Ah.

"When you talk about trying to respect our enemies, it sounds like you are also advancing the idea we should no longer retaliate against those who kill Americans."

That's good to know. I didn't intend that meaning at all. Happens often enough: I don't sound exactly like US so I must be THEM. I get it from the liberals I know, as well.

"Learning the "why" in human behavior might be useful IF you can engineer a behavioral modification to prevent the associated violence in the future.  Otherwise, I think acceptance of the fact there is hate and evil in the hearts of men is all we need to understand."

I mostly agree, though I think that our easy acceptance of this fact is also partly engineered - divide and conquer. We are much easier to control when focused on some external enemy - real, fabricated or exaggerated. Behavioral engineering is commonplace, particularly post WWII as public relations, advertising and political strategists built on Goebbels' pioneering work in mass behavioral engineering. It isn't being used for anything as blatant as the Nazi party, or course, but it also is not being used for anything resembling the common good. I've taken to calling it "The Mis-information Age" - and I work in IT.

Well, its official. I give up. No point in exploring the idea further because you are quite right: no degree of understanding this or figuring out how to articulate it will change that it MUST be engineered behavioral modification that changes things. That won't happen for the simple fact that those who might wield such a weapon for the common good would largely consider it immoral to do so and history shows us that even such attempts that start out high minded never end that way. So that weapon remains only in the hands of the less than moral.

Thanks for humoring my silliness. I've enjoyed the dialog quite a bit.

Oh - missed one of your points, Mauidog. I'll take a stab at explaining how showing respect to America hating countries ~might~ pay off.

MIGHT. Also might not.

And I doubt I'll explain it well. :/ It involves a number of assumptions that we may not agree on, are quite off topic, and worthy of debate in and of themselves.

I'm going to ignore the issue of enmity between arabs and jews. That is their business.

One could wonder why it is we MAKE it our business by unequivocally supporting Israel. Not supporting Israel would do more to lessen the root causes of anti-american sentiment (and terrorism) in the arab world than any other single act. This is a fundamental act of disrespect (from their point of view) that would look like a step towards respect (from their point of view) if we withdrew our enormous financial support of Israel and recognized Palestine.

The other thing is that we meddle. A lot. No, really: I mean a lot - from the perspective of our enemies. And we have a long history of treating non-European nations poorly if they have stuff we want and we can't agree to terms of exchange. The thing is that its not US doing it. It is corporate interests doing it, in some cases with the backing of the US military. You've read Maj. Gen. Smedley Butler's "War is a Racket?" A little dated and the issues he is describing post WWI have escalated dramatically and globally post WWII.

If we respected the cultures and their rights to self determination of the various places we have vested interests instead of meddling there wouldn't be the build up of resentment. That resentment towards the US did NOT exist prior to WWII. This isn't Islam vs. Christians and Jews. It is the resentment caused by a global power running roughshod around the world looking after its own interests (and the profits of the multinational corporations) at the expense of their sovereignty. The British did it first. "We" learned to do it via money instead of empire. Then the money figured out how to do it without even needing to be beholden to any particular government. Its the other way around now: the politicians need the money... so the troops sometimes go where the money needs them to.

The average American is unaware of this little nugget of our foreign policy. The average Arab is much more aware of it. That is what fuels the hate.

Let me say that slightly differently: the average American is unaware of why their country is so hated in some parts of the world. Seeing it then from their own point of view - we represent freedom so they must hate freedom. How can they hate freedom?! They must be evil.

Ironic. Because we do NOT represent freedom to them. We represent the corrupting influence of money and it affect on their freedom.

We could diffuse the anti-american sentiment significantly by respecting the sovereignty of all nations and not just the ones we like. The trouble is that the economic forces are no longer "us" and "we" have very little control of them. But if the bootlickers in DC would stop sending the troops out as per corporate request we'd be making a big step in the right direction.

Respect might even be as simple as just acknowledging that this has been the case since at least WWII.

Now. I can hear you saying that'll never work. And I agree.

But I think it will never work because "we" won't - maybe even can't - stop acting that way. It is far too profitable. Even the world conflict it causes are profitable. Even the divisiveness here at home is profitable. The fear? The raging demonstrations? The destruction? All profitable. The unemployment? The overfilled prisons? The vanishing middle class? Profitable.

Anyway, as I said. Full of assumptions that are worthy of debate. But if we want to actually reduce the factors that create anti-US terrorists we may have start playing (more) fair - and that starts with respect.

I won't hold my breath.

If McCain or Jeb Bush had said this you would probably agree and this wouldn't be news on Fox.

Ever read the Art of War?

Pretty simple: UNDERSTAND your enemy. So well that you know their next move before they do.

Or is there some aspect of not understanding your enemy that is somehow strategic?

Respect? History is chock full of enemy commanders respecting one another even as they strive to dismember the others' forces, even kill each other. Full of gracious battlefield defeats and surrenders. Its quite true that our terrorist enemies don't have this regard for our commanders or troops but do you really want our leadership to degrade to the level of "Die, muddafakkas, DIE!"

Or, perhaps more practical, should we underestimate our enemies instead of respect them? That's the continuum she is referring to.

What Clinton said makes perfect sense. The fact that she is the one saying it is the only reason you don't see what she is saying. This is classic, timeless strategy. It amuses me that the commentators understand the strategies of both war and diplomacy so little that they think she means we have to sympathize with our enemies. Idiots.

Govt. agencies... sorta like normal people... don't like pay cuts. This isn't rocket science or even surprising.

On the more practical side, budgets makers - also no surprise - don't have crystal balls. Existing budgets levels generally match a reasonable max expenditure under worst case scenarios. Each year they don't have to spend the max they sink the excess into other things because, as I mentioned, they won't get that much next year if they don't.

"Ah HA! We're paying them too much, then!" Its a reasonable reaction to this sad reality of government budgeting. The flip side of that is that if their budgets get cut to a lower operating level then when emergencies arise that they can't afford to handle properly then they get their asses raked over the coals publicly and accused of being inefficient and unable to manage their jobs.

This is ~exactly~ what happened to FEMA with Katrina and why they started stockpiling supplies in the years afterwards. Emergency supplies in hand aren't subject to DHS budget shifts. (FEMA funding was siphoned off to pay contractors in Afghanistan prior to Katrina.) I know some of the people who made those decisions and was working with them (as a videographer) at the time.

That's part of the reason DHS was created, by the way. Yes, it does facilitate better integration between the various agencies under its umbrella. It also provides a simple way to funnel funding from one agency to another. In theory this seems like efficiency. In practice... FEMA appeared to be caught with its pants down while Haliburton got its paycheck that month.

I'm not defending this silliness about govt. budgeting, by the way - I'm explaining it. It would be better if we had the potential excess in a general fund that could be drawn on at need but that isn't the way it works. If there is un-earmarked money in a budget Senators start salivating and trying to figure out how to siphon it to their districts, relatives or supporters.

I don't know much about the debt, other than that it is frighteningly large. In a brief internet quest to understand it better I ran across this relatively bland but informative link:

http://useconomy.about.com/od/monetarypolicy/f/Who-Owns-US-National-Debt.htm

I had no idea that Social Security was the single largest holder of US debt. More than twice as much as China, which has actually already divested some of its US debt holdings while remaining our largest foreign debt holder. It does square with my experience of government spending, though. Any allotted funds not spent during a giving year will reduce the amount of funds allotted next year - so several agencies spend their budget surpluses on bonds. The article explains it fairly well. I wondered what the excess budget money was spent on. In some cases it is new printers, extra office supplies, rental car upgrades or conventions in Hawaii, etc. - all considered justified as putting money back into the economy. For some agencies it looks like buying US debt is another way of putting the money back into the economy.

I need to learn more about the economics of debt at this scale. Its an easy number to be terrified by but the details make at least a little more sense.

I should clarify why I bring this kind of thing up:

Preaching to the choir - which is increasingly all that either side of any debate is doing - accomplishes little other than entertainment. I was trying to point out (poorly, apparently) that this is what has been occurring with the Benghazi scandal.

If the 2nd amendment is to find more supporters and become less threatened then the target audience is people whom most of us do not agree with in general. The swing voters, essentially. There is a sizable group of people who are otherwise centrist, even liberal, that are sympathetic to protecting the second amendment. 

A strategist would find a way to take advantage of that - but I see zero evidence of that happening.

Sry - posting at the same time, mauidog. The NRA is part of the problem in this regard. I see zero evidence of them courting centrists, sympathetic voters. Instead they are piling on to the same bi-polar politics that has become our new normal. That. Is. Dangerous.

Yeah, thanks for the credit to my intelligence. I posted the version of the story with the least embellishment I could find. Fox simply posted the AP summary. Everything else, including the blog you linked, leaves doing the heavy lifting of actually thinking to the author of the article. Would you like me to post longwinded blog articles from liberal sources calling the GOP disrespectful in the extreme for politicizing a tragedy that was relatively more common under George W. Bush's administration and no one cared? I can. I don't trust them any more than I do The Federalist blog. Most of the inflammatory stuff is designed to create page hits more than anything.

Creating page hits in itself isn't a horrible thing. The overall effect of just about everyone doing that, though, is a horrendously misinformed public with each "side" quoting its own bias as proof of its own interpretations.

The Benghazi scandal is almost certainly a creation of this dynamic. Unless you trust biased internet spin more than the findings of congressional investigations. I'm sure you can find a blog that will validate that point of view.

Here, I found one for you: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/12/02/CIA-Benghazi-Heroes-Debunk-House-Intel-Report-As-Full-Of-Inaccuracies-With-Firsthand-Account-From-The-Ground

And here is one proving that Obama is the anti-christ: http://www.rightwingwatch.org/content/bible-code-definitively-proves-obama-antichrist

No, wait... here's proof - from the Pope himself! - that George W. Bush was the antichrist that the mainstream media completely ignored! http://www.mediahell.org/antichristbush.htm

Pick your own poison as there is plenty to chose from, tailor made to all all tastes.

Thanks, Kuleana.

I hadn't yet thought of Russia. That makes sense.

Nada. Didn't even leave the house on Friday.

I thought about going to the hardware store to get some hinges for a door I was making to finish enclosing my porch (damned mosquitos!) but ended up making them out of wood. They work great and saved the gas and $10 for the hardware. :shrug: My christmas shopping list for the family on the mainland read "coffee, coffee, coffee, coffee and coffee" and ain't none of that stuff on sale.

I was looking around for a cyber-monday deal on a 1x or 2x AA  flashlight earlier this morning then gave up. The stuff on sale is more than I was looking to spend anyway. I'll look around again in January and hit the army navy shop in Hilo in the meantime. Might as well buy local if they have something decent.

Punaperson, I didn't present ANY argument at all.

I presented a perspective on the boy's point of view that was related. Sure, he's a young liberal nutcase. But the ideas he is articulating (poorly) are actually quite valid. Its the very same dynamic that CAUSED the French Revolution, the Soviet one, and to a lesser degree the American Revolution.

If I were to present in argument as I have been invited to:

There is nothing wrong with richness and I don't think the 1% (for the lack of a more accurate term) are thieves.

I DO think it is a Problem when someone caught with just a little too much pot goes to jail and someone who is responsible for tanking the economy gets a raise after his failing bank is bailed out with tax dollars. I think its a problem when Wall Street's economic indicators say we've pretty much recovered from the sub-prime lending crisis of 2007 but the vast majority of that "recovery" has gone to the top 10%. Meanwhile, unemployment is down but wages - adjusted for inflation - are LOWER. The buying power of the lower, middle and even lower upper classes has diminished ~significantly~ while the wealth accumulated at the top has increased even more significantly. CEO's make 331 times the wages of their ~average~ worker and that continues to trend up even though we know that during our best economic times it was more like 15:1. Compared to 5 years ago, company's are making 38% more profit per employee - and paying them LESS.

I think its a problem that GE hasn't paid a cent in federal taxes for the past few years but we want to cut SNAP benefits to people who generally aren't lazy - the just have fewer living wage options since companies like GE have moved most of their manufacturing overseas. I think its a problem that Walmart employees are also the largest single group of welfare recipients - and that the Waltons seem fine with being more outrageously wealthy than ever and letting the tax payers pick up the slack left by their low wages. Federal minimum wage is about $15,080 a year, full time. (Each member of the Walton family makes roughly that amount in the time it takes them to shower.)

I think its a problem that we know economic challenges cause increased crime and that our response has be to privatize prisons and incarcerate a higher percentage of the population than all but 1 other country in the world. Is that being hard on crime or weak on trying to eradicate poverty? Hell, the impoverished are now a commodity: that's even better than trying to eradicate poverty and crime.

There are people who benefit from these problems.  The 1% aren't thieves. What they are doing is legal - in part because they have so much influence on making laws. But it is NOT ethical to increase the wealth inequality gap to the extreme degree that we have. We now compete with 3rd world dictatorships for wealth inequality. We have the highest level of wealth inequality of any 1st world nation.

Money is power. Always has been. If those with the money and the power don't chose to reverse the extreme trend of wealth going only to the top then the bottom will eventually get out the pitch forks, light the torches and sharpen the guillotines.

Our wealth inequality hasn't been this high since 1928. Does that year seem ominous to you? I think that is a problem, too. But the very people who stand to benefit from (yet) another financial collapse are the ones who are wealthy enough to weather it well. They'll just soak up what little of the real wealth they don't already own when the rest of us are scrambling to find work. That's exactly what happened during the Great Depression and it took the extreme need (and near socialistic governmental control of the wartime economy) of WWII to start bringing us back from it. Collapses are the mechanism by which wealth flows quickly from the middle class to the upper class so why would they want to keep another one from happening? Or even have a problem with another World War afterwards?

Meanwhile, its not like the percentage of wealth that is leaving the lower and middle classes is matched by a corresponding drop in the prices of essentials. Food costs are a higher percentage of income, as are housing and energy. And nothing indicates that trend is changing. If it continues too far everyone of us here is likely to be far more closely related to that mugger than we are to the silly young fellow who at least has the good grace to realize he isn't too much of a victim.

Do you want to wait until your only option is a pitchfork before doing something about the raging wealth inequality trend we are currently "enjoying?" Or do we still believe that if you just work hard enough you, too, can be part of the smaller and smaller group of people that is actually getting ahead?