If we go to war, we need ships

Chuckman

Chuckman

Senior Member
Joined
Dec 17, 2016
Messages
19,750
Location
North Durham
Rating - 100%
20   0   0
Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising (his best book, in my opinion) discussed what would happen if the 'other side' targeted our shipping; clearly WWI and WW2 saw a metric crap-ton of tonnage go to the bottom of the sea. Thank God for Marines afloat and the 18th Airborne Corps Ready Deployment units, but we need ships to move heavy things and a lot of people. Hard to believe this is a still a thing.

www.forbes.com

The Navy’s Plan To Modernize Military Sealift Makes Sense. Congress Needs To Keep It Funded.

Military sealift seldom draws much attention in peacetime, but without it U.S. forces ashore would be hard-pressed to sustain a war effort.
www.forbes.com www.forbes.com
 
Last edited:
RedneckFur said:
Problem with a big military and an industrial complex to back it is that if you have it, you start looking for reasons to use it.

A little downsizing (or a lot) wouldn't hurt us none.
Click to expand...

The other side of the coin is if we need that kind of sealift, we're screwed.

BatteryOaksBilly said:
U.S. is required by law to have a minimum of 11 Carriers....that's where we are....11.....do we Need more????
Click to expand...

Congress sets the number of ships in the NDAA, which does change, so every time they write a new NDAA, they can alter the number. That said, we do have 11. Now whether they can all put to sea is a different story.
 
Chuckman said:
The other side of the coin is if we need that kind of sealift, we're screwed.
Click to expand...
And by “we” you mean who exactly?
We’ve used that capability to fight wars elsewhere, most of which we shouldn’t have been involved in.

The US empire is over, although not everyone realizes it yet. The politicians do - they are looting the sinking ship as fast as they can. We can’t afford to print and spend insane amounts of money every year on our military, and we don’t need to. Who is going to invade the US? And how? A few thousand nukes will deter any existential threats. We’d be fine with 1/4 of the defense spending we have now.

It’s the department of DEFENSE, not the department of policing the world.
 
Chuckman said:
The other side of the coin is if we need that kind of sealift, we're screwed.



Congress sets the number of ships in the NDAA, which does change, so every time they write a new NDAA, they can alter the number. That said, we do have 11. Now whether they can all put to sea is a different story.
Click to expand...
They usually have at least 2-4 of them going through refit at any given time. Sometimes that process can take a long time. We typically have 4, maybe 5 on a good day, operational throughout the world at a time. We work on the thirds rule, a third of them operational, a third in refit, and a third just back from deployment. They are being run to death and over worked. They need at least 1-3 more to just stay up with oblgations.
 
Last edited:
For years we were told about the Red Menace and the powerful Soviet/Russian military only to find out that they are a third rate military power that can't even conquer a neighbor. Trillions were spent since WWII to protect us from basically nothing. Just a lot of people getting filthy rich on the back of the taxpayer. Now I wonder the same thing about the Chinese? Their military might is built on the same quality as Walmart and Harbor Freight.
 
The point of the military that we have today was to break the economy of the USSR. We lured them into a spending war and broke them economically. But then we kept spending and likely broke our own.

This would be the perfect time to scale back with the need for staffing in the private sector, but immigrants are preferred by business (cheaper) and politicians.
 
Make all the ships, weapons, missiles, and artillery in China. They can make it for one tenth of our cost. Isn’t that the American way now. They will keep adequate spare parts. With Chinese made Navy ships we could double our orders at their production cost. Then even the military can have disposable hardware.
 
JimP42 said:
It’s the department of DEFENSE, not the department of policing the world.
Click to expand...
That is so true. But we haven't even been Policing The World. That term has been a cover for Controlling The World. When have we made war on Bad Guys and left the Locals better off? Viet-Nam? Iraq? Afghanistan? And none of it has made the United States of America better off.

Hammer12b said:
They need at least 1-3 more to just stay up with obligations.
Click to expand...
Obligations to bankers and "defense" corporations to aggressively defend their interests overseas.

We would rescue our economy and the world if we 1) stopped Exporting War, 2) started Exporting Energy and 3) started Exporting Food. Lots of good things would come from those three initiatives.
 
Last edited:
With recruitment being at an all time low they had better come up with a way to man any new military hardware first.
Our country is in a sad state and so broke we can’t pay our debts. Not a good sign gents, I see a bad moon rising.
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
U.S. is required by law to have a minimum of 11 Carriers....that's where we are....11.....do we Need more????
Click to expand...

You're hitting on something here, but it doesn't have to do with carriers, per se, though those are important strategic assets.

It's not just a question of the number of Aircraft Carriers, but you are correct that we're required by law to have minimum of 11 OPERATIONAL carriers (10USC8062).

But the status of our carrier fleet is an indication of our readiness, because for several years we were as low as 9 operational carriers (when the JFK and Enterprise were decommissioned). And remember.. "operational" is part of that description. The George H.W. Bush was launched in 2006, but wasn't commissioned until January 2009 and didn't deploy operationally until 2011 (in The Ford was delivered in 2017...but it wasn't OPERATIONAL for another 5 years and just recently departed on its first deployment October last year. The JFK was decommissioned in 2007 and the Enterprise in 2017, and these dates put our carrier fleet below the minimum required by law for a decade and a half.

We're in crisis management mode for our ballistic missile submarine fleet as well. It's a race to get the Columbia Class program off the ground and producing replacements in time to replace the aging Ohio boats boomers. Boats, mind you, that were originally designed to last three decades but which have had their hull lives extended to 42 years already. Strictly speaking, the USS Henry M. Jackson (the fifth Ohio built) was commissioned in 1984 and will hit 42 years in 2026 as the first of the Ohio class SSBNs. (The four previous Ohio Class SSBNs were converted to SSGNs.)

The keel for the USS District of Columbia was just laid down in June of last year. Completion is scheduled for 2030 with it entering service in 2031. In 2031, THE FIRST TEN OHIO CLASS SUBMARINES OUT OF 18 BUILT WILL HAVE HIT OR EXCEEDED 42 YEARS, SIX OF THEM BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES.

See where this is going with an indication of overall Naval Fleet status and readiness?

And that's without discussing our fleet of nuclear fast attack submarines and all the non-nuclear ships in the Navy.


This article says:

However, the U.S. commercial fleet has steadily dwindled for decades. Less than 200 oceangoing commercial vessels today fly the U.S. flag and are crewed by U.S. merchant mariners. The global fleet is dominated by foreign carriers.

That means the Navy must fund a government-owned sealift fleet that is adequate in size and ready on short notice to move military supplies to foreign shores.

Because this fleet is only called on in wartime, there is a tendency to neglect it in peacetime. Its ships are not counted in the Navy’s inventory of battle force vessels such as destroyers, and they are crewed by civilians rather than sailors.


This is HUGE, saying that the NAVY must do this. In my opinion, though the need for such capability is absolutely critical to national security, having the NAVY provide this is NOT the way to go. Not only is it expensive to build ocean going ships, it's expensive to man them, operate them, and maintain them in the harshest operational environment on the planet. We need to provide incentives for civilian commercial construction and operation under U.S. flag. We don't have a large merchant marine service because we've made it too expensive. We need to fix that.

Dumping this on the Navy will do absolutely NO favors to the Navy with respect to operating, maintaining, and replacing the existing Naval fleet, including those outside our strategic assets of the carriers and boomers.


In 1970, 48% of the federal budget was for Defense, down from 52% in 1965 and 67% in 1960.

In 1975, it was about 26% and it stayed in the 20-something percent until the mid-90s. Then it covered around 20%, give or take, until the mid-2010s.

In 2015, Defense was 16% of the federal budget. I can't find numbers for 2020, but in 2019 it was 15%.

In 2023, it's 22%.

With our current GDP/Debt, and our current astronomical bullsh*t spending, there's just no way we can realistically expect the Navy to take on such a huge burden without a catastrophic effect on the federal budget.
 
Last edited:
JimP42 said:
And by “we” you mean who exactly?
We’ve used that capability to fight wars elsewhere, most of which we shouldn’t have been involved in.

The US empire is over, although not everyone realizes it yet. The politicians do - they are looting the sinking ship as fast as they can. We can’t afford to print and spend insane amounts of money every year on our military, and we don’t need to. Who is going to invade the US? And how? A few thousand nukes will deter any existential threats. We’d be fine with 1/4 of the defense spending we have now.

It’s the department of DEFENSE, not the department of policing the world.
Click to expand...

"We" the US, on this side of the pond. It has nothing to do with imperialism, nothing to do with policing the world. It's math, it's about a seagoing logistics trail. That's all.

Now, if you want to discuss the use of the military and multiple wars, engagements, police actions, yadda yadda yadda, that's a fair discussion to have, too.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
You're hitting on something here, but it doesn't have to do with cariers, per se, though those are important strategic assets.

It's not just a question of the number of Aircraft Carriers, but you are correct that we're required by law to have minimum of 11 OPERATIONAL carriers (10USC8062).

But the status of our carrier fleet is an indication of our readiness, because for several years we were as low as 9 operational carriers (when the JFK and Enterprise were decommissioned). And remember.. "operational" is part of that description. The George H.W. Bush was launched in 2006, but wasn't commissioned until January 2009 and didn't deploy operationally until 2011 (in The Ford was delivered in 2017...but it wasn't OPERATIONAL for another 5 years and just recently departed on its first deployment October last year. The JFK was decommissioned in 2007 and the Enterprise in 2017, and these dates put our carrier fleet below the minimum required by law for a decade and a half.

We're in crisis management mode for our ballistic missile submarine fleet as well. It's a race to get the Columbia Class program off the ground and producing replacements in time to replace the aging Ohio boats boomers. Boats, mind you, that were originally designed to last three decades but which have had their hull lives extended to 42 years already. Strictly speaking, the USS Henry M. Jackson (the fifth Ohio built) was commissioned in 1984 and will hit 42 years in 2026 as the first of the Ohio class SSBNs. (The four previous Ohio Class SSBNs were converted to SSGNs.)

The keel for the USS District of Columbia was just laid down in June of last year. Completion is scheduled for 2030 with it entering service in 2031. In 2031, THE FIRST TEN OHIO CLASS SUBMARINES OUT OF 18 BUILT WILL HAVE HIT OR EXCEEDED 42 YEARS, SIX OF THEM BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES.

See where this is going with an indication of overall Naval Fleet status and readiness?

And that's without discussing our fleet of nuclear fast attack submarines and all the non-nuclear ships in the Navy.


This article says:

However, the U.S. commercial fleet has steadily dwindled for decades. Less than 200 oceangoing commercial vessels today fly the U.S. flag and are crewed by U.S. merchant mariners. The global fleet is dominated by foreign carriers.

That means the Navy must fund a government-owned sealift fleet that is adequate in size and ready on short notice to move military supplies to foreign shores.

Because this fleet is only called on in wartime, there is a tendency to neglect it in peacetime. Its ships are not counted in the Navy’s inventory of battle force vessels such as destroyers, and they are crewed by civilians rather than sailors.


This is HUGE, saying that the NAVY must do this. In my opinion, though the need for such capability is absolutely critical to national security, having the NAVY provide this is NOT the way to go. Not only is it expensive to build ocean going ships, it's expensive to man them, operate them, and maintain them in the harshest operational environment on the planet. We need to provide incentives for civilian commercial construction and operation under U.S. flag. We don't have a large merchant marine service because we've made it too expensive. We need to fix that.

Dumping this on the Navy will do absolutely NO favors to the Navy with respect to operating, maintaining, and replacing the existing Naval fleet, including those outside our strategic assets of the carriers and boomers.


In 1970, 48% of the federal budget was for Defense, down from 52% in 1965 and 67% in 1960.

In 1975, it was about 26% and it stayed in the 20-something percent until the mid-90s. Then it covered around 20%, give or take, until the mid-2010s.

In 2015, Defense was 16% of the federal budget. I can't find numbers for 2020, but in 2019 it was 15%.

In 2023, it's 22%.

With our current GDP/Debt, and our current astronomical bullsh*t spending, there's just no way we can realistically expect the Navy to take on such a huge burden without a catastrophic effect on the federal budget.
Click to expand...

Is 10USN8062 linked to the NDAA? In other words, can the NDAA alter the number of carriers? I thought that it did, but I don't know the law so I could be wrong.

I agree re: fleet and fleet readiness, and the extraordinary mistake of dumping this on the Navy.

RE: Ship numbers and budget, I don't know that we've hit our mark in a long time. I have not looked it up, I am curious what our defense budget/proportion looked like under Reagan and how much of his "600 ship Navy" was actually funded.
 
No, the minimum number of carriers is an absolute by law and not adjustable unless Congress itself changes that law. The NDAA absolutely cannot change that number to a lower value.

It was an incredibly HUGE deal when our carrier fleet dipped below 11 for a decade and a half.
 
RJ55 said:
Just wondering, have they ever tried reactive armor on ships?
Click to expand...

I don't think so. But to be honest, I've never looked into it.

If we were ever to build something comparable to battleships again, possibly. But other shops, probably not.

Submarines definitely aren't candidates for reactive armor.

Aircraft carriers not either, as their defense is predicated on other designs and technologies.

Ligher craft, probably not due to weight considerations.

The question is "what does reactive armor" by you for ship defense?

Now how a MK-48 ADCAP torpedo sinks a ship? I'll give you a clue: Not necessarily by blowing a hole in the side of a ship...though they certainly can do that.

A MK-48 torpedo passing UNDER a ship and detonating is what does the real damage. First the explosion creates a shockwave and huge bubble in the water which acts to lift up on the center of the ship. This causes the stern and bow to have less support, flexing them downward due to the stresses.

Then when the bubble collapsts, there's a momentary void under the center of the shop, which causes the middle to sag down while the stern and bow are still supported in the water.

Then the water rushes back into that void, again flexing the middle of the ship in half.

This literally cracks the keel and snaps the ship in half.

Something as huge as one of our supercarriers would take several such torpedoes to accomplish this, but that's how it works.

As for ariel bombardment by bombs, missiles or various forms of gunfire, armor of any kind only goes so far before the detrimental effects of the added weight cause marked decrease in other performance abilities.

The key, therefore, isn't to armor the entire ship...it's to armor strategic portions of the ship to enable it to survive as long as possible in combat.

So...reactive armor MIGHT be useful in various such applications. Like around magazines, fuel tanks, command and control areas, etc. But not the entire ship, or even necessarily the hull itself.

To consider an example, in WWII much though was put into how to make aircraft more survivable, yet allow them to perform their functions adequately. One thought, of course, was armoring the bejeebers out of the aircraft...except that makes them slow, clumsy, low altitude, and fuel hungry. Not good for long range bombers or fighters.

Then one engineer looked at aircraft that had survived some pretty horrific combat conditions and still was able to return even though shot all to blazes.

He essentially said "Look at all those holes and their locations! It's clear that being shot to blazes in places like that are not necessarily fatal! We need to stragegically place armor ELSEWHERE on the aircraft to better protect the vital portions that are really essential for the aircraft to survive!" And so they did...and the survival rates significantly improved.
 
RetiredUSNChief said:
You're hitting on something here, but it doesn't have to do with carriers, per se, though those are important strategic assets.

It's not just a question of the number of Aircraft Carriers, but you are correct that we're required by law to have minimum of 11 OPERATIONAL carriers (10USC8062).

But the status of our carrier fleet is an indication of our readiness, because for several years we were as low as 9 operational carriers (when the JFK and Enterprise were decommissioned). And remember.. "operational" is part of that description. The George H.W. Bush was launched in 2006, but wasn't commissioned until January 2009 and didn't deploy operationally until 2011 (in The Ford was delivered in 2017...but it wasn't OPERATIONAL for another 5 years and just recently departed on its first deployment October last year. The JFK was decommissioned in 2007 and the Enterprise in 2017, and these dates put our carrier fleet below the minimum required by law for a decade and a half.

We're in crisis management mode for our ballistic missile submarine fleet as well. It's a race to get the Columbia Class program off the ground and producing replacements in time to replace the aging Ohio boats boomers. Boats, mind you, that were originally designed to last three decades but which have had their hull lives extended to 42 years already. Strictly speaking, the USS Henry M. Jackson (the fifth Ohio built) was commissioned in 1984 and will hit 42 years in 2026 as the first of the Ohio class SSBNs. (The four previous Ohio Class SSBNs were converted to SSGNs.)

The keel for the USS District of Columbia was just laid down in June of last year. Completion is scheduled for 2030 with it entering service in 2031. In 2031, THE FIRST TEN OHIO CLASS SUBMARINES OUT OF 18 BUILT WILL HAVE HIT OR EXCEEDED 42 YEARS, SIX OF THEM BALLISTIC MISSILE SUBMARINES.

See where this is going with an indication of overall Naval Fleet status and readiness?

And that's without discussing our fleet of nuclear fast attack submarines and all the non-nuclear ships in the Navy.


This article says:

However, the U.S. commercial fleet has steadily dwindled for decades. Less than 200 oceangoing commercial vessels today fly the U.S. flag and are crewed by U.S. merchant mariners. The global fleet is dominated by foreign carriers.

That means the Navy must fund a government-owned sealift fleet that is adequate in size and ready on short notice to move military supplies to foreign shores.

Because this fleet is only called on in wartime, there is a tendency to neglect it in peacetime. Its ships are not counted in the Navy’s inventory of battle force vessels such as destroyers, and they are crewed by civilians rather than sailors.


This is HUGE, saying that the NAVY must do this. In my opinion, though the need for such capability is absolutely critical to national security, having the NAVY provide this is NOT the way to go. Not only is it expensive to build ocean going ships, it's expensive to man them, operate them, and maintain them in the harshest operational environment on the planet. We need to provide incentives for civilian commercial construction and operation under U.S. flag. We don't have a large merchant marine service because we've made it too expensive. We need to fix that.

Dumping this on the Navy will do absolutely NO favors to the Navy with respect to operating, maintaining, and replacing the existing Naval fleet, including those outside our strategic assets of the carriers and boomers.


In 1970, 48% of the federal budget was for Defense, down from 52% in 1965 and 67% in 1960.

In 1975, it was about 26% and it stayed in the 20-something percent until the mid-90s. Then it covered around 20%, give or take, until the mid-2010s.

In 2015, Defense was 16% of the federal budget. I can't find numbers for 2020, but in 2019 it was 15%.

In 2023, it's 22%.

With our current GDP/Debt, and our current astronomical bullsh*t spending, there's just no way we can realistically expect the Navy to take on such a huge burden without a catastrophic effect on the federal budget.
Click to expand...
This ++
We don’t need a huge Sealift Command under Transcom, we could revitalize a “Merchant Marine” effort with increased contracted shipping. Most of our shipping is already contract.
But, props to the OP; logistics wins wars. The more we ship, the less we pay the locals ( don’t get me started)…
 
MacEntyre said:
That is so true. But we haven't even been Policing The World. That term has been a cover for Controlling The World. When have we made war on Bad Guys and left the Locals better off? Viet-Nam? Iraq? Afghanistan? And none of it has made the United States of America better off.
Click to expand...
Agree 100%, although I am mostly in the camp that policing here is also to serve our masters and not the people.
 
Chuckman said:
"We" the US, on this side of the pond. It has nothing to do with imperialism, nothing to do with policing the world. It's math, it's about a seagoing logistics trail. That's all.

Now, if you want to discuss the use of the military and multiple wars, engagements, police actions, yadda yadda yadda, that's a fair discussion to have, too.
Click to expand...
We only need a seagoing logistics trail if we are fighting a war overseas. I am very skeptical of that.
 
Hammer12b said:
They usually have at least 2-4 of them going through refit at any given time. Sometimes that process can take a long time. We typically have 4, maybe 5 on a good day, operational throughout the world at a time. We work on the thirds rule, a third of them operational, a third in refit, and a third just back from deployment. They are being run to death and over worked. They need at least 1-3 more to just stay up with oblgations.
Click to expand...
In the Forward Observer report this morning, there was a short piece about the Vice Admiral in chage of the surface fleet saying less than 25% of the ships are currently "mission capable" and pointing out that this is a lower state of readiness than "full mission capable" which they interpret as meaning some of those currently in service may not be combat ready.
RetiredUSNChief said:
Now how a MK-48 ADCAP torpedo sinks a ship? I'll give you a clue: Not necessarily by blowing a hole in the side of a ship...though they certainly can do that.

A MK-48 torpedo passing UNDER a ship and detonating is what does the real damage.
Click to expand...
Speaking of the MK-48, I had a teacher in college who said he was on the design team for the torpedo and there was a problem where feedback from the sonar ping would swamp out and interfere with the guidance system. He said that he was able to determine that an 8th order Butterworth filter was needed to squelch the feedback but nobody else on the team understood how to compute decibels to make this determination. Consequently, if you were ever in one of his classes, regardless of the subject, you learned how to calculate in decibels.

I have heard lots of stories from college teachers and a classmate friend that worked there, Loral Defense Systems, in the 80s. They ranged from using multimillion dollar environmental chambers to cook turkey dinner, to using a certain part of the picture of a centerfold in a girly magazine to test terrain mapping guidance systems. One of the ones I found amusing was they developed some missile and conducted the test for the Navy brass. Unfortunately, the test failed, and an investigation was launched. Turns out the problem was that they ran out of MIL SPEC (electronic) components, and someone ran down to the local Radio Shack and bought some to finish the job. Supposedly they even found the open blister packs from RS in the dumpster behind the building. However, I think the real winner was the guy who walked out with a quart jar of the paint they used to reduce the thermal signature of the engines on stealth bombers. Allegedly he dumped some down the pipes while replacing the exhaust system on his car which eventually rusted to pieces while the exhaust remained pristine.
 
Last edited:
I’d increase our pre-positioned stocks and re-do littorals ( great concept, poor execution thus far ) if I were SECDEF for a day. The PPS would be there to project power ( doctrinal) and sustain the first efforts. We could be moving what we already have in war stocks CONUS during the buildup before hostilities or sustain initial gains via MSC. We should maintain air supremacy ( I see no one even competitive in the next two decades ) so air mobility should be able to move sustainment along with MSC and contract shipping/merchant marine.

Neither of these gets us “along the path” to overseas entanglement. The Army picks up the tab for the PPS increase, Navy builds shallow-water missile platforms/ASW assets. These expenditures are defensive in nature and execution.
 
Last edited:
noway2 said:
In the Forward Observer report this morning, there was a short piece about the Vice Admiral in chage of the surface fleet saying less than 25% of the ships are currently "mission capable" and pointing out that this is a lower state of readiness than "full mission capable" which they interpret as meaning some of those currently in service may not be combat ready.
Click to expand...
I don’t do that a bit. The Army has a lot of Non Mission Capable units, especially combat units with a lot of females.
 
Hammer12b said:
I don’t do that a bit. The Army has a lot of Non Mission Capable units, especially combat units with a lot of females.
Click to expand...
On the website, DefensiveCarry, one of the ones bought out by the crack smoking Canadians, there was a guy who claimed to be the gold commander of a boomer sub. The talk of putting females on the boat came up. His comment was that boomer sub duty was one of the most physically demanding (and filthy: bathe once a week, share a hot bunk with two other guys) duties in the service. Six months out, submerged, little to no contact. On top of that, there was no provision for surfacing and getting someone off the boat if they caught preggers.

His bottom line was that they are the last line deterrent to any nation that should attack the US guaranteeing their annihilation and he asked, “is that mission worth jeopardizing in the name of gender equality?”
 
Downeast said:
Just a lot of people getting filthy rich on the back of the taxpayer. Now I wonder the same thing about the Chinese? Their military might is built on the same quality as Walmart and Harbor Freight.
Click to expand...
I listened to a really good podcast this week, and the gentleman had a lot of good points.
1. The world as we have know it is coming to an end. The globalization is going to be had to pull off, and in 20 years we the trade market will be different
2. If we stopped exporting food to China, 500million would perish the first year.
3.China and Russia are in the same boat due to no real trade partners or trade partners they can not afford to no longer have. Both leaders and done away with any competition, but now the also don’t have any one to take over.
4. The Chinese population can not sustain its self any longer and will most likely implode in 10 years
 
BatteryOaksBilly said:
U.S. is required by law to have a minimum of 11 Carriers....that's where we are....11.....do we Need more????
Click to expand...

"law"? I thought we weren't doing those any more. Just change the interpretation of 11 to mean 4 and we're fine, or maybe write an EO declaring 11 a public health emergency and making it not valid, then let the courts decide and after their ruling just ignore that too.

So much easier now.
 
Jayne said:
"law"? I thought we weren't doing those any more. Just change the interpretation of 11 to mean 4 and we're fine, or maybe write an EO declaring 11 a public health emergency and making it not valid, then let the courts decide and after their ruling just ignore that too.

So much easier now.
Click to expand...
Ahhh… The perfect blend of cynicism and sarcasm.
 
JimP42 said:
Ahhh… The perfect blend of cynicism and sarcasm.
Click to expand...

But I believe it to be true. Using 'the law' as a reason to do anything or not do anything isn't valid. Laws are not based on morality, or for the 'good of the people' or even just to do the right thing for society, they're deals made by waring elites trying to maximize their power, money and control. Any benefit for anyone else is just a side effect. Not wanting the punishment is a reason to obey, but as we've seen there is no punishment when the system is at fault so saying "we have to" is meaningless when it comes to how the system is going to behave.

when it comes to the .gov obeying, we might as well say "it's because santa is watching", it has as much relevancy.
 
Jayne said:
Not wanting the punishment is a reason to obey, but as we've seen there is no punishment when the system is at fault so saying "we have to" is meaningless when it comes to how the system is going to behave.
Click to expand...
And based upon what sort of justification does the punishment by these “elites” reside? How is it in any way legitimate? I don’t see how it is.
Jayne said:
when it comes to the .gov obeying, we might as well say "it's because santa is watching", it has as much relevancy.
Click to expand...
And here is where We The People, have and continue to fail in our duty. It isn’t Santa that should be watching but us. Yes, the system was designed with multiple chambers that are supposed to provide a “checks and balances” to correct things when one tries to go off the rails, but now the entire system has gone off the rails in unison. It is WE who should be punishing THEM not the other way around. And what form should thst punishment take you might ask? Why the very same they would try to use against you: deprivation of your time, property, and even life.
 
Jayne said:
But I believe it to be true. Using 'the law' as a reason to do anything or not do anything isn't valid. Laws are not based on morality, or for the 'good of the people' or even just to do the right thing for society, they're deals made by waring elites trying to maximize their power, money and control. Any benefit for anyone else is just a side effect. Not wanting the punishment is a reason to obey, but as we've seen there is no punishment when the system is at fault so saying "we have to" is meaningless when it comes to how the system is going to behave.

when it comes to the .gov obeying, we might as well say "it's because santa is watching", it has as much relevancy.
Click to expand...
I didn’t mean to imply that sarcasm and cynicism meant the point was not true :)
 
noway2 said:
It is WE who should be punishing THEM not the other way around. And what form should thst punishment take you might ask? Why the very same they would try to use against you: deprivation of your time, property, and even life.
Click to expand...

They're untouchable at this point, and even if they were they've got more than half the population on their side.
 
Jayne said:
They're untouchable at this point, and even if they were they've got more than half the population on their side.
Click to expand...
Shut the power off to the cities and that will change inside of three days. Unfortunately, while hereto now it’s been a thing of dystopian sci-fi, it’s starting to look real.
 
noway2 said:
Shut the power off to the cities and that will change inside of three days. Unfortunately, while hereto now it’s been a thing of dystopian sci-fi, it’s starting to look real.
Click to expand...

Do that and they'll turn on you, the 'cause' of the obvious problem.

It's not a dystopian sci-fi, it's just... well I'm not sure what it is. Inevitable change.
 
Jayne said:
Do that and they'll turn on you, the 'cause' of the obvious problem.

It's not a dystopian sci-fi, it's just... well I'm not sure what it is. Inevitable change.
Click to expand...
And what are they going to do? Vote harderer in moar elections?

A few days without power in High Point the line to get into a McDonalds with power was a mile down the road.

People out here will defend themselves, or learn to quickly enough.
 
noway2 said:
On the website, DefensiveCarry, one of the ones bought out by the crack smoking Canadians, there was a guy who claimed to be the gold commander of a boomer sub. The talk of putting females on the boat came up. His comment was that boomer sub duty was one of the most physically demanding (and filthy: bathe once a week, share a hot bunk with two other guys) duties in the service. Six months out, submerged, little to no contact. On top of that, there was no provision for surfacing and getting someone off the boat if they caught preggers.

His bottom line was that they are the last line deterrent to any nation that should attack the US guaranteeing their annihilation and he asked, “is that mission worth jeopardizing in the name of gender equality?”
Click to expand...

I believe subs have a 3-month rotation and not six, but your point is valid. I think women have been aboard subs so long now that the newness has faded, but all it takes is one.
 
Jayne said:
"law"? I thought we weren't doing those any more. Just change the interpretation of 11 to mean 4 and we're fine, or maybe write an EO declaring 11 a public health emergency and making it not valid, then let the courts decide and after their ruling just ignore that too.

So much easier now.
Click to expand...

why not, thats what was done to air force squadrons under slick willy. 80 is the new 100
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom