Politics and Beliefs!

How do people feel about the incident at the new Air and SPace Museum (at Dulles Airport).

I went there on Monday (opening day). They were waiving the parking cost for the day ($12).

There were anti-nuclear weapons protestors right by the entrance. They were protesting weel and not blocking the entrance.

The museum itself was very nice, but part of it was closed. The ramp in front of the Enola Gay was blocked of, and also the floor area under the ramp. When I asked why I was informed that they "were doing some cleanup".

I though nothing of it until I was watching the news that evening. It seems one of the protestors has thrown a bottle of red paint at the plane. Even causing a dent in the plane.

I view this museum as a history of aerospace. These items represent a cross-section of high points (and low points) in that history. In addition, many hours (and sometime years) have been spent restoring some othese planes.

While I respect anyones right to express their opinion. I do draw the line at physical damage to a person or property. The people doing such destruction say they are "making a statement". To me, the statement is clearly that they do not respect anything which does not follow their beliefs. I was glad to hear that the culprit was being charged with FELONY destruction of property.

 

I agree...if it helps humanity, the rat dies. Now, unecessary testing on animals is wrong, and I defiently hate to see someone abusing an animal...it breaks my heart.

In the same vein as this, what about vegetarians? The human mouth/teeth was disigned/evolved to facilitate the consumption of meat. Who are we to argue with that. To quote a very famous man: 'If god didn't want us to eat animals he wouldn't have made them out of meat.'

There is room here for all of gods creatures...right next to the loaded baked potato.

 

Protesting hippies need to get real jobs. That's fantastic that they're charging them with a felony. People just look for something to be against...let things go already! WW2 is over and has been over for over half a century. I don't see a bunch of Hawaiians and military folks down at the Japanese embassy downtown protesting the attack on Pearl Harbor...so get over it! It's about history, and that's a historical plane...enough said

 

Brim, bottled water (at the price they sell it at) is the biggest crock. I guess it's the in thing nowadays. *shrug* Anyhoo, France isn't any worse than us =)

 

I buy one bottle, drink it, then refill it with my Brita 2x filtered water from my fridge so it's not like I'm spending a ton on bottled water. France isn't any worse than us? They're the world equivalent of the playground wimp that everyone makes fun of. They're good at food and fashion...thats about it, and certianly not hygiene and personality.

 

Bike4Fun
The protesters want the Enola Gay display to show the human effects of the atomic bomb that it dropped. I would have no problem displaying that as long as they also display the atrocities committed by the Japanese on the civilians of Asia. It should also be reported that using the Atom bomb ended the need for a Normandy style invasion that would have cost thousands of lives of American troops as well as civilians. It also ended the war before The USSR could jump in and claim territory as they did in Europe. If that happened who knows what history would have brought.

 

They also need to include pictures of Pearl Harbor during and after the Japanese raids which started the war and ultimately caused us to use the bomb to end the war...

 

MOVED TO THE CORRECT THREAD:

GCyr: How are we ever going to stop the cycle of poverty if we don't try to educate all classes about the wonders of our great society? There most definitely should be FREE or reduced rates for those less fortunate than us!

 

How about ending/cutting back government support and rewards for being poor? A dose of reality would force these people to rise up and realize that "Hey, I'm not getting any more handouts...I guess I should stop having kids and get a real job!" If everything is free or reduced for poor people, then they'll never have an incentive to get out of that lifestyle ("Why get a job/education when I'd have to pay more for goods and services?").

 

Happy holidays to you, too, brim!

 

And to you! And thanks for a compelling rebuttal!

 

I guess their beef is that the US went after a civilian target instead of a military one. I think we could have scared em off with a nuke 50 miles off the coast =)

Regardless, I remember going to an air show as a little kid and getting to see the Enola Gay -- it was da bomb back then, pardon the pun =)

Brim, I agree with you on the mothers who keep having kids, but there still exists a need for social programs, else there would be alot more problems.

I know alot of countries in Europe have really high taxes, and a number of people get a free ride on social programs, you don't see them with the same problems we have in the US.... something to think about.

I don't have the answers. *shrug*

Why am I doing up this late? Good night!

 

Hiroshima and Nagasaki were also military targets. There was much manufacturing of weapons going on.

 

You can make that argument for any city, but usually you try and get just the targets and not the civilians too =)

It's like saying that since aircraft were being manufactured in oklahoma, all of oklahoma must die... overkill, but still effective =)

 

I agree, you can't cut welfare/social programs out all together, but you can cut who recieves them and for how long they're eligible to do so. There are lots of folks who have fallen on hard times (esp. recently) that have benefited from the various social programs we have...but there are far more less deserving folks who have got handouts for too long.

Our taxes here are high enough. Cut back some of the social programs and you wouldn't need high taxes PLUS you'd ween some of these leeches off the govt. teat.

On a related note, here's a great point-counterpoint style article from The Onion.

 

Things are different in times of war, my friend. You think that if the Japanese could have penetrated inland as far as OK they wouldn't have done it? It's all about acceptable loss and collateral damage...sure some folks were killed but it prevented a lot more loss on both sides had the war persisted. The first rule of war is 'do unto others before they do unto you'.

 

Brim,

Out of curiosity, what social programs would you suggest cutting, and how much of the county budget do you think is for the Social Services Department?

 

WWII was a different type of war than any since. Everyone in each country was involved in some way from Victory Gardens and women working while the men fought. This was a fight for survival of a way of life not just a turf war. It's not like Hiroshima was some dinky fishing village. It had military bases and weapons plants.

Today, the Russians have Radford, Va targeted by ICBMs. Radford is a dinky mountain college town that happens to have a large Munitions plant outside of town.

 

Homer Simpson == Tom Clancy!

mmmm.... MIRVs

=)

 

I'm talking about federal social services and not knowing what the local budget looks like, I couldn't estimate a guess. As far as services I would cut, start with:

SSI (supplemental security income) checks - These checks are usually reserved for the elderly/blind, but you can get one per child you have if the child is determined to have a disability lasting longer than a year. What people do is keep having children and taking them to a doctor and convincing them that their child has a learning disability, the doc then writes a note verifying such and they can get a check per child per month due to this. More 'learning disabled' children = more money. I had a lady that had 12 of these per month that she cashed and each one was $811.00...most people had at least three.

Food Stamps - The gvt. has made some headway here in the last several years by beginning to move these over to an EFT card instad of books of coupons. The physical coupons (stamps) are often sold for cash (at a ratio less than 1:1) enabling the seller to use the cash for non-food stampable items like cigarettes/alcohol. I once saw a guy try to buy dog food with food stamps, when told he couldn't he went back and got a cart load of steaks and said 'I'll just feed these to my dog!' Deplorable.

I worked in a grocery store for seven years in my high school/college years checking out groceries for the first year and cashing checks in customer service the rest, so I've seen all sorts of social service abuse and know how it goes down.

I am only against the services that reward irresponsible behavior and put cash directly into their hands. Programs such as HUD, Unemployment, etc. are definetly needed as they provide a needed service and there are stringent limits on how much cash you can recieve via unemployment and for how long you can recieve it.