The Soapbox: Political Discourse

I'm certain no one will care about this, but I had a rather enjoyable debate with someone on one of the conservative forums I frequent and thought I would share. To his credit he seemed like a nice guy and it was very civil. Him: I'm not native English speaker, so forgive my redaction. I'll ask some questions for you to consider: why is ISIS just attacking kurds, chia and iraki christians? if they're USA and Israel enemies, why don't they attack their military bases in iraq? why does USA let that group just grow and grow? why the supposed bombards aren't having any effect? why did an US senator take a pic with the leaders of that bloody terrorist group? Why are the leaders of ISIS mostly from western countries? they stole Mosul bank.. why weren't their bank accounts blocked? why does France keep selling them guns? they now control many oil fields, who buys them the oil production? If they're muslim, why is their leader vowing to destroy the...

I'll preface by saying I'm certainly no fan of the Obama administration or of supporting the Syrian opposition but there is the belief going around that the U.S. armed ISIS by supporting the Syrian opposition. I admit I've said this a few times myself. But how true is it? I decided to do a little digging and find out for myself. First a look at the Syrian opposition. Weapons used by the Syrian opposition come from a variety of sources. There's a mix of very old and newer weapons from many different countries (some of which no longer exist) including China, USA, Russia\USSR, Austria, Germany, Belgium, Yugoslavia, Nazi Germany, France, Romania, Hungary, Iran, Israel, Czechoslovakia, Syria, Croatia, Serbia, Sweden. The majority are Chinese and Russian made, but the weapons are shuffled around so much from one country to another, it's impossible to say who funded what. Heavy equipment, such as tanks and vehicles, were captured from the Syrian army. Armed groups in ...

One day after ISIS released a video of the beheading of American Journalist Steven Sotloff, Secretary of State John Kerry gave a speech in which he said Islam is a “peaceful religion based on the dignity of all human beings,” and continued to assert that ISIS is not “the real face of Islam.” A few days later President Obama echoed that sentiment, "ISIL is not Islamic. No Religion condones the killing of innocents, and the vast majority of ISIL's victims have been Muslims." -Barack Obama (Sep 10, 2014) Islamic apologists often like to distance Islam from Islamic terrorism the way atheists like to distance themselves from Communism. But just as Communism couldn't exist without atheism, Islamic terrorism couldn't exist without the Qur'an. The willful blindness about Islamic terrorism ignores the violent history of Islam and the Qur'an which encourages it. So what is the real face of Islam? To answer this question we must take a brief look at the ...

As the Israel-Gaza conflict rages on, so do the accusations of civilian deaths and disproportionate use of force by Israel. These charges are nothing new, we've heard these same arguments during the first Gaza conflict in 2008. I began to wonder where did these new rules of war come from? It certainly hasn't always been the standard. During World War 2, while military and industrial installations were targeted, civilian targets were also fair game. Such as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the semi-indiscriminate bombing of Berlin. Somewhere along the lines the rules of war changed. The first real shift occurred during the the Vietnam war. The news media and anti-war protestors were quick to pick up on communist propaganda and harp on civilian causalities. The American troops returning home were spit upon and called baby killers. These accusations were an obvious attempt to slander and shame the United States military, and it worked. Militarily we won t...

I admit I'm not much of sports fan. I never watch the Super Bowl or the Major League playoffs. So I haven't really been following the recent Association football games (aka soccer) like the rest of the world. I've only had a moderate interest in who wins only because a friend of mine cares about it. But I do think we can learn something from the games we play. I don't profess to know much about the rules of Association football, but take the last two games for example. The United States tied Portugal 2-2. Neither sides loses and they both advance forward. In the next match the United States losses to Germany 1-0. Yet the United States still doesn't technically lose and advances to the next round. Apparently even when you lose, you still win. Compare this with the games American's play. In Baseball, there is no draw, the game will go on indefinitely until one side wins. In American foot...

This was something I was intending to write about for awhile now, and since Iraq has been in the news again lately it seemed like the perfect time. The two biggest assertions by liberals about the Iraq war is that it was about oil, and the false pretense of weapons of mass destruction. You know the mantra: Bush lied, people died. This myth has been perpetuated long enough, and it's time to set the record straight. The policy for regime change in Iraq actually began under president Bill Clinton when he signed the Iraq Liberation Act in 1998, which states that it was the policy of the United States to support democratic movements within Iraq. The Act was cited in October 2002 to argue for the authorization of military force against the Iraqi government . WMD's were only one of a litany of accusations against Saddam including:  Iraq's noncompliance with the conditions of the 1991 ceasefire agreement , including interference with U.N. weapons inspectors . Iraq "c...

I get it, I do. Gun control activists don't want to see people die from senseless gun violence, well neither do gun enthusiasts. Neither side wants to see some guy walk into a crowded movie theater or school and open fire on innocent civilians. We both see the problem, but we see two very different solutions. The pro-gun control crowd believes banning guns will solve the problem, the anti-gun control crowd knows this won't work. For one the bad guys don't care about laws. This might surprise some, but some people just don't care if something is illegal or not. Laws have never prevented murders or robberies, if it did the prisons would be virtually empty. The truth is gun control has never worked. Strict gun control laws in Chicago, for instance, have never made it safer to walk down the street at night. Second if a person want's to do harm they don't need a gun to do it. In March of 2014 eight terrorists wielding knives at a Chinese train station killed 29 ...