Lord Ratner

And you think ROTC is spitting out anything different? Nonsense. I taught pilots from every commissioning source. They were all fucking morons with the exception of one group, the prior-enlisted. Maturity, confidence, and wisdom come from experience, and experience requires independence. The prior-e's weren't smarter. Most were actually dumber, and well aware of it, but they knew how to make decisions on their own and act in a professional, non-college non-frat non-dorm environment. That's why they got picked over the other enlisted who didn't mature as well or as much. The academy kids knew how to study in a way that made pilot training easier, but that only gets you into the jet. Good hands were agnostic of the commissioning source. Once the zoomies and ROTC dorks had a little unsupervised life under their belts, the groups were mostly indistinguishable. But I suspect the academy sets the example that ROTC lives up to. I mean the programs themselves, not the cadets in them. After all, we never sent Zoomies to the ROTC programs (that I know of), but they sure did send them to us.

Do we get to hear the interesting part?

The academy didn't stray, society did. It will continue to stray until Something Very Bad happens that reminds society of the importance of serious thinking. If we win that struggle, we will have another century of seriousness and success. Rinse and repeat.

This doesn't have to be that hard.

It is a fairly reliable claim. Very early on there was at least talk of a negotiated truce before everything got really ugly. Whether or not that ever would have happened is speculation we will never know.

Sorry dude, you communicate like a frustrated toddler. If I had to bet on who's just the random person on the forum, and not an educated officer with leadership experience, you are probably my top guess. And considering we have Biff here now, that's saying something 🤣😂.

You know there is still a South Korea, right? You have the most curiously simplistic view I've seen in a long time. That's not to say the argument against Ukraine aid is necessarily simplistic. It's mostly just you.

I see zero fingers...

Of all the hand guns, I think I dislike the M9 the most. Ruger has some cool stuff though. I'm thinking about a Mark IV lite with a silencer for plinking at the range.

Thanks a lot, Sherlock Holmes.

How many hours of actually FAR flying time do SWA guys do per month? What's the range for normal lines, and what do the hustlers pull off? Remember that fucked up divorce you went through? How's life now?

$10,000 fine per worker per day for any business that hires any employee without verification of the employee through a federally-operated verification system. The problem goes away overnight. Neither side (politicians, not voters) wants the problem solved.

It *might* be funny, but I'm 99% sure it's going to take itself too seriously, and therefore, suck Is this the liberal response to the Daily Wire making a bunch of movies?

I designed this one. Probably my biggest achievement in an otherwise unremarkable career 😂🤣

Ah yes, the "wait, I thought you were doing the patch, it's due today!" design.

He wasn't dumb. He saw what his superiors valued, and he put on the mask. Just another "great dude" as a captain who only ever wanted to be a general, at any cost.

I'm just trying to figure out where your boundaries are. I'm sure it seems crystal clear to you, but the rest of us are struggling with it. Did you happen to come up with any examples of free countries that survived a peer- or near-peer attack without conscription? I was unable to. Same for taxation. Though the income tax came later, even the founders understood the necessity of compulsory taxation. I'm not seeing where the "if it was really worth it people would just do it" basis for a political foundation is actually demonstrated in any sort of successful society. Kind of makes it easy to lump with communism due to its apparent unrealistic idealism. I also haven't seen anybody support putting people in prison due to their ethnic background. You brought up internment, but no one actually argued that that policy was justified or moral. You just kind of threw it in there with conscription because they were both examples of things the government has done. But I don't think anybody here has argued that just because conscription is okay, all government action must therefore be okay.

Nevermind the obvious paradox that freedom and liberty are only possible because of the wars fought by conscripted soldiers.

Should littering be legal?

Every time a movie has a political foundation, it sucks. This one will be no different.

Jet Bridge Jesus strikes again!

Yeah dude, because it turns out that freedom and liberty are not provided for by an all-loving and generous universe. They are luxuries of societies that are either isolated from intruders, protected by an external guardian, or so strong themselves as to ward off foreign threats. This would be simpler if you just pointed to the societies in history that survived on individual choice for funding and defense. No mandatory taxes or conscription, but the successful defeat of a foreign invader. After all, if they won't voluntarily pay for it, it's not worth it, right? The system works because people don't actually care about freedom and liberty as their primary concerns. They care about fairness and family/tribe. You can force me to do many things as long as I perceive the same obligation being imposed on those around me. Literally to include an almost certain death, because that death ultimately supports the long-term survival of my family/tribe. Political ideology never trumps human nature.

This is why libertarianism is ultimately a failed ideology. Honestly I put it into the same category as communism. Romanticized ideals of how the world should be, that never survive contact with real societies.

Yeah that's just not how countries have ever worked. Including the freeest bestest country in the world, the United States. Conscription is a age-old and normal component of statehood. World war II would have worked a lot differently without draft. And I don't think the world would have been better off if the axis had won...

I don't tie the border to my support for international policy. Both sides are being really cute trying to connect the two, but let's face it, the border isn't being dealt with because the Democrats don't want to deal with it. And when Republicans had the opportunity to, they didn't. By this twisted logic, the United States should deal with no international issues unless the domestic issues are suitably addressed. But when your party loses elections, you don't get to decide what domestic issues get addressed. You're basically arguing for an all or nothing approach, but you certainly can do, but I find it to be a completely unrealistic political philosophy.