Canada will reject missile defenceFollow

Bah, why nuke? I'm sure we've got plenty of nasty little bugs cooked up that can take out large masses of human beings without doing much real harm to the rest of the environment.
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bingo.

all the missle defense sheild will do is pump a bunch of cash in some contractors pocket, and escalate the super powers into another cold war.

the threat is a lone individual, or some pissant third world country with a fanatic who will hand carry a weapon into this country....making the missle defense system.....as the military calls it themselves........ineffective for solving the greatest military threat to our country.

want to get more afraid?

not only is this addministraition willing to abandon a treaty with a super power to make a weapon that is basically USELESS at defending this country from its greatist threat......the idiots want to make a bunker busting weapon with a tactical nuke warhead for using in places like iraq.

they want to thumb their nosses at the entire world, and use nukes at their discreation.

this is BAD politics.

this is the Bush addministraition. save america, vote for a recall. the majority of the entire world voted the United States of America the greatest threat to world peace. remember when Germany had that doubious title?

we are better than this. but if you sheep continue to ignore what is happening around you, it will not matter. we will be judged by the actions of our leaders, reguardless of our intentions as a people. just like Germany.

stand up ans do something.

Eh? Look up the definition of ignorance. It probably doesn't mean what you think it does...

And no. You point is *not* obvious. You were implying that the US spends an exhorbitant amount of money on our military. You also specifically contrasted that expense in relation to that spent on health and education.

Yet the truth is that we spend more then twice as much each year on health and education then we spend on our military. So. Not only were you ignorant of the actual amounts being spent, your point was wrong as well...

Edited, Fri Feb 25 18:46:01 2005 by gbaji

Other countries dont because we do though. If the US tomorrow did exactly what all those European nations wanted us to do and stopped trying to be the "worlds police force", within 10-15 years, the military budgets required by those same nations would soar, and we'd likely have a couple large scale conflicts occur as well that would hurt the hell out of EU economies.

The simple fact is that those other nations prosper at the expense of the US. Someone has to spend the money and effort, so they gladly let us to it while they spend all their money on their own citizens comfort. That's great and all, but then slamming us for doing things that allow them to live in such comfort at such low cost is a bit ridiculous.

European socialisms work because of US capitalism. They let us be the bad guy, but they reap just as many benefits from our work. Take away the trade relations with the US, and those economic systems in Europe will collapse within a few decades (or at best stagnate).

Yes. The US essentially subsidizes Europe, and Canada, and Mexico. You're welcome. Now stop ******** at us for doing exactly what allows you to sit back and worry only about yourselves...



I agree 100%. But the vast majority of new technologies come from two sources: Military, and big business. Note that socialised systems don't build new technology. Note that less military spending doesn't either. Funny that. You argue that new tech is the most important thing for making all our lives better, but then insist that we remove money from the two institutions that most contribute to new technological advances. Can you explain that logic to me?





Actually, we have not "cut education spending". We've "cut" some programs and expanded others. Total education spending this year is greater then it was last year, and the year before that, etc...

When people say that we're "cutting education", they're usually just refering to one specific program that they care about. The total money spent has not decreased though.

You're not looking far enough afield.

Are you suggesting that the EU does not gain economically from the fact that the US spends time, effort, and political capital keeping the ME from turning into a war zone? If the US pulled out of Saudi Arabi and Israel today (we'll just ignore Iraq for the moment), exactly how many years do you think it would be before Europe would either be paying 10 times as much for fuel as it does today, or having to maintain their own presense in the region to keep oil flowing to their nations?


Think about that. The US spends a hell of a lot of effort "strong arming" regions of the world to keep them from falling apart, to make it possible for western nations to do business there. All those cheap good from Tailand? You can thank us. Do you seriously think that the good produced in your country came from raw materials mined/grown/whatever locally? Who do you think keeps those trade routes open so that your countries don't have to?

That's the US again.

Calling us names and blasting us for doing those things is incredibly hypocritical when the systems EU nations use to so efficiently feed and cloth their citizens largely works *because* the US does those things around the globe. If we didn't do it, you would have to, and Europe has a pretty freaking ****-poor track record in terms of how they've delt with non-European powers, and the messes they've gotten themselves into along the way.




Exactly how many cars, TV, computers, microwaves, stereos, cell phones, etc are actually designed and built in the EU? You make some stuff, but you don't usually design it yourself (and construction is often done outside your own borders as well). The EU exists in order to be a consumer block in the world market and gain some positional advantage that way.

The US dominates the market exactly becuase the US actually researches, designs, and builds *new* products that compete well against older ones. To be perfectly honest, if it wasn't for US and East Asian capitalism, EU nations would pretty much look exactly like they did in the 30s. You're pretty much spooned off of technological advances produced by other nations. The reason you can provide such nice lives to your citizens at such a low cost is because you don't have to actually develop the neato things they use. When exactly was the last time any techological breakthrough came from an European nation? You can literally create a direct relationship between the adoption of socialism in Europe to the decline of European tech development. Sure. You build some new cars now and then. But that's about it. Meanwhile, the rest of the world has developed things like Computers, CDs, Microwaves, Satellite communication, the internet, and continuous improvements of existing products, all of which you get to take advantage of as consumers, but don't have to spend the money to develop yourselves.

I'm serious here. If the entire world had governments and economic systems like Europe, please explain exactly how *any* of those things would ever have been invented, much less become mass market items? You don't get "life improving" technological developments in socialisms. Not very quickly anyway. There's no justification for it. Why on earth would a government pay to develop something new for the people, if that just means that it'll have to pay more to provide it to them? Only free enterprise does that, and it's ability to do that is markedly reduced in direct proportion to the degree that socialism is practiced in the economy. So the more you praise the fact that you're able to provide all citizens with "X", the more it's obvious that the only reason you have "X" to give is because someone else spend the time and money to develop it.



Yeah. And in the process, they make new discoveries. Cell Phones that can download ring tones, songs, play mp3s, tell you exactly where you are, and operate your home appliances are the direct result of military technological development (encrypted communication to be exact). GPS came about for the same reason. Microwaves? Once again, used for communication initially, then figured out they could cook things with it too. You'd be hard pressed to find any significant technological development in the last 100 years that can not be traced almost directly to a military project of some kind.

As to your MS example? Who cares? You seem to want to blame MS for being "evil" (which I agree with you about). But that doesn't matter. The fact is that because of those businesses, the product that was developed was in fact developed. How that came to market is pretty irrelevant. If the small company manage to keep control and rake in the profits, or if they were bought out instead just doesn't matter. The "new" thing they built is now being used and enjoyed by consumers. Thus, the process undeniably results in a postive benefit for "the people".

No system other then free enterprise has historically been able to come close at providing the range and number of new and improved products for consumers. Why deny this? Seems to me like you're starting from a pre-assumption and just refusing to see that the facts around you don't match that assumption. Guess what? The vast majority of new products come from big corporations, mostly in nations with the least socialized economies. That's just the way things are. It's predictable really. You can deny that all you want, but that's like denying that the ocean is full of water.



Show me a source for that claim.

Out of all the posters on this forum, you're the one that I would bet hands down that would spend pages of useless threads debating semantics. Wake up call. The English language is not spoken merely by dictionary meanings.

IGNORANCEn : the lack of knowledge or education

Now, without doing a search...

Q. How much money did the U.S. spend on defence last year.
Don't know? Sigh! The ignorance runs rampant.

Q. How much money did the U.S. spend on education and health last year?
Don't know? Sigh! The ignorance is rampant?

Q. When was the last time I changed my underwear?
Don't know? Sigh! The ignorance is rampant.

Gee Gabaji... You are one ignorant son of a *****! I know coz the dictionary told me so.


I'm so sorry Gbaiji. I keep forgetting that I'm talking to a citizen of the richest country in the world where the streets are made of gold and the people **** nuggets. It's just that where I come from 400 billion dollars is a **** load of money. Please forgive me for implying that 400 billion is an exhorbitant amount. Please tell me, what is exhorbitant to you? And just for the record, the U.S. accounts for almost half the world military spending in the world (8 times more than China!)

No, my point is not wrong at all. My point is that the U.S. spends far to much on money on the military compared to what it spends on health and education. Clear and simple. Granted, the education funding is higher that the military spending, but so ******* what? Why don't you do a search and see the comparison of military and education spending of most other countries of the world. They don't even come close to the States, because they have their priorities right.

Please don't disappont me with your next post as I'm expecting you to argue dictionary meanings as per usual.

Put all this arguing aside and realize, the chances of our 'defense' missile hitting the ICBM as its falling is like trying to hit a bullet with another bullet, and the one you want dead is already at full speed.

The chances on hitting the ICBM are so slim that the billions of dollars is only worth the deal of making the public 'feel' safe.

Who cares, it's Canada...

Funny how they tested this ANTI-Missle ********* said it was 100% effective, when in fact it was 0% effective?

Just wanted to point that out.