Where debating everything under the sun is only the beginning

So are you suggesting that America should make off with Canada's, then Mexico's territory (after a sham election, of course) in order to "remain a strongly independent nation ."

Quote from: Sanguinemoon on 2014-12-06, 17:47:56

So are you suggesting that America should make off with Canada's, then Mexico's territory (after a sham election, of course) in order to "remain a strongly independent nation ."

It would substantially shorten the southern border so it would save money on border security
And it would eliminate the old border so I'm sure the drug lords and their minions will happily vote for joining the US

The Crimea referendum was properly run and you cannot take that.

Crimea’s near-unanimous referendum to join the Russian Federation was a “grossly rigged” falsification of a “cynically distorted” populace whose vote was closer to 34 percent, according to former economic policy adviser to the Russia Government Andrey Illarionov.

Illarionov, who is currently a senior fellow at the Cato Institute’s Center for Global Liberty and Prosperity in Washington, DC, recently published on his blog a study of polling done in Crimea over the past three years, in which Illarionov shows support for joining Russia has varied between 23 and 41 percent since 2011, and concludes that “[a]t a minimum, two-thirds of the Crimea did not vote for the joining of Crimea to Putin’s Russia.”

Illarionov’s study referenced several opinion polls conducted by the United Nations, Democratic Initiatives’ Ilka Kucheriv, the Kiev International Institute of Sociology, Research & Branding Group, International Republic Institute, and Gallup.
According to Nezavsimaya Gazeta’s Tatyana Ivzhenko in Moscow, who analyzed poll results nine months ago, Russia had been “losing influence on Crimean residents.” This is a result, Paul Goble, American analyst and former adviser to Secretary of State James Baker on Soviet nationality issues and Baltic affairs, thinks might have influenced Putin’s decision to move into Crimea quickly.

That you lot are constantly creeping up to the Russian territory with that waste of time and out of date NATO club speaks much.

When history evaluates and casts judgment on the current crisis between Russia and the West, one that will inevitably end with Vladimir Putin leaving the stage, it might find it difficult to ascribe blame and responsibility.

Is the main culprit Putin himself, who determined that the disintegration of the Soviet Union is the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the 20th century; who admires Stalin and reinstated the Soviet national anthem with different lyrics; the same Putin who, in the VOLDAI conference in September 2013, said that: The integration of the former Soviet Union into a single geopolitical entity is a key priority for Russia.

Putin’s misguided premise is that the West is politically weak and that the U.S. and President Obama lack resolve and determination and thus will tolerate whatever Russia chooses to do. Much in the same way that Hitler, his army at 50% capacity and preparedness, did not expect that Britain and France would declare war in response to Germany’s invasion of Poland, Putin was not ready for the U.S. and German-led Western decision to impose heavy sanctions. At a time when the Russian military is undergoing a major modernization phase, the French decision to suspend the delivery of a Mistral-class helicopter carrier, already manned by a training contingent of 400 Russian naval personnel, must have come as a huge surprise to Putin.

The scale and swiftness of economic deterioration indicates the wide gap between how Putin views Russia, through the rosy-pink lens of his cheerleading choir, and reality: The Russian stock market has collapsed, the ruble’s dramatic devaluation, massive capital flight (at least $120 billion this year alone), galloping inflation that is getting out of control, and a real economy that is dissolving, all may revert Russia to the bleak 1990’s images.

All these signs point to a crumbling Russian economy, perhaps on the verge of collapse because of US-imposed economic sanctions coupled with plunging commodities prices, especially oil. It is no surprise, then, that leading companies such as Rosneft appeal for government assistance, meaning digging into the country’s foreign currency reserves. 

Putin recently accused the US of provoking conflict and instigating a coup d’etat that replaced the regime in Ukraine. In the fall, Putin had the audacity to justify the Nazi-Soviet pact—the Molotov-Ribbentrop agreement (the invasion of Poland and division of its territory between Germany and the USSR)—and is actively assisting and funding far-right and neo-Nazi groups in Europe.

But what else do you lament? Oh yes, that Crimea didn't want to join the Ukrainian SSR in the first place?

Nobody wants to "dominate the world." Not the US, not Russia, not Scotland, Irn Bru and all other beverages included.

Blond films? Which blond films?

Restrict the flow of cash: Russian authorities could introduce capital controls -- limits on how individuals and companies can spend and move their cash.

I'm afraid so, Mike.  Since Howie'a opinion is
so important,  we need to do what he approves of.   In this case, that would be taking another country'a territory after a bogus election. The reasons against it that you mentioned are valid,  but we have to please Howie.

Well everything is not that rosy in the land of the free is it/ Unemployment still a problem a million annually losing homes, 40 million on food stamps and the lower paid really crawking as the rich get richer.

Here we have a Welfare State,

msasive public housing.

Unemploymen is down

millions out of the tax system,

increased pensions