[BartSimpson]

Actually that's a Kenyan fellow who stepped into harm's way to save a four-year-old American girl during the recent attack on the mall in Nairobi.

[Thanos]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

Thanos Thanos:

If only the honourable characters from the realm of fiction actually existed in the real world.....

Sometimes they do.

Average person doing the right thing, which happens thousands of times a day in thousands of different places. Good on him for saving a precious young life and by doing so, as the better kind of Muslims say, essentially saving the whole world.

I liked the subtext of Clancy's message. Not that it got noticed by too many conservatives but Jack Ryan and Mr. Clark, his two main protagonists and heroes, were both government employees.

[ShepherdsDog]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

commanderkai commanderkai:

I never really read much after Debt of Honor, but his early books are all classics, in my eyes, and I can read Red Storm Rising over and over without complaint. I really think that Red Storm Rising movie or miniseries would probably be an epic piece of entertainment.

It would not be made today because 1) the Communists were the aggressors and 2) NATO was the good guys.

Hollyweird won't do jack sh*t anymore if it makes America look good.

well they changed The Sum of All Fears to avoid offending Arabs......hey let's make a bunch of old white guys the villains.....that's PC and no one one will riot.

[commanderkai]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

well they changed The Sum of All Fears to avoid offending Arabs......hey let's make a bunch of old white guys the villains.....that's PC and no one one will riot.

That gave me a good laugh in the movie. A bunch of rich, white neo-Nazi Europeans! Sheesh, they couldn't have made it more politically correct.

[bootlegga]

Thanos Thanos:

RIP, Mr Clancy, a great pro-government conservative:

$1:

Less remembered, I think, is the extent to which Clancy forecasted a lot of the messaging of the Tea Party movement in Executive Orders. In the sequel to Debt Of Honor, Jack Ryan’s become president, and to rebuild the government, he explicitly asks the governors who have to replace Senators and the voters who are choosing new members of the House of Representatives not to “send me politicians” because “We do not have the time to do the things that must be done through that process.” Specifically, Ryan wants “engineers who know how things are built. I want physicians who know how to make sick people well. I want cops who know what it means when your civil rights are violated by a criminal. I want farmers who grow real food on real farms. I want people who know what it’s like to have dirty hands, and pay a mortgage bill, and raise kids, and worry about the future. I want people who know they’re working for you and not themselves.”

In the world of Executive Orders, this is a cathartic process that gives a way people to invest in their government again after a national tragedy, and gives ordinary citizens actual power to make the policies and decisions that guide the nation out of an astonishing catastrophe. Even in the reality of the novel, however, Ryan ends up imposing martial law in response to the spread of an exceptionally deadly strain of Ebola. But he ultimately announces that he’ll run for president, seeking validation of his performance in a position he rose to first by appointment and then out of necessity. It’s a vision of government where self-interest doesn’t poison things, one that embraces the fallacy that if we just set aside partisanship and do what needs to be done – because of course, the right thing is clear, and a broad consensus exists in support of it – great things can come out of disaster.

If only the honourable characters from the realm of fiction actually existed in the real world.....

Clancy had some good ideas (like the one above), but he also had terrible ones like recognizing Taiwan and instituting a flat income tax (from Executive Decision as well). In the end, I'd say the political policy he interwove into his books was a mess, just like the current GOP policies.

[BRAH]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

BRAH BRAH:

Tom Clancy was possibly more qualified to run the CIA then past directors.

He's currently more qualified to run the CIA than the current Director.

He was more qualified to be the President.

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Clancy had some good ideas (like the one above), but he also had terrible ones like recognizing Taiwan and instituting a flat income tax (from Executive Decision as well). In the end, I'd say the political policy he interwove into his books was a mess, just like the current GOP policies.

So it's better to placate communist China than to stand with the governments that are actually elected by their people? And you oppose a flat tax with no exemptions in favor of the current system where billionaire Warren Buffet pays less taxes than his secretary does?

[Thanos]

^

It's nice and refreshing to see a debate involving actual policy around here instead of the usual one that's grounded in the nonsense of Obama-is-the-antiChrist-devil.

Yes, flat-tax good, but only a modified one that allows those below the poverty line to keep their already-existing credits and deductions. Everyone else can afford to give theirs up, but there's no good reason to take them away from those whom the flat-tax idea would kick right in the teeth. Unless this is once again all about ideology and philosophies created by evil & insane people like Ayn Rand, and shaming the poor into hating themselves by making things that much more difficult for them is the point of the entire exercise.

[bootlegga]

BartSimpson BartSimpson:

bootlegga bootlegga:

Clancy had some good ideas (like the one above), but he also had terrible ones like recognizing Taiwan and instituting a flat income tax (from Executive Decision as well). In the end, I'd say the political policy he interwove into his books was a mess, just like the current GOP policies.

So it's better to placate communist China than to stand with the governments that are actually elected by their people? And you oppose a flat tax with no exemptions in favor of the current system where billionaire Warren Buffet pays less taxes than his secretary does?

Let's be honest, the West has already done so - certainly the Republicans haven't shown any serious interest in reversing the course Clinton set you on in the 90s.

But, if you want to see Taiwan invaded and/or nuked, then go ahead and recognize them as an independent nation, because that is exactly what will happen.

The US would win that battle today (although who knows about a decade or two from now) - assuming it intervened - but it would come at a fairly high price as they would probably lose half a dozen or more ships to the massed missile batteries China has across the Taiwan Strait in Fujian province. I doubt too many presidents - even Republicans ones - would be willing to accept 10 or 15 thousand dead sailors and marines for Taiwan. This isn't the 1960s...

You could probably toss in a second Cold War against China too and a massive hit to the global economy (even more so than the 2008 crisis).

Warren Buffet does NOT pay less taxes than his secretary, he pays a lower percentage on his income tax than she does. In fact, Buffet paid millions of dollars in income taxes, while his secretary paid thousands of dollars in income taxes.

Flat taxes disproportionately benefit the rich (of which Clancy most certainly was). I know this well because Alberta is the ONLY jurisdiction in all of North America with a flat income tax in place.

$1:

An Albertan with a taxable income of $1 million will pay $41,095 less than if they lived in BC and $75,157 less than if they lived in Ontario. However, an Albertan with a taxable income of $70,000 will pay $1434 more than if they lived in BC and $919 more than if they lived in Ontario.

http://pialberta.org/content/provincial ... t-tax-myth

[commanderkai]

bootlegga bootlegga:

But, if you want to see Taiwan invaded and/or nuked, then go ahead and recognize them as an independent nation, because that is exactly what will happen.

You really, honestly think that China would invade and/or nuke a country protected by the United States?

[ShepherdsDog]

they won't nuke Taiwan. Blockade, bomb and attempt to invade..... yes. Nuke....no

[BartSimpson]

bootlegga bootlegga:

Let's be honest, the West has already done so - certainly the Republicans haven't shown any serious interest in reversing the course Clinton set you on in the 90s.

You're right about the Republicans (in general) but the Tea Party has.

bootlegga bootlegga:

But, if you want to see Taiwan invaded and/or nuked, then go ahead and recognize them as an independent nation, because that is exactly what will happen.

If China could invade Taiwan they'd do it anyway. Recognizing Taiwan's independence is simply recognizing an existing fact instead of denying it. If the Chinese don't like it then we can cancel their Treasury bonds and buy our cheap crap somewhere else.

bootlegga bootlegga:

The US would win that battle today (although who knows about a decade or two from now) - assuming it intervened - but it would come at a fairly high price as they would probably lose half a dozen or more ships to the massed missile batteries China has across the Taiwan Strait in Fujian province. I doubt too many presidents - even Republicans ones - would be willing to accept 10 or 15 thousand dead sailors and marines for Taiwan. This isn't the 1960s...

I don't think Obama would lift a finger for Taiwan. Good thing then that Bush probably gave the Taiwanese 15 nukes before he left office.

bootlegga bootlegga:

You could probably toss in a second Cold War against China too and a massive hit to the global economy (even more so than the 2008 crisis).

That's an acceptable price to pay to stand on the side of freedom. Better that then to someday tell the grandkids, "Yeah, we would have helped Taiwan but that would made the price of cheap plastic crap at Wal Mart go up by 20% and that was just too high a price to pay."

bootlegga bootlegga:

Warren Buffet does NOT pay less taxes than his secretary, he pays a lower percentage on his income tax than she does. In fact, Buffet paid millions of dollars in income taxes, while his secretary paid thousands of dollars in income taxes.

Flat taxes disproportionately benefit the rich (of which Clancy most certainly was). I know this well because Alberta is the ONLY jurisdiction in all of North America with a flat income tax in place.

$1:

An Albertan with a taxable income of $1 million will pay $41,095 less than if they lived in BC and $75,157 less than if they lived in Ontario. However, an Albertan with a taxable income of $70,000 will pay $1434 more than if they lived in BC and $919 more than if they lived in Ontario.

http://pialberta.org/content/provincial ... t-tax-myth

A flat tax has no deductions and the jurisdictions that use it uniformly report higher revenues than they had before it was implemented.

If your goal is to fund a government then a flat tax is a very efficient way to do so. But if your goal is to engineer a society then a so-called 'progressive tax' that has to be administered by a Byzantine bureacracy and a tax agency with vast extra-constitutional police powers to enforce so many rules that it's impossible to comply with one without violating another...well, then that's an efficent way to do that.

I'm fed up with the latter system and would not mind trying a 'change' since that's what Obozo used to represent.

[ShepherdsDog]

$1:

Good thing then that Bush probably gave the Taiwanese 15 nukes before he left office.

T

The Taiwanese were on the verge of developing their own nuclear weapons. They and the South Africans were working jointly on the program when the US told them to cease and desist.

[BartSimpson]

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

$1:

Good thing then that Bush probably gave the Taiwanese 15 nukes before he left office.

T

The Taiwanese were on the verge of developing their own nuclear weapons. They and the South Africans were working jointly on the program when the US told them to cease and desist.

Israel was probably involved in that, too.

[xerxes]

commanderkai commanderkai:

ShepherdsDog ShepherdsDog:

well they changed The Sum of All Fears to avoid offending Arabs......hey let's make a bunch of old white guys the villains.....that's PC and no one one will riot.

That gave me a good laugh in the movie. A bunch of rich, white neo-Nazi Europeans! Sheesh, they couldn't have made it more politically correct.

To be fair, in the book, one of the main bad guys is an ex-Baader-Meinhof member and they use an East German nuclear scientist. Just sayin'.