smjjames

How is it cultural appropriation when you sing a song in the language that it's sung in?

by 1900, the US military were back down to 25,000 regulars from total o' __________ combatants. am unsure o' a number 'cause estimates is all over the place. gd likely knows better than us. am not guessing total civil war combatants, but peak at any one time. guestimate and say peak were a bit more than 1 million combatants, though casualties were horrific high. pre civil war, total military personnel were close to 17,000. world war 1 appears to be what genuine changed the dynamic as the folks in power recognized how wanting to be isolationist in the 20th century were less viable than were the case in the 19th and 18th century. the world were effective smaller, and it were impossible to ignore how a relative minor event in europe could result in the US needing decide whether or not to send many thousands o' young men abroad to fight and die for reasons they little understood. argue right or wrong, but ww1 appears to have resulted in a fundamental change in philosophy insofar as standing armies n' such is concerned. ww1 had US military at ~280k, but post ww1 numbers dropped far less precipitous than after the civil war. total numbers were down to ~190k by late 1930s. 'course am not taking US population growth into account. US population near tripled 'tween 1850 and 1890, yes? so military increase from pre civil war to post didn't even keep pace as a % o' population growth. am honest not sure what were US population during the 1930s. bit less than doubled from 1900? am complete guessing. *shrug* regardless, appears as if ww1 were the big change. HA! Good Fun! It may have started a bit earlier in the late 19th century and WWI certainly accompanied the change in thought, but it seems like WWII is the one that catalyzed the change to the large modern military we have now.

I wasn't sure exactly myself their position on it, so I did a google check. Looks like they weren't against the concept of one on principle, they were concerned about the ravages and issues a standing army could have on the populace during peacetime and how an empowered executive would wield the military.

It is a somewhat accurate paraphrasing of her actual quote though, insofar as Trump would be considered a business leader. I think I remember a similar quote coming up in the 2016 election, but I do remember similar things being brought up, and Trump himself claimed that he couldn't be bought by lobbyists due to his wealth. Which of course, we now know that giving him wads of cash might not neccesarily 'buy' him, but kissing ass definetly will.

@BruceVC: Doesn't this bit from the exerpt 'How did the West overtake its Eastern rivals? And has the zenith of Western power now passed? Acclaimed historian Niall Ferguson argues that beginning in the fifteenth century, the West developed six powerful new concepts, or “killer applications”—competition, science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism, and the work ethic—that the Rest lacked, allowing it to surge past all other competitors.' sound really eliteist to you? Not to mention colonial and possibly a bit racist, particularily the work ethic bit. Whether or not it's truly representative of the book, I don't know, but it sounds more like someone from the turn of the 20th rather than early 21st century. I took numbers guy's (as I see him nicknamed sometimes around here, if he doesn't mind it) criticism as criticising how it was used rather than a criticsm of the four points. Use a tool the wrong way or in an ineffective way, even the best tool in the universe is going to cause issues.

I have no idea about Romania's military history. I'm German and only live here temporarily because of work. I initially had Germany there but wasn't sure, so I looked at the location (yeah, I know, it can easily be fake) and changed it to Romania. So, just confusion on my part.

volo your analogy isn't accurate or a fair comparison, obviously if you born in a country you are already a citizen...thats the normal and perfectly acceptable way of what defines citizenship in any country What we talking about is the reality of countries like the USA ( and SA in our own context) where a country is inundated with people trying to become citizens. You cannot make everyone who just arrives a citizen and compulsory military service demonstrates a commitment to that country. Also you will or can gain important life skills that hopefully will help you in your career going forward after military service It is simply unsustainable to absorb everyone and then they can become a major burden on resources and welfare systems. You need to give something back to become a citizen, surly you can see this? Canada doesnt have this problem because of the horrendously bad weather..very few people want to immigrate to Canada...lets be honest ...lest be honest I'd be against compulsory military service for immigrants because we shouldn't treat them like cannon fodder. It may not be such an issue in a country like South Africa, but for a country like the US with a military that operates all over the place, treating immigrants like cannon fodder isn't an image we should want. Yes, I know armies around the world and in history have been plenty immigrant heavy, but just because we can treat them like cannon fodder doesn't mean we should.

Doublepost because forum: Aha, I found where I was thinking of a similar one from: https://www.marianne2020.com/issues/national-service It's a heck of a lot more fleshed out than Buttigeigs comment, but I wouldn't be surprised if he cribbed it from Williamson's page. The page on Williamsons site implies that it's voluntary, but it doesn't explictly say whether it's mandatory or volunteer. @Boeroer: It may not have happened in Romania (since WWII anyway), but in the US, draftees were definetly sent to fight in Vietnam.

Looked at the wiki source (video if you want to look, starts at about the 7:55 mark https://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/buttigieg-we-need-generational-change-in-politics-1461546563622 ) and it appears to be in response to a question that was meant to be about racial divisions and healing the 'loss of community'. It sounds to me like an attempt to apply lessions he learned in the military to civillian life in a misguided way rather than any sort of draft thing. I get what he's saying about rebuilding trust and community and stuff, but his idea isn't a great one and can't be applied to those outside an age bracket I've read about somewhere but may be another candidates idea, plus it doesn't really help with community outside the military.

Taxes in some form have been around since, well, civilization, how else is the government going to make revenue? Oppressive taxation is still oppressive though. Anyways, in the curiosity of trying to find out what hes trying to solve or what his reasoning is for it, I tried searching his candidacy page, which doesn't even have an issues page yet, the only source I can find is from the wiki page which links an MSNBC interview as the source. Still looking at the vid atm though.

'Undetectable', is that autocorrect striking? heh. You think all of the Democrats are repulsive and unelectable anyway, so, that's not a very comparative bar. Also, the number is like, 19 now? And Biden is announcing later in the week.

Or in DF parlance, a iiiFUNiii circus.

@Vol: Buttigeigs idea sounds more like what some countries such as Israel and Finland have. But those are smaller countries that wouldn't be able to rely as easily on volunteers to fill out the military as we do (and Israel has historical reasons). So, I just wonder what problem he's trying to solve there. I do recall Guard Dog (or one of the other ex-military on here) stating his opinion on conscripts or non-volunteers, so, theres that. @Boeroer on the previous page because I don't want to deal with the hassle of quoting: The US has had volunteer military for most of it's history though. It's one thing to have it be institutional for a long time and another to switch from mandatory to volunteer. Edit: Actually, my mistake, we only fully transitioned to an all-volunteer military in 1973. I was under the impression that it had been the norm for a long time.

I would prefer predictable. What we have is actually pretty stable. There is a lot of sound and fury and plenty of light from the burning dumpster to read the Washington Post telling us all how much everything sucks. But his worst impulses are blocked by the House and the Courts or his own hubris and incompetence. I'm sleeping a lot better with the House in the hands of the Democrats and the Senate in the hands of the Republicans. IMO that is the ideal split. We do best when they all neutralize each other. And i'd still rather have his judges over anything Hillary f-----g Clinton would have appointed. Things can always be worse GD, Bernie Sanders could win the Democratic nomination then the Democrats could win the next election due to exasperation at Trump.. Sanders is the " antithesis " of Trump but would be much worse for the USA (goodbye guns and weapons, first order of the day ) and its important role it needs to play in a stable, progressive world Come on, don't perpetuate the gun grab myth, even though I know you're just messing with GD here. Also, the world has gotten a bit less progressive due to the rise of illiberal democracy and the backlash from the right. And it's gotten a bit less stable in part due to that and in part due to Trumps abdication, and also because things are returning to the multi-polar Great Powers system that was the norm during the European colonial period and likely further back.

You do not. We are all safest then they are all trying to screw each other over. Give one tribe of rats total dominion over the sewer and they will start screwing us. Sometimes I wonder if the President needs to be the opposite party of the one currently in power in Congress in order for oversight to happen properly. It'd certainly look strange when Congress flips parties mid-term though. Then again, both parties go rabidly barking up the wrong tree (or just rabidly barking) at times. I'm mostly thinking about Benghazi and the Republicans incessant push to tear her down.

GD, I think even you would prefer a stable one compared to this

That's certainly a good alternate framing, No idea whether it'd work as a legal reasoning though for Trumps attempts.

Redacted Mueller report just got released! https://www.justice.gov/storage/report.pdf

I thought the weed joke number was 421?

Well, I meant in terms of iconoclasm since that’s what you were talking about and the Great Schism had iconoclasm as a major point of split, among others. What I gather from the Reformation is that there wasn’t really any iconoclasm in the Orthodoxy sense, just returning to the simpler iconographic roots. Protestant groups that had a more Orthodox view on iconography could have existed, but they weren’t the mainstream movements

What Christians are you referring to? Catholics tend to love their gaudy symbols. Iconoclasm. I think it's considered one of the big causes for the break between eastern Orthodoxy and western Catholicism, although I think there's also some debate about exactly how much. There was also a smaller split I think with Catholics and Protestants, though it was less iconoclasm and more 'getting rid of the excesses' Also, you may be thinking of the part about worshipping false idols, which just means that god doesn't care whether you pray at a golden statue as long as it's HIS golden statue.

So, apparently Macron wants to try and get it rebuilt in five years, but everything I've heard and read indicates that it's going to be a long delicate proccess that is going to take 10 years to complete because there is a lot of careful work that you have to do. The roof is likely going to be prioritized for obvious reasons and I could see that getting set up quickly, but even if you poured a HUGE amount of resources into it, it still doesn't change the fact that it's not something that can be slapped together in the same way you can build a skyscraper in five years. I checked and the next French Presidential elections are three years away, so, there may not be political motivation in the sense of upcoming elections, but still.

Speaking of, since Marianne Williamson is going to have a town hall tonight, as is Andrew Yang (separately, obviously), I checked out her campaign page and it sounds kind of like she would be more Green party than Democrat. Although, despite her being labelled a New Age author, the issues page doesn't have any New Ageness to it though it still has the hint of that perspective. So, she's going to have to work to get past that image.

Kind of a short read and doesn't really go into the why, just that they are. Though this portion goes a good way towards explaining it: "The danger for liberals is that they underestimate the power of these raw, emotional appeals. For centuries, liberals have assumed that nationalism was a kind of irrational attachment that would grow weaker as people became more rational, connected and worldly.", it doesn't entirely explain why they're having trouble coming up with a viable alternative. Although that is likely in part because the previous alternative, globalism, is the one producing the backlash.

I don't remember the release of Sarah Palins emails ever being a big deal. It probably should include stuff like the massive release of various diplomatic cables and all that, but that would show up as both having the 'grinding the gears' image and would ruin the joke somewhat.