why cant we just all get along?

funny that nearly everything in that article proves my point...

"On at least 125 occasions, the President has acted without prior express military authorization from Congress.[20] These include instances in which the United States fought in the Philippine–American War from 1898–1903, in Nicaragua in 1927, as well as the NATO bombing campaign of Yugoslavia in 1999."

125 is a pretty big number. Now personally, I have faith in checks and balances, and don't seek to change the war declaration part of the system. However, I think it's unfair how everyone is treating Kellen like an idiot when he is right: The President can start a war without any need of Congress if he was determined to.

Edited 7/8/2015 16:37:58

so which of those 125 did congress try and fail to stop? which of those led to conflicts requiring more troops than the war powers acts permitted? how much of that article did you read beyond that one paragraph? my point, if you care to try to understand it, is that the president has not subverted congress and congress has the means to stop any subversion.

i wish i could delve into this further, but doing so on a 3g phone is a pain, and you seem to not understand the point being made. maybe im not making it clear enough, but i no longer care.

"Why can't we all get along?"

That is the most ignorant though I have ever heard. As long as there are humans in the world there will be hate, violence, and political rants. It is simply in our nature.

My take: I think Kellen has the right idea with many of his foreign policy and government reforms points.

From a Constitutional perspective only congress can declare war. So technically the presidents who went to war without congresses approval have broken the law and should have been impeached. Yes, that is a lot of presidents.

His foreign policy is "mostly right". I don't think he understands that the Kurdish forces operating in Turkey are TERRORISTS and COMMUNISTS (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurdistan_Workers%27_Party). While the Europeans have removed the TERRORIST label on the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), the US and many other nations that like Turkey still recognize them as terrorists.

Furthermore, Kurds outside of Turkey often gain training in their home country and then leave to join the PKK or another insurrectionist group. Even worse, when Americans decided to arm the Kurds in Iraq and Syri those weapons may have been smuggled over to the recourse deprived PKK while the Kurds in Syria and Iraq ask for EVEN MORE WEAPONS. So by arming the Kurds you are actually indirectly arming COMMUNISTS (sounds a lot like Afghanistan 1989s or Cuba). Don't even get me started on arming the "moderate" Muslim rebel groups in Syria.

The PKK have bombed Turkish civilians and many other soft targets killing hundreds of innocent people. They are by no means "the good guys" in the middle east and the Kurdish groups outside of Turkey, while well meaning, are supporting this kind of terrorism as a means to an end.

To make matters worse, the Turkish prime minister just said that "The crimes of the Jews against the Palestinians are far more brutal than those of Hitler."

TLDR: There are no good guys in the middle east. There isn't a winning team and there isn't a peaceful way to deal with them. The Arabs, and Kurds have to have a Renaissance, or a civil rights movement. We can NOT force this on them. All Civil rights movements and Renaissances have been from the inside out and we can't possibly fix the problem from the outside.

The main problem is that Islam has NOT had a reform since the medieval times unlike Christians, Jews, and Hindis. That reform has to come from other Muslims otherwise it will just be looked at as "Westernization."

Edited 7/8/2015 17:05:50

Finally someone gets my point. My main argument was a lot less literal and more reform urging. Not just Congress and War.

*Edit* Communism isn't bad as you will see in my next update.

Edited 7/8/2015 17:01:19

Communism is good..... In theory.... However in practice you get guys like Stalin. I mean I guess that if everyone decided to "get along" ( think about let's all just get along, abandon our self interests), then we should establish a one man leadership to responsibly rule the world( Call me John brown cause this is truly RADICAL!!!! At least I guess). of course leadership will be hard to find, but true equality is great. I mean I guess military force, ruthlessness, and propaganda might be needed to raise tolerance into future generations but, after that transcendentalism should be the way to go.

Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Find me a decentralized Socialism/Communism sub ideology and I we might start a debate. There are also many problems with Collectivism. For Example, seeing people as groups and treating people based on what group they are in rather than what they have done is on the road to Serfdom.

Updated

Yea that's kinda what happens in practice :P

I've been playing minecraft and it's interesting to see communist theory play out in practice.

So 3 good friends (me included) worked very hard to construct a base and make it sustainable. We all did good share of work, and all had trust.

We lived without rules, but we always shared everything in organized fashion.

We let in a few people who are working types and are loyal. They do not keep many things to themself, but they disorganize the warehouse system very badly.

We try to establish some Faction rules and make an objective board. We struggle to find people willing to farm or gather wood,or even mine. Most wanting to just make a room in our base and act as though they are special.

We recruit a massive amount of people, everything gets haywire. People keep vast amounts of things to themself, nobody truly obeys the authority and all construction projects are abandoned. The warehouse becomes a scavenging ground, people taking the resources for themselves whenever there is any available.

Several players leave, but not before trying to burn down and destroy a lot of the base and the warehouse. They call up very well armored/armed players from other factions to help them in their "raid" of our faction. We have to call in a few buddies to assist. I end up leading 3 of the only loyal/working types as soldiers along with 3 buddies against about 5 raiders.

After a lot of running around, constant respawning and pillaging / looting / razing, they all retreat from our base. My buddies leave, and the worker types leave save 1. The base is trashed, the resources are scattered. I had made several safe rooms in preparation for a possible raids, but they all got ignored or they were not used properly. A lot of things were lost.

My 2 good friends came online to see the damage, and our pitiful rebuilding efforts. They decided to cease the faction's existence. The worst thing of the entire experience was seeing this contained group slowly decay, until everything went haywire and the resources were never there. A lot of progress had been lost.

It goes you show that Communism is a poor man's fantasy, and something unattainable due to natural human jealousy.

^Unless you set up a EXTREME authoritarian rule, you might have been able to sustain the group. Then again, many people probably would have ended up leaving.

Except for letting Iran have nukes, very bad idea.

Oh, so America, Russia, Israel, and many other countries can have nukes but not Iran? What makes America, (+ others) so special? Why can we trust America, but not Iran?

Edited 7/9/2015 12:24:45

Iran has threatened to destroy countries. America has not.

Oh, so America, Russia, Israel, and many other countries can have nukes but not Iran? What makes America, (+ others) so special? Why can we trust America, but not Iran?

For the record, I don't like anyone having nukes. Any weapon capable of ending life as we know it should be buried and never constructed again. It's bad enough that nine countries already have them, we don't need additional countries joining the MAD team. Especially ones with a history of extremism.

I totally agree with Eklipse here, and it may have come off differently, but I do not say this, meaning "Hurr durr let's just give everyone nukes!" I say this, meaning that nukes are a waste of money, and time, and it doesn't take long for one crazy leader to get possession of them, if they are already at disposal. I'm saying that all these countries have no right to have nukes, Iran included.

Iran has threatened to destroy countries. America has not.

You depict countries as anthropomorphic. America is not a person, that has emotions, and neither is Iran. It entirely depends on the leader of the country. Sure, America hasn't threatened to destroy a country... YET. But hear me, it just takes one crazy leader to get them, and then use them. This is why we cannot trust any country with them.

That being said, the one good thing I have to say about nukes, is that they deter countries from going in all out war against each other, but this is really only useful in a cold war, which we are not in right now. Iran has no need for nukes. Israel has no need for nukes, neither does Britain, France, North Korea, China, India, Pakistan, and Russia and USA don't need them anymore.

Think how much we could progress as a world if there wasn't so much money wasted on nukes.

Edited 7/9/2015 14:39:39

Since we're discussing nukes, it should also be pointed out there's a worse threat than just countries having nukes: Nuclear terrorism. The more countries that acquire nuclear weapons and the more that are built only increases the chance of a terrorist organization getting their hands on a nuclear bomb and blowing up some random city.

Of course, even getting rid of all our nukes isn't going to make it impossible for terrorists to build one. But we could at-least carefully monitor materials needed to build them.

Going on the basis of nukes and mad leaders here...

I've heard that Donald Trump still has a very high chance of being the next American President. What are people thoughts on a guy like that having the power to start Nuclear war considering some of the things he has said?

Edited 7/9/2015 15:22:25

Trump is a double-edged sword. I believe he might be good for the U.S economy wise due to his success in business and such.

However, foreign policy wise I'm kinda worried. Trump is a no nonsense type individual and I'm not sure how good he'll be with diplomacy.

He wants to build a giant wall across the southern border, make the Mexican government pay for it and destroy the Mexican economy if they don't.