Lar of Galen...How far we have come down the wrong road. Large companies started providing health insurance as part of their employee benefits because all the WWII vets had "enjoyed" getting free medical care from the military (I put enjoyed in quotes because -- have you ever been to a military hospital??!!? I went once, and walked out without checking in. I wasn't hurt that bad! Didn't really need that little chunk of my finger, anyway). So now, employers -- or the government -- are supposed to pay for birth control, meds for PMS, sex change operations, and even pet medical expenses. Thank GOD some of this insanity is getting rolled back a bit.

I heard someone on the radio saying how they are going to court to completely kill Obamacare. The Supreme Court said ACA(Affordable Care Act) was legit because Congress has a right to pass taxes (although for over a year the Dems said "It's not a tax!", because -- you know -- people don't like new taxes). When the individual mandate was dropped, the "tax" was in effect killed. The entire bill depended on it being mandatory, so the whole bill is invalid. You just have to get the SCOTUS to reverse itself. If only we had a majority of sane Justices. Wait a minute! THAT'S why they fought so hard to keep Kavenaugh out!

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RIGHT OPINION

The 11th Hour of the 11th Day of the 11th Month — 100 Years Ago

Victor Davis Hanson · Nov. 8, 2018

The First World War ended 100 years ago this month on November 11, 1918, at 11 a.m. Nearly 20 million people had perished since the war began on July 28, 1914.

In early 1918, it looked as if the Central Powers — Austria-Hungary, Germany, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire — would win.

Czarist Russia gave up in December 1917. Tens of thousands of German and Austrian soldiers were freed to redeploy to the Western Front and finish off the exhausted French and British armies.

The late-entering United States did not declare war on Germany and Austria-Hungary until April 1917. Six months later, America had still not begun to deploy troops in any great number.

Then, suddenly, everything changed. By summer 1918, hordes of American soldiers began arriving in France in unimaginable numbers of up to 10,000 doughboys a day. Anglo-American convoys began devastating German submarines. The German high command’s tactical blunders stalled the German offensives of spring 1918 — the last chance before growing Allied numbers overran German lines.

Nonetheless, World War I strangely ended with an armistice — with German troops still well inside France and Belgium. Revolution was brewing in German cities back home.

The three major Allied victors squabbled over peace terms. America’s idealist president, Woodrow Wilson, opposed an Allied invasion of German and Austria to occupy both countries and enforce their surrenders.

By the time the formal Versailles Peace Conference began in January 1919, millions of soldiers had gone home. German politicians and veterans were already blaming their capitulation on “stab-in-the-back” traitors and spreading the lie that their armies lost only because they ran out of supplies while on the verge of victory in enemy territory.

The Allied victors were in disarray. Wilson was idolized when he arrived in France for peace talks in December 1918 — and was hated for being self-righteous when he left six months later.

The Treaty of Versailles proved a disaster, at once too harsh and too soft. Its terms were far less punitive than those the victorious Allies would later dictate to Germany after World War II. Earlier, Germany itself had demanded tougher concessions from a defeated France in 1871 and Russia in 1918.

In the end, the Allies proved unforgiving to a defeated Germany in the abstract but not tough enough in the concrete.

One ironic result was that the victorious but exhausted Allies announced to the world that they never wished to go to war again. Meanwhile, the defeated and humiliated Germans seemed all too eager to fight again soon to overturn the verdict of 1918.

The consequence was a far bloodier war that followed just two decades later. Eventually, “the war to end all wars” was rebranded “World War I” after World War II engulfed the planet and wiped out some 60 million lives.

What can we learn from the failed armistice of 1918?

Keeping the peace is sometimes even more difficult than winning a war.

For an enemy to accept defeat, it must be forced to understand why it lost, suffer the consequences of its aggressions — and only then be shown magnanimity and given help to rebuild.

Losers of a war cannot pick and choose when to quit fighting in enemy territory.

Had the Allies continued their offensives in the fall of 1918 and invaded Germany, the peace that followed might have more closely resembled the unconditional surrender and agreements that ended WWII, leading to far more than just 20 years of subsequent European calm.

Deterrence prevents war.

Germany invaded Belgium in 1914 because it was convinced that Britain would not send enough troops to aid its overwhelmed ally, France. Germany also assumed that isolationist America would not intervene.

Unfortunately, the Allies of 1939 later repeated the errors of 1914, and the result was WWII.

Germany currently dominates Europe, just as it did in 1871, 1914 and 1939. European peace is maintained only when Germany channels its enormous energy and talents into economic, not military, dominance. Yet even today, on matters such as illegal immigration, overdue loans, Brexit and trade surpluses, Germany tends to agitate its allies.

It is also always unwise to underestimate a peaceful America. The U.S. possesses an uncanny ability to mobilize, arm and deploy. By the time America’s brief 19-month foray into war ended in November 1918, it had sent 2 million soldiers to Europe.

Had the armistice of November 1918 and the ensuing peace worked, perhaps we would still refer to a single “Great War” that put an end to world wars.

But because the peace failed, we now use Roman numerals to count world wars. And few believe that when the shooting stops, the war is necessarily over.

Lar Of Galen...I don't want to sound like an apologist, but I believe it was wrong to force Germany to accept blame for WWI. It all started because a Serbian anarchist assassinated Archduke (Crown Prince) Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary because the predominately-Slavic state of Bosnia-Herzegovina wanted to be part of Serbia. This in itself was a huge mistake because FF was sympathetic, and probably would have worked out some sort of deal when he succeeded his father.

As it was, Karl Franz declared war on Serbia. Russia declared war on A-H in order to defend Serbia (and maybe grab some land, da?). This -- due to mutual-defense treaties -- pulled Germany into the war on A-H's side and France on Russia's . True, Germany made the first move, invading France via Belgium. Violating Belgium's borders forced England into the game, then Japan joined the Axis because they hate Russia, and Italy got in on the fun on the Allies' side because -- I guess they felt left out. German submarine activities brought the US in, and that meant the Germans were the bad guys and had to pay.

The Versailles agreement split Austria and Hungary (a union which never made sense, anyway), ended Keiser Wilhelm II's reign over Germany, took land away from Germany, destroyed their economy, and gave rise to the "stab in the back" theory that Hitler used to gain the support of the German people. I'm not saying that losers shouldn't suffer consequences, but there was blame to go around all over Europe, and trying to set up a utopian one-world political body just set humanity up for more misery. Too bad we did much the same thing after WWII.

And BTW, in 1939 most Germans were scared scheissless to go to war again, and most French were like "Come At Me, Bro!!"

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LAR OG GALEN...The Demoncrat Party is largely populated by unhinged people with severe mental/emotional issues. I don't think a single one of the perpetrators of mass violence have ever been verified to be registered Republicans or conservatives, to include the Florida mail bomber, despite his fresh, brand-new Trump posters that hadn't been the least faded by the Florida sun.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_child_sex_abuse_ring
NOT FAKE NEWS...

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Today (19Nov18) is the 155th anniversary of The Gettsyburg Address:

"Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived, and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives, that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But, in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate—we cannot hallow—this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they here gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."

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