Bush did quite well in school, with a ~1300+ SAT score and an arts degree from Yale. Kerry had a slightly lower SAT score than Bush did.

Albert Einstein had notoriously poor grades in school.

I don't think anybody is suggesting that academic performance and intelligence have a direct correlation.

No one's assuming that at all. In short, Kerry claims he meant to tell these kids to do well in school or they'd end up causing us to get stuck in Iraq like Dubya did. Problem is, Dubya did better in school than Kerry did, as measured by SAT scores and GPAs. Kerry's "intended" joke (and I'm still not convinced that's anything more than a CYA move) doesn't make any sense at all. Intelligence has nothing to do with it.

That last sentence applies to this topic in a lot of different ways.

I just wanna see the number of scholarship enlistees and non-scholarship enlistees.

Well yes, its like a Job.. they are paying you, giving you this incentive to volenteer in the military. I volenteer to get up and go to work everyday so I can pay my car payment. These people volenteer to get up and go to the military so they can get tuition reimbersment.. it's a damn job. I don't care about people with degrees, I never brought them up.

What I am saying is people that join the military have other options its not there only way out.. They choose to do it, over working a dead end job, tring to pay for rent and school.

John Kerry is still an idiot for making a stupid comment. Thank God he is not in charge of this country right now. We probably would have had about 10 more planes smash into more sky scrappers because our military would just be sitting on it's *** not doing ****.

YEAH, PROBABLY.

"A classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) contends that the war in Iraq has increased Islamic radicalism, and has made the terror threat around the world worse."

Um, a) we have mandatory free education in this country, and b) immigrants are not anything close to a majority in the military. It's mostly just kids who want to serve the country and don't have the same opinions you do.

And besides, the "target demographic" you refer to is 95% of US citizens. Of course that's their demographic.

Stop trying to make it sound like the military is filled with poor people who think that they have no other option. Honestly, have you every met anyone in the military, or seen what they think? You're trying to be insightful into an issue, where you have zero practical experience. Worse, it's fabricated from a political position that is hostile to that held by the vast majority of armed forces members.

I'm glad you guys aren't letting this argument descend into illogical crap-flinging.

WIN!

I was just going to bring that up.

Allow me to sum up some reasons why Bush's policies have only solidified the US' position as the most hated country in the world:

1. Falsifying the justification for the invasion in Iraq, an invasion that has immersed the country in a full scale civil war that so far has cost the lives of an estimated 45.000 Iraqi civilians. FORTY-FIVE THOUSAND
2. Human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib and the ongoing abuses at Guantanamo Bay
3. Taking advantage of their European allies by secretly flying 'enemy combatants' in and out of European airspace to countries where they are secretly tortured.

[QUOTE=IRG SithLord]Sources?[/QUOTE]

Just FYI, when an officer receives their commission, the area they had a degree in has absolutely 0 bearing on what job field they are assigned to. When you enlist, any college degree you might have doesn't do crap for getting an MOS. Luck and ASVAB scores do.

People with college degrees don't get cushy jobs in the military. Lucky people with sweet connections get cushy jobs.

Personally, I guess I'd be the exception to what Jon is saying. Except theres a lot of people like me.

I got a 90 on the ASVAB.
I got a 28 on the ACT.
I got offered a Julliard sponsored scholarship two weeks after I left for boot camp.

The military was far from being my 'only way out' of anything. I met very few recruits who were really in dire straits. And trust me, if you WERE in dire straits, you brag about it, because it makes you seem tough. Everybody wants to be tough in recruit training.

My reserve unit was the first one activated after 9/11. Most of it's members have college educations, most senior members (read:those not in college) work relatively high paying jobs. It wasn't until they got deployed that most of them had financial trouble. Salaries went down to $17,000 a year from $80,000, because active duty military pay is just appalling in some situations.

EDIT:Oh yeah, my unit is a scout infantry company. That's grunts. That makes me a grunt, doesn't it?

I guess it just comes down to John Kerry just feels salty that Bush got elected president over him.. I mean that's pretty bad

Everyone I know that is in the military is a respectable intelligent person.

Uhm, no. I just happen to have several friends that are in or have been in the military. No 'propaganda' about it.

Kerry slung crap at Bush during the election (and Bush certainly gave him enough to sling), and he continued to do so after the election was over. It's what he does.

What your friends neglected to tell you is that they are actually part of the propoganda machine. We have a class in boot camp where you go and get a serial number stamped on your foot. Mine is; BSMCHN20059182. You also learn all sorts of fancy acronymns that you can use to make it sound like we are doing well in Iraq, when OBVIOUSLY, we are failing. Because, you know, we had objectives that could fail in the first place. Oh yeah, and we got donuts after that class. And then they tell us all that we are intelligent, fit, honorable fighting machines, when we are really all stupid meatheads who couldn't make it in the most honorable of trades; Computer Programming, because we have no morals. Yes, I capitalized BOTH words.

Also, we spend hours worshipping at the GWB altars located in the hall lockers of each squadbay.

Yes.

yeah but there are real issues at hand then picking on someone all the time

Actually that's thier fault, because they're so racist they can't live otgether with out some crazed machivillian dictator at their threats 24/7.


Yes. Bush personally ordered those attacks.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/01/AR2005110101644.html

"Virtually nothing is known about who is kept in the facilities, what interrogation methods are employed with them, or how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long."



Now, granted, I don't agree with some of the things I just defended. I'm just demonstrating that these issues can look very different depending on how you look at them. The worst thing you can do is convince yourself that you're not biased. Everyone's biased. I'm biased. Just remember that there are other perspectives, and that "biased" is not another word for "the other side"

You do not have mandatory free college tuition.
I never said they were.

Of course.

No. The US military advertises for the destitute. They do not advertise for the rich, young and successful with established careers.

Well, okay, the reserves do. But I'm not talking about the reserves.

Yes.

It's not a political opinion it's a personal one. Obviously no sane politician would publicly express a viewpoint like the one I have, otherwise they'd never get elected.

Fair enough, my mistake.

Congratulations, you've figured out that the people in the reserves have day jobs.

Wouldn't an underpaid/underworked reservist raise eyebrows if he didn't enlist in the regular forces? The reserves are for people who want to serve their country but don't want to do it full time, right?

Excuse the poor formatting,
School Recruiting Program Handbook


I guess you know what gets people to join better than the army does

Exactly.

No, Bush should have done his homework. This is his responsibility, period.




Bush made the system for the illegal treatment of 'enemy combatants' possible. He's done everything he can to protect the way in which things work in Guantanamo.



"how decisions are made about whether they should be detained or for how long". That is precisley what is wrong here. NOONE KNOWS what the US is doing with those prisoners. Hardly what you'd call an open and transparent system.

The Gulfstream planes that are being used for the secret transports typically visit countries where torture is (secretly or openly) tolerated. You do the math. But apart from that, even if they aren't torturing those people, they are lieing to the allies who are helping them in their war efforts, and using their territories secretly to let people 'disappear' in a system that violates human rights on a grand scale. It's a very dirty war that the US is fighting, and even their allies are getting sick in being involved in this kind of practise without their knowing.



Pffft, your 'look' on things just says: "Hey, it's not our fault!", "Bush didn't do it!" and "It might not be so bad!."

Sorry, I'm not impressed. Happy Ostrich Day.

Or because now we're trying to keep them together, even though every indication is they'd rather just go their separate ways and split Iraq up. Personally, I think we ought to let them. By trying to keep Iraq "unified" we've replaced that crazed Machiavellian dictator, and we suck at it.



Regarding Abu Ghraib, no, and I don't think anyone said he did. But it was Bush's policies on detainees that made it possible, and considering his ongoing defense of Guantanamo I'd say he's personally responsible for what goes on there.



It doesn't worry you that interrogation methods and information about the detainment decision-making process are kept under wraps? What legitimate reason could they have for doing so? As far as I'm concerned, secrecy about interrogation methods is as good as admission of torture.



No one is completely objective, but it's overly simplistic to say that "everyone's biased." Many people are capable of making determinations based on real evidence regardless of their political beliefs. It's not as if these are matters of opinion we're talking about -- certain things are going on, or they aren't. The facts care very little for our political allegiances.

No, only that idiots would interpret it that way. A monkey could understand what he meant by the statement. There are two kinds of people who misinterpreted Kerry's statement. Those that are pretending to be idiots for the sake of dirty politics and those that really are idiots. I wouldn't vote for Kerry if he were the last politician on earth, but what he made was a somewhat accurate statement.

Contrary to most of the users here, I'm a Bush supporter, but putting him aside Kerry is still an idiot. I mean, if you think Bush is, that's fine, but you gotta admit Kerry is rowing the other oar in that boat.

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]It doesn't worry you that interrogation methods and information about the detainment decision-making process are kept under wraps? What legitimate reason could they have for doing so? As far as I'm concerned, secrecy about interrogation methods is as good as admission of torture.[/QUOTE]

Exactly. Latest News:

U.S. seeks to keep detainees from talking about interrogation methods

Well, this threads lameness has just about reached critical mass.

Man, the people I'm arguing with have EVIDENCE. And COHESIVE ARGUMENTS! I don't think I can rebut this, I'd better just declare the thread lame.

I'll add some rolleyes smileys too, just to be sure everyone knows how superior I am.

haha, that was good.

Hopefully nobody will remember the next time I try to argue about this in another thread!

Edit: Ah sod it. Let's just become xenophobes isolationists.

[QUOTE=Michael MacFarlane]\
No one is completely objective, but it's overly simplistic to say that "everyone's biased." Many people are capable of making determinations based on real evidence regardless of their political beliefs. It's not as if these are matters of opinion we're talking about -- certain things are going on, or they aren't. The facts care very little for our political allegiances.[/QUOTE]

I think he was talking about bias in the extreme as in the nature of knowledge. If someone tells you that they are going to kill a child because of their belief or allegiance, how do you prove to him that he is wrong? He can say "why" to every single statement you make and eventually you just go in circles and you have no solid argument for why he should not kill the child.

United States education is useless, and contrary to what some numbnutted idiots think, meatheads get meathead jobs in the armed forces.

Even the meatheads are above lying about it.

While I largely agree with you, it did teach me to read, write, and do simple arithmetic. I consider all very useful. Other than that, though, it does a pretty lousy job.

That's a pretty poor generalization. In fact, very poor. Yes, a lot of public education is poor in the United States, and elsewhere. But there are also plenty of AMAZING public school systems, many of which outclass the best private schools.

It would be the same as saying public college in the United States sucks, which is very true in many areas and extremely untrue (whatever that means) in others.

There are few shinning examples.


However, no child left behind ruins it all.

So I suppose all those frontline officers are getting those kushy jobs. You know, the platoon and company commanders. After all, a very large percentage of them have that golden college degree. Please do something to take care of your ignorance about the military before you make completely inaccurate statements about the military again.

I see you earned your enormous postcount by reading entire threads before posting, champ.

Please do something to take care of your :downs:

Ain't this hilarious? Bush has been "oops"ing for the last 6 years with lines far worse than this one yet Kerry gets all this crap for his. The part I find so funny is the spin the white House is putting on it. Yesterday I was channel surfing and on Fox News some presidential representative was having a live meeting about it. Don't they have a couple of wars to fight? Do they really have time for this ****?

More or less. More often it's "can't" serve full time, rather than don't want to, but that's about the sum of things.



Unfortunately, I guess that's probably true for the Army.

But I'm a Marine.

Contradictions count as evidence! Wow!

What are you talking about?

Both Michael McFarlane and I took the effort to reply in detail to your post.

The next thing you do is declaring the thread lame, without explaining why.

If you'd actually try to debate, you'd at least try to counter our arguments by defending your own stance. Instead you just call 'lame' and 'contradictions' without pointing out specifically to what you are referring.

It's you who's leaving out the arguments.

New rules;

Obikwiet is to be ignored
Wood shoe boy's biased *** opinion is also to be ignored

Carry on.