To all those who have gone before me: thank you. To all those who support us: thank you.

Still a long way until the midterm elections: plenty of time to get their shots in on the President and re-establish their bipartisan street cred, and then fall back in with their toes on the party line come election time. When these scandals will be comfortably in the past and the media can get back to reporting on evil republicans and the NFL.

Oh, it seemed like the idea of a coverup was a republican obsession? Did it seem that way? I wonder why it seemed that way? Perhaps it seemed that way because all you sycophants refused to even attempt real investigative journalism (at best) or actively tried to bury the story and not let any of the facts come to light (at worst). Maybe that's why it seemed like only republicans cared about the dead Americans for so long. Does that seem reasonable, mister pretentious liberal journalist?

A Paladin, righteous warrior upholding justice and good. In this case drawn by Samwise Didier the art director for Blizzard Entertainment.

Name and avatar chosen because I see myself as protecting the innocent and weak by destroying the evil with righteous fury.

Lincoln was such a ruthless tyrant, who crushed states' rights so thoroughly, that Seven states formed the Confederacy and established it's constitution on 8 February 1861 - three weeks before Lincoln even took office.

The Confederacy also showed it's dedication to the legitimacy of secession by immediately sending it's military to conquer West Virginia when those counties voted to stay loyal to the Union/secede from the Confederacy.

In other words: yes, I think the Confederacy was primarily and mostly a bunch of racist slave-owning crybabies who started the bloodiest war in American history because they lost an election.

Baseball I absolutely my favorite sport and a passion since I was 5. It is incorrect to say there is no grandstanding, though. People "pimp" home runs all the time (which disgusts me) and no, pitchers can't retaliate by plunking the next batter because that is a near-automatic ejection. It's too bad. Still a great game, though.

I like everyone. Except liberals who post epic threads with hundreds I comments, promising they will argue in good faith but ignoring any actual arguments. I also had to switch from using my real name due to being in the military and commenting on political topics. I also don't post as much as I'd like, but my 6 month old takes up most of daddy's free time.

I am horrified that my 5-month old daughter is in a cohort where by the time she is in high school her classmates will be illegitimate or children of divorce. The solution is not restricting political liberty or advocating for government intervention. The solution is pushing the welfare state WAY back and strongly advocating family values in our society.

If we cannot preserve our unique nation by convincing others of its quality and goodness, we don't deserve to win.

If the citizenry act in a moral way only because they are coerced to do so by the laws of government, then they have no virtue or self-discipline.

"Morality may not be an issue for "the government" to decide. But, then, in a properly constituted liberal democracy, "the government" decides very little. Within limits, morality is and always has been an issue for communities to resolve."

I agree completely, that was basically my point. Our fight for the future of this country needs two be a two-pronged assault: getting government OUT of these issues and getting civil society back into them.

Morality is not an issue for the government to decide. The reason leviathan is so morally degrading is that it inserts itself into every part of life and leaves no room for civil society which is where these things should be fought over.

Are you saying that he is wrong?!

What about a snatch-and-grab? I guarantee he was less well protected than bin Laden was, and he wasn't in a supposed "ally" nation either.

I realize that somehow for the left assassination is preferable to "torture" but it would be much more advantageous to us to capture him and find out everything we can from him about his plans and network than to send him a hellfire surprise.

Do we really need Burger Kings in Bagram and Kandahar? Is it really an effective use of taxpayer dollars to put thousands of treadmills on huge FOBs that have miles of dirt roads well away from the perimiter you can run on? Not to mention the tens of thousands of contractors and useless MOSs we pay to deploy, feed, and pamper. We waste billions at least on things which do not contribute to the mission.

As for the use of drones on random people in random countries - I'm not particularly bothered by it. Most of these places are essentially lawless, not nation states (think tribal Pakistan or Somalia or the rural parts of most middle eastern countries)

As for the use of drones on US citizens in random countries - NO! Yes we kill Americans in war if they are fighting against us. But unless Awlaki was at that moment performing a hostile act that is wrong, wrong, wrong. If I were on patrol and found a bombmaker, if he didn't have a gun and didn't shoot at me: I would not be allowed to shoot him or call in an airstrike - I'd have to detain him.

Not so strange, historically, for the US. Ever readThe Savage Wars of Peace? Max Boot makes a compelling argument that fighting low-intensity conflicts like the war in Afghanistan or other insurgencies is the normal state of affairs for the US military. "Big" wars (large armies between nation-states, declarations of war, total war, set piece battles, huge numbers of casualties) are the exception rather than the rule. We just remember the big wars because the others mostly float under the radar.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_United_States_military_operations

Look at all those interventions, landings, insurgencies, etc. Before the 24 hour news cycle Americans were constantly fighting and dying in places nobody had ever heard of without the general public even noticing.

The current war, the "unending war" isn't something to fret about or think we've turned the corner into a state of permanent war - it's really very normal. What we need to do is get back to the old way of fighting this kind of war on the cheap. CONTINUED

Heinlein!

Yes, if you really sit down and think long and hard about it there are flaws in his stories and characters. For some people that seems to jump right out at them but for most of us on this thread we seem too lost in the excellent storytelling to notice or mind.

Three massive posts and hundreds of comments, and not once do you present any scientific evidence or argument that the Earth could be less than 1 million years old. 

Stop wasting everyone's time and energy: put up or shut up.