"Is that pretty close to the mark?"

Nope.

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"Can anyone in the US honestly say they benefit in no way from services provided by some form of government?"

Certainly: I never said such a thing.

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"...pretending that there's something more profound..."

Your opinion: you're welcome to it.

There was only an American loss this time, because it was a stupid political maneuver. I'm not saying they were wrong in their goal, but the way they worked toward that goal, was unwise.

Infinite Monkey - did you see the layout of the dead (painted silhouettes), from D-Day, laid out on the beaches at Normandy earlier this year?

There were over 9,000 men - you could barely get two feet, between one dead "GI", and the next one.

Any Commander-In-Chief, who refuses to give the veterans of foreign wars respect, is VERY questionable!

Any Commander-In-Chief, who refuses to allow veterans of foreign wars, access to their OWN war memorial for political gamesmanship, is an utter ass-wipe!

If Obama was a REAL Commander-In-Chief, he would apologize to those vets, and personally lead them around the memorial, in a return visit.

But he won't of course.

I was just trying to be generous and help unpack that idea a bit, hoping to find some interesting philosophical nugget. I should probably just get back to work.

Refreshing to hear your point of view, in any case. I'd put you a to the right of the Libertarian, for sure.

What do you call your political orientation?

Just 'Henry Quirk': I got no politics.

Of course we benefit from having our federal gov't. Think of all the natural resources we have: coal, gas, oil, timber, prime farmland, big cities with expensive infrastructure. Then there are the human resources!

If we had no military, etc., we'd be conquered by some country in a heartbeat.

@Henry
Apolitical then. Well, that's rare, but your point of view is within the total political spectrum. The Anarchists are the only group I know of that falls outside it - just because of their affinity to violently destroy all gov'ts and order.

Henry Quirk is just a narcissist who obviously does not understand how a 21st century (or 20th for that matter) society and economy works. His worldview is only realistically applicable to pre-agricultural society.

*yawn*

Of course. That's the goal of a troll.

If you happen to be curious about how any given Senator or Representative
voted on the shut-down Bill (HR 2775) here is a link...

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h550

Good idea, he could apologize for the Republicans. It'd be a nice sound bite for the next election cycle... Wait, maybe the baggies are Democratic operatives?

I was informed today by people who lived and worked here during the government shutdowns in the 1990s that ALL of the memorials - yes, the memorials for veterans of foreign wars - were closed during those shutdowns. Since the longer one took place during January, nobody, including the veterans of foreign wars, cared whether the memorials were shut down! No veterans jetted in to demonstrate and climb over barriers! The weather was lousy so the memorials didn't mean as much, I guess.

Or maybe there was a specific effort to fly vets in this time so that people like you, Adak, could whine on and on about the memorials being closed. Or maybe it wasn't a real issue then and isn't one now.

I vote for the latter.

But again the facts get ignored. Wacko extremists caused those closures because they 'knew' closed memorials do not matter. They also knew (and openly say) that a default would not hurt the country. They feel; therefore it must be true. They even reasoned they were winning. Sounds much like Charlie Sheen and his victory.

What did they accomplish? Nothing. Why do they associate Obamacare with closed memorials? Adults acting like children. Such emotional reasoning is common among extremists. Another example of why only moderates are informed, educated, adult, and therefore patriotic.

To keep their disciples misinformed, they blamed Obama for closed memorials. Not the 30 wacko extremists who did nothing useful - to hype their political agenda. Eventually enough moderate Republicans had the balls to vote down their wacko peers. Then the memorials opened.

"troll"

Eye of the beholder.

*shrug*

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"a narcissist"

Possibly.

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"who obviously does not understand how a 21st century (or 20th for that matter) society and economy works. His worldview is only realistically applicable to pre-agricultural society."

Your evidences to support the assertion(s), please.

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"your point of view is within the total political spectrum"

Mebbe so...haven't had an interest in finding sympathetic souls.

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"Of course we benefit from having our federal gov't."

Sure. I think, however, there might be better ways to get the same benefits.

As I wrote about elsewhere in this forum: proxyhood is preferable to governance.

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"Think of all the natural resources we have: coal, gas, oil, timber, prime farmland, big cities with expensive infrastructure."

All had by way of private concerns and private concerns in conjunction with local government. Pretty much all those things could be had by way of proxies.

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"If we had no military, etc., we'd be conquered by some country in a heartbeat."

Certainly you need peace keepers and defenders. Question is: can you get the same or better service by way of proxies? That is: must defense and peace keeping come from an overarching 'governor', or, can the same be had by way of local proxies coordinating with other proxies?

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"fuck you, I got mine"

Not what I'm saying at all, but it does raise a question.

What exactly is wrong with 'fuck you, I got mine'?

Example: Joe and Henry are in the wilderness. There is exactly enough water to get one of the men into town. Joe has possession of that water. Henry, understandably, wants some. Joe says 'no, sir...if I share, we both die...that's senseless'.

Joe is sayin' 'fuck you, I got mine'.

Within the context of my example: why is Joe wrong?

##

"A government funded research experiment"

What you mean to say: a taxpayer funded research experiment. Government is merely the collector, conduit, and director of monies, it ponies up not a dime of its own ('cause it has nuthin' of its own to call its own).

And: who did the research?

Who currently maintains the net infrastructure (both tangible and intangible)?

Henry it's really hard to follow your posts. I can't easily tell what you're quoting and what's new. It's all jumbled together.

If there were powerful proxies for all that shit it would be the FIRST THING you'd be railing against.

By human nature, they would be taking advantage of that power harder than any government ever would, and you would rightfully be screaming bloody murder and *demanding* that such things be put to direct democracy or some sort of representative voting, where at least there can be two blocs of political power instead of one.

If you want to see a system where the extremely powerful military is not controlled by the government, look at all the shitty countries of the world that can't govern themselves via the vote. Taking over the military is the first step of all dictators and power brokers everywhere. If you have the military you automatically win and can install any set of rules you like.

But it sure is nice to dream, huh?