BruceVC

This is ironically such a Russian response through and through. Whenever someone in Russia exposes government corruption the typical response from pro-Putin camp is, "But in America/Europe/etc. they do this too. You're are targeting us. You're doing this to undermine our country. You're an American agent (just like Wikileaks is being labeled a Russian front) etc, etc..." No my friend its not that but I can understand why you think that is what Im doing My point has nothing to do with Russia or China, they were just examples. My point and issue is with Wikileaks, they claim to want to make governments more accountable and they are interested in " the free flow of information " yet they only and consistently release information about the USA How can this possibly be seen in anyway but a campaign to undermine the USA? So Wikileaks is not objective and who made them the judge and jury or what information the world needs to see about the USA ....and we dont even know what is true and what is not

Well they dont have to be, this is a personal choice we all need to make about where we support Trump and where we don't around his comments, I try to make this point often on forums and in RL in South Africa and its seldom understood or believed Views of Trump dont have to be absolute or immutable because he really isn't' all bad. I encourage people to try to be objective and accept you will have varied opinions of him, this is probably the best way to grapple with the Trump presidency as he is the USA president and its unhelpful to think of him as " the worst and most calamitous president " we have ever seen So for example, I absolutely support and appreciate his Women Days comments yet I reject his accusations of wiretapping unless I see evidence

But we cant do anything about Assad, the West cant get involved in regime change in ME based on past history. The result is never appreciated or the change used constructively So yes Assad will stay in power but at least he doesnt represent Islamic extremism like ISIS but he is a dictator Hopefully more Syrians can go home after this or at least we can reduce the number of Syrians leaving Syria ?

https://www.yahoo.com/news/official-couple-hundred-us-marines-syria-225612067--politics.html Very interesting development, US marines are being sent to Syria...so its a modicum of " boots on the ground " What do you guys think? I think the USA should stay out of Syria, apart from its current commitments, and the let the Russians and other ME countries do the work The good news is this will lead to a quicker annihilation of ISIS in Raqqa which is there capital. Once this falls there utterly unrealistic objective of a " Caliphate " will be over

Except Wikileaks doesn't make " governments " transparent They typically only target the USA, where are all the leaks around Russia or China and these are much more intolerant and dictatorial governments than the USA So its not about keeping governments in check, Wikileaks is a personal campaign to undermine the USA and the West

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/03/07/wikileaks-releases-entire-hacking-capacity-cia.html Wikileaks has gone too far .....again They are in complete contempt for the security of the USA and its Western partners and something really needs to be done about them

So the military is 'unready' and you want to throw another 54 billion dollars at it, but our schools are 'nasty and dangerous' and so you want to take money away from them. Okey dokey. Can I get a voucher for sending money to a private security company? These guys get the job done: There are private schools, but no private military yet. Many people though hire private security when the police aren't doing enough. Private military might not be a bad idea, there was a story in some African country about 100 mercenaries doing more good than 15000 UN "peace keepers". This is true about mercenaries doing more good in some African conflicts than UN peacekeepers Executive Outcomes was a mercenary outfit that compromised of many ex-Apartheid special force units and they did some good things on the African continent https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Outcomes

You always seem to state the undeniable truth

Is this true ? How many are we talking about and was the slowdown due to people being deported?

http://hillsidetavern.co.za/ Just got back from dinner with friends, had a delicious rack of ribs

Shady some potential good news, I may be coming to a conference for 7 days in Colorado If I do lets go out for dinner, I can treat you and your wife because they give me an entertainment budget. Maybe we can find a weed restaurant, where you can smoke and then eat? Im not sure if they exist but if not then something different ...maybe that Buckhorn restaurant ? And we can go large because I am allowed to use it twice to take customers out Check the menu for 3 guests http://www.buckhornexchange.com/suppermenu.php

This has become one of the major criticism from many circles Trump feels he needs twitter to defend himself from the media

Yes Im just teasing you, obviously I would never be so rude

I always admire someone prepared to admit he did not receive a good education , I went to one of the best private schools in SA. For my dad this mattered But I think you are very perceptive? I have never thought you weren't educated

Name me one ideology that has not and could not produce extremists. Let's start with one!Democracy?Democracy? Oh please... democracy is one of the most radical ideologies ever to exist. Ask the American independence fighters. The French revolutionaries. More recently, ask those involved in the Arab spring. name one democratic extremist Robespierre OK, I dont know much about him but i would not call ending slavery and feudal system extremism I meant to ask you, we have a Czech criminal who is now incarcerated in SA but initially came to SA and demonstrated a degree of brutal intelligence and unseen violence who nearly controlled most of the drug scene in SA....we were totally unprepared for this type of criminality...how prominent is he in Czech ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radovan_Krej%C4%8D%C3%AD%C5%99

Well the West won the ideological war against Communism and it will obviously win the war against Islamic extremism....what lesson should we learn?Essentially, what it means for freedom and freedom of speech. The Cold War took away everyone's opinion who was himself a communist or just somewhat around that spectrum in the name of security and te American way. Black List and all, does that ring a bell?Now, it takes on different forms with Islam, namely the constant surveillance. But in essence, it is the exact same thing all over again. Another thing is that the ideologies in question become senselessly defied in pure black and white patterns. Very few in the Cold War bothered to read Marx, Engels or even Lenin. Very few today bother to read the Quran (even though it would do good-one of the last few Textes even specifically tells Muslims that they have their religion, others have their own religion, and everyone should just get along). This of course does not only result in the waging of a war against the abstract concept of a certain ideology, but it also creates so much unnecessary fear, justifying the measures I've previously mentioned in the first place. I know the high level views of Marx and guys like Lenin and I haven't read even a single page of the Quran but I doubt reading these works would change my view that I am fundamentally opposed to both Communism and Islamic Extremism..... I know you not suggesting I should read them but what would the benefit be? Well let's differentiate... you don't need to agree with Lenin in order to agree with Marx, and you don't need to fully agree with Marx to see that he has a point (in some cases.... admittedly, other cases are just moronic). But let's not go there, that's not the point. So I recommend you read the Quran, just because it is simply well written. It contains, even when translated, quite beautiful poetry. And some none of us speak Arabic, to my knowledge, it appears we are missing out on some true art. And of course, itll be a huge cultural benefit. But anyway, you can't really oppose the extreme version of an ideology (be it Marxism-Leninism or Islamic Extremism) if you don't understand the ideology it is based on (Socialism or Islam). If you try to do that, then you are not opposing something, you are just being ignorant. And then of course, ignorance leads to unreasonable fear, a dogmatic world view and unnecessary, unhelpful and useless prejudice. There are communists/socialists and Muslims out there who genuinely want to make the world a better place. And they are even the vast majority of said groups. Of course there are extremists, but this is true for any ideology. But if you just oppose their entire ideology, without fully understanding it, how will you ever tell the difference between an extremist and someone who simply has a different point of view? So I will stress this again: you need to read the Quran. Bennie, Bennie, Bennie....this post is inconsistent and illogical, normally I would assume the person was trolling but I'll continue to believe you mean what you say. I just have to be honest its odd I don't need to know or understand Marx or Lenin because there isn't a country that exists nowadays that has followed there views and is sustainable. This is not personal, I just like to live in the world of practical examples I dont need to read the Quran because the manifestos of groups like Al-Qaeda and ISIS are well documented, they take parts of the Quran selectively and then add the normal " end Crusader influence in the Middle East " ...its just religious demagoguery and cannot be accurately achieved You do realize the entire ME is fighting ISIS.....what additional understanding would anyone need ?

Well the West won the ideological war against Communism and it will obviously win the war against Islamic extremism....what lesson should we learn?Essentially, what it means for freedom and freedom of speech. The Cold War took away everyone's opinion who was himself a communist or just somewhat around that spectrum in the name of security and te American way. Black List and all, does that ring a bell?Now, it takes on different forms with Islam, namely the constant surveillance. But in essence, it is the exact same thing all over again. Another thing is that the ideologies in question become senselessly defied in pure black and white patterns. Very few in the Cold War bothered to read Marx, Engels or even Lenin. Very few today bother to read the Quran (even though it would do good-one of the last few Textes even specifically tells Muslims that they have their religion, others have their own religion, and everyone should just get along). This of course does not only result in the waging of a war against the abstract concept of a certain ideology, but it also creates so much unnecessary fear, justifying the measures I've previously mentioned in the first place. I know the high level views of Marx and guys like Lenin and I haven't read even a single page of the Quran but I doubt reading these works would change my view that I am fundamentally opposed to both Communism and Islamic Extremism..... I know you not suggesting I should read them but what would the benefit be?

Well the West won the ideological war against Communism and it will obviously win the war against Islamic extremism....what lesson should we learn?

Im playing Dishonored 2 at the moment, its great and exciting and well worth the money spent When I first bought the game it kept crashing after 5-10 minutes, I assumed it was because of a known bug I read about on the Steam forums and the solution was to wait for the next patch I then played Black Flag and that also kept crashing and my forum investigation revealed another bug, I started thinking " gee these PC games have become unstable ...might be time to get a console " Then I noticed after some hardware investigation that the fans on my Video card weren't working and this was due to a faulty power supply...so the issue was hardware related from day 1 and had nothing to do with patches, bugs or the perceived "instability of PC games "

You Sir, have the gift of being able to cut through the BS and get right to the heart of the matter. And I salute you for it! @Heijoushin and GD The question of "misinformation " on the Internet and fake news can be difficult to qualify and even more difficult to control I know at times this deluge of information available to us can be overwhelming and some of us ask questions like " who can we trust ", " what is real and what is fake " and so on I have an obvious and clear solution, it is imperative that global committees are established where people like me will decide what information is relevant and what is true. I dont want confusion and doubt, I know exactly what is " real " and what is " misinformation " If we can make this a universal law then the world will become a much easier place to navigate....vote for me for Global Internet Information Minister !!!!

What are the objectives of the " movement ", if they won what are the outcomes for this victory?

The speech was good but what do you think are the problems he should be attending to first? He is looking at reforming Obamacare, tax cuts for the middle class, he wants to rebuild the military and destroy ISIS amongst other things Those are actually the problems that need addressing. The issue is the Republican ideologues in Congress which will not agree to anything sensible. On Obamacare, they want to simply get rid of it, regardless of people who can't afford medical insurance. On tax cuts, Republicans including Trump, want a huge tax cut and at the same time increased military spending. In addition Trump wants a 1 trillion infrastructure plan, government paid family leave, and assorted other spending increases. All this while we already have a budget deficit that's projected to grow without bound, and a huge amount of unfunded future liabilities. Meanwhile, no one is even talking about bringing medical costs under control, which is the main driver of the budget problems. You raise some valid considerations . I share some of your concerns

The speech was good but what do you think are the problems he should be attending to first? He is looking at reforming Obamacare, tax cuts for the middle class, he wants to rebuild the military and destroy ISIS amongst other things

Remember the old " draining the swamp " from the presidential race, he definitely hasn't achieved much on that front

But I do think his overall speech was a positive one, he condemned bigotry and mentioned the USA needing to unify or other similar things and he did receive positive feedback from most polls