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He is so narcissistic he can't help but throw inflammatory insults. If he would just say "my policies worked" (mostly), we will repeat them, have a nice day then shut his freaking pie hole.

I would tend to agree. There may be a time and place for mass mobilization and a draft, and in all likelihood, a Pearl Harbor-like event would be the pretext for it. Then, it wouldn't need to be so mandatory, and certainly not in a state of relative peace. I understand the desire to reshape or reinvigorate civil society and many social ills, but I don't think the military is the right institution for it for two reasons. One, the military is a cross-section of society (for the most part)...you get every type and kind, good, bad, or indifferent. So the notion of bolstering civic pride and responsibility is somewhat moot because that's really not our job as it is. We make recruits capable of doing certain tasks and working as a team, but we have our fair share of $hitheads. The good ones are usually already decent folks before they join. Furthermore, if we are generalizing, there has been a marked decline in culture and social development over the past generation or two...kids are fatter, less engaged, and have a host of mental illnesses (anxiety, depression, need their mom to go to the job interview with them, etc). I don't think the military is capable of fixing this, and I certainly don't have the time (nor do the NCOs) to babysit and play stepdad to a mass of new trainees who need safe spaces and inhalers for every minor inconvenience. We already have more things to do with fewer people and resources, so giving the military such a grandiose "fix the kids" task isn't going to help. What is that weekly staff meeting slide going to look like...? No thanks. My second point is that our civil society is (or should be) shaped by the many small, local institutions that foster character formation, civic pride, and responsible adults. This isn't something we should look to the military to do. As a caveat, yes, veterans and military members can influence civil society, especially once they are out of uniform. That can be as parents, little league coaches, teachers, clergy, scouts, the Lions Club, etc. But we shouldn't look to the military to be the guiding force in our culture; if anything it is there to defend it, not influence it. I'm harping on this because one of my recent interests is reading about culture and civil society. There was a book written in 2001 (pre-internet and 9/11) called "Bowling Alone" by Harvard professor Robert Putnam. His main thesis is that civic participation declined markedly from about the 1960s to the turn of the 21st century. Notably, this was before social media, internet culture, and all the recent generational and technological changes we've experienced and it's only gotten worse (psychologist Jonathon Haidt is another good resource here). As a member of recreational bowling leagues, he observed that while the number of people bowling actually increased from ~1960 to 2000, the number of organized leagues declined. He used that anecdote to highlight a broader decline in civic participation from things like religious institutions, social clubs (Lions, Elks, etc), and character-forming organizations (e.g. scouts) as they were the means by which people interacted, developed social bonds, and solved problems. Since he's left of center, he chalks much of it up to wealth inequality, deindustrialization, etc but his point is salient. Interestingly, he also found that immigration and multiculturalism had a negative influence on social capital as there is less trust and cooperation both between groups and within groups. He also doesn't talk so much about the role of the welfare state, sexual/gender revolution, and various counter-cultural movements of the 60s and 70s that started the slow deconstruction of civic traditions and associations. Long story short, sociocultural issues can't be solved primarily by the military, indeed not by the government. If anything, central planning and social engineering from bureaucrats will only make things worse. We should use and respect the military for its intended purpose, not as a tool to correct social ills; doing so is likely to yield poor results in both the armed forces and civil society. We should instead heal our civic decline by emphasizing the importance of character-forming institutions, which, if the time comes, will benefit the military because it will have more ready, able, and willing recruits. Ask yourself, if we made the Air Force responsible for teaching young Americans math, science, and good character...is this something AETC will f*ck up?

If they can do all these new things like on orbit cryogenic refueling. Boeing can't even build a command module that works as well as a 50+ year old Apollo.

Nothing different about it. The American people, regardless of party, no longer trust "experts." They still trust *their* experts, but that's human nature. It's just a broader loss of faith in the institutions, which is warranted because the leaders of those institutions decided a while ago that the purpose of the institution was to further an ideological goal, instead of just doing-the-thing (collect taxes, prosecute crime, administrate education programs, preserve public land, research and defend against disease, etc). That's why Republicans have been (until Trump) weak on immigration despite the contradiction with rule-of-law, because they wanted to further a flawed view of unfettered capitalism. And Democrats have supported the greatest absurdities of affirmative action despite the contradiction with equality and colorblindness, because they wanted to further a flawed view of utopian equity. Trump and Bernie are the voters' anguished response to the liars leading the government, espousing values they do not uphold in their own lives or in the way they steer their organizations. Bernie just failed to stay true to his values (thank God), so he lost to the Democratic machine. Trump did not. Both are insane, but these are insane times🤷🏻‍♂️

I think its obvious that the the last thing that went through his mind was......high velocity

Stealth Bombers attacking terrorists in the desert Some of the targets were deeply buried, but wow...

Amen brother....340 million people in this country and we are down to these two clowns.

Such an on the nose reminder of what people are capable of when the government bureaucracy gets taken out of the process. I don’t know what it was like in the ‘60s to watch the leaps and bounds that NASA made towards manned space flight on the way to the Lunar landings, but I feel immense pride in watching SpaceX demonstrate good old American ingenuity. I love the “chip on the shoulder” attitude that we’re gonna do something completely unheard of in the history of the world. And why, because F*** you, we can.

Had to ID the asshole from his DNA! 🤣🤣🤣 Good fucking riddance!

https://apple.news/AcYPllCaNSP-3N_tyTSkP5g Another worthless sack of shit turned into fertilizer; Israel is on a role.

I think what's been made crystal clear over the last 4 years is that we have the dumbest presidential team in the history of America. Everybody knew Joe Biden was the idiot of the Senate, so there's no surprises there, but at least my impression was that Kamala was viewed as duplicitous and deeply political, but not stupid. There's no way around it at this point, she is actually unintelligent, at least by the standards one expects to be operating in national level politics. There hasn't been a new question asked of her in at least a month, just the same ones repeated over and over, and yet somehow she and her team haven't put together a functional response? I'm not saying it has to be honest, but this woman acts like every single question is the first time she's ever heard it. It's really quite stunning from a political malpractice standpoint. Same thing for Walz during the debate. How the hell did he not have an answer ready to go about his lying about tiananmen square? Or immigration? These are national level campaigns operating on nine-figure budgets. No one thought to put an answer together for that? I don't want to make it sound like Trump is much better, he fucked up that debate pretty spectacularly, but he does a better job than Kamala and Tim. JD Vance however has done a much better job, and in fact the only thing I've seen him stumble on is January 6th, but it is painfully obvious he's not allowed to answer that question in any rational way because Donald Trump refuses any rational explanation.

Tough place to go down, weather up there is rough a good chunk of the year.

Do you think you’re going to get a specific answer here?

Zero chance she goes on anything longer than 20 minutes after that amazing FOX interview

Yup, and shame on them. Shame on candidates that lose and refuse to concede, that undermine confidence in our elections, and that call into question the legitimacy of the winner, simply to safeguard their bruised ego. Shame on them, and especially so without any credible and/or compelling evidence of outcome-determinant fraud or suppression. Ok, now your turn……

May be picking this up Friday (still haggling), a Gen 1 Ruger American in 7.62x39 with a 16.12" barrel, 3x9 Cabela's scope, slotted flash hider and 5 and 10 rd magazines (it uses Mini-30 mags). Why? Boatloads of AK ammo sitting around doing nothing since I got into ARs earlier this year. Plus, it makes for a decent short-to-mid distance (<200 yds) lightweight deer rifle! I already have a Ruger American in .22 and love it. I expect my experience will be the same if I get this rifle.

I think talks about mandatory service miss the point. I don't think the Israelis have a heightened sense of purpose because of their mandatory service, they have a heightened sense of purpose because there is an immediate and obvious threat nearby. And even then, a lot of young Israelis were succumbing to the same aimless malaise we are in the West... Until October 7th. We're fat, dumb, and (un)happy. From everything I've read, the 1920-30s were the same. Then economic crisis, then total war. WWII was so catastrophic that it provided the West with meaning and identity for the next 70 years. I think WWIII will have the same effect.

Yes, yes and yes Great find Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk