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 Spacemanvic wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Um does no one read the Constitution any more?

Budgets are Congress' job, they can't pass one, the President cannot by law spend money.

You want to know who built this shutdown look at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave.

Uh, they have, the Democrat controlled Senate has rejected all of them. Nice try though!

Does the Senate live in or work out of the White House?

 Spacemanvic wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Um does no one read the Constitution any more?

Budgets are Congress' job, they can't pass one, the President cannot by law spend money.

You want to know who built this shutdown look at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave.

Uh, they have, the Democrat controlled Senate has rejected all of them. Nice try though!

That would be part of the whole READ THE CONSTITUTION thing. It takes both houses and the president to pass a budget. Holding your breath, stamping your feet, shutting down the government and risking default is the consquences of them not doing their job which includes compromise and deal making.

 d-usa wrote:

 Spacemanvic wrote:

 d-usa wrote:
Veterans breaking the laws because they are special...

That would be this:



They have 'em....

They should be having these:



I'm sorry, but I have zero sympathy for the people who think that laws and rules don't apply to them anymore because they are veterans. They go on the same pile as the veterans who piss and moan when they find out that they cannot fly a flag at their house because they were too lazy to read the contract that they signed before they purchased a house in a neighborhood with a HOA. Break the law, get arrested. I'm just going to guess that a lot of the people supporting these actions, and even committing these actions, were supporting this guy 100% when he dealt with this "civil disobedience" nonsense:



Because kids sitting on a sidewalk doing some civil disobedience = pepper spray and arrest those dirty hippies!
Kids storming DC and the national mall tearing down barriers in a case of civil disobedience = pepper spray and arrest those dirty hipp.....what? Those are not dirty hippies? The people breaking the law are veterans? Get some cameras on those guys that are heroes!

If only there was something lawful, useful, and something with far more impact these people could be doing.

Maybe they could cook a meal today for their fellow veterans who are homeless and going hungry because their benefits are affected by this shutdown:



25% of our homeless population are veterans.



Maybe they could be volunteering at the VA today, helping out injured veterans there. You know how many of these guys would be absolutely thrilled to have somebody come and help them get down to the smoking area and talk to them while they are down there?

It's a sad state of affairs when we celebrate these clowns for breaking the law.

How much more of an impact would it have made if these veterans would have come together at the capitols of their respective states to collect supplies for their homeless fellow veterans and cook a meal for them. But instead of a nice camera shot of a parking lot filled with homeless veterans being cared for by their fellow veterans and current members of their military while giving interviews about "DC has abandoned us, we take care of our own if these idiots will not take care of us!" we get camera shots of guys going "we are breaking the law, now we can hang out at a memorial lulz".

While I agree that soldiers in general are at times given a little too much favoritism, but what if a soldier feels that a certain law is immoral then wouldn't the moral thing to do would be to break the law?

Soldiers are trained to disobey an illegal order. As a veteran, I can vouch for this. It is NOT illegal to disobey an illegal order. If you think these patriotic veterans should go to jail, and congress shouldn't, you need to re-evaluate your priorities. For all those out there that are liberal, why are you always for civil disobedience, except when it's against our glorious leader?

 Cheesecat wrote:
While I agree that soldiers in general are at times given a little too much favoritism, but what if a soldier feels that a certain law is immoral then wouldn't the moral thing to do would be to break the law?

My only problem with that post is really the word "soldier" or in the case of this particular event "veteran".

If people from all walks of life think a law is immoral enough to protest it and break it, then people from all walks of life should have the exact same privileges and/or consequences from that action. Being a veteran should have zero impact on deciding if breaking the law is justified or not.

Of course the second question would be "is putting barricades in front of a national park an immoral law that requires civil disobedience".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Musashi363 wrote:
Soldiers are trained to disobey an illegal order.

"Due to lack of funding this park is closed" is an illegal order?

As a veteran, I can vouch for this. It is NOT illegal to disobey an illegal order. If you think these patriotic veterans should go to jail, and congress shouldn't, you need to re-evaluate your priorities.

How is anything they are doing "patriotism"? Is it because it's veterans doing it?

For all those out there that are liberal, why are you always for civil disobedience, except when it's against our glorious leader?

You were in full support of the Occupy movement?

 d-usa wrote:
So they don't actually care about anything? A photo-op is more important than actually physically taking care of their fellow veteran?

That's an extremely cynical takeaway from that statement.

Perhaps they feel the best way to take care of all veterans is to bring the shutdown to an end, and therefore that getting major network coverage would be more useful than doing something that most media networks wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole due to bias.

 Musashi363 wrote:
For all those out there that are liberal, why are you always for civil disobedience, except when it's against our glorious leader?

I definitely lean left, and I'd love to see more protesting against Obama. I think his broken promise to close Guantanamo bay is horrible, I wish he hadn't punked out on trying them as criminals, I wish he would lobby harder for defense spending, I am very unhappy that he caved on the Public option, I think the lack of oversight on drone usage is awful, I really wish he'd stop our policy of unbalanced support for Israel, and so on and so forth.

But the shutdown? That's bananas. No one wanted to avoid a shutdown worse than Obama, and to be honest, probably John Boehner too. At least John Boehner bears some responsibility in this, indirectly - in that he supported the extreme elements when it suited his purposes, and hence empowered them.

So far as the war veterans, I think it's great they're protesting, but agree with KK that they're in the wrong place.

 d-usa wrote:

 Cheesecat wrote:
While I agree that soldiers in general are at times given a little too much favoritism, but what if a soldier feels that a certain law is immoral then wouldn't the moral thing to do would be to break the law?

My only problem with that post is really the word "soldier" or in the case of this particular event "veteran".

If people from all walks of life think a law is immoral enough to protest it and break it, then people from all walks of life should have the exact same privileges and/or consequences from that action. Being a veteran should have zero impact on deciding if breaking the law is justified or not.

Of course the second question would be "is putting barricades in front of a national park an immoral law that requires civil disobedience".


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Musashi363 wrote:
Soldiers are trained to disobey an illegal order.

"Due to lack of funding this park is closed" is an illegal order?

As a veteran, I can vouch for this. It is NOT illegal to disobey an illegal order. If you think these patriotic veterans should go to jail, and congress shouldn't, you need to re-evaluate your priorities.

How is anything they are doing "patriotism"? Is it because it's veterans doing it?

For all those out there that are liberal, why are you always for civil disobedience, except when it's against our glorious leader?

You were in full support of the Occupy movement?

In answer to your question about barricades in front of a park, yes, it is immoral when people that have lived there for decades on land they lease from the government are given 24 hours to get out of their homes. My sister is friends with a couple who are in their mid 70's who have lived by Lake Mead since 1976 or so that had that done to them, along with several others. The poor wife was so flustered that she forgot to pack clothes for her husband and he ended up having to leave with nothing more than what he was wearing. When they tried to get back to their house later, they were met with barricades and armed guards.
As far as the occupy movement goes, I think that is an unfair comparison until the vets start leaving garbage and feces everywhere. By accounts that I hear, these groups go in and clean the parks.

All Americans are equal, but some Americans are more equal than others.

 Ouze wrote:

PS where are pictures of the million truckers? That sounds like a whole lot, I'd like to see that.

I'm not sure the National Mall is rated for that sort of weight.

 Spacemanvic wrote:

Considering the coverage OhBlameOh gets from the media, its about time.

First, that's a new one. A lame one, but a new one.

Second, he's the President of the United States so, yeah, he gets media coverage. I know it might be shocking, but what he does is more important than what some random veterans do.

I usually stay out of threads like this, but I should probably say something.

First, I don't consider myself part of any particular political party. I have my own views on Veterans and how they're treated as a three-deployment combat wounded Marine and former platoon sergeant of Wounded Warriors Battalion East in North Carolina. I *choose* to keep those views to myself for the most part, but this time I might want to share some insight:

I have been awaiting for the V.A. to apply, process and simply file certain claims. These claims (without going into my privacy too much) include basic residence-changing and adoption/dependent information changes. They might seem very simple, but simple is not a word the VA knows, and they are very important modifications to information on file that effect my entire disability check, so that's why it takes so long for them to process that crap.

During this "shut down", the services I rate have not been slowed down. My claims are still being processed, as are the claims of over fifty of my fellow Marines with whom I served. One thing that people are worried about (or the "news" sites are saying) is that benefits and pay will stop. I have something to say about that, too: Nope. Also, the VA center phone lines did not close, as some of those Republican websites were complaining about.

All that brings me to my second point. Choose your news. Choose it carefully. If someone posts a terrible picture or story making Liberals look bad on Facebook, you should probably not take it seriously if it says something like "Freeusfromsatanrightwingers.org". That's just an example. I don't want to name some of the Republican/Tea Party/Conservative websites out there that are posting this information, because you probably see them already.. plus, I just don't care.

Let me be clear a minute. I'm not an Obama supporter, or trying to make Republicans/Liberals look bad.

Moving on, and speaking of propaganda... No, Obama is not going to rip up the constitution because he has a new one in mind. Want to guess what kind of website says that? That's not the important part. The important part is that it's insane how many people are buying that crap. I'm all for being treated fairly. I don't think Veterans are getting that treatment, and the barricade thing makes sense to me. Like I said- I'm just here to advise you to use caution when getting your news.

My personal opinion is that the shut-down is, will always be, and has been before, a complete party-play by both sides in which they point fingers and blame each other for a while. I'm not saying anything you don't already know about politicians, of course..

I thought it would be helpful if I shared my opinions as a Veteran, since Veterans are involved in all that DC stuff obviously.

Now let me get one last thing straight- I do know of a few Veterans who are getting slowed benefits due to the "shut-down", but as I have been told in person by very credible representatives in the VA with whom I have close relationships with, this is due mistakes made or incomplete before this shut-down happened. It is abhorrent that people who RATE benefits do not get them. I think that the barricade issue is sad. I think that people taking pictures down in Arlington that families put up is sad.. But sometimes, Americans *might* want to wait until things blow over. I doubt that anyone is going to raise an AR-15 against the government when they see that things will get better (and it's not a hell-blazing inferno at the moment).

If I confused anyone, please allow me to explain (if you request). Sometimes I ramble. I'm looking forward to discussing this one, but don't expect anything too crazy besides what I've already said. I'm no lawyer, political major or degree-holder.

"Just" a grunt.

Say y'all do know that the House could vote to end the shutdown today (well if they weren't on vacation) with democratic and moderate republican votes.

But Boehner won't allow it.

So yeah, those guys are 100% on the wrong end of Pennsylvania Ave.

Wow what is going on in here?

Do the people getting outraged by this seriously not see how ridiculously transparent it is?

Bachmann/Palin/Cruz say they won't have veterans being used as political pawns, then they go down to the monument and use veterans as political pawns.

Do you guys not understand what is happening here?

also this

It amazes me. Of all the huge issues currently going on at the moment, the republican and tea party focus on veterans memorials.

Not the women and children and babies at risk.

Not the fact that the CDC isn't open and doing it's job

Not the fact that 800,000 people and countless other are directly or indirectly affected.

No. Gotta focus on the vets 'storming' the barricades and stage stupid pictures like the raising of the flag over barriers in front of the White House.

It's fething disgusting.

Pretty much how I feel.

Anyone who thinks this veteran's show is anything other than a farce to stir up anger and vitriol and distract from real issues is, well, a fool. Sorry.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Say y'all do know that the House could vote to end the shutdown today (well if they weren't on vacation) with democratic and moderate republican votes.

But Boehner won't allow it.

So yeah, those guys are 100% on the wrong end of Pennsylvania Ave.

To be fair:

Even if this is 100% the fault of senate democrats they would still be at the wrong address...

Oh, I have something else to say about the pictures above with Homeless Veterans.

Those who don't help themselves deserve what they get. Those veterans who turn to drugs, gambling, alcohol and turn their backs on their families and friends because of egos deserve to be on the streets. You're still a veteran.. but someone giving you 5 bucks for lunch (or drugs) as you stand by the street doesn't know if you got a Dishonorable Discharge for sexually assaulting some chick or getting busted for drugs. Just saying. There are those out there who are like that. Use caution when using homeless vets in political stuff. It's not the government's fault. They provide with the means to go to school for Tzeentch's sake. Do they have any idea how good that is? If they don't use it, they deserve to work at McDonald's or be lazy and not have a house.

I asked for a homeless vet to tell me when he got out and he said he didn't remember, then I told him "Well it's on your DD-214". He said "What's a DD-214"?

The homeless vet issue is an issue with Veterans themselves, in probably half the cases. It doesn't belong in politics.

 Brometheus wrote:
Oh, I have something else to say about the pictures above with Homeless Veterans.

Those who don't help themselves deserve what they get. Those veterans who turn to drugs, gambling, alcohol and turn their backs on their families and friends because of egos deserve to be on the streets.

You're still a veteran.. but someone giving you 5 bucks for lunch (or drugs) as you stand by the street doesn't know if you got a Dishonorable Discharge for sexually assaulting some chick or not. Just saying. There are those out there who are like that.

I asked for a homeless vet to tell me when he got out and he said he didn't remember, then I told him "Well it's on your DD-214". He said "What's a DD-214"?

The homeless vet issue is an issue with Veterans themselves, in probably half the cases. It doesn't belong in politics.

Everything is black and white. Obviously!

Everyone is dealt and absolutely equal hand in everything, and fething bootstraps are the only way to do it!

Gosh darn it that's the smartest thing I've heard all day my friend.

Because: Bootstraps

better than Heldrake.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 daedalus-templarius wrote:

Anyone who thinks this veteran's show is anything other than a farce to stir up anger and vitriol and distract from real issues is, well, a fool.

I really like that sentence. Well said.

Brometheus, I can't fething tell what you are trying to say.

Everything isn't black and white.

Between the demons and the pink elephants in my brain, I'm having a hard time expressing how I feel and using my words like a big boy.

I'm trying to say that everything is stupid and it's all just a big ploy and is not as bad as people think (yet).

Fair?

There's a reason I don't comment on these issues here on the forum. I really want to! But I have a hard time doing it.

 Brometheus wrote:
I have a hard time doing it.

In all fairness, posting from LV-426 must be enormously distracting, mostly at night. Mostly.

The fact that quite a few of the homeless veterans who are addicts/drunks/etc have these issues because of crap care and resources as well as the social stigma that used to be attached to people who can't deal with it themselves makes it even sadder to see veterans judge each other like that.

I know it's a bit of a generalization, but I see quite a difference between the way WW2, Korean, Vietnam, and more recent conflict vets treat each other at work.

It means a lot to me that you noted that you might be making a generalization. In the end, I know who I worked with and how i worked with them. im interested in hearing your view on how this generation treats each other at work. To prove im not trying to start anything negative, you could pm it to me. Oh and ill add a smiley too.

 Brometheus wrote:
It means a lot to me that you noted that you might be making a generalization. In the end, I know who I worked with and how i worked with them. im interested in hearing your view on how this generation treats each other at work. To prove im not trying to start anything negative, you could pm it to me. Oh and ill add a smiley too.

PM send

Interesting bit of trivia, those park police keeping people out of closed parks and monuments...

They're working without pay. They have been for 2 weeks.

And as 'essential' workers they can't opt to stay home or even take a day off.

But no tears for them and their families, nor blame for the one man in Congress who can call a vote tomorrow (if he wasn't on vacation).

Far be it for me to stop someone for blaming Blackman McMuslimName for all the ills of the world.

I'd be interested in hearing that too d-usa

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Interesting bit of trivia, those park police keeping people out of closed parks and monuments...

They're working without pay. They have been for 2 weeks.

And as 'essential' workers they can't opt to stay home or even take a day off.

But no tears for them and their families

Quite the opposite, actually.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Interesting bit of trivia, those park police keeping people out of closed parks and monuments...

They're working without pay. They have been for 2 weeks.

And as 'essential' workers they can't opt to stay home or even take a day off.

But no tears for them and their families, nor blame for the one man in Congress who can call a vote tomorrow (if he wasn't on vacation).

Far be it for me to stop someone for blaming Blackman McMuslimName for all the ills of the world.

Dammit KK, he's Irish not scottish!! His name is Blackman O'MuslimName!!

 KalashnikovMarine wrote:
I'd be interested in hearing that too d-usa

Send you a copy & paste of the same PM.

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:

 Spacemanvic wrote:

 Kid_Kyoto wrote:
Um does no one read the Constitution any more?

Budgets are Congress' job, they can't pass one, the President cannot by law spend money.

You want to know who built this shutdown look at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave.

Uh, they have, the Democrat controlled Senate has rejected all of them. Nice try though!

That would be part of the whole READ THE CONSTITUTION thing. It takes both houses and the president to pass a budget. Holding your breath, stamping your feet, shutting down the government and risking default is the consquences of them not doing their job which includes compromise and deal making.

And trying to get the Resident to compromise has gotten us nothing other than the man-child holding his breath, stomping his feet, and trying to stick it to the average citizen. He is an embarrasment.

 Spacemanvic wrote:

And trying to get the Resident to compromise has gotten us nothing other than the man-child holding his breath, stomping his feet, and trying to stick it to the average citizen. He is an embarrasment.

You don't compromise by saying "Gimme!".

Republicans who really believe that they're trying to get a "compromise" are deluding themselves.