? Because while in school they were taught what the people in control of the curriculum wanted them taught. It is easier to control a stupid population as you rip off their money, their freedom and their rights than it is to fight every attempt with a populace that knows them.

Do you know where the left learned that trick from? You guys. “Control the message, control the masses.” This battle has been waged against the people by the elites for thousands of years.

http://www.greatsite.com/timeline-english-bible-history/

So, again, I ask you where did you learn about communism in America? And who taught you?
Years after McCarthy was turned into a whipping boy, it became apparent he was right all along. As we saw it manifest itself in the sixties and ever since, as the new home for the new communists is the far left wing of the democrat party. It is what it is. Now they won’t support the history of the theory, only the possibilities, as though THIS TIME they are smart enough to pull off the transition.

That is the other problem with humans, we have a terrible case of arrogance. We always want to believe we are just a little smarter than the last fool who tried something stupid. Many of the left in America really do believe they can make communism/socialism work, as examples of its failures fly off of it like water from a shaking dog. Sometimes the truth is we are not just dumb but stupid. Do you know why we use examples of Britain and other socialized countries as a way to enlighten people? Because they are good examples. You have shown us, in Britain and in Australia, that even good people with good intentions can seriously *f* up a country. Our leaders aren’t any smarter than yours. In fact, some of your leaders in Australia seem quite intelligent. We have some that think we landed men on Mars, and if you put enough people on an island it will tip over (he has to be kidding right??). But on the serious side, we have some that think banning guns from the possession of law abiding citizens will somehow stop criminals from using them, a lesson both Britain and Australia are learning was a bad one.

We have leaders who think they have a right to tell us how to eat, live, drive, educate and raise our kids. Why? Because they are just a little smarter than the last set of fools who tried the same stupid stuff. More insidious and the real reason the movers and shakers behind the effort are doing it, in my opinion, is simple- they want to rule us. It will be a soft tyranny, unless we resist, but it will be a tyranny nevertheless. They will tax us, control our upward mobility, our ability to make money, our ability to dream. What is the difference between a slave in shackles with no hope of a better life and a man in a nation where the leaders choose if he will ever rise above the status they assigned him? Nothing except the iron cuff around his leg.

This is the plot many have. Others are afraid the Ponzi scheme is failing. Still others are just greedy.

I talk about this in my novel. I predicted this. Not because I’m smarter, but just because I realized and accepted something a long time ago. “Humans are humans. Some will want to rule others and some will want to be ruled BY others. It is human nature and something we have been fighting against since beginning of humanity.” It takes only a certain set of circumstances to set up a nation for a fall.

There will come a time when there will be no freedom left to give, no where to turn to get away from those who would crush your soul and your dreams. When that happens men always do the same thing, they revolt. (www.revoltthebook.com)

It is a story about one possible future. One that, sadly, may be coming true.

Thank you. That is very nice for you to say.

I’m just offering my opinion. Some of which I’m sure is off base as are all opinions. But I do think I’ve have the big picture pegged. My buddy doesn’t like Glenn Beck for all the obvious reasons, but he does admit that Beck did yeoman’s work identifying what many of us felt but couldn’t pin down. I personally get a kick out of him and he has helped push the radical left out into the open, which is a good thing.

For years I knew something bigger than a few leftists was behind the constant drive to push us “left” as a nation. In one post I attempted to list and identify the major players

http://truthandcommonsense.com/2009/08/23/why-socialize-america-lets-play-the-agenda-game/

My buddy helped refine the list and the agendas by showing me that the two major sets inside the left are the east/west coast ideologues and the middle union/thug driving Chicago Machine. (Obama’s people)

The reason the book was published this year was it told of this time. I felt it had merit in the discussion and if you want to see one possible future, read it. It’s a good read and a good time. Hopefully, it will stay a work of fiction, because if it doesn’t…well as Mel Gibson said in “We were soldiers” it could get a little “sporty down here”.

True story. Just before I retired I worked with a former Navy sailor who was tasked with interdiction both against pirates and against drug smugglers. He told me two stories. First he said, “Detective the rule we followed was “the sea hid everything.” You have no idea how many pirates just disappeared and nobody said anything.” I asked him what the situation was and he said often when they caught the small boats with his destroyer or cruiser, the bad guys would shoot at the big ship. I must have looked like he three heads because he quickly explained. “You see, they figured if we captured them and took them back, there was a good chance they would be executed, so trying to shoot their way out seemed like a good idea. In fact, one time we did send some back by skiff. I saw the soldiers meet the pirates, march them off the dock down the beach and shoot all of them in the head, right there. So, they would shoot at us and we’d shoot back with our fifties and bigger. The boat would simply sink out of sight.”

Then he went on to share another story. “One time we were chasing some smugglers out of South America. We caught them heading out so they turned back towards shore trying to beat us there. They did. So they beached the boat and got off. They stood on the beach taunting us because they knew we couldn’t get them. That was until the soldiers we called came out of the woods and shot them all in the back.” He seemed quite tickled about the whole thing. Me, I learned a few valuable lessons. 1. If I want to be a pirate, I’d make sure I had a real fast boat. 2. And if I wanted to run drugs, I’d make sure I didn’t gloat or taunt. Somebody on the other side might have a satellite phone.

A patriot whos has the gut to say it as it is,..why not? the doctors has the respect from their patients and their advices are taken seriously so why not?…the government used the doctors to sell their bill ,remember?they even provide white coats to identified their positions so why not ,the medical society vote also so they can tell there opinion as much more as the ignorants in the country… 🙄

@Archer 52

It’s funny how the right demonise the MSN but are happy to quote and believe in certain stories that are examples of general morale decline when it suits their purposes. It the UK – the Daily Mail is part of the MSM. It was the conservative supporting daily tabloid paper that my parents got. When you put together all the local authorities – counties/councils etc in the UK there are over 150 in England alone. So there are always plenty of isolated nutty decisions taken by councils that the Mail loves to quote. Isolated – because you would be hard pressed to find many absurd other examples of say a pet-shop owner being electronically tagged for selling a goldfish to a underaged kid in a country with thousands of pet stores. Also in the UK there are over 22,000 councillors – and in England at the moment the majority by far are conservative – over 9,000+ compared to Labour’s 4000+. So a socialist political correct UK isn’t the real picture – in the main – at all.

Even according to a conservative wiki site – political correctness started in the US. The unfortunately disease caught on in Britain and Australia but I doubt to the same degree.

http://www.conservapedia.com/Politically_correct

Have you been to the UK – do you have first hand examples where you have seen political correctness in the UK? I have been in the UK for 36 years and at the moment I can’t think of any examples of political correctness I have come across. I’m sure most Brits would feel the same except reading about it in the Daily Mail. I do remember recently in Australia where my American colleagues took exception when I used the widely known expression ‘Chinese Whispers’. Apparently in the US it’s called ‘Telephone’ so as not to offend the Chinese.lol

Whereas in the UK and Australia we see plenty of stories – which are tagged ‘only in America’ where some dumb law in enacted, or someone sued someone over something trivial, or someone had to prove something by building the biggest X, or someone shot up a school again, or the University of Y has now banned a certain expression etc. I know people who don’t want to go to the US because they think it’s too violent and everyone has guns. But I know all this is silly – and what is read in the media about the US is isolated and exaggerated.

It’s a shame you don’t stop and think that what you have read about the UK is also greatly hyped.

GAFFA UK ,i reread YOUR comment on 66[by the way ,that number you choose to tell of GOD is scary to me] but i want to point out that religion and GOD are 2 diffrent meaning,you can aknowledge the existence of GOD without belonging to any church,and another point is that i prefer the nameENGLAND to UK it sound better to me,,bye 🙄

@ilovebeeswax

What’s scary about the number 66? I thought the devil’s number is 666 (so only 600 posts to go! Also the original number apparenly, according to some, was 611 but like a lot of things in the Bible was altered – accidently or purposefully)

Of course – I agree, you can believe in God and not sign up to any church. But those in those churches are more likely to think you are going hell if you don’t fully sign up. It’s a bit woolly to believe in your own God (which holy book and version would you read?) but then again I consider myself agnostic – which atheists would consider woolly.

As for UK – yes England sounds better as America sounds better than US. But England is not a nation into itself – that excludes our Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish friends who are part of the UK. Funny how some Americans use England (and even London) to represent the UK. That’s like interchanging New York and US as meaning the same thing.

GAFFA UK, by george,you are funny,the b,,,,i will admit that i thought UK rain capture knowledge as we are living from day one ,and thoses numbers are part of it being 3 of them, but even one of the 6 ,i resent ,,i have to admit that i tought UK was only mention to shorten the name ENGLAND,,we always learn something,i like that and appreciate your graciousness , 🙄

@ILOVEBEESWARZONE

No problem. So where are you from? Quebec?

GAFFA yes ,,i was born in MONTREAL city in the..la belle province of QUEBEC,,,i am now in the beautifull MARITIME, country ,i must say that MONTREAL has change a lot by immigration and refugies and illegals too,that are advancing more into subbards and other citys towns bringing their bacground life with them and for many ,imposing their views on the good peoples that allowed them to be receive with open arms at the beginning,,but the good people are getting angry and tired to be bullyed,,bye 🙄

they came as close as 49 to 50 to separate a few ears ago ,,but the prime minister the country had open wide the door to foreigners in advance to see it coming,,i am pretty sure that it is to late now i must say that QUEBEC,take good care of his people but there is always the danger of loosing track when you are in power bye 🙄