Ryan: "I just don't understand" bayonet remark

In December 1916 we had 245 active naval vessels. In September 2011 (most recent number) we had 285.
US Ship Force Levels

When examining the breakdown of numbers by ship type, it becomes obvious this is not a direct comparison. In 1916 the list included 'monitors', 'gun boats', and 'torpedo boats'. If the Navy still uses vessels of these types, they are no longer counted.

It is also rather ironic that the Navy Act of 1916 was passed that year.

In United States federal legislation, the Naval Act of 1916 was also called the "Big Navy Act." An overlooked landmark piece of legislation, President Woodrow Wilson determined amidst the repeated incidents with Germany to build “incomparably, the greatest Navy in the world” over a ten year period with the intent of making the U.S. Navy equal to any two others in the world. More than $500 million was ultimately spent on ten battleships, six battlecruisers, thirty submarines, fifty destroyers, and other support vessels to be built over a three year period.

reply to post by EvenParanoidsHaveEnemies


You meant to say it never hurts except in the case of overspending when we are trying to recover from a recession.

reply to post by SaturnFX

How much of your personal taxes would you allow for to be taken for this project? Would you accept a 10% tax hike? (I mean, if it is a priority that must be done...)

I want a flat tax, with no loopholes. The federal government would have to be limited to how high that tax rate could go, like 15%.
I want the federal budget to be concentrated on military spending. I want domestic spending cut to the bone. I want social security folded up completely like all Ponzi schemes. Medicare scrapped completely.

I want a strong Navy equipped with a ton of missile launching platforms. I want the missiles tipped with neutron bombs. I am not kidding.

reply to post by ColeYounger


Yeah except noone I talked to thought that way.

It was an intelligent retort to a very stupid assumption.

And people liked it.

Get over it.

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

How much of your personal taxes would you allow for to be taken for this project? Would you accept a 10% tax hike? (I mean, if it is a priority that must be done...)

I want a flat tax, with no loopholes. The federal government would have to be limited to how high that tax rate could go, like 15%.
I want the federal budget to be concentrated on military spending. I want domestic spending cut to the bone. I want social security folded up completely like all Ponzi schemes. Medicare scrapped completely.

I want a strong Navy equipped with a ton of missile launching platforms. I want the missiles tipped with neutron bombs. I am not kidding.

So, you want America circa 1850s. gotcha.
Pity what with globalization mixed with no more slave owning that your suggestions would simply destroy the entire nation almost overnight. damn you progress!

You know a Republican introduced the progressive tax system, and every nation on earth that used it suddenly went from backwoods dirt farmers to a high yield society of progress, right?

Lincoln cocks an eyebrow at you.

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

How much of your personal taxes would you allow for to be taken for this project? Would you accept a 10% tax hike? (I mean, if it is a priority that must be done...)

I want a flat tax, with no loopholes. The federal government would have to be limited to how high that tax rate could go, like 15%.
I want the federal budget to be concentrated on military spending. I want domestic spending cut to the bone. I want social security folded up completely like all Ponzi schemes. Medicare scrapped completely.

I want a strong Navy equipped with a ton of missile launching platforms. I want the missiles tipped with neutron bombs. I am not kidding.

Then Romney is your guy you should get everything except the flat tax you want. That is just a pipe dream.

If the only skill, experience and background we think is required to be president is the ability to make money, then my vote is for Bill Gates! He is waaay cooler!

Ryan: "I just don't understand" bayonet remark

Well yeah, he wouldn't. That's understandable.

reply to post by Grimpachi

Then Romney is your guy you should get everything except the flat tax you want. That is just a pipe dream.

Yeah, all of it's a pipe dream.

But hey, we can still dream anyway!

reply to post by SaturnFX

You know a Republican introduced the progressive tax system, and every nation on earth that used it suddenly went from backwoods dirt farmers to a high yield society of progress, right? Lincoln cocks an eyebrow at you.

Libertarian here. If I could travel back in time, I would go back and kick Lincoln square in the nuts. He was one of the biggest threats to our liberty that there ever was.

reply to post by SaturnFX

destroy the entire nation almost overnight

My aim doesn't stop at destroying the nation.

Oh, and the slave holding crap you can throw at yourself, I am no racist. We are a nation of slaves.

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

You know a Republican introduced the progressive tax system, and every nation on earth that used it suddenly went from backwoods dirt farmers to a high yield society of progress, right? Lincoln cocks an eyebrow at you.

Libertarian here. If I could travel back in time, I would go back and kick Lincoln square in the nuts. He was one of the biggest threats to our liberty that there ever was.

Yes! Darn him for all that slave freeing!



I say we put water-wings on horses, glue bayonetts to their noses and use them as a navy!

We can even drop them out of drones!

Originally posted by EvenParanoidsHaveEnemies

Originally posted by butcherguy
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

You know a Republican introduced the progressive tax system, and every nation on earth that used it suddenly went from backwoods dirt farmers to a high yield society of progress, right? Lincoln cocks an eyebrow at you.

Libertarian here. If I could travel back in time, I would go back and kick Lincoln square in the nuts. He was one of the biggest threats to our liberty that there ever was.

Yes! Darn him for all that slave freeing!

I say we put water-wings on horses, glue bayonetts to their noses and use them as a navy!

We can even drop them out of drones!

It was not about freeing the slaves. Lincoln was a racist. He thought very little of black people. He stated that they would never fit in in the US, and had a plan to send them to Africa.

Lincoln violated the Constitution during his Presidency and consolidated and strengthened the power of the federal government.

So he didn't free the slaves then?

Darned you history books!

Of course he understood the remark, he is just playing dumb to feed into the fearmongering argument about defence cuts.

Obama's remarks were spot on if you ask me.

GOP wants to treat Americans like children and instill the fear of a boogeyman to keep us at war to feed their bank accounts.

Originally posted by EvenParanoidsHaveEnemies
So he didn't free the slaves then?

Darned you history books!

Wow, you certainly are getting your jollies putting words in my mouth.

I said nothing of the sort. He signed the Emancipation Proclamation. I dare say that the Union soldiers that fought and died in the Civil War are the ones that actually made it possible.

Read up on Lincoln..... A link , telegraph

One of Lincoln's most representative public statements on the question of racial relations was given in a speech at Springfield, Illinois, on June 26, 1857.6 In this address, he explained why he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska Act, which would have admitted Kansas into the Union as a slave state: There is a natural disgust in the minds of nearly all white people to the idea of indiscriminate amalgamation of the white and black races ... A separation of the races is the only perfect preventive of amalgamation, but as an immediate separation is impossible, the next best thing is to keep them apart where they are not already together. If white and black people never get together in Kansas, they will never mix blood in Kansas ... Racial separation, Lincoln went on to say, "must be effected by colonization" of the country's blacks to a foreign land. "The enterprise is a difficult one," he acknowledged, but "where there is a will there is a way," and what colonization needs most is a hearty will. Will springs from the two elements of moral sense and self-interest. Let us be brought to believe it is morally right, and, at the same time, favorable to, or, at least, not against, our interest, to transfer the African to his native clime, and we shall find a way to do it, however great the task may be.

This is all we really need to know about what Mr Obama wants to do with our military. Has he changed his mind since then?

Originally posted by steppenwolf86

Originally posted by AngryCymraeg
If the enemy gets close enough for you to need a bayonet, then someone's massively screwed up somewhere.

Maybe so, but at least you have it and are trained to use it. You must admit Obama could have chosen a better analogy.

Except that's not true. As already stated, training with the bayonet has all but ceased. They arent even TAUGHT how to use them anymore.

reply to post by butcherguy


Um... Marines and Army still use bayonets and we used horses in Afg.

OP is missing the big picture, which Ryan sees. Sorry, I'm not going to explain to you the myriad missions our Navy is tasked to perform, you can google it. You won't, but you could.