JctRsp

Well, I think I'm a biased source here, but I'll post anyways. If you think only people that can afford kids should have them, then the only people having kids will be rich (from their parents' money) or in their 30's. A normal, young family is in a lot of debt in their early to mid 20's. They're paying off college loans, trying to buy a house, getting a car that's safe for their family, etc..... It's simply illogical to believe that everyone should be rich if they want to have kids. Also, I'm pretty happy that my parents had me, and I think I have been and will be a value to society and will easily pay off the couple hundred dollars the government spent helping buy me diapers. Lets see, I was the president of numerous clubs in HS, including the National Honor Society, have had a job ever since 2 weeks after I turned 16 (earlier if you count working in the cotton fields), was a Texas State Champion for high school track, and am about to graduate from West Point and get my commission in the US Army on May 28th. So yes, my parents were poor and needed some government help (just WIC, not food stamps, welfare, etc.), but should that mean that they never should have had me? I think I've already paid off those couple hundred dollars in WIC and will do even more in my life....So according to a cost-benefit analysis it's highly overcritical and illogical to say if you're not rich you shouldn't have kids (no you didntt specifically say this, but it's the only way a 22 year old could really afford to provide for kids well). So I respectfully disagree. -Jonathan

Yeah, I'd say he's an accident since he was born in May and they got married in November (pushed that wedding up a bit).

Oh I saw plenty of those problems. I grew up surrounded by cotton fields and saw many people not able to get a job because they couldn't work as cheaply as the mexicans could. People would come in and out of my schools during cotton season and enroll in the ESL class. There's problems with every theory, and I personally don't buy into the theory that a free border is an end-all solution....I just threw out at there as food for thought.

I'm sorry for being an accident and the subsequent reason that my parents saved all their money for a vasectomy......... I guess I'm also sorry for my mom having to drop out of night classes for her master's degree and take a part-time job after teaching during the day.

There's no reason to be sorry, what you wrote was correct, it just didn't address other issues in the program (which is impossible to do with the amount of posts/little amount of time to do it in). And yes, I have seen WIC abused.....much the same as food stamps, but you just gotta take the good with the bad. [edit] I think they do need an overhaul of how they're run and it would solve many problems.....but I'm in no way smart enough to do that overhauling.

This post is to no one in particular so I'm replying to myself..... Most everyone is either complaining about too much security at the borders (essentially making it so hard for illegals to feed their families that they die in the process) or simply not enough protection from a grossly underfunded Border Patrol. While both of these have their merits, have any of y'all read the studies on immigration for the best way to control illegal immigrants? I've read numerous studies and surprise surprise, the best way to deal with immigration is a free border. The basic premise is that a certain amount of immigrants will cross each year, and they'll simply go to the least fortified area to cross. Now, since we beef up the security on the border, it gets increasingly harder to cross. Well, this means illegal immigrants will cross the border and stay over here forever because it's so difficult/dangerous to cross. However, in a more free border there is a flow of immigrants in and out of the country and illegal immigrants are much less likely to stay in the USA for extended periods of time, thus reducing the amount of illegal immigrants in the country. Now yes, this does have huge security issues, but I just felt like the thread needed someone to discuss the different theories of border control rather than just say ours suck. But what do I know, I won't even get my BS for another 54 days, 7 hours and 55 minutes.

On a side note (sorry, but I had to hijack for a second), the WIC program is a good program. I worked in a supermarket for 3 years and saw many young, poor families able to support their kids solely because of WIC. Also, when I was a kid my mom enrolled in the WIC program and it's the only way we could have afforded food.......Both parents had jobs and worked overtime but with me and my brother they couldn't afford proper food/clothing without the program. So just because illegals (and some legals) abuse the program it isn't altogether bad (and i'm not a huge fan of socialism either).

i think it's different than normal "fun". I find it both relaxing and exhilarating. The relaxing part is being out in the woods quietly stalking an animal. In the not so fun method you're sitting in a stand and waiting bored. But once you catch sight of your intended animal and line up the shot, the blood is flowing and it's just an awesome feeling. So fun isn't what I'd describe it as, but it's the closest I could get.

Yeah, except mine came undone, and then off during freefall......there goes my new helmet and pro-track (lost in the woods forever).

I disagree Ron. Saddam wouldn't want to use his nukes because if he did his country would surely be destroyed and he'd probably be killed himself. HOWEVER, NK has a desperately poor economy and needs money. On top of that, they have an egomanic dictator that could reap the profits of an arms sell. Frankly, I'm more worried about NK having a nuke and selling it to terrorists than I would be with the piss-poor job of nuclear weapons control the Soviet Union had after their collapse.

Because of current international law, it's almost impossible to declare war nowadays. It's all merely semantics, because declaring war means an intent of aggression and the UN and all the treaties are about fighting only as a defense. So no country really declares war anymore and the "Law of War" everyone talks about (hell I even called it that in another thread because it's easier) it's actually the "Law of Armed Conflict" (LOAC). So to sum it up, they're not wars, they're armed conflicts because international law has basically outlawed war.

http://www.inaugural05.com/donors/ I did a really quick addition of it and got just short of $25 million donated as of Friday.

We haven't seen each other since October, but that's no reason to want to quit talking to me already. But I'm not really sure right now if I'm pro-UN or anti-UN. When I took a tour of their building in NYC 2 years ago I was pretty much anti-UN. And as much as one of my instructors tried to make me more anti-UN, i'm starting to see some of the merits that the organization COULD have. However, with your posts and the article you sent me, I'm assuming that you have no clue about the story I'm talking about. It gets to the moral integrity and lack of intestinal fortitude (sorry for the cheesy phrase but it works) that I think international leaders should have. So, here's the story. I may simplify it way too much for you, and that's not because I question your intelligence, I just have no clue what your understanding of the UN is. The Security Council passed a Chapter VI resolution to go into Rwanda as peace-keepers. Now, with the Chapter VI resolution, the forces were there as peace-keepers in a self-defense role unless the Rwandan government acted alongside them. So yes, the Security Council crippled their effectiveness to a degree by not issuing a Chapter VII resolution, but Kofi still had a great oppurtunity to stop the genocide. General Dallaire radioed his boss, Kofi to tell him that there was a warehouse with potential weapons that he wanted his soldiers to guard to stop the massacre. Guarding the warehouse would not have violated the Chapter VI resolution because it would be to keep the peace and they had to attack no one to get there. At the time it was an unprotected, basically unused warehouse that had many things that could (and eventually would) be used to massacre people. Annan ordered General Dallaire to stay where he was and not guard the weapons. A short time later, the people went to the warehouse, grabbed the weapons and Dallaire's men watched as they took these weapons and started killing people. Had Kofi Annan shown some care for something other than his political career and taken a chance (though legally he would have still be fine), this genocide wouldn't have gone on. I have every right to feel that he is a spineless, self-serving leader because of this. I know that I've always been taught good leaders stand up for what's right and put others before themself. I just don't see how this shows Kofi as a good leader, and if he's not a good leader he shouldn't be kept in his position. Now, I really need to stop responding on here because I've got to read for my advanced law of war class, so I'm not going to go into more detail. Take care Drew, and I'll see you at the dz when you leave the warmth for this frozen hell-hole we call NY.

I was up at the Ranch this weekend and asked Leland about it. It's still being finished but I think it should be ready in a month or two.

I disagree, I actually know the structure of the UN decently well and I'm not discussing the political nature of his job. What I'm talking about is when Kofi was in charge of the Chapter VI resolution as a peacekeeping mission in Rwanda. His orders to a Canadian general resulted in the genocide.