Middle East

cowboyinexile said:
I don't know that there are many true ideological conservatives left. Most of them probably don't want to talk politics because there isn't much party identity they can find right now and they don't want to be associated/have to defend positions that their traditional party now pushes.

And the same is true with the ideological center left, but we have an administration that is so easy to find common ground with the more progressive elements of society that it makes discussion more palatable. I made a MTG joke a bit ago but I think she's right on the point she was trying to make. Adults can make decisions about their bodies but I don't think kids should be allowed to make permanent alterations to their gender even with parental consent. This shouldn't be seen as anti trans, just knowledge that kids don't think the consequences of their actions through (ask anyone in their 40's what they think of that tattoo they got on their 18th birthday). That's a huge step for someone to take and it should be done when they are older and fully understand the implications of what they are doing. I can sit here all day and talk about Trump but if the conversation here was about stuff like that and I had to bang my head against the wall being compare to people who think complete body autonomy should be extended to pre pubescent children then I would just not participate.
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My mom is a classic, oldschool conservative/Christian/traditional person, and has recently been ostracized by all her friends due to her "extreme" viewpoints. Get this - the people who are de-friending and cancelling her? The Trump supporters. Why? Because she had the nerve to not support him based on his many un-supportable attributes. She's critical and outspoken of him, the administration, and all things that go against her traditional views.

She took part in the No Kings demonstrations, and got labeled "Hamas".

If you met my mom, you'd understand how insane all of the above is.

She's just trying to have, you know, *actual* conservative and/or Christian views (which can, at times, have their flaws), and she's lost lifelong friends over it. It's unfathomable.
 
CowboyJD said:
To me, it's quickly becoming not even a left v. right dichotomy.

It's becoming an authoritarian/oligarchal v. fair representative democracy issue. An elite/powerful v. the rest of us issue.

The oligarchs and their ilk aren't involved in politics because of their belief system because the only belief system they have is the continued personal accumulation of wealth and power over right versus wrong. They'll sway left or right as the political wind blows....whomever can help them accumulate more wealth and power....look at Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, et al.

It's not left vs. right. It's capital/financialization v. labor.

I don't want to call it a "class war" yet, but as the middle class of our society (which I recognize I am firmly a part of) continues to disappear, it's becoming more and more that.
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Kidding.

But in all seriousness, I agree with your statement. I think class conflict is becoming the predominant flashpoint of our time. Fascism doesn't rise out of a bubble, historically, it has risen out of parliamentary democracies and republics failing to deliver on their values and allowing those guaranteed rights to be stripped from others based on their lack of wealth/means. Its the allowance of some to live in such extreme opulance versus those that live in squalor while working full time. That is what happened after WWI, and that is exactly what is happening now.

Fascism gives those disenfranchised people an outlet and the feelings of empowerment after being cast aside by the system previously, but it has no interest in actually improving their lot in life or dealing with the cause of that disenfranchisement. It is incapable of doing so. What it does is create and ever shrinking circle of "chosen" people, usually along the lines of race and ethnicity and the language of supremacy over the "other" as the cause of all of their ills. It is wildly destructive.

The elite don't mind playing ball with fascism as despite its populist messaging, it has no interest in actually confronting power, it usually empowers it. We saw this in Italy, Germany and Spain in the 1920s and 1930s, and we are seeing it in the US now with similar trends in Europe. It is worth mentioning that this would not have been possible without a right-libertarian influenced neoliberal economic order. We created these circumstances over time through excessive deregulation in the corporate and financial sectors combined with unsound monetary policy. These gutted the working class through union busting and weakening collective bargaining, while banks were able to lend large sums of money at lower interest rates to the already biggest fish.

Saving, something the middle class was always good at became a detriment, you were actually losing money if you saved it thanks to low interest rates and rising inflation.The middle class interest has often served as a buffer between the working class and the elites, but now that it is shrinking and in a full decline, that is no longer possible.

There is a remedy to both combat fascism and to allay the needs of the common person, that is through the reinstallation of a FDR-like social democracy or through a Zohran/Bernie Sandersesque implementation of democratic socialsm.

In the past, both on here and on OP.com I pushed for deregulation and those ideas directly contributed to where we are now. I pushed for right-libertarian economic ideas. I was wrong and have had to live through this portion of history to see things differently. But now I do. It is time for a new economic system, I think that should be economic democracy to match our political system so there is no longer friction there.

Its time to try democratic socialism, IMO.
 
cowboyinexile said:
This would be interesting. You would get an idea how others see you. Obviously too late but it would be interesting to see how that view has changed over time.

I will say as an old timer I remember @steross being one of the right wing guys way back in the day-like when people were debating how Roberts would do on the court.

Man some of us are old.
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I started very "conservative", quickly moved towards libertarian through my late 20's and 30's, and have drifted towards wanting more regulation over time, realizing that we're out of balance currently (private corps have too much power).
 
CowboyJD said:
And for the record, the sheer volume of his posts sometimes irritates me as well, but like you said it what it is.
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Don't you see there are 4 of us, working in shifts. 4 hours at a time. 5 days a week.

and @Rob B. Put me on ignore and you don't have to see anything I post and don't have to scroll past anything.
but I can push this button on the bottom right and display it any time I want
1772822055121.png

I don't see any of your post and if someone quotes you it looks like the following

. It really does work.

1772821988505.png
 
Back to middle east stuff...

I disagree with the U.S. getting involved in foreign countries like this. On what basis are we able to murder people without trial across the globe or attack foreign nations and kill their leaders without a declaration of war? Is this all somehow falling under the Patriot Act or other FISC nonsense?
 
Backin82 said:
Back to middle east stuff...

I disagree with the U.S. getting involved in foreign countries like this. On what basis are we able to murder people without trial across the globe or attack foreign nations and kill their leaders without a declaration of war? Is this all somehow falling under the Patriot Act or other FISC nonsense?
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They don't even have a pretext. They are doing it for 2 primary reasons: 1) They can; and 2) Israel wants them to do it.
 
Backin82 said:
Back to middle east stuff...

I disagree with the U.S. getting involved in foreign countries like this. On what basis are we able to murder people without trial across the globe or attack foreign nations and kill their leaders without a declaration of war? Is this all somehow falling under the Patriot Act or other FISC nonsense?
Click to expand...
it all started in 1846

and it all hinges on a change to the US Constitution wording done in 1787 PRIOR to it even being ratified

The original Constitution proposed that Only Congress had the Ability to "Make War". However, when the Framers of the Constitution met in Philly in 1787 to work to ratify the Constitution they changed the term "Make War" to "Declare War"...and up until 1846 no one really questioned that only Congress Could Declare War

Then Texas became a state and the following happened

In a message to Congress on May 11, 1846, President James K. Polk announced that the Republic of Texas was about to become a state. After Mexico threatened to invade Texas, Polk amassed federal troops around Corpus Christi. When Texas became a state, federal troops moved into an area in which the new international boundary was disputed. Mexican troops moved into the same area, and both forces clashed. The President then said that "after reiterated menaces, Mexico has passed the boundary of the United States, has invaded our territory and shed American blood upon the American soil and further proclaimed that hostilities have commenced and that the two nations are now at war." Some in Congress wondered if that was actually so, including Abraham Lincoln, who wrote in a letter to his law partner:

Lincoln Wrote to his Law Partner
Let me first state what I understand to be your position. It is, that if it shall become necessary, to repel invasion, the President may, without violation of the Constitution, cross the line and invade the territory of another country; and that whether such necessity exists in any given case, the President is to be the sole judge. ... But allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose—and allow him to make war at pleasure. ... If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you "be silent; I see it, if you don't."

The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involved and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
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Representative Lincoln moved for a resolution issuing the President interrogatories (questions) so that Congress could determine for itself the exact "spot" of the conflict and whether the Congress believed it to be in the United States. However, Congress, by roll-call vote, declared war.

If it was true that the war was ongoing because the President had to repel a sudden attack, that had been contemplated by the framers in Philadelphia in August 1787, when the wording of the proposed Constitution was changed from "make war" to "declare war". American presidents have often not sought formal declarations of war but instead maintained that they have constitutional authority (Article II, Section 2) as commander-in chief-to use the military for "police actions".
 
TheMonkey said:
And see, I don’t think this helps the issues I’m raising. You and @Rob B. have this personal vendetta feud that derails conversations. This is simply baiting him into an argument about victimization on both ends of the political spectrum. How does that help?
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There used to be a lot more balanced conversation on this board (going back to OP) as you mentioned above. A lot of posters have just left the subforum all together.
 
GratefulPoke said:
Is this one fake?
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pretty sure, I saw it like 3 days ago

Yeah, here are live cams from YouTube right now in Iran....but many seem blocked because they took down the internet there....but up until they took it down there was no sign any bombing like that video had ever taken place

FYI Youtube Live cams are all over the world in most cities and you can log on and watch live for yourself. The Iron Dome in action on the Tel Aviv cams is pretty wild when Iran fires missiles at them

Its pretty quite there right now.
 
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Stillwaterman said:
There used to be a lot more balanced conversation on this board (going back to OP) as you mentioned above. A lot of posters have just left the subforum all together.
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we used to have intricate policy discussions about "Obama Phones" and trace the policy back through all its changes and its birth in the Reagan Years and how Reagan Started Lifeline for subsidized land line phone service for poor Americans, and then how Clinton Expanded it to Cable TV and then Bush expanded it to Cell Phones and how Obama expanded it to High Speed Internet

That would be a thread that could go on for Days and Days.
 

US Army: $500 MILLION missile defense radar obliterated in Iranian strike​

New satellite images from several key military bases in the Arabian Peninsula suggest that Iran is seeking to degrade air defenses by destroying US-made radars that detect incoming missiles and drones.

The radar system for an American THAAD missile battery in Jordan was struck and apparently destroyed in the first days of the US-Israeli strikes on Iran, a satellite image taken on Monday shows.

Buildings housing similar radar systems were also hit at two locations in the United Arab Emirates, CNN analysis shows, although it is unclear if the equipment was damaged.

The radar is a critical element for the high-end missile interceptor system, which is used to engage and destroy ballistic missiles as they fly toward their target. The US operates eight THAAD batteries, while the UAE operates two and Saudi Arabia one. This one was at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan, over 500 miles from Iran.

A satellite image taken on March 2, 2026, shows debris surrounding a blackened THAAD radar at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.

A satellite image taken on March 2, 2026, shows debris surrounding a blackened THAAD radar at the Muwaffaq Salti Air Base in Jordan.
Airbus

The radar system for THAADs is the AN/TPY-2 transportable radar, manufactured by Raytheon. According to a 2025 Missile Defense Agency budget, it costs just shy of half-a-billion dollars.

The image shows a pair of 13-foot craters in the sand near the radar, suggesting that it may have taken multiple attempts to hit the system, which is split across five 40-foot trailers. All appeared to be destroyed or seriously damaged.

Reported by CNN and Washington Post
 
TheMonkey said:
And see, I don’t think this helps the issues I’m raising. You and @Rob B. have this personal vendetta feud that derails conversations. This is simply baiting him into an argument about victimization on both ends of the political spectrum. How does that help?
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You are correct it doesn't help. I get tired of seeing the ignorant crap he and people like him say. I treat them like they treat others. What I don't like is trying to have a conversation when there is no conversation to be had because all they care about is bringing down the libtards. For to long we have allowed people to be POS's to others because it's too uncomfortable to really stand up to aholes. Since society won't stand up to them I decide to treat them the way they treat others. I'm sorry if it's caused issues but what almost everybody else has done has done nothing but let that bigotry back in to society at an amazing pace.
 
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