Lucky...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulda_Gap Right, it was more of the same; like cat's fighting and screaming all night but no fur every flying. There was never a cold war fight between the USSR and the west. It was a low-key long-term version of the Bay of Pigs. Big countries never fight, they just have proxy wars. The Soviets, after the BOP, never offered a threat to the US; perhaps you and Ronnie both watched too many Top Gun-type movies before 1981. As far as lethal, the armament you listed was not collectively lethal enough to overthrow a nation. The questions I'm asking are: 1) Was there a threat other than the typical grumbling of 2 superpowers flwxing muscle who would NEVER actually fire a shot? If you think so then you were deceived, just as GWB was with WMD's. But let's be real, no one was deceived, it was the artifical creation of an enemy to justify gross spending. 2) Did they have COLLECTIVE ARMAMENT, not just enough for one batttle on one field, but enough to justify hawking our future? Were that even ahead of us in conventional arms? And they were entangled in the Afg War, so they were spead out some, they have fewer people than we do and a lot less resource. Answer those literally, not thru some pseudo-patriotic reference. Your answer is akin to Jack Nicholson in A Few Good Men when he said something like: You wear those faggoty white uniforms and ......... you don't get it..... bla. It's pseudo-patriotic bravado, it doesn't address the issue of need, it just paints it over with a broad brush of, "we can excuse the RW for trashing this country with over-spending on the military; it's ok." I'm not taking present day as in today, I'm talking about putting ourselves back in 1981 and then build an argument as to how A) aggressive the USSR was toward us; were they about to attack? B) Did they have the means if they had the desire? I don't think we get past A and even if we did somehow, how do we get into B and determine their lethality reasonably? I guess we just say, "Well, we don't know, so we'll just do generational theivery as McCain says and spend the next 100 years of our GDP on a paranoid dellusional dream of star wars meets a wild guess.

Hi Air Lucky He's back As soon as see lucky's name I don't bother reading further. Don't feed the trolls Why not go address some things. Hey, might even teach me a thing or two.

If you take debt incured under Reagan, Bush, Bush (altho I don't blame the elder Bush) it was: - 2T - 1.3T - 5T For a tally of 8.3T, well over 1/2. Again, I blame GHWB's increase on Reagan, since GHWB inherited that increase and did all he could to curtail it and had to deal with a real war inhis term, not a fabricated war off off paranoia. So 8.3 from 12T is > 2/3. Now, let's look at the 1.6T under Clinton. Clinton inherited a recovering recession and an out of control deficit/debt. He finished the recession recovery, turned a 290B deficit into a 236B surplus and turned the debt increase almost flat. So can we blame Clinton even tho every last year of his 8 showed a lower debt increase and a deficit that went to 0, then up on the otehr side to a black? I don't see how we can blame any person for receiving a POS and leaving a much better economy. The 900B that Reagan inherited were mostly war costs from the Civil War, VN and WWII, so blame who ya want with that, but how can anyone conscionably blame a person for receiving a mess and turning it to gold? Yep, lines only crossed under Clinton at the end....they uncrossed shortly in to GWB's time.

The sky is falling too.

1) What has Obama spent money on? 2) Of those things, which is wasteful and not necessary? Please be specific to all accounts. You haven't addressed how Russia was, A) a trheat and B) militarily dominant. Guess what? You won't - just keep runnin from that. The economy was bad, but teh debt was under control. The debt was caused by 2 things: 1) Overspending on the military when there was no need 2) Grossly cutting taxes to hook-up his corporate buddies Technically there was no Clinton recession, but realistically there was a very minor one. If you believe there was a realistic recession at teh end of Clinton term, by the same criteria you must also believe we were in a recession at the mid-end of 2007. It was minor as evidenced that after 911, the following Q was +. He also left a 236B surplus, and the was virtually even, the first time since 1969. Clinton had the most growth of any pres and left a big surplus, that was teh best handoff since probably Eisenhower to Kennedy. That's because he entered office at a time when the 700B bailout was just done by Bush and the 787B stimulus was needed. What you say makes as much sense as FDR's VP calling Hoover a socialist for virtually trippling taxes in Hover's last year. These things are needed, to scowl from the sideline is ridiculous and if he did tax cuts my friends you would be blaming him for doing nothing. What spending has he done in total? What spending is unneccesary? What shoud he do? (I don't expect answers here) No, but it's being abstract and omits the entire picture. Obama inherited a mess he had to fix and it has cost money early. IF Obama signed a 787B bill once a year for all 8 years, then yes, he would spend at the rate to which you state. You need to understand and admit 2 things: 1) He inherited a mess he has to buy our way out of; do you have a better idea? 2) He won't be enacting a 787B stimulus every year for 8 years. Faster: based on 10 months in office and a 787B stimulus. Even if you don't blame Bush, REGARDLESS, it's a fucking mess: quit posturing and WHATTHE FUCK WOULD YOU DO? I know, you don't wanna talk about that.

Here we go again, we need an affidavit from God in order to be sure. In teh law it's called the "Reasonable man standard." This is basically a no-BS, cu the crap, don't need to hear every puny semi-relevant detail, just cutthe shit and tell me the fatcs. IOW's, altho Clinton was correct in asking what the definition of, "is" is, (he really meant context or usge) it could have been a directive, an inquiry or a conjunctive I guess, the REASONABLE MAN would say BS, you know what the fuck we're asking. Same here, we see the USSR was a mess in 1981 as was teh US with our recession and interest. A REASONABLE MAN would say yea, I don;t see them wanting to attack or being very able to bring a strong attack even if they wanted to. That's right, the REASONABLE MAN would declare that both were there, neither IMO were there actually. And guess what? I WAS RIGHT as were the rest of the reasonable men. WMD's in Iraq? The reasonable men were all saying BS, they were right. We can reach for BS rationale, but if you can seperate yourself from the emotion you can find yourself reasonable. We've already forfeited our future on the whim of 2 maddmen, Reagan and GWB, let's just be sure and take that 8 times military spending over #2 and triple it. Wait , wait, wait, never can be too safe, let's militarize everyone from age 8 and up, sped every penny we have and can borrow onteh military - never can be too safe. There comes a point where you have to be REASONABLE with the military preparedness and just live life and count on the rest of the reasonable world to watch your back as you would theirs. There are no guarantees other thma when you mox out the military and cut social spending and let corporations run everythig for profit that you will end up with a POS. And here I thought Pearl Harbor was bombed on Dec 7, 1941. I must need to go back to school and take history lessons. And there's no end to the madness of that mentality. It's like a bulimic chick barfing because she might see an oune of fat between her ribs. We can be as OCD and extreme as we want, but what is a REASONABLE compromise between national security and not slamming the debt all to fuck? We've already passed that, too late, 2 shitheads have hammered this country into the ground in the name of national security and the irony is that we were attacked in spite of that. Nuclear warfare = all bets off, you can have the biggest conventional force you want, if they push teh button it really doesn't matter. Conventional warffare is used when you want to have a tomorrow the ay you want it to be, nuclear warfare is when you don't care about tomorrow; different animals. I get the concept; FEAR - CREATE FUCKING FEAR TO JUSTIFY GIVING AWAY THE COUNTRY. Did I say immune? Your word. But the likelyhood is a lot lower if you have trade. again, no guarantees, just what a REASONABLE MAN would do/think. Don't forget politics, land (which is a sort of resource), religion is a sort of ideology, but capitalism vs communism isn't exactly religion, so my point is that it's so much more than resource or religion. You didn't. If you don;t have the energy or desire to cut-n-patse your claim, it falls flat. BTW, you have addressd maybe 20% of what I wrote, I assume you are acquiescing and agree then.

Aliens can't vote. I'd have thought you'd know that. Which aliens? Illegal or the kind with spaceships? I wouldn't harass the latter with hanging chad BS, they might vaporize you!

There ya go, make em a glass parking lot and now we're Hitler. I'm sorry this county is going the opposite way that you want to see it. Let's just say you guy woke a sleeping giant: millions of people sick of Reaganomics, youth, minority, all my friends

He's just posturing. He can't change anything radically until HC gets passed for fear of alienating votes. Get HC passed and he pulls out - just watch.

There you go making up stuff again. The debt increase goes in 2 main steps. - 900b to 5.5T Reagan started the tax cut and massive spend frenzy, the 2 following presidents - GHWB and Clinton - cut spending, cut the military and increased taxes. Their deeds paid off in 2001 when Clinton left with a 236B surplus and the increase to the debt his last year was only 33B from 12 years of 250B/yr. - 5.5T to where it is today 12T and climbing GWB took the economy, gave away the surplus and cut taxes in the start of what is today a $1T war and climbing. He spent on whatver he wanted and cut taxes leading to this mess. Will Obama be able to cap this mess so the next neo-con can run it up again?

I realize it would actually take you some work, but why not post examples of how I did that. Here it is again, not that you shouldn't go back and make your point, you won't, but when Reagan cam into office and decided the axis of evil was horrible and had to be stomped out, he should have made an assessment on 2 points: 1) The USSR was an active and imminent threat 2) The USSR had the conventional lethality to do grave damage to the US so we better tool up OK, agree? So now we have to determine both items above. We were trading with them, I don't see how they were a threat. They made no overt threats and in fact, since teh Bay of Pigs had even repaired our relationship. Now for the second, how do we determine how conventionally lethal the USSR is in 1981? Well, the Afghan War started a little over a year prior and I don't know what other conflicts they had gotten in before that, but the last major one I know of where we could make an assessment was WWII. I've posted the numbers a lot of times, the fact is that the USSR was not an efficient killing machine but a large low-tech force who threw a lot of people at an issue and a lot died, they eventually got teh job done. The US, OTOH, lost 200k as they did what % inteh defeat of Germany/Italy? If we did the same amount as Russia, we were 50 times better/more efficient. I just can't make an argument for how tough Russia was in 1981 by looking at ANY of their past performances, can you? And I can't establish how Russia had an itch to defeat us. Reagan was a product of the 40's, 50's where he thought the commies were-a-comin and never lost the delusion. He was basically a fascist businessman that was protectionist of corporations; this truely was a MAJOR shift in our society and ole crappy drawers had to use the USSR as a reason to shift the country to the corporations. Right, it was a rhetorical question, the idea is that promoting teh breakup of teh USSR was a bad idea; thx fascist Ronnie. That doesn't answer it, now you answer it: The Reagan buidlup was about conventional military, so explain how the USSR was so tough and wanting to attack us in 1981. How was Russia both wanting and able to attack the US in 1981? Thank you!!! Sinc no one can really be sure who's right (how tough the bear is) isn't it smart to be as string as the bear? And 1989 showed who was right. It didn't take a genius in 1981 to understand that Russia wasn't shit. Their economy was decimated then, they had no designs to attack us; WE PROVIDED THEIR FUCKING GRAIN FOR FUCK'S SAKE. So we have to use what intelligence is available and make an honest detrmination. See a pareallel between idiot Reagan and idiot GWB? They hide behind the supposedly unknown and then blame it on bad intelligence after things go to fuck. Those 2 turds are to blame for the massive debt, the debt might be 3-4T at the most w/o them, probabluy 2Tish, now the Dems are allegedly evil by some for having to spend our way out of this mess THEY CREATED. Butthx for cherry-picking all that info you ran from the post.

Why not hit reply in that case - save the bandwidth - you didn't add anything anyway, just skip it or if you need to add nothing, do so, but don't pretend you actually contribute.

But you never post an alternative. See, if you agree there is a problem but just criticize the current propositions, your words fall unheard. Tell me what to do with the uninsured.

Reagan = Operation Coffee Cup Today = Tea Party Protests Could these guys be original and pick a different food, possibly bundt cake or maybe ice cream? I dunno, maybe switch to the beer-gut bandits or something fun like that.

I was reading his Wiki page and he would speak at GE meetings, what appeared to be pep rallies that turned highly conservative and then he was fired by GE. He turned to politics after that. Yea, he was nuts, not here yet, not clinically, but he turned nutty in the 50's when he supported the House Un-American Activities Committee http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_Committee_on_Un-American_Activities and turned people in for alllegedly being Communist sypathizers in Hollywood. The guy was a punk all the way around and a rat. Reminds me of the case law; Mapp v Ohio where the cops were looking for pro-Communist propaganda and found porn. It's a 4th case. But to just say you want to read aboiuyt Communism and be jailed for it, to be jailed by some states (16 in 1968) for marrying out of your race is just sick. And Reagan seems to be a beacon for that kind of sickness. He opposed civil rts legislation and then later signed some, but I think we see his true colors.

By who's standard is this "better" and why the fuck should you try to make this a contest? Fuck that shit. Seriously. Relax. I find it better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs Here was that great humanitarian as we know him hating on everyone poor. This was Operation Coffee Cup to prohibit Medicare. I'd like to get one of these old records as a keepsake. Probably worth a fortune. His post WWII paranoia is already apparent. Telling doctors where to live, kids where to go to school. All kinds of paranoid ramblings on here. Rights of the minority he says? The minority are those w/o HC, right? Fascist Ronnie, you're stepping on your own toes. I love it, he speaks of fiscal responsibility. He must have stuck himself with a diaper pin and forgot all that.

Once the Soviets had attained nuclear capabilities the strength of their army in WWII was, from that time forward, a moot point. I covered this formerly in th thread. The Reagan buildup was generally conventional. See, if someone wants to push the button, no amount of conventional force matters, which is why we are not going to allow N Korea and Iran to get nukes. We were developing nuclear weapons in the S Pacific from 46 to 58 I want to say and after that it was the Nay of Pigs, not a conventional military operation, but a stand-off. After that VN and the military buildup, but it was escallated during Reagan's term, mostly conventional and there was no need. USSR Communism is a horrible form of fiscal government and was failing early. Hee is a small bit of info about their economy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Five-Year_Plans_for_the_National_Economy_of_the_Soviet_Union The Eleventh Plan, 1981–1985 During the Eleventh Five-Year Plan, the country imported some 42 million tons of grain annually, almost twice as much as during the Tenth Five-Year Plan and three times as much as during the Ninth Five-Year Plan (1971-75). The bulk of this grain was sold by the West; in 1985, for example, 94 percent of Soviet grain imports were from the nonsocialist world, with the United States selling 14.1 million tons. However, total Soviet export to the West was always almost as high as import, for example, in 1984 total export to the West was 21.3 billion rubles, while total import was 19.6 billion rubles. So we actually exported more to them than they did to us, they had no grain so they had to import it and had been for decades it appears. Probably not enough fertile grouds to grow it upon. So if we had been hostile with them in the early 80's, what would make a reasonable person believe they wanted to attack us, over-militarize us, etc? Kinda a bad idea to kill your bread supplier. Did the US spending really effecct the USSR and hasten their collapse? http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/foreign/reagrus.htm Neither the strong nor the weak version of the proposition that American defense spending bankrupted the Soviet economy and forced an end to the Cold War is sustained by the evidence. The Soviet Union's defense spending did not rise or fall in response to American military expenditures. Revised estimates by the Central Intelligence Agency indicate that Soviet expenditures on defense remained more or less constant throughout the 1980s. The Carter-Reagan military buildup did not defeat the Soviet Union. On the contrary, it prolonged the Cold War. Gorbachev's determination to reform an economy crippled in part by defense spending urged by special interests, but far more by structural rigidities, fueled his persistent search for an accommodation with the West. That persistence, not SDI, ended the Cold War. Now think about this, how do you feel with the weapons disseminated to smaller Russian block countries? ____________________________ Pakistan has nukes, so what does that mean? They could have virtually no military and wouldn't have to have one if tey have nukes. It's really a different animal than conventional buildups. Small countries just need nukes with a finger hovering over the button, large countries need both conventional and nuclear, but they canniot use the nuclear option unless at the last moment. The Reagan buidlup was about conventional military, so explain how the USSR was so tough and wanting to attack us in 1981.

I never once said they did, I stated the WWII losses to establish the lethality of the USSR Army as compared to the rest of the world and by that determined they weren't a force to be feared then, nothing since made me think different, so why build up the military so grossly that it put us in the hole to that degree? If they were a force and a threat in 1981, I would be the first to say we should build our military in preparation for a war or showdown, I just don;t see any evidenmce that: - They were a threat - They were militarily so superior in 1981 that we needed to build up This has zero to do with troop numbers in WWII, as in who had how many troops, this was all about will and lethality in 1981 and we must use their history to find evidence of where they're at by looking at history, right? Unless we had a Ouija board.

Guess what, Lucky - Reagan wasn't building the military based on Russian troop levels ca. 1945 - take $20 and go buy a clue. Or you could just admit you were full of shit - your choice. THE PA'S NEVER END, DO THEY?

You have to make your argument a microcosm rather than a general overview in order to try to persuade me they were ever collectively tough. I'm sure there were some bad-asses in the Russian army, but as a whole you have to evaluate the entire force and their record in order to determine their lethality. I'm not talking 1 division, 1 encounter, I'm being imperical and looking at teh entire machine; the only reasonable way to estimate a countries military. You also have to determine they wanted to overtake the US in order to conscionably justify the bilking of 100's of billions on the overbuilding of our military and I haven't heard any arguments toward that from anyone. All I've ever declared to be is an acft structural expert. After 20 years in structure, 25-30 in all of acft, being in the USAF, flying with my dad and hanging at the airport since I was 5 YO I think I get aviation. So if you want to be sarcastic rather than constructive, fine, but I want to hear how Reagan could think the USSR was militarily leathal enough to mortgage our future. So no, I'm not an expert in anything but acft structure. This was never about troop levels, this is about government desire militarily and military potemtial in 1981. The numbers I gave you were troop deaths in WWII; the USSR lost 10.5M, Germany 6M, the US 200k. Mike, I see you're avoiding teh issue, but here it is big and bold: WHAT WOULD MAKE A PERSON BELIEVE THAT THE USSR WAS BOTH WANTING AND ABLE TO BEAT THE USA MILITARILY? We have to use the past to understand the future/present in 1981 so we can understand why Reagan would think there was a need to pump our military so big.

Tell that to any of the armor folks that were stationed in the Fulda Gap - they'll be more than happy to tell you that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Better yet - tell that to the Czechs or the Poles, or the East Germans. Why ignore the data that the Alliedes lost ~1/2M, the USSR 10.5M. Who did what? Did the USSR do proportionately that much more toward overthrowing Germany? W/o brealing out the calculator, to be even with us, they would have had to have done 3/4 + of the handling of Germany to justify the losses, unless they were an inferior fighting force and had to rely on sheer numbers, which I think is the case. Germany lost 6M and Russian had homefield or had to jump over to adjacent nation, many allieds, eps us had to travel; hwo is it that the USSR lost almost twice the troops Germany did and literally 50 times the troops we did if they were equaly as lethal as us? Why notr go back and address other issues in my posts? How about you stick with one timeframe? Cold War 1945-1989. Senile Reagan thought the USSR was so tough and scary ...based upon what? Their lame attempt in Afghanistan? Going back, going back, going back....I find nothing from the USSR to make me think they are or ever were a force to be reckoned with, so why the fear? If they lost 10.5M troops, Germany 6M, the US 200k in the overthrow of Germany/Italy, then what makes a sane person (not Reagn) think the USSR would be tough enough to come to the US and kick our asses? They had homefield and they lost 50 times that of the US. It was pure dellusion by Ronnie. The central questions are this: What makes a sane person believe that the USSR was, A) a threat, and, B) militarily far superior to us so we had to spend 100's of billions?

Here's a better one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph3PGSVxr7A&feature=related Better music too.

Tell that to any of the armor folks that were stationed in the Fulda Gap - they'll be more than happy to tell you that you don't know what the fuck you're talking about. Better yet - tell that to the Czechs or the Poles, or the East Germans. Why ignore the data that the Alliedes lost ~1/2M, the USSR 10.5M. Who did what? Did the USSR do proportionately that much more toward overthrowing Germany? W/o brealing out the calculator, to be even with us, they would have had to have done 3/4 + of the handling of Germany to justify the losses, unless they were an inferior fighting force and had to rely on sheer numbers, which I think is the case. Germany lost 6M and Russian had homefield or had to jump over to adjacent nation, many allieds, eps us had to travel; hwo is it that the USSR lost almost twice the troops Germany did and literally 50 times the troops we did if they were equaly as lethal as us? Why notr go back and address other issues in my posts?

It took a few decades for deficit spending combined with an expensive military to crush the Soviet Union. The Cold War started in 1945-46, right? The debt fell under Truman and Eisenhower for a given year or two, even during Korea. Then it was ok in the 60's, even fell in 69. Point is, the Cold War build-up of the late 40's, 50's, 60's didn't run the debt up, so why under Reagan? Hmm, if I could just put it together, hmmmm, think, think, think..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Income_tax_in_the_United_States lower left graph You can see the debt start to climb as the top tax rate falls. Esp when fascist Ronnie took office and hammered it down from 70% to 50% overnight, it really took off. The 38% and 28% nailed the coffin shut. Clinton had such a massive growing economy he was able to heal it with just a 40% top brkt, but we have to get back to no less than 50%, preferably 50-70% to be healthy again. It worked all the way from 32 when Hoover pumped it to 63% until fascist pig Reagan slammed it. _______________________________________________ Now, let's talk the scarry and dangerous axis of evil Russians. In WWII they had teh help of the enire world to take out 2 rouge nations; Germany and Italy. Who knows what apportionment you would lay on them as far as what good % they did in taking out Germany. Let's say 50-50, Russians / allieds. Tell me how, if they are such a feared fighting force that they lost 10.5M troops and the allieds lost about 1/2M. Germany lost 6M. They don't seem too dangerous to me. We are talking conventional now, not nukular (GWB), as Pakistan has the button, so that's not what you buildup for, if they resort to the button all the tank and airships don't matter. So how much of a threat were they? And tehy had homefield advantage too, we had to travel 1000's of miles and we were substantial. Come on, the USSr was never shit militarily, fascist Ronnie wanted to give the country to Military Industrial Complex and had to dream up an enemy.