Guard Dog

You know, the offseason is over. Is someone going to make a new thread?

Interesting, so what is the relevance of Pendleton? Is that a mountain that is part of the training, do you have to camp on it or climb parts of it? Mt. Motherf----r and Old Smokey are two hills in the San Onfree training area that are used for PT and forced march and infantry training. Mt. Motherf----r is shorter but longer than Old Smokey. I believe it's considered to be the worst of the two. Old smokey is taller and a near vertical climb but you get to the top quicker. I've never run up either but I did drive by them once when I was stationed at Camp Pendleton briefly in 1991.

You know I bet you're the only poster on this board who's ever climbed Mt. Motherfu--er. And you probably ran up it with a pack and rifle I'm guessing. I've blocked out nearly all of my time at Pendleton but l can gladly say that I never had to go all the way to the top of that particular beast I never wanted to go hiking or camping for some years after that What are you guys talking about? Some kind of marine training exercise? It's Marine Corps Boot Camp. Since Shady is from west of the Mississippi he went to MCRD San Diego and then to Camp Pendleton. Thirteen weeks of sun & fun in southern California with three charming tour guides to make sure you have a good time.. I was from east of the Mississippi so I went to Parris Island. That was thirteen weeks of sun, fun and sand (lots of that) in the glorious Carolina coastland with three charming tour guides to make sure you have a good time. Although the training is exactly the same it is actually a very different experience due to the difference of geography. It is a running debate amongst Marines which experience is tougher. The truth is they both have their challenges. We called the west coast guys Hollywood Marines. If they have a term for the Parris Island Marines I've forgotten it.

You know I bet you're the only poster on this board who's ever climbed Mt. Motherfu--er. And you probably ran up it with a pack and rifle I'm guessing.

Wow, a whole thread to say happy birthday to yourself. You aren't a Dark Raven alt are you? Just kidding, Gabrielle was way more snarky than you. HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

As I was saying: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/some-evangelicals-in-republican-party-are-feeling-left-out-see-no-standard-bearer/2014/08/16/77c380e8-224e-11e4-958c-268a320a60ce_story.html

I hope you will reconsider that position in the future. Drugs have been legal for the majority of our history and banning them undermines our founding principles on every level. Legalizing drugs would not increase how commonly it's used, and if they were legal they'd be cheaper. If they're cheaper expect that the odds of drug addicts committing crimes to fund their habit to decline dramatically. I agree with you for the most part and see no issue with legalizing recreational drugs such as Marijuana or Cocaine. But psychoactive drugs like PCP, LSD, etc can easily lead to a user freaking out and injuring a innocent person. I don't care what someone does to themselves and neither should anyone else. I do care what they might do to others and psychoactive drugs raise the risk to a level that makes their legalization unacceptably risky. By the way, say MJ & Coke were legal and an employer wishes to test for it an not hire or not retain people who use that is perfectly OK too.

I hope you will reconsider that position in the future. Drugs have been legal for the majority of our history and banning them undermines our founding principles on every level. Legalizing drugs would not increase how commonly it's used, and if they were legal they'd be cheaper. If they're cheaper expect that the odds of drug addicts committing crimes to fund their habit to decline dramatically. I agree with you for the most part and see no issue with legalizing recreational drugs such as Marijuana or Cocaine. But psychoactive drugs like PCP, LSD, etc can easily lead to a user freaking out and injuring a innocent person. I don't care what someone does to themselves and neither should anyone else. I do care what they might do to others and psychoactive drugs raise the risk to a level that makes their legalization unacceptably risky.

Why? We can adopt it and then force everyone else to follow it and then kill them if they refuse!

Your freedom ends the instant it intrudes on someone else. Killing & stealing affect other people. Consenting adults marrying whoever they want does not. c'mon, you know better than that! as far as drug use I would not go so far as to legalize all drugs because with some there ARE significant public safety concerns. But is a gay couple moves in next door and you don't like them being there... move. You are free to move, to ignore them etc. No one is forcing you to like anything.

I planted pumpkins in the garden last month. They are really coming along! Today I'm cleaning out the rabbit cages, playing with Sunny & Tommy and tonight I'm taking my wife out for dinner. Gonna be a good day.

No what it does is allow the government to intrude into areas where people really don't need to be governed. I know we are going to have to agree to disagree on this but I'm standing by my point here. The narrative from the left is You Must Do this, You Can't Own That, You Must Buy This, You Can't Read That. If we value or future as a free country we have to defeat that. It's only going to happen by providing a clear and contrasting alternative. Not something equally oppressive but in a different way. Being Christian, being a moral person is a choice you make for yourself. You can't make it for anyone else. I am a Christian and for the most part I have tried to live my life in such a way that Jesus will be happy with me when I do meet Him. But aside from leading by example that is a choice I can only make for myself.

You see WoD the biggest problem with that is a philosophical one that is tearing the GOP in two. How can the GOP be in favor of smaller government while half of it wants the government to be the arbiter and enforcer of morality? How can you be in favor of more freedom while at the same time opposing more freedom? What the religious right fails to understand about the Christian faith is that no one can be compelled to follow it. Jesus wanted people to follow his example by choice, not because the government compelled them to do so. If you oppose abortion, don't have one. Encourage others not to, provide an alternative, but in the end you don't get to tell someone else what they can't do simply because you don't believe in it and you don't get to use the government as a stick to force people to behave in a certain way. That is what is so vile and repugnant to me about democrats. The really believe the proper role of government is to control every aspect of our lives. It is borne in the arrogant notion that they are smarter than us and better than us therefore it's proper that they rule over us. To me that sums up Barack Obama's attitude in a nutshell. The religious right would behave in the same way. The Christian religion is unique in that you can only be Christian by actually BEING Christian. If your faith opposes gay marriage, then don't marry a gay person. Don't go to their wedding, don't send them a gift. But you don't get to tell them they can't because you don't believe in it and you certainly don't use the government to do it for you. What they religious right needs to realize is that by using government to control people they are becoming the flip side of the same ugly coin as the democrats.

Libertarians are too obsessed with states rights for my tastes. That said; sure you CAN vote libertarian, but everyone knows that a vote for a third party is a waste of a vote. I'm hoping the republicans will drop the big government aspects of the party and adopt a small government stance on those issues. If only for the party's survival; the republicans MUST end the drug war, support gay marriage, and change their platform of foreign entanglements. The fact that doing so will actually coincide with their message of small government and be good for the country is a bonus. They don't have to be as extreme as the libertarians, but a move in that direction would give them some kind of future. I also feel I should note that their pro-life stance is one I oppose, but it is actually good for the party's future. After all, Hispanics are the fastest growing group in the country and they are usually pro-life. So while I support abortion; I am certain remaining pro-life is a good idea. Actually if Republicans want to survive they should become more libertarian rather than democrat-lite. The democrats are all about big government, more regulations, more taxes, less freedom. The best way to defeat that is to offer a choice that is completely opposite rather than more of the same just not as much.

Your articles are just someone's opinion that happens to correspond to your own. We have plenty of unemployed people who could use those jobs. To say illegal immigration doesn't cost us anything is ridiculous, 20 years ago Harry Reid ranted that 25% of births in California public hospitals was to illegals. Who's paying for those births? Every child of illegals born in the US is an immediate US citizens, eligible for all welfare benefits. All they have to do is have half a dozen kids, then live high off the hog on the US taxpayer. And what's the rate now, 50%? 80%? California has 4 times as many poor as any other state, where do you think those poor are coming from? Education is free for them, medical services are free, often housing is. Who's paying for all that? Just to deal with the current immigration crisis, Obama asked for 4 billion dollars just as a supplement, just for a short time, that's more than the entire 2000 mile fence, assuming 2 million dollars per mile. Do you know that the government actually gives tax id numbers to illegals, theoretically so they could pay taxes (lol), but they actually use them to fraudulently obtain billions of dollars from the government by filing fake tax returns. Not to mention all the other crimes they're committing, all the social problems they create. Just a few days ago here an apparent illegal killed a family of four in a car accident trying to escape the police. Normally a society tries to eradicate poverty, we're intentionally importing it. As far as overstaying visas, I already said they have to start tracking the visas, go find the people doing it and revoke their visas forever. Do you really see lots of Americans doing the low income jobs that many Hispanics are prepared to do? Like construction, cleaners and domestic maids. My experience has been these are jobs most Americans aren't really prepared to do? As I pointed out above Bruce, once these folks are legal these jobs won't be so low income anymore. Employers won't be able to get away with paying below minimum wage under the table.

You know the irony here is all the different groups who want to give these folks legal status want something different and all those ends are in opposition to each other. Businesses want cheap and legal labor but once they are legal they won't be able to abuse these folks by underpaying anymore. They will be subject to wage laws and taxes just like everyone else. So there goes the cheap labor. Democrats want them to be able to vote because they think these folks will love big government and taxpayer handouts they will vote for them and are trying to get the republicans to go along. Republicans think since most of these folks are religious they will favor them so that is their motive. Unions see millions of potential new members which will dilute the labor pool and lower everyone's wages but the truth is Unions stopped caring about that a log time ago. Now they are all bout their dues and politics. La Raza and other Hispanic hate groups want to flood the southwestern states and break away from the US to form their own banana republic so they are pushing hard to get 12 millions more folks they thinks will follow their thinking. All of these groups in favor of amnesty are like wolves fighting over a piece of meat and they all have 2 things in common, 1) they don't really care about the people they claim to be trying to help, only how they can exploit them and 2) The don't care about any potential negative impacts on the country or the people already living and paying the taxes here.

So, how's that hopey changy thing working for everyone? Well, at least this was the one campaign promise he did keep: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_fO-usAlqak

And I hope you are the good luck charm to get the M's to beat the Jays.

Very sad.

In the modern world the failure of democracy leads not to a dictatorship per se rather an oligarchy where all power is concentrated into the hands of a single group. The difference would be little more than semantics except that an oligarchy at least would maintain the appearance of a free republic. Plato stated "Tyranny naturally arises out of democracy and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery out of the most extreme form of liberty." It's happening right here in the US. We are seeing more and more heavy handed and aggressive law enforcement actions against increasingly trivial offenses. The government is using the IRS as a perverse form of "Thought Police". The DHS has identified ex-military vets who don't vote democrat are likely terrorists and have asked law enforcement to keep a closer watch on them. The US Constitution is being ignored on a regular basis and the perpetrators keep getting re-elected. It has already begun and the saddest part of all is that it is being done right in front of the voters... and they don't seem to care. I'm reminded of a quote by Lincoln: "At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." I can't help but notice we are becoming less free everyday.

Am I the only one who finds this type of perspective hard to believe? The lack of effectiveness to implement proper immigration reform or control is really about the Democrats staying in power? Ok lets look at it this way. Suppose the right agrees to complete and total amnesty with full residency rights for all illegals living and working in the US right now with the following caveat: They will not be allowed to vote. Do you think the left would support that? No, because that is all this is about. The rest is just window dressing. Good question, and I don't know the answer to that? I suppose the argument would be if you say someone is a citizen in your country then its a basic human right to be allowed to vote in any Democracy. So the argument from any Democrat would be based around that logic? No, remember all politics is self serving. Altruism is never found in the actions of the body politic. The only interest government has is self perpetuation.

While it may not be their initial thought when choosing one way or the other, do you want to tell me those illegal immigrants once given american passports will vote for the republicans? Well I wouldn't expect anyone to vote for the Republicans so I'm not the right person to ask that question to Yeah because being free from heavy handed authoritarian government is no way to live right? Don't get me wrong, I dislike Republicans but I absolutely HATE democrats. Not all of them individually but many of them and certainly the philosophy that unifies them. Namely that the rights of the individual are subordinate to the state. The people are ward of the government rather than free individuals, etc

Am I the only one who finds this type of perspective hard to believe? The lack of effectiveness to implement proper immigration reform or control is really about the Democrats staying in power? Ok lets look at it this way. Suppose the right agrees to complete and total amnesty with full residency rights for all illegals living and working in the US right now with the following caveat: They will not be allowed to vote. Do you think the left would support that? No, because that is all this is about. The rest is just window dressing.

Quod erat demonstrandum, I think. Res Ipsa Loquitur is actually the best way to express this

Unfortunately the Executive branch is becoming more powerful only because Congress is allowing it to happen simply by not stopping it. The most egregious example being the changes made to the ACA a law passed by Congress and signed by the President without introducing amending bills in the legislature. Congress could have and SHOULD have stopped this from happening but because of political affiliation did not. I think future Congresses and the citizens will have cause to regret they didn't. It's hard to believe party loyalty alone would lead a branch of the US government to site quietly by as its Constitutionally given power is marginalized by a "rouge" President. But here I go wandering OT again.