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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:00 pm 
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So where do we cut? I'm beginning to think the sequestration is just an easy way for both parties to foist unpopular reforms off on their constituents while being able to blame the other party. Not sure I like the cuts, not sure I don't like them either.

I'm a vet, and I'm actually glad the military is getting whacked. They military industrial complex is long due for an overhaul. Maybe this will start that ball rolling. I don't have a problem burning fuel in aircraft, or HUMVEES, or Carriers, but I do have a problem with the way we buy things supposedly for one price, only to pay twice the price later because the company says it can't do business that way anymore, leaving the taxpayers out to hang. Maybe if we can start paying reasonable prices for our equipment, and maybe with a smaller force, we can treat our people better, use less equipment at a lower cost, and still have a better military. I'd also like to see Congress reassert its constitutional power to declare war that they've abdicated. I spent ten years deployed to one mudhole after another and Congress never once raised an eyebrow at the cash we spent doing it. Maybe we should be asking why we're spending so much money on our security in other countries when we can't afford to pay for our troops even if they stayed in country. Why exactly do we have 28K troops in Korea? Surely South Korea can take care of their own...And Japan? That war ended 70 years ago but we still have Marines they don't want on Oki. Let them have what they want for God's sake. We should be spending cash on our economic ties there to influence the Pacific Rim, not blowing it on a military that serves no purpose towards advancing the situation there. Our military should be strong and HERE.

How are you guys on raising the Social Security age of qualification by maybe seven or eight years? People are capable of staying in the workforce much longer now and building up their nest eggs, while cutting the cost of SS for our kids and grandkids who are going to be S.C.R.E.W.E.D.!

I don't really see this as a political issue, really. We are spending too much money, and have run a deficit since Washington. That's not the problem I see. The problem I see is that we have started spending more than we can ever afford to make up with a sane tax rate on things we don't need to.

Education needs a real relook. We should be paying our teachers better, requiring better proof that they can do their jobs, and admitting that with today's kids, NO ONE can affect real change in classrooms without real parental involvement. We should also look at treating teachers and education as important, instead of paying lip service to the idea. Every single person who visits WIX is better educated than the vast VAST majority of Americans. How did we get that way? How did we REALLY get that way? Was it just imported through osmosis or was it taught, and were we required and supported by our parents or did we just happen to be brilliant without them? It's a social change that is needed, not a financial one. NCLB had some good aspects, but i general it turned out to be a bad idea. It's forcing teachers to teach to a test, and that test is usually all they can afford time to teach to. Is that all we want our kids to come away from school with? Isn't there some way we can educate them properly? We aren't in the dark ages any more. Industrialized education was shown not to be a great idea years ago and we're investing more and more in just that very thing.

Real medical care reform including bringing the cost down by reorganizing how medical people get trained and paid. And by figuring out a fair way to research and pay for medicine and equipment. An Army Medic with Special Forces skill levels can't get a job as an EMT, and yet he can do most of what a doctor does in the military. Something is wrong there.

Am I wrong?

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:10 pm 
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muddyboots wrote:
Am I wrong?


NO!!!! :drink3:

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 6:26 pm 
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Quote:
Accept certain inalienable truths: Prices will rise. Politicians will philander. You, too, will get old. And when you do, you'll fantasize that when you were young, prices were reasonable, politicians were noble and children respected their elders.
-from 'Wear Sunscreen' by Mary Schmich

I now realize it's genetic that when you get to a certain age, you think yours is the last generation that was worth a darn. I could feel it happen to me when I hit my mid 30s. But if you take a serious look back through history, people are people, period. There are dumb and smart ones, and the only thing that changes are technology and a few minor social issues. But the people around now are only different from the people in any generation only by the stuff they know how to run and how they're dressed.
muddyboots wrote:
An Army Medic with Special Forces skill levels can't get a job as an EMT, and yet he can do most of what a doctor does in the military. Something is wrong there.
That's an apples-oranges comparison. SF medics do emergency medicine and treat locals for basic serious issues. They're not the equal of a stateside general MD. I've worked with SF forces, I'm not knocking them but no SF medic is going to say they're as good as a stateside doctor, say, in an ER.
Military experience simply doesn't equate with the antiquated "you haven't earned you dues in this office" mentality of the private sector. I was an Army officer, got out as a Captain. Been there, done that. But where I work now, I'm taking orders from people who really don't have a clue how to 'lead' anything. I haven't kissed the right backsides and dotted the correct 'i's to suit the suits around here (not that I really wanted to be a manager, I had a discussion with the boss of them a few years back where I told him that management expectations around my office don't live up to my personal standards. You should have seen the look on his face!). At one point, companies thought if you threw MBEs into 'leadership' roles, you didn't have to train them. That theory has long dince been vaporized and now the pedulum has swung back to kissing the right body parts to get ahead.

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:33 pm 
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muddyboots wrote:

Am I wrong?


No. I'm with ya.

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PostPosted: Sat Feb 16, 2013 7:37 pm 
muddyboots wrote:
Am I wrong?


No, not necessarily (don't agree with all of your ideas though), but I am not sure that a political discussion with this kind of detail belongs on a Warbird discussion forum..........


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 10:51 am 
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You don't have to agree with my ideas. Heck, I don't agree with all of my ideas. But we have to start somewhere. Right now we're so bound up in political infighting in America that we can't use reason and intellectual discussion to get the most important details out in the open. If we don't know what the problem is in the first place, then obviously we can't find a common solution, and currently our politicians are busily hiding the truth in order to win control of the country-ALL of our politicians. I'd have to agree that this is a tyranny we live under today. A tyranny of those who have the money and the connections to get themselves on tv so they can pander to their base. ALL our political leaders have confused their own personal power (derived from their parties political power) with the good of the country.

P51, I'm not saying a SF medic should be a doctor, but certainly his experience and training are based on civilian medical knowledge. Surely that should count for something?

Again, this isn't political, it's simply sensible discussion about reality. Republicans think certain things and Democrats are out to keep in power by twisting the truth so they can win votes, but when you talk about the issues themselves, leaving the ideology behind, it isn't political, it's just trying to figure out what the facts are, and maybe some things that could fix it.

I don't care who you guys vote for, or who you worship. I care about the answers you bring to the table from your knowledge and experience that can solve these problems. If you tell me I'm wrong about one of my ideas, I'm going to ask first for more information to decide if any of my idea makes sense at all to me knowing what you've told me, and then if there is something that can be done with my idea besides scrapping it totally. If there's not I'll look for another solution, and ask if you have one yourself. That's how you find solutions, not by banging on about how Obama is a Tyrant Or Bush sold us out of Cheney is Darth Vader, living only for revenge against the good guys and more power. For Christs sake, we're all people. We all generally want the best for ourselves, our families, and our nations. Lets act like it!

P51 answered my comment from his experience and knowledge. They refuted my thoughts, pretty much. I asked another question of him to see if my idea is totally hogwash, or if it might have some weight. What's political about that? The problem is we've mistaken politics for discussion. I have no problem with discussion. But when you start calling my President a Tyrant, or my Party Communists, you've turned the talk into politics. And it doesn't belong here.

I am not Christian. Don't know if you've noticed, don't care. But I think Christians have a great idea with Sunday School, and have a tremendous example of community we should all emulate. Maybe our education system should be asking churches for more help for our children? Maybe schools and churches could come together to sponsor more after school programs for our kids, with upper level students tutoring lower level students? Purely from a secular point of view it would give them an example of a person from their church or community who believes that education is important, and is willing to help, and if they're a churchgoer, is probably of decent moral background. It would have to be open to everyone, and with no religious ideology involved to be constitutional, but from a church's point of view, what better way to sell yourself than to provide a needed service and a place to do it, in a healthy setting, for people who don't believe what you believe? It's certainly better than what we have now.

Just because I don't agree with you politically or religiously doesn't mean I have to throw out everything you carry to the table. It means we have to find common ground and communicate in way that doesn't insult the other guy.

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 11:05 am 
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opinion of Bob Reider on Facebook

It is very interesting to read the comments to my earlier post about sequestration. They range from "What is sequestration?" (google it!), to cancel all the air shows - they're a waste of money. What it boils down to, in my opinion, is this: WE THE PEOPLE elected people to Congress who don't have the spines to spend OUR money wisely. From a purely military standpoint, when air shows are put up against readiness, air shows at military bases are non-essential. Military jet teams and military aircraft displays at CIVILIAN shows are a different story because the recruiting mission, in my opinion, is still essential. To those who said to cancel 'em all, If that's the standard by which we're going to live, then the service academies should cancel their collegiate sports programs, too. Football, basketball, and the other sports have nothing to do with readiness. Oh, and get rid of the bands (who play "Hail to the Chief"), the drill teams, and the color/honor guards. They have nothing to do with readiness, either. Again, to those who say "cancel them all," it's not quite that black and white. Oh, and please tell Senator Pelosi that a pay cut does NOT "undermine the dignity of the job that we [representatives] have been awarded." WHAT?????? Congress HASN'T done its job and continues to put off making hard decisions. Congress should have their pay cut by the SAME percentage (or more) than the sequestration. WE THE PEOPLE have allowed this to happen by being uninformed and voting in people who lie, cheat, and steal our money and then refuse to live by the rules they set for us.

...end of Sunday morning rant.

https://www.facebook.com/RobAnnouncer?ref=stream


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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 12:38 pm 
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I agree with most of what has been said here. (Except the one that said Pelosi is a Senator :wink: ) Even you Muddy. :shock:

I'm not going to join in the discussion because I have some very strong feelings about this administration and to post them would get me harshly chastised. :(

Mudge the opinionated

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 2:16 pm 
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Money aside...IMHO, (and I've sat on too many Open House planning boards) some Commanders look for any excuse to cancel an open house. If not money, then operational commitments.

They're a pain to put on and risk adverse commanders don't see an upside...they're a huge chance for something bad to happen without any real, immediate benefit.

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:24 pm 
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I think the solution here is obvious. It is the same solution to all of other budget woes, as well.

We simply need a mad scientist to miniaturize the entire population of the Earth to one-sixth its former size. This would solve a lot of problems. World hunger? A single Golden Corral could feed a city. Traffic gridlock? A little bit of paint and we have ten extra lanes. Global warming? Replace every car in America with an electric one from Toys-r-Us. Housing crisis? No problem, they can all stay at my house. Illegal immigration? No way are those little devils gonna swim such a wide river. Drug war? The pills would be WAY too big for anyone to swallow. Bankrupt airlines? Heck, you could fit hundreds of paying passengers on a Lear jet. North Korea? They would be too busy running from famished felines to be a threat.

And the air shows? Your local hobby shop has everything you need.

Why am I the only one who thinks of these things?

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 4:38 pm 
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Why indeed? :shock:

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PostPosted: Sun Feb 17, 2013 6:47 pm 
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fritzthefox wrote:
I think the solution here is obvious. It is the same solution to all of other budget woes, as well.

We simply need a mad scientist to miniaturize the entire population of the Earth to one-sixth its former size.

Why am I the only one who thinks of these things?


Man, I hope that mad scientist makes sure it will work recursively. One-thirtysixth is about the right size to crawl in and buck the rivets in the cat walk truss and body compression strut tubes in the B-17 bomb bay.

Frickin genius solution!

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PostPosted: Mon Feb 18, 2013 7:38 am 
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fritzthefox wrote:
A single Golden Corral could feed a city.


Well, there's a dystopian vision if I ever read one.

August


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