George H. W. Bush voting for Clinton

[Sparko]

Nice try Carr but unlike you guys, these things effect me directly so yeah... I am well aware of these things and asking people to define things because I know they just read a number, didn't bother to look at the details, and decided to rant about the 'excess' without bothering to gather the facts before they opened their mouths. See, most of these installations exist for a wide range of reasons and have lots of purposes. One, in Germany, is a resort ran by the DoD that has no purpose beyond providing R and R to those stationed over in Europe. Some are small post, that have few personnel assigned that are there for a specific mission. Yet others are there to maintain a larger facility, that is kept in a stand by status in case it is ever needed. Others are just housing units that exist to house US military personnel and their families that are stationed at nearby bases. Some are also joint bases where several nations (in some cases, the host nation) is there along with us. My point is quite simple, most of these '600 military installations' are not huge bases, but small outpost with some resources assigned or exist to fulfill a specific role in supporting these larger bases. If you're going to suggest things about US bases overseas. You should try to learn why they exist and what they do before you start to scream about them being 'excessive'. The US doesn't maintain these places for fun or because they like having a ton of expensive resources all over the world. They exist for specific reasons and purposes that are listed out in the reports. If the people whining about them had actually bothered to read them.

Yeah the last base I lived at in Germany, Hardt Kasserne, consisted of about 10 buildings and a few hundred soldiers and their families. In fact, we had to take a bus 40 miles to get to the nearest high school at Stuttgart. Most bases in Germany were pretty small. There were about 4 large bases in the whole country.

[lilpixieofterror]

Starlight (as you can tell by his name) is a flowerchild born 50 years too late. He understands nothing about military.

It is kind of amusing to watch him talk about things he doesn't understand because it's clear he didn't bother to read these reports beyond finding a number and foaming at the mouth about how 'excessive' it is without bothering to figure out why they exist to start with. These places are expensive and the DoD does report what the mission of these bases are and why they exist to start with. I could also point out that many of these bases are joint bases, in which we share with our allies. Why the British don't have hundreds of installations overseas is pretty simple. They just use the ones we maintain instead.

[Starlight]

Starlight (as you can tell by his name) is a flowerchild born 50 years too late.

The name is a result of me being a physics geek and I was thinking of literal light from stars when I started using it. I'd been using it for years before anyone even mentioned to me the possibility of interpreting it in a hippy or dramatic way. I'm not at all a hippy, or creative / dramatic, and am very much the stereotypical science geek. I roll my eyes at anyone who wears tie-dye, or thinks they're hipster, or gets too enthusiastic about peace, love and drugs.

[lilpixieofterror]

Yeah the last base I lived at in Germany, Hardt Kasserne, consisted of about 10 buildings and a few hundred soldiers and their families. In fact, we had to take a bus 40 miles to get to the nearest high school at Stuttgart. Most bases in Germany were pretty small. There were about 4 large bases in the whole country.

Yep, same is true in most host countries. I've been to bases that had under 50 people stationed there. Goes to show how little those complaining about US 'excess' understand about what they are talking about.

[Sparko]

The name is a result of me being a physics geek and I was thinking of literal light from stars when I started using it. I'd been using it for years before anyone even mentioned to me the possibility of interpreting it in a hippy or dramatic way. I'm not at all a hippy, or creative / dramatic, and am very much the stereotypical science geek. I roll my eyes at anyone who wears tie-dye, or thinks they're hipster, or gets too enthusiastic about peace, love and drugs.

wow, could have fooled me.

[lilpixieofterror]

The nazi's were stopped before establishing the bases in Germany, Starlight. The bases were there as part of NATO to defend Europe from the USSR. As I said earlier, I lived on three Army bases in Germany in the 1960's and 1970's that were Pershing Missile bases, who's primary purpose was as a nuclear deterrent to the USSR. After the USSR dissolved, a lot of the US Military bases were closed down across Europe. The bases were and are not occupying forces. LPOT is entirely correct on this matter and you and Sea of Red and Roy are the ones who are wrong and do not have a clue what you are talking about.

They don't even know what a SOFA is, but somehow think they are experts on the military anyway. It's kinda of funny, in a sad sort of way.

[lilpixieofterror]

No. You have agreements in place that maintain your military presence in those countries. US military presence in those countries was established by invasion during WWII.

Repeating your same talking points, doesn't make them true because you can repeat the over and over again.

[Adrift]

wow, could have fooled me.

Sounds like something that your average millennial, "we are made of stardust" Sagan fan would come up with. I don't think there's as much in common with those that lean far left today as there were in the 60s. As I said, a number of his views would likely turn the stomachs of the flowerchildren generation. The endorsement/tacit approval of nuclear energy, infanticide, new atheism, third-wave feminism, safespaces and infringement of speech and expression on campuses, and certain sexual taboos that even that generation couldn't imagine...I think if the counterculture really understood what they were opening the world to, there never would have been a hip generation to talk about.

[Starlight]

I don't think there's as much in common with those that lean far left today as there were in the 60s.

I don't think there's necessarily much historical continuity between the liberal left of the 60s to today, in either the types of individuals or their motives. People like me don't see themselves as having inherited an intellectual tradition of the last 60 years of which we are a part, or see anything much in common with the hippies of the 60s, and I would tend to view them with amusement and contempt.

Liberal social values today are simply pervasive among millennials, and that comes from the internet, globalization, multiculturalism, the rise of atheism etc. They are now the default - they are not something millennials opt-into like the hippy movement was, so much as something they can opt-out of if they really really want. Economic policies are over the heads of most millennials and ignored by the majority. But those who are interested in them are by and large policy wonks, who are geeks and into looking at the details and the graphs etc. So the new generation of people who are politically left-wing, probably lean over-intellectual more than anything else, and are disproportionately made up of the highly-educated. So where the old liberals were the hippies, the new liberals are millennials and their smart-phones, and where the old left-wing was the union bosses the new left-wing are university professors.

[Sea of red]

They did greatly reduce the number of bases in Germany and Europe, beginning in 1989 after Reagan got the Berlin Wall to come down and the Soviet Union to dissolve in the early 1990's. You are welcome.

Um, no.

[Sparko]

Um, no.

um yes.

[Sea of red]

Sounds like something that your average millennial, "we are made of stardust" Sagan fan would come up with. I don't think there's as much in common with those that lean far left today as there were in the 60s. As I said, a number of his views would likely turn the stomachs of the flowerchildren generation. The endorsement/tacit approval of nuclear energy, infanticide, new atheism, third-wave feminism, safespaces and infringement of speech and expression on campuses, and certain sexual taboos that even that generation couldn't imagine...I think if the counterculture really understood what they were opening the world to, there never would have been a hip generation to talk about.

Sexual taboos? Well, now you've got me interested.

You're the expert on this guy so maybe you can fill me in.

[Sea of red]

um yes.

[Sparko]

you have no idea what you are talking about Sea. I was there. I actually lived it. You are wrong.

[Sea of red]

you have no idea what you are talking about Sea. I was there. I actually lived it. You are wrong.

What does you living in whatever part of Germany you were in, have to do with this Reaganite propaganda? That doesn't make your opinion necessarily gospel and mine incorrect.

His speech had little if any effect on the Berlin wall falling - it damn sure had nothing to do with the Cold War ending. East Germany was bankrupt and it's citizens had grown tired of the puppet state it had become, and the elections were to be the tipping point. By then, people wanted out of East Germany, and it's was going to happen one way or another. The debt, the political corruption, etc was just too much for people anymore.

The East Germans brought down the East-Germany, not Ronald Reagan. But you already knew that.