Within an order of magnitude–pretty damn good for the average wingnut. Actually approaches honesty, of a sort.

Carrier battle groups are what we have instead of national health insurance. Oh, and the invisible bombers. We have those too. Utterly undetectable by 1980s Soviet radar. If we ever have to travel back in time to launch a sneak attack on the Soviet Union, we are SO ready.

The two statements are perfectly compatible. The first one refers to “military spenders”, so it includes non-national entities like Blackwater.
You didn’t know about Micro$oft’s private army, did you?

Oh, back off! His cogitating’s probably metric!

The fact is, socialized health care is socialism, unAmerican and it will sap our nation’s economy as the sick drag us down. Interfering with the free market will cause some problems.

There is no right to good health in the consititution, only life.

Good lord you’re tiresome, Garybot.

He must be counting each of Bush’s MilPlex pals in the first quote.

Well, Gary is sick, and he is dragging us down, so I guess he has a point.

We must not let the sick sap our precious bodily fluids! Only corporate control of healthcare can sustain our purity of essence!

I’m willing to bet the US President has the lion’s share of vacation days taken (compared to other western industrialized leaders). Something to be proud of for sure. And consider that he managed to take all those vacation days while bringing democracy to Iraq.

Million-plus killed
Reuters
LONDON — More than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by Opinion Research Business, one of Britain’s leading polling groups, and released yesterday.

Who says Bush can’t multi-task.
Go America.

The fact is, socialized health care is socialism, Socialized anything is socialism, innit?

unAmerican as soon as America legally implements something it becomes American, you know, by definition. Kind of like how socialized things are socialism.

and it will sap our nation’s economy as the sick drag us down. Just like it has Europe and Canada! Dude, it’s already dragging the economy down, just ask the former employees of companies who moved to Canada because they can’t afford insurance costs. Besides, countries with socialized health care all spend FAR less on health care than we do, and get better care. Imagining we can’t make it work as well(or better, dammit! Shake those goddamn pompoms!) is downright unAmerican of you!

Interfering with the free market will cause some problems. Not interfering with it can also cause problems. The beauty of a democracy is we get to decide, and the market doesn’t vote. The beauty of socialized health care is there are so many working examples to study. All of which are cheaper than what we have now.

There is no right to good health in the consititution, only life. And there’s nothing in there that prevents socialized health care, either, if the majority wants it and Congress can get it passed. The Constitution is nice that way.

Now, have a cookie; they’re oat bran raisin!

Yeah, all that stuff in the Constitution about life, liberty, pursuit of happiness obviously doesn’t apply to sick people.

But, of course, making money of the sick is an incontrovertibly enshrined Constitutional given.

Really, I can’t understand the willingness of these goobers to support rich f***ers who run huge corporations dedicated to screwing the goobers in so many ways. I mean, how deep does this strain of “Thank You Sir, may I have another?” go?

The fact is, I have a persistent sharting problem, and it would be unAmerican for the taxpayer to have to pay for that.

I know the rules about playing with trolls… but really, Gary’s more like a pet than a troll.

Not house trained, so one must be liberal (heh) when whacking him on the nose with the rolled-up newspaper….

The whole thing from Steyny-winy:

I’m getting a bit tired of Senator McCain’s anti-business shtick. The line about serving “for patriotism, not for profit” is pathetic. America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined: Where does he think the money for that comes from?

Golly, Mark, I don’t know. Where does that money come from? Probably not from those who received the big Bush tax breaks. But I do know one thing: That money goes to businesses that make big campaign contributions. Better to bribecontribute to politicians than pay taxes, isn’t it?

I’m sick of all this socialized military, the damn socialized police forces, these taxpayer-sucking socialized fire departments, the socialized sewage systems, the socialized roads systems…

…When is someone going to stand up and take our country back the way it was 100 some years ago when we were giving land away to the rail companies?

Give Steyn a break.

He comes from a country that doesn’t spend that kind of money on their military. He probably DOESN’T know where that money comes from. Maybe it’s not a rhetorical question.

The fact is, your class warfare and hatred of wealth and hard work is unAmerican. It is also wrong to reward people for bad choices in investments and lifestyles. If you gamble your money away or get cancer and you didn;t have insurance, like any reasonable person should, why should I have to clean up for you? You will never win by knocking down the wealthy and the corporations. They create our prosperity.

And stop advocating for less funding for the military. We are at war. That is treasonous. They are protecting your freedom.

We need to stop rewarding all these lazy workers who take money from the public payroll like cops, firemen, soldiers, sailors, airmen, teachers, roadworkers, and the like.

If they can’t figure out how to sell their services for a profit it shouldn’t be our responsibility to get them jobs.

They are DYING for your freedom. Are you going to tell a soldier’s family his death meant nothing? Well?

How does overestimating the military spending get towards… Umm… Spending and warring more?

The fact is, every service provided by the public sector can be provided by the private sector and regulated by the free market alone. They can also do it better and more efficiently. The unions don’t like that. so neither do the liberals.

The fact is, you get your orders from SEIU HQ. I get mine from God.

They are DYING for your freedom. Are you going to tell a soldier’s family his death meant nothing? Well?

A big tax and spend socialist like Gary Ruppert may think it’s my job to say what a soldier and his family are worth, but true good patriot American conservatives know that the only real arbiter of worth is the Free Market, and no matter how much it hurts the liberal Nazi Stalinist hippies like the artificial Gary Ruppert, that is the Truth that we have all practiced by realizationificafying.

The fact is, you all want America to fail and succum to the islam hordes and the mexicans who are invading us every day, you want the great white tradition of USA to be buried under a pile of mud people on welfare. Well, here in the Heartland, we will not stand for it.

Again, any time the Heartland wants a good whoopin’ by the true patriot American conservatives in the South, they are welcome to visit.

The fact is, my sharting problem is costing me a fortune in replaced underwear. But I wouldn’t expect taxpayers to have to foot the bill, because that would be unAmerican.

I guess Gary doesn’t want to hear about how single-payer healthcare can actually increase productivity and raise the overall standard of living. Since it doesn’t improve “Fat Bastard” Lee Raymond’s standard of living, it must be no good.

The fact is, your class warfare and hatred of wealth and hard work is unAmerican. Oh Gary, we don’t hate you because you’re rich! If we ever see any evidence for hard work we won’t hate you for that, either!

It is also wrong to reward people for bad choices in investments and lifestyles. Says the man who supports the party which never saw a corporate bailout it doesn’t like. Privatize profit, socialize risk!

And stop advocating for less funding for the military. Hee hee!

Are you going to tell an injured soldier his health is worth nothing? A homeless one his service was worth nothing?

The Free Market knows all.

Detroit’s automakers didn’t get much help from the federal government when they visited the White House, but that hasn’t stopped a pair of LA-area car dealerships from receiving federal funding. Longo Toyota – “the World’s Largest Dealership” – and Longo Lexus – “the #1 Lexus dealer in the Western US”, received a half-million-dollar grant from the US Department of Housing and Urban Development in order to expand their facilities and create new jobs. The HUD funding is only part of the $3,000,000 the Penske-owned dealerships received from the City of El Monte, California, where the enormous car lots are situated – money which the city has already recovered (and then some) from the increased sales tax revenues.

The deal involved the Penske Automotive Group constructing a 50,000-square-foot service center, expanded vehicle lots, new showrooms and a 2,500-space parking complex out back. The municipal funding was granted in exchange for Longo creating between 35 and 90 new jobs within four years, while the federal grant stipulated the creation of only 15 new jobs. According to reports, the Longo dealerships have already well surpassed their requirements.

http://www.autoblog.com/2008/01/31/penske-gets-millions-in-govt-funding-to-expand-2-dealerships

If we could stop wasting money on the lazy taxpayer-subsidized soldiers and police and teachers and firefighters and whatnot, we could more efficiently expand our nation’s Toyota and Lexus infrastructure.

There is no way the average small business person could possibly turn $3.5 million dollars into 90 jobs. Only by giving money to Longo can our nation’s car needs be satisfied.

Mud people? No cookie for you, pencil dick.

Ah, single payer healthcare. Even by the most capitalist of standards of societies well being, The GDP per capita, Guess what socialist nations which waste lots of money on ill people beat the good ol’ USA?

Luxembourg, norway, iceland, ireland, denmark, switzerland, and sweden.

And guess who just overtook the US in the last few months? The UK. Yes, with that terrible burdensome national heathcare service that costs less than medicare but covers everyone..

America spends more on its military than the next 35-40 biggest military spenders on the planet combined[.]
—————————————
US military spending […] was more than the combined spending of the next 14 nations.

Either way, it’s grossly inadequate. America won’t be secure until we’re spending more than the 23 nearest galaxies combined.

The Human Steyn also tossed this chestnut in his comment:
“As for his line about “some greedy people on Wall Street who need to be punished”, aside from being almost entirely irrelevant to the subject under discussion (the subprime “crisis”), it reveals, I think, one of the most unpleasant aspects of McCain. For a so-called “maverick”, he’s very comfortable with the application of Big Government power, and the assumption of Big Government virtue. Undoubtedly there are “greedy people on Wall Street”. Why should he and his chums be the ones who decide whether they need to be “punished”? If greed is to be punishable, why doesn’t he start with a pilot program applied to, say, the United States Senate and report back to us in five years how that’s going?”
My god, they are willing to put in print that government has no role in regulating business. NONE. Jesus these people are pathetic.

What does the US military have in common with the US health system?

They are both the least cost effective in the developed world!

Maybe its got something to do with that over-reliance on overpriced services from corporations that get to name their own price, and don’t even have to deliver the goods?

He really isn’t as far off the mark as it seems here. From your link:

The 15 countries with the highest spending account for 84 per cent of the total;

The USA is responsible for 48 per cent of the world total, distantly followed by the UK, France, Japan and China with 4–5 per cent each.

So the US spends pretty damn close to the total for ALL the other countries in the world combined. Those next 180 nations only contribute 14% of the total, so a difference of 30 or so could just come down to how you crunch the numbers, or variations from year to year. In fact, considering this:

The USA, responsible for about 80 per cent of the increase in 2005, is the principal determinant of the current world trend

and this:

Year $billion Change from previous year (%)
2008 643.9 2.84%
2007 626.1 7.46%
2006 571.6 -0.05%
2005 554.5 0.34%

He may be right by now.

Scanning google results for “The US spends more than the next countries combined”, I found estimates ranging from the next 5 to the next 47, albeit from some pretty kooky sources.

Let’s just agree that we spend PLENTY

Bob: we can only hope that from now on every hot dog Steyn gets has a vein in it.

What is more significant, is that the US spends an absolute minimum of 40% of all its government spending on the military. For every dollar you pay in tax, nearly half of it goes towards blowing people up. This proportion is much, much higher than in any other developed nation.

Perhaps 5% of US military spending goes on anything which could be legitimately called national defence. The bulk of it goes on imperial adventures.

And yet.. US squaddies are far worse paid and worse trained than their european counterparts. All the money is going on high tech toys and corporate welfare, not on the people that have to do all the work.

Uh-oh, I think the Gary-Bot’s gonna blow! Either that, or he’s gotten stuck in an eating loop at Yo! Sushi.

The fact is, if I hadn’t invented myself, you’d have had to invent me your own selves.

Bush, supporting the troops

Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill. […]

Bush budget officials said the administration “strongly opposes” both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases “unnecessary.”

The White House says it also opposes:

– a $40/month allowance for military survivors, saying the current benefits are “sufficient”

– additional benefits for surviving family members of civilian employees

– price controls for prescription drugs under TRICARE, the military’s health care plan for military personnel and their dependents

What’s with Steyn, anyway? If he’s going to live in Canada he should shut the fuck up about American politics and culture. Otherwise, he can drag his happy ass down here full time and become a god damned American citizen. What, he’s too good for America? Fucking oxygen thief…

I have a sneaking suspicion that Gary is one of us. He’s writes the comedy better than most of the wingers. He’s almost too good to be believeable as an authentic neocon.

Know what? I suspect the troll is a Paultard, who probably does this shit at other sites too. Who else are known for political spam? Who else wants to annoy liberals, but also hates republicans enough to parody one?

He’s a member of the Ron Paul 101st keyboard battalion!

Steyn lives in Canada because the health care’s cheap and accessible. Like that other dimbulb, Kathy somebody, who lives in Toronto, once lived on welfare, and yet despises welfare recipients. She worships the ground Steyn walks on and he’s fond of her. I can’t recall her surname right now.

Hey, if we’re gonna talk all about numbers and stuff, I want in on that game. Lesley pointed this out previously in the thread:

Million-plus killed
Reuters
LONDON — More than a million Iraqis have died as a result of the conflict in their country since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, according to research conducted by Opinion Research Business, one of Britain’s leading polling groups, and released yesterday.

…and I just had to play what I like to call my “Let’s have fun with numbers!!!1!” game.

See, I keep remembering how people like Steyn (and virtually every Republican and member of the media) couldn’t restrain themselves from breathlessly repeating, over and over again, about how Saddam Hussein had killed “a million of his own people!!” during his 24-year “reign of terror!11!!” I mean, that number got batted around everywhere. So just to make sure I remembered correctly, I googled it and found this gem from the NY Times, worth reading for its own sake as an example of extreme ass-spelunking…but I digress…in short, the linked piece confirms the 1 million figure, as do numerous other sources.

What this means is, in Saddam’s 24 years in power, he killed an average of 41,666 Iraqis every year.

Dude was a total slouch. Bush has managed to kill that many in 5 fricken’ years, for a yearly average of 200,000, or 480% more.

George W. Bush: Only 480% eviller than Saddam Hussein.

There are no “real” trolls here. There are only parody trolls, and unfortunately, they’re just boring and provide zero entertainment value.

I just saw the “2 girls, 1 cup” video.

….WTF is wrong with people?

yeah, Jennifer, but Bush’s dead aren’t victims, they’re martyrs in America’s grand plan to stop WMDs, fight Al Quaeda, liberate a people from a tyrant, Bring Democracy to the Middle East, fight Al Quaeda! (I can’t keep track.)

They may hate Bush now, but in another 50 years they’ll be rolling out the thanks. Kinda like kids who don’t realize their Dad meant well when he delivered the weekly beatings.

Snorghagen said,

February 1, 2008 at 2:16

Either way, it’s grossly inadequate. America won’t be secure until we’re spending more than the 23 nearest galaxies combined.

Take that, Cygnus VII!

The Oreo Demonstration is a good way to introduce US military spending, and the associated opportunity costs, to those who need to know.

Wow, Gary’s a bit strident today, isn’t he?

Do you think he’s having, um, you know, woman troubles?

Hey, I’m just asking…

mikey

I can honestly say, as an Air Force veteran, I never protected anyone’s damn freedom.

I’ll join in. As a vietnam eleven bravo, the only impact I had on anybody’s freedom was the freedom to live the rest of their lives I took away from the guys I killed….

mikey

Mikey, by woman troubles, you don’t mean his period, do you? Because if you did I might have to slap you around. 🙂

Do I get to be the firs tto say this? Oh boy. Ahem, the fact is, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” is NOT in the Constitution, it’s in the Declaration of Independence, an entirely different document. neither of which “Gary” has ever read cause they’re full of, like, big words and stuff.

I just figured the eleven year old girl he’s “dating” was threatening to introduce him to her dad or something…

mikey

A more recently updated estimate:

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/spending.htm

The US spends more on the military than everyone else combined.

The one in the original post was updated a year ago, this one is very recent.

Sorry woodrowfan. My mistake. And I KNOW better too. Got caught up in all the excitement, I guess.

Several decades ago Bucky Fuller said “War is obsolete” going on to say that nations would find greater rewards in trade and commerce.

America is the only country that didn’t get the memo, and is still fighting the last several wars, as they say.

Turds like Gary and Mark Steyn want to borrow the perceived glory of war that they remember from their Sgt Rock! comic books, having never actually matured beyond their early teen years to where they could learn to relate to other humans on interpersonal levels.

The Constitution doesn’t say anything about having these socialist public libraries, either.

If people can’t afford books, then they should just watch TV.

Take me for an example: I never read books, but I watch TV all the time, and everyone at “Sadly, No!” knows how smart I am.

[…] fine folks at Sadly, No! (among other places) have already done a fabulous job tearing apart the post over at NRO where Mark Steyn, Scientologist, declared his eternal enmity for […]

The fact is, every service provided by the public sector can be provided by the private sector and regulated by the free market alone. They can also do it better and more efficiently.

Pig’s. Fat. Arse.

They can also do it better and more efficiently.

Maybe they can, but they wouldn’t. Profit is inefficiency, corruption even more so, and those two things are the entire point of privatization.

We believe the following only strengthens Mark’s point:

Strengthen? Hell, it’s CENTRAL to his point!

There is no right to good health in the consititution, only life.

There’s no life in the Constitution, shithead. Bush has seen to that.

It’s the fucking DECLARATION, dumbass! Grow up and read a book that has no pictures, will you, you dumb fuck?

mikey – Gary R. has been so prolific today, I wonder if he works for Air Canada</a.

maybe I should close the a tag.