What is a conservative, anyway?

[AllieBaba]

Nobody has portrayed those who volunteer for the military as stupid, or ill informed. After all, I volunteered. But I was from a poor family.

Yes, they have. They are portrayed as idiots all the time, both on this board and in the media. ANd the press goes out of its way to find the most mentally unbalanced, dysfunctional and backward representatives of soldiers it can when it comes time to interview.

Instead of interviewing the smart, brave, knowledgeable and dedicated soldiers who make up the majority of our armed forces.

Well perhaps with the exception of the Navy.

JUST KIDDING!

 

[random3434]

Yes, they have. They are portrayed as idiots all the time, both on this board and in the media. ANd the press goes out of its way to find the most mentally unbalanced, dysfunctional and backward representatives of soldiers it can when it comes time to interview.

Instead of interviewing the smart, brave, knowledgeable and dedicated soldiers who make up the majority of our armed forces.

Well perhaps with the exception of the Navy.

JUST KIDDING!

Allie, could you please provide some links of from those on here and those in the media that portrayed soliders as idiots? You are saying this happens ALL THE TIME? I would really like to see that, because if that is true, that makes my blood boil.

 

[AllieBaba]

Allie, could you please provide some links of from those on here and those in the media that portrayed soliders as idiots? You are saying this happens ALL THE TIME? I would really like to see that, because if that is true, that makes my blood boil.

John Kerry:
“You know, education, if you make the most of it, if you study hard and you do your homework, and you make an effort to be smart, uh, you, you can do well. If you don’t, you get stuck in Iraq.”

Good Shepherd:
http://www.usmessageboard.com/milit...hink-the-us-military-is-doing-a-good-job.html
"My question is what the hell are they good at? With all seriousness, what the hell are they good at? Again, what is it Americans think the US military is good at?"

"With all honestly, the current US military is really and I mean really capable of following the orders of people who don't know what they're doing. That much is certainly clear.

I do really want to know, what the hell are these guys good at?

Don't give me that patriotic garbage either. I want hard real world answers.:"

".... If the whole world came to a crashing end - nuclear bombs and all - I wouldn't need you or your stinking army to come rescue me, nor would I be afraid to die. Don't ever assume you know me. You got that?

....Don't ever, ever forget I do not have to respect anyone just because they wear a uniform."
"The all volunteer army has been a major disaster"



Same thread, eots:
"bullshit most of them do it for education and money..and that something greater than themselves they serve is the elite of the military industrial complex"

For starters.

 

[Skeptik]

The above exchange between Modbert and garyd about NCLB raises another interesting question:

Is it the conservative position that the Department of Education should simply issue unfunded edicts to the nation's schools, or

that it should put its money where its mouth is, or

that the Department of Education should be eliminated altogether, based on the Tenth Amendment?

What do real conservatives believe about NCLB and the Department of Education? It seems to me that the Republican Party opposed the formation of said department when it was proposed, didn't it? Do the terms "Republican" and "conservative" share a few common roots still?

 

[Shadow]

My bro-in-law came from an incredibly wealthy family and left West Point in order to serve in Viet Nam. He didn't want to wait until graduation.

My daughter-in-law is not poor, she comes from a well-off family and has wanted to go into the military since she was a little girl.

I get so sick of the portrayal of all our military personnel as stupid, poor dopes who just didn't have anything better to do and didn't know any better.

It's just as annoying as the portrayal of all those who live outside NYC or LA or Chicago as "redneck Bible-thumpers".

Many of the guys I knew in college had degrees in political science after graduation and were already in the Army, Marines and Navy. Several served in Desert Storm. Many of my relatives graduated high school,went on to college and now serve in Iraq and Afganistan. Some with decent corporate jobs ,that belong to the National Guard and have been there two or more times.

 

[Cecilie1200]

From Wikipedia:


Please note in my original post how I specifically said FUNDING.

I was busy noting how you cited Wikipedia as though it was a reliable source.

 

[garyd]

Put it this way the quality of education in this country was far better before there was a federal bureau of education than it has been at any point since.

 

[AllieBaba]

Many of the guys I knew in college had degrees in political science after graduation and were already in the Army, Marines and Navy. Several served in Desert Storm. Many of my relatives graduated high school,went on to college and now serve in Iraq and Afganistan. Some with decent corporate jobs ,that belong to the National Guard and have been there two or more times.

My sister's brother-in-law is a district court judge and he's gone twice.
A close friend of ours is a police detective, he's been over there for more than a year, training Iraqi policemen.

What a bunch of boobs they are! Obviously only idiots would ever join the military!

 

[Shadow]

My sister's brother-in-law is a district court judge and he's gone twice.
A close friend of ours is a police detective, he's been over there for more than a year, training Iraqi policemen.

What a bunch of boobs they are! Obviously only idiots would ever join the military!

Most of the same people telling the world how stupid the men and women in the US millitary are...are the very same folks who trashed them all including our returning POW Jessica Lynch. Who per her Auto Biography was beaten and raped. And still to this day has not recovered totally from her injuries. Bunch of scumbags all of them..

 

[AllieBaba]

One only has to read their posts to know that.

 

[Cecilie1200]

My sister's brother-in-law is a district court judge and he's gone twice.
A close friend of ours is a police detective, he's been over there for more than a year, training Iraqi policemen.

What a bunch of boobs they are! Obviously only idiots would ever join the military!

Every man in my family has been in the military, some of them career. The exception is my husband, who tried to join and was rejected because he sleepwalks. All of them have been at least high school graduates, even in times and parts of the country where many people were not. My father, despite being raised in rural Tennessee during the Depression, graduated high school and upon joining the Army, was immediately latched onto by Army Intelligence, based solely on his tested IQ. More recently, all of the men in my family have been college graduates.

If loving your country makes you stupid, then I guess by that standard, my menfolk are stupid. They certainly aren't by any other standard.

 

[Old Rocks]

I think this whole bit about "liberals" holding our military in contempt is a diversion to avoid the obvious accusations of the contempt that the conservatives hold for our sons and daughters in the military. After all, it was the Republicans that gave the people that were treating our wounded at Walter Reed in such a reprehensible manner, a clean sheet. They claimed it was to avoid giving the Army a black eye. In reality it was to protect the Haliburton spinoff that was making big bucks off of the misery of our soldiers.
Walter Reed Army Medical Center neglect scandal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[garyd]

Less than a week after the article, new Defense Secretary Robert Gates visited Walter Reed and said those responsible would be "held accountable[...]"

"I endorse the decision by Secretary of the Army Fran Harvey to relieve the Commander, Major General George W. Weightman of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. The care and welfare of our wounded men and women in uniform demand the highest standard of excellence and commitment that we can muster as a government. When this standard is not met, I will insist on swift and direct corrective action and, where appropriate, accountability up the chain of command."[7]

Francis J. Harvey, Secretary of the Army, resigned March 2.

The Army announced it had relieved of command Maj. Gen. Weightman, a physician who had headed the hospital for only six months. In a brief announcement, the Army said service leaders had "lost trust and confidence" in Weightman's leadership abilities "to address needed solutions for soldier outpatient care." It said the decision to fire him was made by Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey.[8]
Lt. Gen. Kevin C. Kiley, Army Surgeon General and ex-commander of Walter Reed, retired March 12.

Harvey then named Army Surgeon General and former Walter Reed commander Kevin Kiley as interim commander, but Harvey himself was forced to resign by Gates on March 2. Gates felt Harvey wasn't getting the Army to move fast enough on making necessary changes. Maj. Gen. Eric Schoomaker was named the new commander of Walter Reed on March 2. Kiley himself retired on March 12, 2007 after acting Army Secretary Pete Geren asked for Kiley's resignation.[9]

An internal WRAMC memorandum from September 2006 warned that the personnel shortage caused by an outsourcing of public works services put WRAMC in danger of "mission failure".[10]

University of Miami President and former Clinton cabinet Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala, along with former Republican Senator Bob Dole, were appointed by President George W. Bush to lead the President's Commission on Care for America's Returning Wounded Warriors[11], an investigative panel regarding the various allegations. [12] The remaining Commission members included two veterans wounded in Operation Iraqi Freedom, the wife of an Army Staff Sergeant severely burned in Iraq, the Chairman and CEO of a non-for-profit organization that constructs "comfort homes" for families of hospitalized military servicemembers, two leaders in the health care industry, and an expert on veterans affairs and military health care.[13] This commission released their final report on July 26, 2007 [14] and issued their findings in testimony to the U.S. Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs on September 26, 2007.[15]

The scandal at Walter Reed led to an extensive analysis of the soldiers' healthcare system managed by the United States Department of Veterans' Affairs. Amidst accusations of mismanagement and excessive bureaucracy [16][17], the VA announced an extensive review of all of their medical facilities to ensure healthcare standards are being met.[18]


Yep that sure looks like a white wash to me A brass hat fired and a secretary forced to resign for not acting quickly enough. Sure they didn't do anything.

Rocks do you even bothr to read the whole of the articles you post or do you just pick a headline and fire for effect...

 

[Old Rocks]

Not only is the scandalous treatment of American Troops at Walter Reed military hospital connected to Halliburton and Katrina-era FEMA (see video right) but it's also, at its core, a deeply, deeply conservative scandal.

"Privatization," or the transfer of any and all services into the hands of market morality, is a fundamental part of the conservative project.

For its past performance in the public sector, see Energy Crisis, California.

This time, under some shady circumstances, a private firm IAP was given the contract to take over a number of services at Walter Reed, despite the fact that the employees' bid was lower.

Only after IAP "protested" (according to Waxman's letter to General Weightman PDF) was the employees' bid "increased" and the contract awarded to the private firm headed by ex-Halliburton official, Al Neffgen.

This privatization precipitated an 80% drop in care workers, leading to a human scandal that the market will never ever, ever be equipped to handle. It's neither the market's, nor conservatives', business. At the heart of privatization is the belief that competing desires to make a buck will "take care of everything."

Walter Reed is another in a series of tragic bottom lines.
Smoking Gun: Walter Reed scandal connected to Halliburton & FEMA? [VIDEO] | Video | AlterNet

 

[garyd]

The problem isn't the privatization, which is the excuse of every government bureaucrat there is for his own incompetence, and or inability to take advantage of new opportunites. in fact privatization has helped fund the VA medical complex, which Halliburton has nothing to do with this whatever the idiot in your video says. The chief problem the VA has is that it doesn't pay doctors or nurses a competitive wage and hence there is always a shortage of health care workers. This is in general papered over by all kinds of really bizarre strategies and a few really good ideas that ought to be looked at more closely and applied more widely.

I am by the way a veteran and have experience with the VA medical system. It's, by and large a joke, and one of the better arguments against turning America's health care over to the federal government.

 

[midcan5]

Actually, the opposite is true, since conservatives believe that, with freedom comes personal responsibility. Liberals believe that freedom means freedom from responsibility.

It is, you could have fooled me. The Conservative Nanny State

Can you give a real example of anything where a real conservative has unjustifiably blamed someone else for their problems?

I love the intrusion of 'real' that saves you from the obvious and eliminates all who go by the tag conservative. Did you see the names above or are you lost in the echo chamber of meaningless finger pointing.

 

[Modbert]

I was busy noting how you cited Wikipedia as though it was a reliable source.

Wikipedia is a collection of reliable sources put together to make articles. Or do you not notice the massive amount of articles at the end of each page that they cite?

Wikipedia has as many errors as any other information site might have.

 

[midcan5]

Put it this way the quality of education in this country was far better before there was a federal bureau of education than it has been at any point since.

Proof please?

 

[Modbert]

The above exchange between Modbert and garyd about NCLB raises another interesting question:

Is it the conservative position that the Department of Education should simply issue unfunded edicts to the nation's schools, or

that it should put its money where its mouth is, or

that the Department of Education should be eliminated altogether, based on the Tenth Amendment?

What do real conservatives believe about NCLB and the Department of Education? It seems to me that the Republican Party opposed the formation of said department when it was proposed, didn't it? Do the terms "Republican" and "conservative" share a few common roots still?

Why the hell would politicians want us to be truly educated?

As long as we can run the machines but not know how badly we get fucked over then all is well for them.

 

[garyd]

Midcan I'll have to check out the book. If it is what I expect I'll find it rather easy to debunk the lies myths and innuendoes.

By the way I'm still waiting for some one on your side of the aisle to explain to me why if the Bush tax cuts disproportionately benefited the rich that the richest five percent now pay a larger portion of the total American tax receipts than at any time since the 1930's