OnPoint: Google to Embargo China
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If we round up all the unemployed people and put them in the army, we're only looking at, what, hundred-to-one odds? Plus, the unemployment rate drops to zero!
I'm guessing that if we declare war on China all of our social indices will drop to zero. Think of the savings! Then again, we might find that our anti-nuclear stance gets aggressively reversed.
(China now the third largest aid provider in the region? How bloody dare they!)
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(China now the third largest aid provider in the region? How bloody dare they!)
I know! I mean, it's not like upstanding, noble countries like Australia or Japan would ever offer aid in the implicit expectation of minor favours like space to dump boat people or support for whaling. That would be wrong.
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recordari: Muldoon/National were still running on a "reds under the bed" platform through the 70s
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Actually if you are going to rearm - and I said we need to start thinking about it, not do it - then it is my view you must have conscription, and that is for three reasons - firstly, modern political/military elites hate conscription, because they feel it actually restricts their military options. When Daddy's little princess of Remuera might actually get killed the public take much greater note of where and when they fight. Much better to have a "modern" professional army made up of what are effectively paid mercenaries who just happen to (mostly) be of the same nationality.
Secondly, perverse as it may sound to most politically correct ears, military service is fundamentally a privilege (or, less controversially, a duty) of citizenship.
Thirdly, our military tradition and population size demands a citizen militia army that is formed for a specific purpose, then disbanded.
but you think the USA is any better?
If you think they are not, then you are a fool.
If we are going to base our global military strategy on what Hilary Clinton and the USA DOD tells us, then we really are in for a nasty surprise.
Our security is utterly and inextricably tied to that of Australia. And Australia is a close ally of the USA. Anyone who thinks New Zealand could - our should - stand aside if Australia became involved in a serious regional conflict is deluded. So if a new superpower conflict is brewing in the Pacific then it seems logical to me we will be drawn into it and we should do so as a willing member of the Western alliance.
it frightens the white people
I am picking that as a new record speed for even Publicaddress to introduce identity politics into a foreign policy debate.
Oh, good, I was hoping we'd get to fight China at some point. And I may be a wishful thinker here, but I do so like our chances.
We are a first world nation with a formidable military tradition and a brave and inventive people. If we had to defend our home islands, then we have considerable advantages - we are surrounded by vast oceans, we have powerful allies, we have quite a strong first world economy. With an efficient Air Force equipped with adequate modern weapons we could hold off anyone short of the United States Navy.
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I am picking that as a new record speed for even Publicaddress to introduce identity politics into a foreign policy debate.
Oh, like casually slagging off immigrants from China as disloyal? Yep, pretty speedy.
With an efficient Air Force equipped with adequate modern weapons we could hold off anyone short of the United States Navy.
And if I had a working fusion plant and a pony I could supply clean electricity to the entire country, too.
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If you think they are not, then you are a fool.
I think they are not. Foolish me. Or I mean, me foolish.
Won't it be great to re-instate that equal opportunity conscription policy that puts all the white, middle-class brightest young things, who see it as a privilege, in the front line as canon fodder for the marauding red devils. Oh, hang on, that's not quite how it works.
And before you start flinging more insults, my Grandfather was with the Maori battalion during the 2nd World War, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
No one here, to my knowledge, is degrading our military tradition. You seem to think there is a credible threat. I don't. And having lived in Japan, and spent a lot of time in Singapore, Taiwan and other Asian countries, including educating plenty of young Chinese students, I think your accusing the rest of us of standing with our fingers in our ears going 'lalalala' is a bit rich, IMNShO.
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And if I had a working fusion plant and a pony I could supply clean electricity to the entire country, too.
Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
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Hey, perhaps Google takes its motto "Don't be Evil" seriously. China bay be the biggest but it ain't the only game in town. When the average Xio starts to ask "Why won't Google come here" the Chinese Govt. might just have a rebellion on its hands that wont go away.
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Oh, like casually slagging off immigrants from China as disloyal? Yep, pretty speedy.
Yes, I do happen to think China has an active policy of using migration of pro-Beijing Chinese to create reasons for interventions in other nations internal affairs.
And if I had a working fusion plant and a pony I could supply clean electricity to the entire country, too.
You illustrate one of the big problems in trying to debate defence issues in the wake of the "deep peace" that the defeat of Imperial Japan and subsequent conversion of the Pacific into an American lake has created. Namely, the crass ignorance of almost all New Zealanders to the nature of modern warfare.
Warfare today has little to do with numbers. Modern weapons allow even small numbers of advanced weapon systems to inflict devastating damage. The key lesson of the Falkland's war was that warships are almost completely defenceless in the face of modern air attack and have no defence whatsoever from nuclear powered attack submarines.
As an advanced, albeit small, first world nation with huge sea frontiers New Zealand is ideally placed to benefit from defensive advances in modern robot weaponry.
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Now that's what I'm talkin' about!
What?, what were you talking about that and when. I would suggest you hadn't mentioned ponies, let alone actually talked about them. This is the sort of unsubstantiated claim that I, personally, have a problem with. Every time I tune into Mythbusters I have to put up with the little Ginger one claiming he had been talking about something that he patently hadn't. Call me a pendant but I call for a moratorium on unreferenced self quotation. From now on I demand the phrase to be used as follows.
"Now that's what I'm Talkin' aboot" [citation needed] -
And before you start flinging more insults, my Grandfather was with the Maori battalion during the 2nd World War, so stick that in your pipe and smoke it.
And my family has left dead at Gallipoli, Passchendaele, the Western Desert and in Bomber command, so what is your point?
Unlike what seems to be popular media perception these days, the Maori battalion wasn't the sole New Zealand combat formation in WWII.
And I stand by my comment only a fool would regard a Chinese hegemon as even equal to that of the United States. China is a brutal, repressive, totalitarian state that routinely suppresses freedom of expression and has amongst the worst human rights record on the planet.
I am not entirely sure why it is such a crime to point out the growing threat of China in its current form, except that maybe it is a message a lot of New Zealanders don't want to hear.
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From now on I demand the phrase to be used as follows.
"Now that's what I'm Talkin' aboot" [citation needed]Noted. Thank you Steve, you have successfully deflated my blow-up high horse.
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[Yawn]
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modern robot
Oh cool! Is our future of neverending warfare going to use Johnny 5 from Short Circuit?
(I draw the line at that weird little kid in Small Wonder, though. That was just creepy.)
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Warfare today has little to do with numbers. Modern weapons allow even small numbers of advanced weapon systems to inflict devastating damage. The key lesson of the Falkland's war was that warships are almost completely defenceless in the face of modern air attack and have no defence whatsoever from nuclear powered attack submarines.
In that case:
1) Why conscription? And please note recordari's very salient point about who gets conscripted in the end. If it's about hardware, not numbers, why bother?
2) The small agricultural country is going to get and successfully deploy better military hardware - especially robotics - than the very much larger, very much richer, industrially-oriented country with lots of robotics factories. Absolutely. The same way Britain in WWII was totally independent of US weapons factories.
People are not taking your message well, Tom, because your message is essentially YELLOW PERIL BE AFRAID, backed up by some dreamland jingoism and the fact that China has started giving aid to neighbouring nations. It's not precisely convincing.
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As an advanced, albeit small, first world nation with huge sea frontiers New Zealand is ideally placed to benefit from defensive advances in modern robot weaponry.
I just want to mark this as the point where I started laughing out loud.
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If we had to defend our home islands, then we have considerable advantages - we are surrounded by vast oceans, we have powerful allies, we have quite a strong first world economy. With an efficient Air Force equipped with adequate modern weapons we could hold off anyone short of the United States Navy.
This didn't seem silly to you when you typed it?
If Darth Vader lent us the Death Star we could fry China from space. Even if New Zealand Defence were to lose the plot and blow a couple of billion on a combat wing of fighter bombers, we couldn't hold back any country with an aircraft carrier, or Australia.
Yes, I do happen to think China has an active policy of using migration of pro-Beijing Chinese to create reasons for interventions in other nations internal affairs.
Those damn chinese autobots! Coming here and mining our gold, opening chinese food stores, and filling up our universities while paying full cost! It's an invasion precursor! They're setting up a beachhead!
And if I had a working fusion plant and a pony I could supply clean electricity to the entire country, too.
Does the pony turn the cog on the plant to make the electricity, or do you pack the electricity on its back and deliver it at night to people's houses, kinda like a reverse nightcart?
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Tom, you can't see me franticly drumming my fingers on my desk but drumming they are. I will not sit back and allow you to launch into some medieval rant on the glories of war. Go back to watching the "History Channel" or "National Geographic" all they show are war programs or programs about weapons. We are not at war, we are not wanting to be at war. War is only on the agenda for the US of A
They have been making squillions out of it for the last 100 years.
China has had more history than you can shake your little stick at and if we have to bow to some big guy I would rather bow to tha age old wisdom of China than the rabid rightiousness of America. -
Does the pony turn the cog on the plant to make the electricity, or do you pack the electricity on its back and deliver it at night to people's houses, kinda like a reverse nightcart?
I was thinking of it more as a marketing strategy - distracting people with the pony to stop them asking questions about how I solved the fusion problem. Everyone likes ponies. Just ask Craig.
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Yes, I do happen to think China has an active policy of using migration of pro-Beijing Chinese to create reasons for interventions in other nations internal affairs.
Now I see what Pansy Wong is doing here. Really? I see you read those articles I posted then? Please tell me how I can take this seriously? I mean I'm trying really really hard, but I just can't get there.
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New Zealand is ideally placed to benefit from defensive advances in modern robot weaponry.
WARNING Will Robinson, there is a Chinaman behind the potting shed! whirrrrr... bleep.
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Robotics eh?
Built out of No 8 wire and bits of an old Massey Ferguson? In the trad Kiwi-can-do way?
Yeah. Right. -
I was thinking of it more as a marketing strategy - distracting people with the pony to stop them asking questions about how I solved the fusion problem. Everyone likes ponies. Just ask Craig.
What's not to love about ponies? They're attractive, occupy endless hours in a relatively harmless, if expensive, manner, and (if needs must) are absolutely delicious.
Robots - not so much.
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WARNING Will Robinson, there is a Chinaman behind the potting shed!
I have been laughing at this sentence for minutes and minutes now. The use of 'Chinaman' is just perfect. Bwah.
Please tell me how I can take this seriously?
You can't. Don't worry, the 'Tom, WTF?' moments happen to us all.
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Messrs Semmens and London seem to be kindred spirits:
http://london.sonoma.edu/Writings/StrengthStrong/invasion.html
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