Tevron

On 5/5/2017 at 2:46 AM, emperorpenguin said:

yes. if you don't want that, move.

If you're in the United States, it's a question of whether your government is giving you the protections rested in its own laws and Constitution. If you suggest moving is the correct course of action when your government breaks the law, you're sincerely incorrect.

2 minutes ago, Woot said:

 

 

Does nobody see the irony that big unions are some of the strongest monopolies that exist in this country? Just because a cartel is controlling labor instead of oil or internet service doesn't make it a great idea for an efficient economy. Anything a union can do can be done better through law, so if we're dreaming up a perfect system then what's with the unions?

You're dreaming if you think big unions are some of the strongest monopolies in the country. Unions have lost so much of their power in the past 30 years that it's not even funny. And it's not some utopia-esque fairy tale to believe unions help workers. Look at the majority of western countries that have better buying power and less bullshit to deal with.

US wages aren't competitive because the government subsidizes large businesses with tax breaks, breaks unions, and there's no legitimate/strong monopoly laws to create more competitive wages. As a result, wages are increasingly pushed down and the quality of work is decreased. This is further amplified by a working set-up where regular workers aren't given fair vacation or paternity leave, healthcare laws that limit work hours and push entry jobs into part-time jobs, etc.

It's surely a complicated issue, but the solution is general labor reform, an issue that isn't about big scary regulation to screw small business like the kind we've been getting. It's actually regulation that goes after the people who drove wages down and spent the last thirty years creating favorable red tape for the people with the most resources. If you don't know what I mean, consider looking at media companies, ISP's, and banks. You can see it most clearly in these areas, because they get a lot of attention, but even grocery stores, service industries and general merchandise stores have worked their way to the bottom in order to turn bigger returns as well.

1 hour ago, Ryan Miller said:

 

lol how ironic that those who are against animal testing are living off of the benefits that modern medicine has made.

It's ironic how the people who are against slavery are living off of the benefits that the industrial revolution has made.

This kind of logic doesn't hold up, though I do agree with you that animal testing is a necessary thing.

Yes, but only because it is necessary, and we haven't developed synthetic human tissues or organs for testing at this time.

17 hours ago, japan77 said:

I never stated they were comparable. I just disagree with the fact that the US members got off scot free, and to add injury to insult, there were no confirmed cases of Japanese spies, and the 442nd Regimental Combat Team was the most successful unit in US history, and consisted of purely Japanese-American soldiers, and the US refused to acknowledge that it was in fact a bad action until Clinton, and even then the payments awarded were significantly less than the property loss that the Japanese-Americans suffered due to the interment camps. Whereas there were confirmed cases of Italian and German spies living in the US, and yet there were no internment camps for them. There is also the issue that the fact that the US even conducted this is barely acknowledge in American History textbooks (it got a paragraph in my APUSH textbook). 

I mean you brought them up specifically in this debate and suggested they should also have been tried for war crimes. I'm not sure which war crimes you're referring to, because that is an extremely vague area, and international law was quite a bit less available at the time, and when you enforce laws, they generally need to exist. The actual war-crimes that I am ware of are more along the lines of rape/unwarranted executions of prisoners, done by the US, and maybe those deserve additional attention in this conversation.

As an aside, I do agree with you, but I find you bringing up only US history war-crimes(?) in response to German war-crimes to be a completely anti-western sentiment that excludes many greater horrors than US intern camps that legitimately deserve more spotlight in a debate about increasing the scope of the post-WWII trials. For example, they massacred thousands, comfort women, etc. There were actually trials carried out afterwards though, and I'm sure some of the people behind these things were punished, however, this is a great parallel for your argument and demonstrates potentials for double standards that the allies were not held to.

In effect, I think the ICoJ should have considered trying allied war-crimes in an efficient and strict way in the early 50s, because it would have been an effective time to grant it some power, since it has basically become a small influence on politics. I don't disagree with you overall, but I do disagree with using a weak argument to debate this issue.

 

17 hours ago, Sargun said:

 

I know what he's referring to - but bringing up US internment camps as if they were anywhere NEAR close to the Holocaust is either being willingly ignorant of history or intentionally disingenuous. 

 

 

I learned about this shit in elementary school, middle school, and high school in public school in one of the worst public school systems in the country.  Sounds more like you had bad teachers as opposed to us "barely acknowledging" it since we have movies, tv shows, plays, and books about the topic, it's taught in our schools, and you can't even discuss world war 2 or war crimes in general without someone bringing it up.

Totally true, I heard about this repeatedly in middle school and high school from my history teachers, and I also have seen it discussed in music and film at the least. (Kenji by Fort Minor is the song that comes to mind immediately). This is not a topic that is shied away from, unlike the more "standard" war-crimes that the US perpetrated. The only ones that I can think of that were publicized as heavily were the ones perpetrated at Abu Ghraib, and some of the terrible things that were done to Native Americans.

I'm sure that psychological torture can work wonders, but that's because it messes up your mind, warping it into something that can actually be used to garner information. (Other)

Physical torture is stupid though, and only is humorous as a sort of plot device to test someone's balls of steel.

I think it wasn't fair in that it failed to balance the objectives of the allies. I see penalizing Germany to be the correct solution, as out of the three central powers, they were the main instigator and leader of the coalition. On the other hand, they set themselves up for failure entirely. It wasn't a fair treaty for either side, because it promised the deaths of both sides children in the next war.

Best TKR

I must be starving and in definite need of some fried tortoise.

Voting for candidates positively is not always pragmatic, but it leads to a healthier overall democracy, so I vote positively 100% of the time.

Yes one day, when our systems of governance are no longer completely idiotic and non-representative. But until that day (should it ever come) no.

10 hours ago, Ryan Miller said:

 

Da hell. It's only a matter of time until natural selection gets the best of them.

6 hours ago, emperorpenguin said:

vaccines shouldn't be mandatory because natural selection should be allowed to sort that shit out.

Natural Selection isn't something that sorts instantly, and human intervention (ie vaccines) demonstrate areas where Natural Selection isn't as clear cut as in the animal kingdom. Why rely on something that might not work?

2 hours ago, Angevin said:

often it is a derivative, not actually mercury

It's sometimes not even a derivative of mercury, since the technology has evolved so that live vaccines are commonplace.

I think all vaccinations, including flu shots should be mandatory. People should want to be at their strongest and healthiest, and encourage their government to make it accessible.
Unfortunately, people think the nonexistent mercury (lol) in vaccinations makes you get autism.

Healthcare in the US is awful for many. I still have a giant feeling of restraint whenever I get ill because for my entire adult life until moving to Germany I was not financially able to go to the doctor for fear of having to pay a large deductible. I only got dental work done in the US because my grandfather died, and my grandmother has been using her life insurance money to take care of dental and doctor bills for her family.

Since coming to Germany, I finished the work that I needed done ($300~ possibly more). I pay 80 euros a month and I can go to the doctor without being scared. That should be normal in America.

3 hours ago, Rin said:

 

I'm pretty sure we've got enough ammunition in this world to destroy everything several times over. Aircraft has been more effective at killing more people and infra than nukes too. And when you say "all life" I guess you're not including the cockroaches who can survive the radiation.

I don't understand, what are you actually arguing? Are you saying that because Aircraft are better at killing people (Strange statement, as nuclear bombs can also be dropped from planes), ICBMs and nuclear warfare are not more deadly? And what does the cockroach bit have to do with anything other than just arguing over semantics unrelated to the discussion?

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Yes because it helped end the war quicker and prevented the deaths of thousands of American soldiers

I would also say it saved countless Japanese lives as well.

17 hours ago, Rin said:

Now look at it from a modern perspective. You know you are going to die in 1 hour. You can press the button and also kill the person who poisoned you.

 

On one side you have USA+ NATO+others. On the other side you have Russia.

 

Russia will ultimately lose a war, and their idea of deterrent is by nuking the other party hard enough to get them to stop. Or simply do it out of spite.

And this actually translates to a weird situation where conventional warfare does not ever occur in ways that actually mobilize or antagonize NATO forces, instead targeting fringe nations like Ukraine that don't push their buttons too hard.

2 hours ago, Sargun said:

Ask Japan how safe it made them lol

I'd say a couple hundred thousand died, possibly saving many  many more. So, maybe pretty safe. Especially if you weren't in either place.

Shameless self vote 

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Possibly, but America couldn't even beat Vietnam. And they had way more trouble with Iraq and Afghanistan than they should have, both of which were unstable. Iran is one of the world's major powers and one that got there without allies. America hasn't been able to decimate the military of anyone in recent wars, and Iran has way more land, defenses, and national unity.

 

I did underestimate the US's air superiority on its own - ~19 aircraft carriers. And while they lost in Vietnam, they won a naval war vs Japan, which had more pride, better navy and air.

These hypotheticals are about fighting conventional armies though, not insurgents like in Vietnam. The military forces of Iraq were decimated. The insurgent forces are not directed by military personnel, so I rest my case.

Living in an EU country currently, it's great.

5 hours ago, Bhuto said:

you can't take all your airforce in one place in like 1  month like whatever airforce US have they will not move 50% of it to fight iran cause they have other works to do as well like protecting EU, a few other nations, securing homeland and etc. 
 

Also they as well need a lot big base near iran to do that afganistan will not be that base surely same is for pakistan so alone saudi can't give shelter to this much of airforce. Also there are treaties / foreign relations to prevent US-Iran direct conflict. If US want they might use saudi for proxy war in iran if they sense threat but they will never go for direct war. 

I'm just saying that US military superiority is being greatly diminished here. The US decimated Iraq's standing military in less than a month, and in a straight 1v1 there are few (if any) nations that could win a conventional war against the US, and Iran is certainly not one of them.

14 hours ago, Rin said:

Hard call. I'd say by default it will be white peace. So what matters more is that who would win in a long, brutal, zero infra war. Interestingly, if the question was US vs Iran on Iran home soil, I'd bet on Iran. US doesn't have very good odds of invading Iran without Saudi help.

 

A bit beside the point, but the US would decimate the Iranian military in a week with air superiority alone. Air combat is the most important type of combat when it comes to destroying an enemy's military. I think you're undervaluing the gap between the US and the rest of the world by a lot.