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To: lentulusgracchus
I don't EVER want to hear that an American mission failed and American troops got carved up in the field

Nor do I, but as Clausewitz wrote, "war is the continuation of politics by other means" - not the other way around. If you cannot enable the domestic economy to be sufficiently strong to support a military that can win wars, debates over equipment are pretty much moot.

because somebody back home was busy saving money for the Park Avenue crowd at the expense of our men.

Given that we need to have a strong economy in order to have a strong military, your comments seem at best short-sighted, and at worst, an echo of the sorry democrat "tax cuts for the rich" lament, which was more intended to create class conflict than inform real debate.

That kind of BS argument ought to be beneath a FReeper, but is exactly what I expect from a troll. John Kerry, is that you?

142 posted on 12/05/2005 8:07:06 AM PST by LouD
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To: LouD
....as Clausewitz wrote, "war is the continuation of politics by other means" - not the other way around.

Which means you have to have the political will to wage war. How does your argument for mothballing classes of ships support that will?

If you cannot enable the domestic economy to be sufficiently strong to support a military that can win wars, debates over equipment are pretty much moot.

Is that what the Carthaginian businessmen told Hannibal, after they stiffed him on his requisition for serious appropriations of silver?

There's such a thing as cutting your own air hose.

167 posted on 12/05/2005 9:46:54 AM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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To: LouD
Given that we need to have a strong economy in order to have a strong military, your comments seem at best short-sighted, and at worst, an echo of the sorry democrat "tax cuts for the rich" lament, which was more intended to create class conflict than inform real debate.

That kind of BS argument ought to be beneath a FReeper, but is exactly what I expect from a troll. John Kerry, is that you?

Speaking of BS, I just noticed your post.

A "strong economy" is not coterminous with massive tax reductions for well-heeled taxpayers, who did quite well despite excessive taxation during the 1950's and 1960's -- they didn't call them the "go-go Sixties" because upper-income taxpayers were sitting at home like Achilles sulking in his tent.

Strong economy does not equal someone else's tax cut.

The reasons for cutting upper-bracket tax rates sound suspiciously like "Show me the money!" All the theory notwithstanding. They're like Wall Street bromides -- they've got you covered no matter what. On the one hand, "bulls make money and bears make money, but pigs get slaughtered," but on the other hand, "cut your losses short but let your profits run." It's all covered -- the customer's man can't lose, he's armored with a line for every occasion!

But none of them is the economic equivalent of what you'd have us believe, that "if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy!" It just isn't true that the prosperity of society as a whole is dependent on the tax rate on income over $250K.

I don't believe in progressive taxation or any of the other policy nostrums of the Democratic Party, and you are engaging in gratuitous ad-hominem to suggest I do, as there is nothing in my posts that would support that suggestion. My point is, that if you are a war-leader and hope to lead a people to victory in a key fight against the rising forces of Islamism, and eventually against Chinese imperialist revanchism, you don't subserve the tax hustle of a tiny investor class at the visible expense of the public business, by privileging that class's agenda against all other claims. It's class warfare when the Democrats do it for their client poor, and it's class warfare when Manor Bush and Big Dick Cheney do it for their client wealthy. The rest of us need to sit on all these class partisans and lead the entire society to gee and haw together -- since we're in a war and all.

</off-topic>

169 posted on 12/05/2005 10:14:45 AM PST by lentulusgracchus ("Whatever." -- sinkspur)
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