Budget Cut Bullshit

[Trippyhippy]

That doesn't matter.

Well that is where our opinions differ.

Now that we know, we can agree to disagree and get back to the original topic.

 

[isajeep]

Well that is where our opinions differ.

Now that we know, we can agree to disagree and get back to the original topic.

Sure thang chief.

 

[Darkdante]

Did we read the same article? I don't see what is hidden in bullshit? Are you saying the fact that he actually cut the budget is hidden? I thought that would have been obvious before you started reading the article. The article just seems to point out spots that are being cut they don't agree with.

This one Rones.

In any case, some of the entitlement cuts are illusory. For instance, the Bush budget strangely projects $4 billion in oil leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as an entitlement cut. But Congress didn't approve ANWR drilling in the current budget and no one's counting on it passing this year. And the budget also includes $5 billion in cuts of agricultural subsidies, very similar to the ones Bush pushed last year to no avail.

I truly hope you did not mean that. It is that logic which allowed the Holocauset to occur. Soldiers duty now requires questioning the morality of orders before following them. If someone orders them to slaughter school children they better stop and think about it first.

I'd agree as a civilian, I'd disagree as a military man.

 

[Rones]

This one Rones.

In any case, some of the entitlement cuts are illusory. For instance, the Bush budget strangely projects $4 billion in oil leases for drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge as an entitlement cut. But Congress didn't approve ANWR drilling in the current budget and no one's counting on it passing this year. And the budget also includes $5 billion in cuts of agricultural subsidies, very similar to the ones Bush pushed last year to no avail.

Do you understand what a budget it? It is a plan and spending limit. By Bush's plan those acts would be done and the budget would be met. The article says it doesn't expect drilling to start in a year, but that is their opinion and guess. I would suspect otherwise.

I'd agree as a civilian, I'd disagree as a military man.

Thank goodness you aren't the later then.

 

[Darkdante]

Do you understand what a budget it? It is a plan and spending limit. By Bush's plan those acts would be done and the budget would be met. The article says it doesn't expect drilling to start in a year, but that is their opinion and guess. I would suspect otherwise.

Yes Rones, but the article already said its not in the budget didn't it? So taking it into account as a cut is a bunch of Bull isn't it? :irked:

Thank goodness you aren't the later then.

What is a Military mans job to do? Follow orders without question or things get fucked. Your failure to understand this while understandable would not do well for a career in Law should you seek to persue it.

 

[Raesvelg]

What is a Military mans job to do? Follow orders without question or things get fucked. Your failure to understand this while understandable would not do well for a career in Law should you seek to persue it.

Actually, there are orders you're not supposed to follow, namely illegal ones. Mass slaughter of civilians falling into that category.

 

[Darkdante]

So if the President gives the order to drop a nuclear bomb then the bomber pilots should not listen?

So when we fought the war in Iraq all the soilders there that killed civilians should not have followed orders?

Whos to say whos a civilian and who is a target? Should the soilders check thier ID card before they fire?

 

[masterorion]

dante, for you to fully understand what they are saying, you would have to be in the military presently or have been to comprehend what they are talking about.
ill try to give a little insight so u may understand...first off, like i posted a while back, there are lawful and unlawful orders. as an example of an unlawful order, if you are ordered to put civilians into a building and burn the building down, that is an unlawful order. a lawful order is telling someone to attack a direction that enemy fire is coming from.

now, that really wont clarify too much for you, however there is another thing called laws of war and rules of engagement that go along with that. laws of war in todays standards wont allow nuclear bombs to be dropped. and as far as your comment about "soldiers checkin ID cards"...thats what rules of engagement are for. rules of engagement are to protect civilians from being shot and killed. in easy terms, american soldiers cannot fire until fired upon. other countries are allowed to yield weapons however just because of a person holding a gun doesnt make them a threat.
now, for those soldiers that PURPOSELY kill a civilian, there is military punishment by a military court.

there is alot more to it, thats why i say you need to be currently in the military or have been in the military to understand how these things tie together.
you are able to deny an order but you need to know rules of engagement, laws of war, and the difference between lawful and unlawful orders to to know that answer to which you can deny or not

 

[Darkdante]

Before we go on, try to answer the first question and I think you'll get from where I"m coming from.What happens to those pilots that deny the order? Lets say its not a nuclear bomb anymore and lets say the target is a supposed electric plant that is reported to be a chemical weapons factory, but its actually full with civilians.Is its the pilots job to use morality to question an order? What happens if he doesn't follow through?Now if the pilot in question where a civilian, hey no problem, say no, don't do it, no harm comes to you.

 

[Rones]

Yes Rones, but the article already said its not in the budget didn't it? So taking it into account as a cut is a bunch of Bull isn't it? :irked:

None of a budget is in effect before it is made. The buget is the outline, the guide you could say. If we do things A through Z we will spend x dollars on project y, earn z dollars on project w,have this much spent on h, and have this much left after. It's directions for reaching the budget's predicted outcome.

Not commenting on the military orders because Masterorion explained it well and I would just be repeating at this point. Now it is just a matter of you accepting the reality that modern US soldiers do not blindly follow orders as you imagine.

 

[Trippyhippy]

dante, for you to fully understand what they are saying, you would have to be in the military presently or have been to comprehend what they are talking about.
ill try to give a little insight so u may understand...first off, like i posted a while back, there are lawful and unlawful orders. as an example of an unlawful order, if you are ordered to put civilians into a building and burn the building down, that is an unlawful order. a lawful order is telling someone to attack a direction that enemy fire is coming from.

now, that really wont clarify too much for you, however there is another thing called laws of war and rules of engagement that go along with that. laws of war in todays standards wont allow nuclear bombs to be dropped. and as far as your comment about "soldiers checkin ID cards"...thats what rules of engagement are for. rules of engagement are to protect civilians from being shot and killed. in easy terms, american soldiers cannot fire until fired upon. other countries are allowed to yield weapons however just because of a person holding a gun doesnt make them a threat.
now, for those soldiers that PURPOSELY kill a civilian, there is military punishment by a military court.

there is alot more to it, thats why i say you need to be currently in the military or have been in the military to understand how these things tie together.
you are able to deny an order but you need to know rules of engagement, laws of war, and the difference between lawful and unlawful orders to to know that answer to which you can deny or not

Cause if you are in the military and you are ordered to do such things, you have to make your actions feel Just somehow.

When you are in a war like we are now, or like Vietnam where it can sometimes be hard to tell a civilian from an enemy, you get a situation where(much like the one described above) just because he's not holding a gun doesn't mean he isn't a Threat.

Using your part of your example again:
Rounding up civilians and puting them in a house, then Burning the house down... Illegal.
Dropping bombs over the same city for days killing many more civillians... Fine as long as we got a couple of bad guys too.

To me, war should mean "There is no chance of reasoning with these people, kill them all."

To some people it means "They did something in thier country that is against the law in our country, lets invade, setup a government as we see fit, then leave, fixing out economy in the process and setting them up for disaster because noone there likes our government. That way we can invade in 8 more years when our party is in power again."

The whole idea of it blows my mind. Why in the hell would we go over there in the first place? What is the reason? Shouldn't we take care of our country before we try to invade another one and try to fix all their problems? How many wars are we in? War on Drugs/crime/poverty/education(cause we like being stupid)/pollution/Iraq/Afghanistan.

Too many wars. The more I keep typing the madder I get. The madder I get the more off topic I get. I'll shut up now.

 

[Darkdante]

None of a budget is in effect before it is made. The buget is the outline, the guide you could say. If we do things A through Z we will spend x dollars on project y, earn z dollars on project w,have this much spent on h, and have this much left after. It's directions for reaching the budget's predicted outcome.

If it hasn't been approved before and no one thinks it will pass then putting it into an outline is BULL isn't it Rones................... :banghead3:

If mommy says you arn't getting an allowance this week, and Daddy says whatever Mommy says goes, then going around telling everybody your gonna get an allowance this week is Bullshit is it not????? :banghead3:

Maybe by some miracle Mommy might change her mind but putting it into a budget proclaiming things that you plan to do to inflate said budget is bullshit is it not???

Now it is just a matter of you accepting the reality that modern US soldiers do not blindly follow orders as you imagine.

Reality Rones is that it is thier job to do so. It is their commanders job to take responsibility for those orders.

If your talking about plain out right murder then ya, I agree with you. But what you guys are trying to do is make it sound like a soilder can go around saying "oh I don't want to do that" or "oh I think I can talk myself out of that one" which absolutely is NOT TRUE.

The reality is they can't go around questioning orders like you seem to think they do, because if they do the first thing that will happen is they be treated as guilty. After awhile they may be found to be innocent but not after a long and drawn out process through the meat grinder and back.

 

[Tyrion]

Naturally jobs that require an individual to be a follower do attract some people who are perfectly content with being a follower. My other point was that for that particular job I do not see that as a fault (i.e. blind patriotism is ok by me if the person is in the military as that ensures the integrity of the military as such).

I take offense at that. Most of the people I know who are currently or have been in the military are smarter than most of the ones I know who aren't.

About half of all those who did vote didn't like the current government. Just to put things in perspective. Half of all those who care didn't approve of what the current government is doing. Did that prompt any sort of change? I don't think so.

Exactly: Half of those who cared. By not casting a vote, they automatically put a stamp of approval on the status quo.

Imagine yourself in a private enterprise. You are the boss, and half of the people who work for you think you suck. What would you do? Would you say: "Fuck 'em, they can find work elsewhere if they want!" or would you say: Geez, half the people? Really? What's their problem? Maybe I can fix it and then they will be more productive for me.".

I agree with most of it, but I think it's a more apt comparison to say that we're the CUSTOMERS of the government as much as the employees.

 

[masterorion]

Before we go on, try to answer the first question and I think you'll get from where I"m coming from.What happens to those pilots that deny the order? Lets say its not a nuclear bomb anymore and lets say the target is a supposed electric plant that is reported to be a chemical weapons factory, but its actually full with civilians.Is its the pilots job to use morality to question an order? What happens if he doesn't follow through?Now if the pilot in question where a civilian, hey no problem, say no, don't do it, no harm comes to you.

it would go up in front of a military court. since he no one knows what is inside of it, it wouldnt be an unlawful order to bomb it if it were a strategic target.
now, if it were a known hospital that was going to be bombed, yes, he has the right to deny the bombing run. however, if that hospital was being used as a enemy bunker of sorts, it can be turned into a target.
if a mistake was made about the factory and it actually had no enemy at all, the person that gave the order would go under military court and be sentanced however the court found.

 

[masterorion]

also, another thing. if someone was ordered to bomb something that was said to be a strategic target yet the pilot "thinks" that it is housing civilians, he has plenty of time prior to bring it up to the chain of command. thing is, he would have to prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that what he "thinks" is correct. military targets a recieved from intel. either air surveillance or intel from sources on the ground

 

[Darkdante]

Ya, and if you still think you have a right to question orders then when you get stationed up in Alaska or thrown to the dogs in some other way you keep that in mind.

 

[Mokk]

Do you understand what a budget it? It is a plan and spending limit. By Bush's plan those acts would be done and the budget would be met. The article says it doesn't expect drilling to start in a year, but that is their opinion and guess. I would suspect otherwise.

Oh, did they find another completely unrelated bill to try to slip ANWR into that no one knows enough about to shoot down this time?

Your suspicions border on conspiracy.

 

[masterorion]

why is it you think that its an anarchy when your in the military. good leaders will listen to advice given by others lower ranked or otherwise.
you watch too much tv. its not as its depicted on movies or tv. you wont get stationed in alaska for disobeying a UNlawful order. you may get njp(non judicial punishment) or brig time for disobeying a LAWFULorder, but by no means will you get thrown to alaska for doing either sgt bilko

 

[Darkdante]

No one is going to order you to bomb or shoot a bunch of gun-weilding bomb strapped children when your at training camp, or running excerisizes.

If however you get an order in a wartime and you sit there and question the validity of the order at that time.......
I for one could not make that decision in the split second you get an order to the time that you need to take action.

What are you gonna do? Question his every move? What kinda military you got then? What's gonna happen if your whole platoon starts questioning orders and you get 40 different viewpoints? Stop fighting the war for a debate? In wars you follow orders or people die.

Is this now a country that you have the option of not following an order if you feel morally agasint it? Yes, with consequences, of course the consequences are better than before meaning you won't be shot. But this still isn't really a choice, unless of course you don't want a career in the Military.

Is this a country where soilders should be feeling they should question every order given based on thier moral standpoint? NO, they should follow orders because that is the basis, the backbone of how any military works.
Even in the JROTC they teach unquestioning loyalty and obidience.

Does this viewpoint open up abuses namely that great evil that might be unleased with unqeustioning armies? Of course, but without unquestioning loyalty you would not be able to do the great good either.

Any army is based off the unqestioning obiedience of its soldiers, this is how you work in a group, its not the other way around.

 

[masterorion]

as a suggestion, read over rules of engagement and the laws of war. that will help you understand. hopefully u see what lawful orders and unlawful orders are.
they do teach you in boot camp the rules of engagement which tell you who you can engage. yes, bomb wielding children would include the ones you can engage IF you can determine they are coming for you. your probably going to ask, how do u know they are coming for you....i say common sense. IF you know that they have a bomb first of all, you can tell if they are gonna come for you.
your stating questions that would never come up. there are rarely orders that are split second. if its split second, it is up to the person to follow the rules of engagement and make their own choice. IE, if a child is pointing a gun at you, you have the choice to protect yourself. however, lets say it wasnt a gun that he was pointing at you, and you shot anyhow. well, you made the wrong choice and will probably face a court system. if a soldier doesnt deem an order lawful, there is a chain of command he can refer to. in that instance, he can jump the chain of command to the next higher ranking officer. if that officer doesnt want to help, he can keep going up till he gets to the general if need be.

when in a firefight, orders are rarely given. orders are set out before hand and they are passed down from the commanding officer, the other company commander to the section commander/chief then to the staff NCOs then NCOs and then non NCOs. they will typically be as follows: a target or objective is stated and is passed down the chain of command.whatever has to be done to achieve that objective is done. any contact in between when the order is given and to the time its completed is on the individual.

bottom line is that you dont know how the military works. your trying to analyze scenarios that dont happen. if they do happen, its on the individual soldier to make a choice if its split second. its either kill or be killed.
as for the jrotc thing...well, they teach military etiquette not wartime scenarios.


i found an old set of rules of engagement. note* this is from somolia. for every instance, there is a different set of ROE. and yes, they do hand these out as cards as the one in the picture.
http://www.answers.com/main/ntquery...elief.Rules+of+Engagement.jpg&gwp=8&linktext=

here is a better issue of laws of war and ROE and explains all aspects of it. page 3 and page 4 explain it best
http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/law/roe_deadly_force.pdf