Patriotism

[Aloysius]

Sinn Fein is about 100 yrs old... when I say good old days I'm referring to before my time. at least according to the Irish history books I've read, they started out all about Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, and Michael Collins was strongly influenced by G.K. Chesterton. The party nearly died when was it? around the sixties? Anyway, then when they rebuilt they rebuilt dabbling in marxism and socialism and ever since it's been downhill. where is my slander of Catholocism?

btw, the American patriotism expressed here by some posters does not necessarily represent the views of the staff and management of the PM screenname Aloysius. I'm about loving your country and your culture... LOVING it, whether or not you agree. When the question is whether you agree with it, that gets into nationalism. And I'm a bit of a micro-nationalist... because modernist nations just don't work well. They're all too sociallist for me, even the U.S. Not to mention they're all full of usurers. I'm a micronationalist... small city states and such. I wanna get myself a little city state.

[ardillacid]

[QUOTE]Okay first lets get some things straight I said the 19th century not the 18th and we did not "defeat" Britian in 1783, we defeated one army with the French fleet helping us. What caused Briatian to let us go was a simple cost benifit analysis, our little war was costing too much money and trade, and they other concerns on the continent. [/QUOTE]

And that is not a victory?

[QUOTE]We lost the War of 1812, we did not win a single battle until New Orleans and that was after the war was over. The British gave us good terms because they needed to fight Napolean nothing more. Getting us out of the War ment they didn't have to continue to defend Canadas borders At that time we where still concidered "upstart colonies" and not a priorities. As Late as the !870's Britian had serious people discussing the Reconquest of America and it is not far fetched that they might have been able to do it. Now by 1870 it would have been a nasty bloody war but with the resources of India and the rest of the Empire She probably could have done it, but agian it just wasn't worth it.[/QUOTE]

And that is not a victory?

[QUOTE]Now as to the guerrillas fighting in Iraq and Afghanastan, there is nothing Cowardly about them, nothing. Blowing yourself up to kill the enemy is not Cowardly, it is suicidal and might very well send you straight to Hell but itis not cowardly. Oh and al' quida( sp?) did declare war, something I will remind you WE haven't done in 64 years. [/QUOTE]

Officially no, but is it necessary?

[QUOTE]While I agree with you that the media blows our losses way out of proportion ( we haven't lost more than in a major divisional engagment of WWII) it is a reflection of our lack of Will. [/QUOTE]

Or the will of about half of America.

[QUOTE]The Average American is a pansy who gets all bent out of shape that we lost 10 or 20 men who volenteered to go and fight. Our mothers cry that there little boy didn't sign up to fight people. A 19th century british mother would have slaped her around. Furthermore , while we have had relativly few losses it has been with overwelming force, force the britsh oof the 19th Century would have felt absurd, many forces consisted of a few hundred or at the most a few thousand men, 12 or 15,000 men was concidered a Major army, and was ussually able to stomp anyone who opposed them.[/QUOTE]

could they wipe every nation off the face of the earth several times over with a few bombs?

[/QUOTE][QUOTE]By the way we have never fought either France nor Russia. France we did have a bit of shooting with in the late 18th century but we didn't really do all that well with it, I mean our ships did respectably but we lost more than we won. And we have never Faced Russia in a shooting war, if you mean the the Soviets we had to resort to economic tricks to bankrupt them into submission precisely because we knew we couldn't win a shooting war.[/QUOTE]

Yes, indeed I referred to the Cold War. Though no shots were fired, I deem it still was a war, though not in the strictest sense of the word.

If they couldn't beat us in an arms race with no shots, who is to say they would have beat us in an arms race with fighting simultaneously.

I admit, France we did not fight. I was wrong. it was late. I wanted to be able to prove my point, and i apologize. ( although i could be a nitpicker here and say we fought vichy france in ww2.)

[QUOTE]Almost half is not more than everyone else, and the fact that there are no numbers here is very telling that this is probably a less than reliable source.[/QUOTE]

Did you go to the link? Apparently not, but here you have your numbers.

[QUOTE]The US military budget was more than 6 times larger than the Russian budget, the second largest spender.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]The U.S. military budget request for Fiscal Year 2006 is $441.6 billion.[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE] * For Fiscal Year 2005 it was $420.7 billion
* For Fiscal Year 2004 it was $399.1 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2003 it was $396.1 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2002 it was $343.2 billion.
* For Fiscal Year 2001 it was $305 billion. And Congress had increased that budget request to $310 billion.
* This was up from approximately $288.8 billion, in 2000.
[/QUOTE]

[QUOTE]Global military expenditure and arms trade form the largest spending in the world at over $950 billion in annual expenditure, as noted by the prestigous Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SPIRI), for 2003. Furthermore:[/QUOTE]

The website is chalkfull of these numbers if you want them.

I apologize for being slightly off on my calculations, but it was off the top of my head, and I was still nearly right.

DJ, I think we hijacked the thread, maybe time to move elsewhere?

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
And that is not a victory?[/QUOTE]

That is not defeating the British no, that is the British lettting us go.


[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
And that is not a victory?[/QUOTE]
Definantly not, let me repeat We didn't win a single major battle. They burned our Capital, you certianly didn't see us on Breistish soil burning thier cities, we where to busy getting stomped, Napolean caused them to have to leave us alone, We, had bvery ltittle to do with it.

[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
Officially no, but is it necessary?[/QUOTE]

Well I think so yes, butthat aside you where the one complaining about our eemies not declaring war.


[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
Or the will of about half of America.[/QUOTE]

No i think more than that, Bush didn't win because of the War, many who voted for him dispite the war.
[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
could they wipe every nation off the face of the earth several times over with a few bombs?[/QUOTE]

Well first that is a measure of technology nothing more, Technology which is not unique to us mind you.( and even if that is possible which is debatabel it would require thousands of bombs) But certianly the British fleet reprecented as much technological superiority over most of the world as does our nuclear arsenal. But a much better question would be could they impose there will upon Nations more effectively than us, I think the answer is yes, We cannot fight 5 or 10 little wars all over the world and still face down another major country, more than that The could Impose there desires on others, the ability to obliterate a nation is nothing compared to the power to makethem do what you will, Britian of the 19th century directly controled almost a 1/3 of the entire Earth that is Power unsurpassed in all of history

[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
Yes, indeed I referred to the Cold War. Though no shots were fired, I deem it still was a war, though not in the strictest sense of the word.

If they couldn't beat us in an arms race with no shots, who is to say they would have beat us in an arms race with fighting simultaneously./QUOTE]

Well NATO didn't think we could win which is why we had as part of our doctrine the liberal use of Nuclear weapons. Tac nues for everyone! No we could not beat them and once the Nukes started to fly well no one would have won that one.

[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:17 PM']
I admit, France we did not fight. I was wrong. it was late. I wanted to be able to prove my point, and i apologize. ( although i could be a nitpicker here and say we fought vichy france in ww2.)[/QUOTE]
That wouldn't be nitpicky that would have been silly. I'm glad I don't have to respond to such nonsense.



P.S. the Stalkholm peace institute is not a reliable source for matters of military spending, they have an anti-military agenda --maybe Janes defence weekly.

Edited June 14, 2005 by Don John of Austria

[ardillacid]

I do not have time right now to reply to all, but there are tons of sites on military spending if you look. I'll reply to the rest tomorrow

[url="http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml"]http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml[/url]

[Don John of Austria]

[quote name='ardillacid' date='Jun 13 2005, 11:52 PM']I do not have time right now to reply to all, but there are tons of sites on military spending if you look. I'll reply to the rest tomorrow

[url="http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml"]http://www.janes.com/defence/news/jdi/jdi050504_1_n.shtml[/url]
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Now you see thatis a reliable source. I still would like some numbers, Is this because of the trading value of money or is this in [i]real [/i]terms. Still it is interesting.

[RandomProddy]

[quote name='Don John of Austria' date='Jun 12 2005, 08:05 PM']Rely I don't think so we have been funding Irish rebellion for over a hundred years now, when The IRA needs money, they can always find money in america, ALWAYS. sounds pretty relevant to me.
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Yesterday's events probably changed it more somewhat.