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View original postView original postYou have to justify the cost of everything. Just as no rational person would pay $1000 for a pack of Twizzlers, no rational President would pay 5 taliban generals for one deserter. No one would be arguing if we paid $10,000 cash.
View original postView original postif paying $1000 for a pack of twizzlers meant a generation or more of peaceful co-existence, and a lifetime of American opportunity and prosperity then it would be a very cheap pack of twizzlers, indeed.
View original postI've never seen on the side of pack of twizzlers a promise of world peace, albeit I've not sought to buy any recently. Were there one I'd still expect a plausible explanation for how it was to be achieved. As best as I can tell the president basically decided to buy a rolex from some random criminal on the streets using company funds without consulting his partners and at 5x the regular price then came home to find out it wasn't just not a rolex but might actually have a particularly nasty type of mold growing in the wristband ready to spread to his other possessions.
View original postAnd you're not only defending this, you're praising it as a brilliant move and insulting those who disagree... there is a line between favorable devotion and outright lunatic fanatical following. You've crossed it. It may well be that when all the facts are presented and the dust clears that this wasn't a bad deal, or maybe even a brilliant one in some thus far unseen way like we have trackers on the guys we traded, but from the known information it looks pretty damned stupid, and you as well for not just defending it but declaring it some sort of master stroke.
View original posti'm only insulting those who think that leaving bergdahl to die was the better option. as a former soldier, how would you have felt to be captured, only to be released to the cacophony of people telling you that not only should you have never been released, but that your family should be killed for allowing Obama to negotiate your freedom? maybe Obama should have staged a fake rescue operation like his predecessor so that we would have something worth arguing about....
How would I feel if this absurdly improbable scenario occurred? Honestly I'd be stupefied to find out I'd been traded for multiple high level prisoners and be expecting my peers to be demanding a damn good explanation for how I got myself isolated and taken without a fight and didn't find a way to escape or kill myself. Look, I don't mind giving this guy the benefit of the doubt to explain himself but don't let that fool you, I think he's guilty. There are slim odds he wasn't a deserter and most alternate explanations require monumental cowardice or negligence. So you're suggesting a highly implausible scenario and acting like the rest of us are barking mad for working off the more likely one. You also dodged the whole bit about the president not informing congress as he was legally bound to do. Are we worthy of insult because we're pissed the president undeniably and indisputably broke the law?
The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.
- Albert Einstein
King of Cairhien 20-7-2
Chancellor of the Landsraad, Archduke of Is'Mod
This message last edited by Isaac on 10/06/2014 at 03:45:36 AM