Afghanistan


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Re: Afghanistan

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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Kensai »

Awesome :D

I thought the CIA would have called in smokeing man to assasinate Osama and the Taliban by now.
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Re: Afghanistan

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Kensai wrote:
Awesome :D

I thought the CIA would have called in smokeing man to assasinate Osama and the Taliban by now.
Maybe not the Taliban... we need someone external to fight.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Little Galach »

I actually agree with the hippie communist on this one: No budget is actually being reduced.

Can't we just let some mining companies hire out mercs to police the valuable areas of the country and gtfo otherwise? Fuck that place. As Freak said earlier, just tell the jews to take out Iran's nukes and get our kids (and defense money) out of the area.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Kensai »

A Little Galach wrote:I actually agree with the hippie communist on this one: No budget is actually being reduced.

Can't we just let some mining companies hire out mercs to police the valuable areas of the country and gtfo otherwise? Fuck that place. As Freak said earlier, just tell the jews to take out Iran's nukes and get our kids (and defense money) out of the area.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Little Galach »

Don't get me wrong, Kensai, I disagree wholeheartedly with your previous post about the war. I have fully supported the war from the start, however somewhere along the way we've lost the iniative and our current strategy is retarded. Depending on the Afghan government to function as anything beyond a parasite is not realistic, and our soldiers are best utilized by killing people rather than being nation builders in a country that is OK with living in the stone age under the thumb of an oppressive government.

We need to drastically change strategy and rules of engagement (ie kill more bad guys) and prepare to fight further battles with any terrorists there by drones and Pakistani proxy rather than our soldiers. My mining company/merc idea was genuine, I would have more faith in it if I could figure out how to get the product out of the landlocked country safely and if I wasn't sure that a Chinese company would be first in line to do it. I would sanction Pakistan annexing Afghanistan and allowing some sort of autonomy in the region in exchange for American companies getting first crack at any deposits.

Besides, we're broke and we'll need our soldiers to stabilize Iran, mop up North Korea and retaliate against the seizure of Taiwan.
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Re: Afghanistan

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Kensai wrote:
chanilover wrote:This shambles is in the British media a lot recently, mostly because people in general are sick of it and want to pull our troops out.
Also this war had nothing to do with us and it was Dubya and his lapdog Blair that got us into it. Did you know the USA wanted British tooprs in Vietnam but the Primeminister at the time (can't remember who) essentially told Nixon to go f**k himself.
Bush's poodle Blair is a spineless coward who will never admit he was wrong. Just like the other spineless cowards in Parliament who haven't got the guts to admit this has been a monumental mistake and pull our troops out. We might need them in the Falklands!
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

chanilover wrote:
Kensai wrote:
chanilover wrote:This shambles is in the British media a lot recently, mostly because people in general are sick of it and want to pull our troops out.
Also this war had nothing to do with us and it was Dubya and his lapdog Blair that got us into it. Did you know the USA wanted British tooprs in Vietnam but the Primeminister at the time (can't remember who) essentially told Nixon to go f**k himself.
Bush's poodle Blair is a spineless coward who will never admit he was wrong. Just like the other spineless cowards in Parliament who haven't got the guts to admit this has been a monumental mistake and pull our troops out. We might need them in the Falklands!
I was supportive when Canada went into Afghanistan, but I was pretty happpy when they told Bush to fuck off when it came to Iraq.

I think some more shooting of insurgents is a good idea of course, but unless we build the country up to the point where it can take care of itself this is all just going to happen again and again. We broke it (further, it was already broke of course) we fix it IMO. Plus fixing the place is the moral thing to do.


Those extremists only have power because of the poverty of the people they recruit from. If we remove the poverty we remove the violence (for the main part). Plus, the US doesn't win guerrilla wars, it loses them, so a different tactic is the only option that doesn't involve doing the same doomed to fail shit over and over.
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Re: Afghanistan

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I'm not understanding calling the military actions in Afghanistan "America's Longest War" ....
(and I don't mean that, Constitutionally, the last time the USA was "at war" was against Nazi Germany)


Eisenhower sent the first troops (Bull's Green Berets) to "advise" the South Vietnamese in 1959 ....
the last US Marine was helicoptered off the Embassy in Saigon in 1975 ...
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Re: Afghanistan

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SandRider wrote:I'm not understanding calling the military actions in Afghanistan "America's Longest War" ....
(and I don't mean that, Constitutionally, the last time the USA was "at war" was against Nazi Germany)


Eisenhower sent the first troops (Bull's Green Berets) to "advise" the South Vietnamese in 1959 ....
the last US Marine was helicoptered off the Embassy in Saigon in 1975 ...
Fuckin' A. Goddam newscasters just look for new things to spin (and be wrong about).
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Little Galach »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:
chanilover wrote:
Kensai wrote:
chanilover wrote:This shambles is in the British media a lot recently, mostly because people in general are sick of it and want to pull our troops out.
Also this war had nothing to do with us and it was Dubya and his lapdog Blair that got us into it. Did you know the USA wanted British tooprs in Vietnam but the Primeminister at the time (can't remember who) essentially told Nixon to go f**k himself.
Bush's poodle Blair is a spineless coward who will never admit he was wrong. Just like the other spineless cowards in Parliament who haven't got the guts to admit this has been a monumental mistake and pull our troops out. We might need them in the Falklands!
I was supportive when Canada went into Afghanistan, but I was pretty happpy when they told Bush to fuck off when it came to Iraq.

I think some more shooting of insurgents is a good idea of course, but unless we build the country up to the point where it can take care of itself this is all just going to happen again and again. We broke it (further, it was already broke of course) we fix it IMO. Plus fixing the place is the moral thing to do.


Those extremists only have power because of the poverty of the people they recruit from. If we remove the poverty we remove the violence (for the main part). Plus, the US doesn't win guerrilla wars, it loses them, so a different tactic is the only option that doesn't involve doing the same doomed to fail shit over and over.
This is what gets the West in trouble. Your job as the leader of a country is to do what's best by your people, both during the next election cycle and long term. Period. At least that's my opinion.


Object #1 is for England and the US to prevent terrorists from using that hellhole as a base of operations. #2 is to turn it into a source of revenue via mining its resources or exploiting cheap textile labor. #3 is to make it a productive and valuable member of the World community. We may get #1 within 5 years. It'll be 10 years before #2 is possible and 50 before #3 happens. If ever. That place is fucked.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Little Galach »

SandRider wrote:I'm not understanding calling the military actions in Afghanistan "America's Longest War" ....
(and I don't mean that, Constitutionally, the last time the USA was "at war" was against Nazi Germany)


Eisenhower sent the first troops (Bull's Green Berets) to "advise" the South Vietnamese in 1959 ....
the last US Marine was helicoptered off the Embassy in Saigon in 1975 ...
This is very astute observation. I am shocked that the American Media has misrepresented this story.
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Re: Afghanistan

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http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... 33667.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Exclusive: Afghanistan - behind enemy lines

James Fergusson returns after three years to Chak, just 40 miles from Kabul, to find the Taliban's grip is far stronger than the West will admit.

Sunday, 14 November 2010

The sound of a propeller engine is audible the moment my fixer and I climb out of the car, causing us new arrivals from Kabul to glance sharply upwards. I have never heard a military drone in action before, and it is entirely invisible in the cold night sky, yet there is no doubt what it is. My first visit to the Taliban since 2007 has only just begun and I am already regretting it. What if the drone is the Hellfire-missile-carrying kind?

Three years ago, the Taliban's control over this district, Chak, and the 112,000 Pashtun farmers who live here, was restricted to the hours of darkness – although the local commander, Abdullah, vowed to me that he would soon be in full control. As I am quickly to discover, this was no idle boast. In Chak, the Karzai government has in effect given up and handed over to the Taliban. Abdullah, still in charge, even collects taxes. His men issue receipts using stolen government stationery that is headed "Islamic Republic of Afghanistan"; with commendable parsimony they simply cross out the word "Republic" and insert "Emirate", the emir in question being the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Omar.

The most astonishing thing about this rebel district – and for Nato leaders meeting in Lisbon this week, a deeply troubling one – is that Chak is not in war-torn Helmand or Kandahar but in Wardak province, a scant 40 miles south-west of Kabul. Nato commanders have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban are on the back foot following this year's US troop surge. Mid-level insurgency commanders, they say, have been removed from the battlefield in "industrial" quantities since the 2010 campaign began. And yet Abdullah, operating within Katyusha rocket range of the capital – and with a $500,000 bounty on his head – has managed to evade coalition forces for almost four years. If Chak is in any way typical of developments in other rural districts – and Afghanistan has hundreds of isolated valley communities just like this one – then Nato's military strategy could be in serious difficulty.

At the roadside, Abdullah himself materialises from the darkness. He seems hugely amused to see me again. The drone, thankfully, turns out to be a ringay – the local, onomatopoeic nickname for a small camera drone. Abdullah says it's the armed versions, the larger-engined Predators and Reapers, known as buzbuzak, that we need to worry about – and this definitely isn't one of those. I imagine some CIA analyst in Langley, Virginia, freeze-framing a close-up of my face and filing it under "Insurgent". In this valley, no one but the Taliban moves about in vehicles after dark.

In the middle of the night, after supper on the floor of a village farmhouse, I am taken by half a dozen Talibs to inspect the local district centre, a mud-brick compound garrisoned by 80 soldiers of the Afghan National Army who, Abdullah says, are too scared ever to come out. "We attack them whenever we like," he says, producing Russian-made night vision glasses and examining the ANA's forward trench positions. "In fact, we can attack them now if you want. Would you like that?" I politely decline the offer.

Kabul, Abdullah insists, controls just one square kilometre around the district centre; the rest of Chak belongs to the Taliban. "Last year, 30 ANP [Afghan National Police] came over to our side with two trucks full of heavy weapons... They could see how popular we were here, and that they were following the wrong path. They were all from the north. We sent them home to their villages." During this September's parliamentary elections, he adds with pride, 86 of the province's 87 polling stations remained closed. A local candidate, Wahedullah Kalimzai, has since been accused of bribing election officials to stuff the ballot boxes in the one polling station that did open. "And Kabul has the temerity to call these elections a success!"

A former engineering student at a Kabul polytechnic, Abdullah has also become a champion military truck burner since 2007. The eastern edge of Chak is delineated by the Kabul-to-Kandahar highway, a key supply route for the Nato war machine in the south. Repaved by the US just seven years ago at a cost of $190m, the road today is pockmarked with craters left by improvised explosive devices (IEDs). Over the years, he says, his men have destroyed "hundreds" of Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) vehicles on this stretch. His personal record is a convoy of 81 fuel trucks ambushed in a single, memorable night.

"We were scared of the Americans at first," says Abdullah's deputy, Mullah Naim. "We heard they had technology so powerful that they could see a mouse blink from space. But none of that turned out to be true." This is not to say that the Taliban are not cautious. The Americans, Abdullah admits, have come close to catching or killing him more times than he can count. He issues his orders over a field radio and several mobile phones, on none of which he speaks for more than about a minute. He and his men seldom stop anywhere for long: in the 24 hours I spent with them we changed location six times, sometimes on foot, sometimes by car and, once, on a pair of Chinese motorbikes. Taking photographs of them is out of the question.

Their greatest concern is the risk of betrayal by "spies". That night, indeed, three strangers are arrested further up the valley after they were allegedly spotted taking pictures on their mobile phones. At 6am, after consulting by phone with Taliban headquarters in Pakistan, Abdullah announces that they will be tried by the local sharia judge – an official appointed, like him, by HQ – and that the three can expect to be hanged if found guilty. I ask if he has identified any enemies in Chak using data from Julian Assange's WikiLeaks website, which he knows all about. "Not yet, because there are no computers here," he replies, "but headquarters is still analysing the material... We have already learned a great deal, in general, about the way Isaf operates."

The atmosphere in Chak, perhaps unsurprisingly, feels oppressive and a little paranoid. No Western journalist has been to see these Taliban since my last visit, and they are careful not to advertise my presence unnecessarily now, insisting that I swathe my face in a woollen patou when we go outside. The community, self-contained even in normal times, has been cut off from the rest of the country for three years. The confusing maze of dirt tracks at the valley's entrance is frequently seeded with IEDs which travellers must deactivate and reactivate by punching a code into a mobile phone. The only way in for invaders is by helicopter, therefore – and since the summer, US special forces have launched airborne kill or capture raids in the district "almost every night". Sentries posted on mountaintops all around remain on permanent lookout for unusual helicopter activity: often the first sign of another night raid, and a signal for the Taliban to take to the hills themselves.

The effect of these night raids on Abdullah's command structure has been negligible, but the same cannot be said for the effect on public opinion. Dozens of blameless locals have allegedly been killed by "the Americans". Abdullah reels off a list of fatal incidents in the last two months alone – a taxi-driver here, a farmer asleep in his orchard there, three students trying to get home to their families over there – and it is clear that these attacks have done nothing but bolster support for the insurgents. "Thousands of people turn out at the funerals of our martyrs and chant 'Death to America'," one Talib tells me. This may be an exaggeration, but there is no arguing with what has happened at the bomb-shattered farmer's house that I am later taken to see. The apple tree outside is freshly festooned with strips of green cloth – the mark of a spontaneous local shrine.

Abdullah and his men seem to thrive under the threat of sudden death, as though infected by a kind of joie de guerre. He says it is the ambition of all of them to die as ghazi – that is, as martyrs, in battle against the infidel. "It is our religious duty to resist you foreigners," he tells me – just as he did in 2007. "You must understand that we will never stop fighting you – never."

The prospect of a negotiated peace is dismissed almost outright. "All this talk of a political settlement with Karzai... it is all tricks and propaganda," he says. "The Taliban will not negotiate with anyone until all foreign troops have left." His men are genuinely perplexed by General Petraeus's assertion that Nato's purpose in Afghanistan is to prevent the re-establishment of al-Qa'ida. "There were some foreign fighters in Chak for a while last year," Mullah Naim recalls, "Arabs, Chechens, Pakistanis. But they were fighting under the Taliban, obeying our orders. They were nothing to do with al-Qa'ida. There are no al-Qa'ida fighters in Afghanistan any more. I have fought in the south and in the east as well as here. In seven years of operations I have not seen a single al-Qa'ida fighter. Not one."
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Re: Afghanistan

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Baraka Bryan wrote:...to hopefully enable them to manage their own security within 4 years
:laughing-rolling:

They'll get those opium fields secure, you can bet on that.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:
I was supportive when Canada went into Afghanistan,

normally I wouldn't resurrect a thread like this, but SR did it from July to November, so what's another month :P

what's your opinion of the Harper Govt's new plan, AToE?

end combat mission by 2011 as planned and leave ~1000 troops there to train the Afghan military and police to hopefully enable them to manage their own security within 4 years
I'm of the opinion that if the troops that are actually over there think that this is a good plan and will work then I support it. If the troops honestly think we're doing damage by staying, then get out, if they think we're doing good and should stay, then they should stay. If the troops/officers like the plan, then I like the plan.

I'm skeptical, and worry that we haven't really learned much from the past and should start laying bets on when this whole bit of history will repeat itself - but like I said, I'm not over there talking to people and seeing reality.

At this point I have near-zero belief in the opinions of the media or government officials concerning this issue. I think that all of us civilians who aren't actually over there seeing it first hand need to take our own opinions with a handful of salt because our opinions are worth very little next to those of the people who actually know what they're talking about. Our government should be paying nearly zero attention to public opinion on this matter and be listening to the military instead (which I hope they're at least doing some of).
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:Our government should be paying nearly zero attention to public opinion on this matter and be listening to the military instead .
AMEN! couldn't possibly agree more.
As dumb as it sounds I find myself wishing the gov would learn when to not listen to the people. Obviously it's a democracy, so they're supposed to listen, but they're also elected to make the hard choices based on real information not on public melodramatic emotional responses. I know it sucks when soldiers die, but news flash - that's what happens when we go to war, that's part of their jobs. Harsh to say, but that's the truth, if people don't want soldiers dying then we shouldn't send them out in the first place, it doesn't solve a damn thing to get emotional and withdraw them before the job is done (making all the previous deaths essentially for nothing). Now, that said, if the military says it's time to go, I respect that, they're the ones dying and killing, not me. So yeah, like I said, the opinions of the people who's lives are on the line count for a hell of a lot more than us armchair commentators.

Completely unrelated, but this whole thing with cigarrette packaging took way too long and too much money. There was no need to research anything, other countries had already used their own money to pay for the research, it's wasteful and arrogant for us to just repeat what's already been done.

On that note, we should also get rid of the CSA. If a product is approved for safety in the EU then we know it's probably going to pass here as well, that costs us untold amounts of money and gets us almost nothing. If we abolished it we'd have billions of dollars saved by consumers and retailers, it would be a huge boost to the economy.

Wow, guess I'm in a ranting mood.
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Re: Afghanistan

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Our troops should be supplied with stillsuits, and trained with DUNE tactics in mind.
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by D Pope »

Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:Our troops should be supplied with stillsuits, and trained with DUNE tactics in mind.
I don't think that's funny.
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Re: Afghanistan

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D Pope wrote:
Jodorowsky's Acolyte wrote:Our troops should be supplied with stillsuits, and trained with DUNE tactics in mind.
I don't think that's funny.
That's more like what the Afghans are doing. As with all other conflicts we only seem to be prepared for the last one.

It's tough being at war with an "-ism".
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Re: Afghanistan

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Well certainly, if some other body hasn't approved something then we'd need our own for those - but we're talking about a serious minority of products, very very few goods are produced in Canada compared to imported, and of the imported very few are for us alone. This whole CSA thing is a big issue in my industry, the amount of money wasted is staggering (we sell some products where the cost to consumers might be as much as 5% directly from CSA).

Who's grassroots? The WRA? I can't think of anything grassroots about the Conservative party.

As for regulation I'm not for less or more - regulation is why our economy has weathered this storm better than most, and why problems like the sub-prime mortgage thing are less likely to happen here, but it can also waste enormous amounts of time and money. I'm for cutting poor regulation and increasing good - anyone who says regulation is by nature good or bad simply hasn't thought it through.

I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Freakzilla »

A Thing of Eternity wrote:I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
I've only been wrong once... when I thought I was wrong. :wink:
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Freakzilla wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
I've only been wrong once... when I thought I was wrong. :wink:
:lol:

Wait, I have to make BB feel better for wanting more regulation than crazy left-wing AToE (you red-tape loving Conservative!)... hmmm, what can I say to put his world right-side up again... hmmm...


I know! Hey BB, we should legalize pot and prostitution. (And I say that as a customer/user of neither)
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by Robspierre »

Freakzilla wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
I've only been wrong once... when I thought I was wrong. :wink:
And how many times has the wife said you were wrong?

Rob
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Re: Afghanistan

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Robspierre wrote:
Freakzilla wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote:I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
I've only been wrong once... when I thought I was wrong. :wink:
And how many times has the wife said you were wrong?

Rob
If you ask her, always. :wink:
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Re: Afghanistan

Post by A Thing of Eternity »

Baraka Bryan wrote:
A Thing of Eternity wrote: As for regulation I'm not for less or more - regulation is why our economy has weathered this storm better than most, and why problems like the sub-prime mortgage thing are less likely to happen here, but it can also waste enormous amounts of time and money. I'm for cutting poor regulation and increasing good - anyone who says regulation is by nature good or bad simply hasn't thought it through.

I like to say I'm not right or left wing, I'm just right. :wink: :lol:
and I like to say I'm right in all the right ways ;)
as for regulation, I totally agree that regulation in the financial industry is the only reason we're faring so well right now. many of my very small-c conservative friends would shudder at that, but it's the truth. there are some industries that need regulation, particularly when they impact overall economic health or public safety. I was watching a doc the other day about some airline in the US that had all kinds of issues with pilot quality and plane safety and it led to a bunch of deaths. that's an industry that's much more highly regulated here than south of the 49, and while we pay higher fares as a result, that's the price to be paid for safety.
:lol: I always forget that up here in Canada conservative doesn't necessarily mean completely right-wing! I'm with you on this, regulations have their places.

Part of my issue with regulations actually comes from something I learned from FH in Dosadi Experiment. They're talking about law at one point, and saying how it's a serious problem when people try to make things better by adding more and more laws, rather than removing the useless ones and fixing the existing ones. I think that applies perfectly to regulations, in certain situations we seem to heap them on for no real reason, and that makes people leary of them in general, when really they shouldn't be complaining about regulations - they should be complaining about their implimentations.

It's funny because I call myself "balanced" between socialism and capitalism rather than saying "center" - because I'm not really center, I've got one foot closer to each extreme. Capitalism does certain things extremely well, so we should let it do it's thing (read: let big companies collapse if they can't keep themselves going, we're only delaying the inevitable), and on the other hand, capitalism should never be allowed anywhere near certain things (police force).
A Thing of Eternity wrote: Wait, I have to make BB feel better for wanting more regulation than crazy left-wing AToE (you red-tape loving Conservative!)... hmmm, what can I say to put his world right-side up again... hmmm...

I know! Hey BB, we should legalize pot and prostitution. (And I say that as a customer/user of neither)
haha, I think we should decriminalize both. it's the internal compromise I've made between my libertarianism and my social conservatism ;)
Dear gods, I really thought that was going to get you going! I think pot should be exactly on the level of alcohol, would make it harder for kids to get, take a chunk out of organized crime, and make a frakken boatload of tax money for us to spend on fun shit.

With prostitution it's more about protecting the prostitutes for me, but the tax dollars would be nice and could be funneled towards fighting human slaver in Canada and the child sex trade.
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