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What's our greatest threat?

Posted by Herb7734 10 years, 2 months ago to Ask the Gulch
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Imagine two guys at a 4th of July picnic, after imbibing a bit too much, and laughing too much, the conversation gets serious. The guys names are Hector and Dewey, and here's an edited version of their conversation:
Hector asks, "What is the greatest threat facing the United States today? Dewey replies, "As I see it, there are three. One radical Islam, two the Chinese, three those knuckleheads in congress." Hector says, "Wrong, not even close. Here's the answer. The gravest threat facing the United States comes from within, when our best people refuse to get involved. When the men and women we need to fight those threats you mentioned -- radical Islam -- China, stay on the sidelines. That's our greatest threat."
Excerpted from "The Refuge" by Ben Coes.
So...what does the Gulch think? What is the U.S.'s greatest threat?


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  • Posted by $ allosaur 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Good idea. Go ahead. Your idea.
    I shall write Putin.
    Not Presidebt Red Line.
    Hey, Putin DOES have a proven spine regardless.
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  • Posted by wmiranda 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We need to have term limits at all national level political position (congress, senate and Supreme Court). We have created a royalty class by allowing politicians to keep positions over 8-12 years. I think they should serve, get reelected one more term if deserving and then get the hell out of government.
    REARDEN FOR PRESIDENT 2016!
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Maybe we should pose that as a question to the gulchers- which would you rather have as president, Obama as he is, or Putin if he swtiched sides and considered USA as the fatherland
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  • Posted by LibertyBelle 10 years, 2 months ago
    The current state of philosophy. The irrationality
    of the times. The morals ( or excuses for, or per-
    versions of them) of the time, the politics of the
    time, come from that. Even so, though a reform
    in the college courses might be desirable (I never took a college philosophy class; all my
    study of it has been outside of such), this
    country was not founded primarily by college
    graduates. The people were influenced by the
    Enlightenment. And rationality can be promoted
    by doing it through the culture in the populace.
    Spreading Objectivism through promotion in the
    press, for instance. Too bad the "Atlas Shrugged" movie wasn't better.

    Also, I think if this country is to be saved, it will be
    in large part through the home-schooling movement.
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  • Posted by mia767ca 10 years, 2 months ago
    collapse of govt-induced fraudulent finance system...not a question of "if" but "when"...and how to survive it...
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  • Posted by $ blarman 10 years, 2 months ago
    The greatest threat is deception - those who willingly shun reality and then persuade others to believe their lies.

    The greatest solution is the truth of reality - backed up by a willingness to defend it from those who are willing to aggress to push their lies.
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  • Posted by NealS 10 years, 2 months ago
    Greatest Threat: Inaction and/or wrong action.

    Only one way to put a stop to "it". We need to go to war, perhaps with (meaning against) each other. i.e.: Black against White, Poor and Ignorant (Baltimore/Ferguson and spreading) against Police, Democrats against Republicans, Russia against US, China against US, Iran against US, etc. The object is you've got to have friends that will stand up and fight with you on your side or you will lose. We are in the process of losing, we've proven to our past friends that we cannot be depended upon. We've proven it in history (i.e. Vietnam), and most recently to the rest of the world by our actions/inaction's. We give them little choice but to turn their backs on us as we have on them. What are we going to do to win? Probably nothing, just more talk, lies, excuses, for not confronting the evil head on. Any society only knows what it grows up with. Perhaps our great grandchildren won't even know what freedom used to be, and just accept whatever they get (whatever we give them). Ask any common ordinary North Korean about how great they live. We know our grandchildren will never learn about any of it in history books, but only learn what their future dictators want them to believe from easily modified digital renderings and devices. Perhaps man just needs to destroy himself and start all over.
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  • Posted by wiggys 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Pipe dream. All who have ever run for office get corrupted once in office if they weren't corrupt to begin with which i suspect is the case 99.9 percent of the time. Any person with a desire to be self sufficient as the characters you mention would not ever consider a civil servant job. Those who do are the looters as we have seen for well over 200 years in the usa and the rest of the world.
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  • Posted by jimjamesjames 10 years, 2 months ago
    For me, the greatest threat is the education system that has been inculcating collectivism into children for the last 50 years. Second, are the banksters.
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  • Posted by $ Snezzy 10 years, 2 months ago
    A very intelligent relative of mine always changes the topic if I mention the fraud of "Global Warming" to him. He fears either that he cannot handle the math and science, or else that it would contradict what his left-wing econaut buddies tell him is Established Truth that none dare oppose. Maybe both.

    He's not alone. "Threat? What threat? There's nothing to worry about as long as I get my government check."
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  • Posted by philosophercat 10 years, 2 months ago
    The greatest threat is not what we argue about but that we cant argue at all. I just attended a philosophy conference where everyone patted themselves on the back for adopting an idea called "epistemic community". It says that oppressed groups will have their own way of knowing the truth so they will not be oppressed by logic, reason, and science. Feminists, LGBTQ, and Christians will all have their own "way" of finding the truth which everyone else will have to respect as equally valid. This is so the oppressed communities will feel good about reaching no conclusions but having lots of feelings. They intend to drop reason and use political power to gain "community" goals. The students here are paying $75,000 a year and all white rich articulate future leaders. The problem is resolved by Ayn Rand's theory of universals and concept formation. They fear that there will be true statements independent of their feelings. You cant argue with them, they cant use words they just have feelings and they don't like you.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Obama is a piece of work. If Putin would switch sides and consider the USA the fatherland, I would rather have HIM as president than Obama. A sad state of affairs when a citizen of the USA would rather have the president of Russia as leader...
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    Political correctness is a disease, which hopefully Trump is doing something to help us correct. I detect political correctness myself.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    I think there are immediate threats and long term threats. I agree that taking liberty for granted is right up there long term. Short term, its the money printing and eventual destruction of the dollar that will take us down quickly. Massive inflation will ruin our economy and make it very difficult for older retired people to survive
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 2 months ago
    Nothing wrong with that as long as you remember to define the lines and act accordingly - There are more than the two choices for the Government Party.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago in reply to this comment.
    We cant stop millions of people intent on entitlement that others pay for. I think Romney was right when he said 47% wanted freebies. I think its higher now. I see it everywhere. Our last chance to slow this down is Trump and his ideas of running the country as a business. It wont stop it completely, and Trump isnt an Ayn Rand by any stretch- BUT the others in the "race" are far worse with Sanders leading the pack, closely followed by Hillarious and Biden. On the Repub side the best (but unelectable) is Rand Paul, followed by Trump (possibly electable), Carson (except for the religious nonsense he spouts). The rest are just not worth considering at all. In my humble opinion.
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  • Posted by term2 10 years, 2 months ago
    GREATEST threat is the destruction of our currency. Its the underpinning of pretty much everything in the USA. Currency gets destroyed by deficit spending and money printing by the Federal Reserve. Solution is to get RID of the federeal reserve and make it impossible for the federal government to just print its way out of profligate spending. I would vote for this tomorrow.
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    Posted by $ kddr22 10 years, 2 months ago
    Per Ayn Rand in a quote from this site."Today, intelligence is neither recognized nor rewarded, but is being systematically extinguished in a growing flood of brazenly flaunted irrationality." seems to fit most of the reasons given...
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  • Posted by wmiranda 10 years, 2 months ago
    Right now, Islamic terrorism through Muslim refugees and perversed need to be politically correct through apathy. If you get offended at my use of the terrorist Pres. BHO...Que sera, sera.
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  • Posted by rkarlberg 10 years, 2 months ago
    Good point. Even Atlas Shrugged does not address this issue - people like Rearden and Galt want to create, not waste their time in politics. I wonder how can we ever get better people elected?
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  • Posted by wiggys 10 years, 2 months ago
    Those who have been elected to serve the people who elected them. They have destroyed the educational system so we are seeing people get older but not growing up. They have been destroying the capitalist economic system so those who have knowledge and desire to do things are not doing anything. I think I can go on and on as many of you can pointing out what the elected servants have done to destroy the country but it is depressing. So the number one enemy of the country is the government of the country.
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  • Posted by gerstj 10 years, 2 months ago
    Obama and his radical American hating values including Muslim supremacists agents.
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  • Posted by $ MichaelAarethun 10 years, 2 months ago
    We've posed lots of ways to fight with fighting per se. The way of no way to copy bruce lee
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