By the end of Trumps stint they’ll be closing on twenty years of achieving nothing in Afghanistan. The Taliban can play the long game here, they know they’ll win eventually.
You really missed your calling by not being in charge of the Black and Tans or the British Army in Crossmaglen or the Parachute Regiment in Derry in 1972, mate.
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Why don’t the US just go all capitalist free market on it?
Turn Afghanistan into an official heroin producing-state and flood the US with the newly-legal produce?
They’re already chasing the dragon as regards their policy on China, they might as well do the same as regards Afghanistan.
And the Yanks have plenty of experience of using the profits from drug dealing to funnel to their favourite fascist political causes in the not too distant past.
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I’ve given you a sympathy like for that one, mate, given that none of your usual reliables are out of bed yet.
@Raylan is lying there still trying to decipher his arse from his elbow. There’s shit all over both of them, no doubt.
This could explain a lot.
they are going around all summer, great yolks
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Here’s a relatively short and easily digestible article backing up my point that larger government sectors increase personal freedom. There are plenty more studies to support this. Libertarianism has been debunked time and again.
I’ve read that report and also the follow up which updated their conclusions to replace big government by quality of government. Which we know already, for example the US throws more money at first and second level education than any other country with laughable results and I hope I don’t need to remind you of the correlation between money spent in Ireland by the HSE versus the quality delivered.
For every economist there’s ten that disagree. It’s a bit like psychology in that respect, a soft science that uses science like tools to develop very dubious theories. The finest economists in the US testified in 2007 there was no problem with sub prime mortgages, look how well that turned out.
Correlation does not imply causation. If you haven’t read him, Nassim Taleb is an excellent scholar of statistics and probablity and without applying them properly you can get easily misled.
What is personal freedom anyway? Someone who wants to sits on his hole and collects government benefits or be supported by an aristocratic benefactor like @ChocolateMice regards that as his personal freedom. A lad working his hole off and paying a marginal tax rate of >50% regards that as infringing on his personal freedom. Who is right or wrong?
It’s a complex subject, but the correlation that appears to hold firm is that economic freedom results in personal freedom, which is what any logical libertarian would argue.
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A bit rich considering you’re about to marry into aristocracy and are anticipating a lifetime as a kept man.
@chocolatehandmaid
The aristocracy aint what they used to be, mate.
You’ve essentially just dismissed something because it doesn’t agree with your beliefs and then gone back to repeating your earlier mantra, which is still without any support. That’s a cert funny post.
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Perhaps it’s the “personal freedom” that would allow recently departed Trump adviser Carl Icahn’s dream to happen:
As his biographer Mark Stevens puts it: “Carl’s dream in life is to have the only fire truck in town. Then when your house is in flames, he can hold you up for every penny you have.”
Or perhaps real “personal freedom” is freedom from environmental regulations? The freedom to pollute people’s air and water?
Having the freedom to drink drive without a speed limit would certainly increase one’s “personal freedom”.
Or perhaps terrorism is actually the true definition of “personal freedom”. ISIS are fighting for the freedom to blow up a load of children. That’s certainly a type of “personal freedom”.
Was he being serious when he said it? I assumed it was some sort of piss take ?
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I heard Mister Young sing about her
I heard old Neil put her down
Well I hope Neil Young will remember southern man don’t need him around anyhow .