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 Originally Posted by Penneywize
lol, wuf. Do you really think that picture means anything at all? It's not obliterating anything man. You could bring up pictures from elsewhere in the world, boy I wonder how many U.S. military bases are within 200 km of the Canadian or Mexican border. Does that mean the U.S. is threatening Canada? Logic fail. Come on man, you're smarter than that. Presence of military bases doesn't really mean much on its own. In all likelihood a good number of those bases predate any foreseen conflict with Iran.
The picture is fine within context. You mean to suggest that a superpower (the only superpower) that spends more than the next 13 countries combined that has invaded and occupied the two geographically closest and strategically important regions to Iran is doing so on the up n up? Not only that but their domestic rhetoric is nothing but lies and hyperbole on the issue and they have a history rife in control of oil. So this speck of a nation relative to the US juggernaut that has never ever actually threatened the US or Israel and doesn't have a delivery system to do so is somehow the aggressor?
EDIT: Just noticed that's it's pretty easy to figure out where those military bases originated from. Iraqi bases - Iraq war, ditto those in Afghanistan (oh but they were set up with the foresight that Iran would be invaded too amirite). Kuwait bases - first iraq war. Base in the middle of the sea. Base in the middle of the sea? Oh, you.
I want to point out here that several of my good and close friends are Iranian (I'm from Montreal, natch). And guess what - they don't hate Americans; if anything they have something against their own tyrannous government. Believe me when I say that demographics favour a cautious strategy with regards to Iran. Tehran is considered to be a very western-like city, fwiw.
If McCain ever unequivocally said he'd invade Iran, I've yet to hear it. I doubt you could prove that other than hearsay. McCain always struck me as a moderate, that is until he had the misfortune of running against Obama; then he was pretty much painted as a right-wing extremist -- how much of this was due to the fact that as the republican candidate he had to accept a bunch of policy views expected of republican presidential candidates, I don't know, but the media certainly played a part in this portrayal.
I don't think there is any genuine concern that Iran would be a serious threat to the United States. They are however a genuine threat to Israel, a close ally and friend of the United States. If you want to argue over the ethics of this alliance then be my guest, but it's not any of my concern. The threat to Israel is however beyond reproach.
Bomb bomb bomb, bomb bomb Iran - YouTube
Even if that doesn't mean anything to you, keep in mind that the GOP is a monolith. It wasn't always and it won't always be in the future, but it is today. This means that McCain would have been no different than Santorum or fucking Pat Robertson.
And Iran is not a threat to Israel. Not in the smallest iota of the slightest itty bit. This shit is nothing but propaganda. The government is a rational actor which is confined to their borders and has displayed nothing (nothing!) to suggest they're looking to attack an international community that could glass their entire country in a day's time.
As for polls - fine, perhaps Rasmussen was the wrong choice. Maybe I should have said Gallup, or are they also hopelessly biased and bad at statistics as you claim? Apparently so bad that someone without any understanding of statistics whatsoever (i.e. you) can point out just how bad they are. Do you have any idea how hard it would be for you to come up with any irrefutable evidence of the things you are saying?
It's not what I say, it's how the polls work. Just a couple months ago Gallup was outed for having awful methodology, then they came out saying they fixed it. But most of what Gallup does is daily national tracking, and it's not literally possible to represent the necessary voting populace with that methodology
BTW if Rasmussen was fudging numbers, how come absolutely nobody working for that firm picked up on it? I guess he's a right-wing loonie and he must pay off his own staff so he could spread his lies in an attempt to sway public opinion. Yeah, right. It's not like he's running a for-profit business or anything, where accusations of fudging numbers could be especially damaging to the reputation of his company. Oh...
Maybe if Scott released his methodology we could discover that people actually work for him.
The bottom line is that Ragmussen has been caught with numbers and placements too sketchy too often
When I say you're being black and white about things, it has little to do with whether I believe you're being genuine or truthful or not. It has to do with how you present your arguments with absolutely no uncertainty to them whatsoever, even though the claims you make cannot be proven. Further, making outrageous claims that are so far from what is generally accepted does not in any way prove that the reality is somewhere in between. I find it pretty annoying when you do those types of things.
You're right about this. My prose has idiosyncrasies that make me seem very obtuse at times. What it boils down to is that I debate my point to the fullest that I feel I should, but behind the text I'm still fully respondent to new information and ideas. Take the Anderson Silva stuff for example. Also, a ton of what I say today about politics is not like what I said a year ago. A year ago I called the Fed a monster, but since having read Scott Sumner and some other stuff, I have learned I was wrong about that. Two years ago I said Obama was idiot douchetard, but since then I've learned more about the relevant topics...
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