I'm a bit late responding; as usual Lecter has made my point more concisely than I could have. And regardless of whether or not it's in the dictionary, I don't think irregardless should be a word. Safari underlines it in red for me, with no suggestions. If it were a word, it would mean "without irregard," and there's no such thing as an irregard. This is basic common sense, and I protest it's inclusion in the dictionary.

Speaking of definitions, yours of "victory" is extra-wordy and elitist. In fact, your whole post is filled with empty elitist psychobabble. From my dictionary: victory - an act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition. Every dead terrorist is a victory for us, every dead civilian or soldier is a victory for them. I believe the "goal" here is no more terrorists attacks on U.S. soil. There were multiple during Clinton (U.S. soil or not, but attacks on our stuff), and not one since we decided to fight back. We didn't start any war here, but we've decided the best way to end it is with them dead and not us, and we've done it with the cleanest military campaign in history, ever.

When did I say "let's play nice," or suggest becoming hippies? I really have a hard time debating liberals, because you guys really do live in an alternate reality where if one person puts down his gun the other will, too, and suddenly become friends. Sure, I want to play nice with everyone, but they ended that when they attacked us. Peace comes after military victory.

What is this garbage about ideas? If someone has an idea that infringes on someone else's freedom, of course we need to act on it regardless of whether someone else will have the same idea later. I know, let's stop punishing rapists, because punishing one won't stop someone somewhere else from coming up with the same idea. This is insane! Pirate = criminal, and we punish criminals. It's as simple as that. In fact, these pirates are terrorists. So, instead of punishing them, we consider giving them money instead. How does this discourage piracy? That'll only make it happen again. If pirates quickly become dead pirates, it'll be less of a problem, since that's a deterrent.

Guess what: FREEDOM IS CREATED AND MAINTAINED AT THE POINT OF A GUN! Try going back a couple hundred years and doing the Revolutionary War over again, but with no guns. Try defeating Hitler with no guns. I can't believe this even has to be debated. Even smaller scale: take guns away from cops and see how effective they are. This bullshit about first and second level is absolutely meaningless.

It's all good, though, because you tear down your entire post with your last paragraph, which goes against every single thing you say before it:

"To deal with the pirates is a simple matter. They do it because we've permitted it to be profitable, so we make it unprofitable. No ransoms. No negotiation. Send in the marines to retake ships that would cost more to replace than the operation would expend, and ignore the rest. If they persist, firebomb one as an example while it's sitting in port. The piracy problem will be over within a month. If we feel generous, we could even kick out the illegal fishing boats that had undercut the livelihood of the Somali fishermen, so they'd have a legal trade to ply once again."

How do you do that? With guns. Sure, you're denying the pirates the freedom to pirate by pointing guns at them, but they forfeit that right as soon as they infringe on the rights of others. So, with guns, we go in there and preserve the freedom of the greater population. Even you agree with me, but it takes a lot of empty rambling for it to come out. This just proves that deep down even liberals understand the truth, but the truth is buried under the idiotic philosophies they've decided to embrace. Even the quotes you linked to don't mean what you think, but they're great quotes.

I'm going to say "guns" a few more times. Guns, guns guns. Guns.

Guns.

irregardless
One entry found.

Main Entry:
ir·re·gard·less
Pronunciation:
\ˌir-i-ˈgärd-ləs\
Function:
adverb

Etymology:
probably blend of irrespective and regardless

Date:
circa 1912

nonstandard : regardless

Usage: Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/irregardless

IRS, you're an ignoramoron. That's a hybrid of ignoramus and moron--it's a real word . . . you know, a string of letters to which someone gave a meaning consistent with my intended meaning.

Ignamoron is a better word than irregardless, because it means what it says instead of the opposite. That's a Lewis Carroll type word. I like it.

I was rather referring to Lecter and Chaos, IRS. My apologies for not being clear about it.

Usage: Irregardless originated in dialectal American speech in the early 20th century. Its fairly widespread use in speech called it to the attention of usage commentators as early as 1927. The most frequently repeated remark about it is that “there is no such word.” There is such a word, however. It is still used primarily in speech, although it can be found from time to time in edited prose. Its reputation has not risen over the years, and it is still a long way from general acceptance. Use regardless instead.

I found this after your first post on the subject. You apparently skipped the first sentence in bold. The second, which was actually useful knowledge for me, was omitted from my dictionary (A Merriam-Webster, the same source as yours) and thus left me ignorant. I have now learned a more accurate word for use when I wish to express my lack of regard for something.

Ignamoron/ignoramoron does have a nice ring to it. Agree to a spelling, keep using it, and it might make it into a dictionary in a few years. However, it's not a Lewis Carroll word, as it's a very recognizable result of compounding. Lewis Carroll used, at best, loose onomatopoeia, and most likely was trying to avoid having any etymological roots for his created words.

"I protest it's inclusion in the dictionary"
"Pirate = criminal"
I would weigh your protest against my semantic failing a bit more heavily were you not making a few errors yourself. The first is an obvious mistake. The second is an incorrect usage of the equality symbol- a pirate is always criminal, but a criminal is not always a pirate. If we are to allow mathematical symbols (something I take issue with, as language changes too frequently and lacks uniform, undisputed definitions), it would be correct to use the subset symbol in this circumstance.

Shall we move back to our prior topic of debate, or continue with this one?

Good call on my incorrect use of "it's," I'm usually pretty scrupulous about that. Your equality symbol argument, though, is pure semantics.

Also, go back and do some more Lewis Carroll research. While some words are entirely new, he very often would combine words to create new ones more appropriate to the situation. A few examples from Jabberwocky:

slithy: lithe + slimy
frabjous: fair + fabulous + joyous
frumious: fuming + furious

There are a few other probable combination words in there (he says right in the book that they're combo words that serve two meanings at once), and the rest are all either taken from Old English roots or meant, as you said to sound that way.

Ignamoron is totally a Lewis Carrol-like word, except that Carroll didn't come up with it.

Finally, go back and look at Lecter's post, and you'll find he left out no such thing.

And I'll get back to the topic when you address my arguments, especially the fact that freedom is indeed created and maintained at the point of a gun. Go back and read my post again, too, it may do you some good.

"we've done it with the cleanest military campaign in history, ever."
"cleanest military campaign in history"
"cleanest"

Wait, what? Are you sure you didn't mean to write "most expensive" instead?
edit: Ok, maybe its not the most expensive(yet), but sure as hell it ain't the "cleanest" either.

Well, let's compare this to some other wars, such as WWII. Also, do you really want to judge whether preventing more incidents such as 9/11 based on how much it is going to cost? This is the one place where I don't mind pumping money into the government: national defense. It's the only thing the government can do more effectively with more money, and even then only if it's not micro-managed by congress, which is why there's a commander-in-chief. Everything else, the government is more likely to screw up and add tons of pork to.

Yes, cleanest war ever. I'd have just nuked Baghdad and been done with it, which is why it's good I'm not president.

"This is the one place where I don't mind pumping money into the government: national defense. It's the only thing the government can do more effectively with more money, and even then only if it's not micro-managed by congress, which is why there's a commander-in-chief. Everything else, the government is more likely to screw up and add tons of pork to."

wow, i can honestly say i completely agree with that.

"Yes, cleanest war ever. I'd have just nuked Baghdad and been done with it, which is why it's good I'm not president."

I'm with PC, I'd've been vaporizing cities a long time ago. Maybe the nuclear winter would cancel out global warming.

I shall return to Lewis Carroll's writings and read them again. Point yeilded.

Now then, back to our arguments. I believe I have a better grasp of how you would like me to present my views. I had been going on a line of abstract reasoning; I will now use example when I need to make an argument. Time for dissection!

"When did I say "let's play nice," or suggest becoming hippies? I really have a hard time debating liberals, because you guys really do live in an alternate reality where if one person puts down his gun the other will, too, and suddenly become friends. Sure, I want to play nice with everyone, but they ended that when they attacked us."

I apologize, I was unclear. I did not mean you, specifically. I was referring to the apparent rationale of our leadership when they chose to fight in the Iraqi theater. It was presented as a fast fight, which would be over and done with in a matter of months once the liberated Iraqi people got their new democracy set up. Having studied history, I recognized that as a load of hippie bong water. As an example, when we occupied Germany and Japan at the end of World War II, how long did it take for our troops to finally leave? The answer is "never". It took years for the leftover Axis resistance to finally be squashed, and some of our troops remain in both countries to this day. This is also why I applauded the sudden show of backbone by the Iraqi Parliament, as they are indirectly doing us a favor by freeing up our troops for use elsewhere.

"From my dictionary: victory - an act of defeating an enemy or opponent in a battle, game, or other competition. Every dead terrorist is a victory for us, every dead civilian or soldier is a victory for them. I believe the "goal" here is no more terrorists attacks on U.S. soil."

Agreed. I have no issues with this, save that you didn't list what you believe the goals of the enemy are. I believe they have more goals than to simply launch attacks on us, and I will expand this point below.

"There were multiple during Clinton (U.S. soil or not, but attacks on our stuff), and not one since we decided to fight back."

I disagree. A religious radical launched an attack on a church, in my hometown, not half a year ago. Our troops and their equipment are attacked daily, and I certainly consider our troops and their equipment to be part of our stuff. Given those facts, I cannot see how your statement can be true, and I would conclude that we remain under attack at home and abroad despite our efforts.

"We didn't start any war here, but we've decided the best way to end it is with them dead and not us, and we've done it with the cleanest military campaign in history, ever."

Partial agreement. We are indeed winning tactical victories, but we are suffering strategic defeats. Wars are not fought only upon battlefields. Troops must be fed, clothed, and trained. Weapons and ammo must be produced and supplied. Lecter spoke of attrition, and I speak of the same thing now.

We are currently engaged in heavy deficit spending to meet the logistical requirements of our wars, among other expenses (many of them pointless. I take my numbers from this site, in regards to Fiscal Year 2008, with checks to the public reports of the U.S. Department of the Treasury). While we can shoulder it for the time being, our pool of potential debt is limited. Once our interest payments, at ~$412 billion, exceed our income, at ~$2,524 billion, the country goes bankrupt. Even if we eliminate a lot of the churn by reforming taxation and gutting social program bloat, the required interest payment will remain. This is how I believe the the enemy in this war intends to defeat us, just as we defeated the USSR, by forcing expense at a level they could not long match.

The rank and file of the enemy, such as it is, doesn't need to know one iota of their leadership's grand strategy. They are given instruction on how to craft rudimentary explosives from any available materials, taught that attacking us gets them a free pass to heaven with 72 virgins, and sent on their merry way. The cost of doing this is not available, but my common sense dictates that it is far, far less than the cost of creating one of our soldiers, to the point where they can take a staggering casualty ratio and still come out ahead.

To make matters worse, we indirectly supply them with the very money needed to do so! Sales of heroin to our drug addicts eventually wind up in the hands of the Taliban. The cash we pay to Saudi Arabia and Iran for oil is donated to their cause. Flush with funds, they are rapidly opening new battlegrounds in Sudan, Somalia, Pakistan, Malaysia, Indonesia, and India. While Iraq may be nearly won, our forces are stretched, and have not the ability to fight in so many locations at once. Never before in history have I seen such a complete failure to take economic control in a war. Regan must be spinning in his grave.

As if that were not bad enough, our saber-rattling has spooked the other major powers in the region- Russia and China. They fear us, but instead of cowering, I see them both moving, quietly, to undermine our efforts so as to restrict our global power. Sales of nuclear technology to Iran. Commercial and resource acquisition in Africa and South America. Mass purchases of our debt to provide leverage in diplomacy. Continued stockpiling and improvement of their strategic weapons. I see grim signs that they have formed an alliance of convenience with the radicals, as their territories and people have been suspiciously left untouched despite their much closer proximity. The forces arrayed against us are vast, and possess a counter for every one of our tactics, be they military, economic, or political. Our allies are either fighting their own fronts, unable to help at all, or supporting us with little more than hot air and a token offering of troops. This is why I say we will be undone by persisting with the status quo, and why we need a new strategy now if we are to win.

My strategy of choice is to withdraw from the battlefields abroad so our troops can be used seal our porous borders and be on standby to strike hammer blows, use our intelligence agencies and spy networks to keep tabs on the enemy's plans, use the global reach of our air force to conduct pinpoint strikes on attempts by the radicals to construct nuclear weapons, use our navy to protect our shipping, change our economic policies and laws so that we no longer send money to the friends of our enemies, and focus on polishing up our tarnished mantle as the land of the free and home of the brave by restoring the divisions of power among the branches of government and the equality of all before law. My initial intent with this plan is to make us appear as less of a threat. Russia and China will go back to eying each other as they no longer have us camped next door, and we will make them have to deal with the radicals as their alliance of convenience unravels (After all, there's no sense in us doing what we could get someone else to do instead). We thus take back economic control, regain political clout, send our opponents into their own mires, reclaim our moral authority, and maintain our military power at greatly reduced cost. "Our world is one governed by the aggressive use of force," and by aggressively using all the forces at our disposal instead of just our military, we can win this new Cold war.

My other needs demand my attention, so I regret that I must delay my counter to the "guns are the source of freedom" argument. Rest assured that it is coming.

"Pirate = criminal, and we punish criminals. It's as simple as that. In fact, these pirates are terrorists. So, instead of punishing them, we consider giving them money instead. How does this discourage piracy? That'll only make it happen again. If pirates quickly become dead pirates, it'll be less of a problem, since that's a deterrent."

Agreed.

"If someone has an idea that infringes on someone else's freedom, of course we need to act on it regardless of whether someone else will have the same idea later. I know, let's stop punishing rapists, because punishing one won't stop someone somewhere else from coming up with the same idea. This is insane!"

Ideas and actions are separate things. I can think of placing my hand on a red-hot stove, but I am entirely capable of not doing so. Why is that? It's because I have reason at my disposal! I can foresee the consequences of acting upon my idea to touch the stove, decide they are unwanted, and then not touch it. The same sequence can be used for any idea. Let them think of harming us, let us show them the corpse they will become if they act upon it, and the vast majority of people will, surprisingly, not act upon the idea. As for those who can't be dissuaded by death, well, we'll just have to kill them as they emerge.

As for trying to preemptively eliminate such ideas, we would need thought police. Nor would these police be limited to just those outside the country, as some terrorists have come from our own citizenry. This leads to random checks of loyalty, searches and seizures on mere suspicion, and other gross violations of constitutional principles. Such a thing is complete anathema to a free country, and my opposition to it will be total.

As a final nail in this coffin, has any attempt to wipe out a widely distributed people or religion ever worked? The Romans didn't wipe out the Christians. The Nazis didn't wipe out the Jews. The soviets didn't wipe out the faithful. We didn't wipe out the natives. Sure, in each case they got slaughtered by the numbers, but in the end, some of the victims survived, and their traditions, ideas, and way of life remained, often blending in with the attacker's.

"Try going back a couple hundred years and doing the Revolutionary War over again, but with no guns. Try defeating Hitler with no guns. I can't believe this even has to be debated."

You're absolutely right.

"Freedom is created and maintained at the point of a gun."

Canned phrase, to be served to children and those too dull-witted to think independently. Freedom is created in the mind. If you doubt this, try to speak with someone who is severely retarded or a victim of advanced dementia. You can place a gun in their hands, but that will not break them free of the chain of disability that binds their thoughts. They cannot choose, they cannot defy, and they cannot be free. For a harrowing example of how this can be done to a ordinary person, read George Orwell's "1984". At the very end, a man's freedom dies, and no gun could possibly bring it back.

What guns can do is provide us with an effective means of both defending our own lives, and driving off or killing those that demand subservience. They're so good at doing this that possession was included as a basic right. However, were I to be captured by an enemy and stripped of my weapons, that is insufficient to end my freedom. My body is bound, but my mind is still free. As long as I can still hate the heel that stamps me down, I am able lie and give them false smiles. I will wait to seize whatever means presents itself to restore freedom to my actions. It may be a weapon, it may be an unguarded door, it may be a group of like-minded fellows, it may be my final words, but I will have it, gun or no gun! ...Though, if you're offering to give me one, I'll take it with thanks.

Wow, you have two posts I need to respond to, now.... I don't have time for a coherent response at the moment, but when my homework is done I will give it a try.

I will take this time to point out that my "canned phrase" about freedom and guns is a direct response to your canned phrase: "Freedom is not created or maintained at the point of a gun", which I consider idiotic garbage to be fed to impressionable children. You followed that up before with some insipid nonsense about levels of freedom, and true to form you made similarly empty psychobabble comments after calling my response a canned phrase.

I'll read the rest of your post later, and I'll have to give serious thought to how to respond, since reason doesn't work. I'm basically convinced that you and I literally live in different universes, and in yours Hitler would have stopped murdering Jews if only we'd sent him a fruitcake for Christmas. I honestly don't understand your reasoning, because to do so would require turning off my brain, which I can't do.

"I'm basically convinced that you and I literally live in different universes, and in yours Hitler would have stopped murdering Jews if only we'd sent him a fruitcake for Christmas"
I fell out of my chair reading this and laughed so hard I had my wife read it. Then SHE laughed so hard she cried! Great post!

You two are just thinking from the "black" and "white" points of view. There's also the "gray" part where both can apply, depending on the situation, and not just violent response.
Ever heard of Gandhi? (Rhetorical question dur hur hur)

But yes, sometimes violent response is the only way, its true. As it's also true that "An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind", since even limited retaliation continues a potentially endless cycle of violence.

edit:
Now chill out guys. Here, have some awesome. It's Einstein VS. Godzilla:

I had a revelation last night that might save us a lot of further grief. Chaos, could you address the following before going into my other posts?

1. There are other people.
2. Some people will demand our subservience and/or possessions.
3. We have sufficient mental ability to recognize 1 and 2 as true.

Given 1, 2, and 3 as true, we can conclude that the statement "Freedom is created and maintained at the point of a gun" to be true.

My psychobabble aside, would you agree with that reasoning?

Shaoden, while that's indeed a pretty awesome pic, Chaos and I are going about this voluntarily (heck, I pretty much begged him to indulge me). While it may not look it, we've both been quite civil, keeping our RIP AND TEAR to each other's arguments. It's just the nature of debating for there to be conflict, especially when dealing with subjects that both parties consider highly important. You're welcome to join, though you may find that we'll tag-team your "Gandhi didn't need guns" argument.

Lastly, GO EINSTEIN! USE THE ATOMIC BACKBREAKER!

Actually, your 1,2,3 points will do nicely for a quick response as I take a quick break (I've got two weeks left of this semester, as you can imagine I'm really stressed).

So, if there's another person who wants my stuff or for me to do something, and he has a gun and I don't, then I pretty much have to call his bluff and risk death or give him what he wants. He is preserving his freedom with his gun, at the expense of my own. But, let's assume now that I have a gun. First, he is less likely to try anything knowing that I might have a gun, and if he tries anyway I have an opportunity to preserve my stuff and my freedom. Not a sure chance, but a chance.

We need another assumption here, and that assumption is that I am a good person (hahaha! well, I try), or at least that I am not an aggressively violent person (except online....). Who should have a gun, non-violent, self-defensive me, or someone with a violent record? Talk doesn't work unless you've got the means to back it up. "Speak softly and carry a big stick" as they say (Roosevelt made that saying famous). If a man breaks into my house, how do I talk him out of taking anything? I have to convince him of consequences. It may be possible to convince him that he'll never get away with it, that the police will catch him and send him to jail, but it has to be a credible threat.

I think you and I are also thinking on different scales sometimes. When there are two people facing each other and one has a gun, sure, one is more free than the other. This is why self-defense weapons are so critical; if only criminals have weapons, then only criminals are free. As I said before, once you infringe on another's rights, you forfeit your own. An armed robber is infringing on another's rights, and that person has the right to defend his freedom with a gun at the expense of the criminal's freedom. When Hitler started his invasion of Europe he forfeit the freedom of all of Nazi Germany by infringing on the freedom of other nations with his guns, and so the Allied Forces had the right to defend their freedom with guns at the expense of Germany's freedom. The difference between us and the Nazis is that after removing the threat, we gave back the freedom. The Somali pirates have forfeit their freedom, and so did Al'Qaeda, Saddam Hussein, etc.

I think we've merged this and the gun control debate into one debate now.

Until I read the caption I thought that was Samuel Clemens.

I have no issues with anything you just presented, except that if someone broke into my house, I'd assume that they had already weighed the consequences and I can skip right to fight/flight. For everything else, I agree.

"I think you and I are also thinking on different scales sometimes."

I think this hit the nail on the head. Allow me to explain my "grand position".

I've done considerable studies in the "hard" sciences, Physics in particular, because they just clicked with my way of thinking. Newtonian physics works for the vast majority of problems, but it suffers breakdowns in rare, extreme circumstances. Because of those breakdowns, scientists knew that while they had a fairly good model, it wasn't correct and they needed to examine it further. Enter Quantum physics, which covers an even wider range of conditions, but it still doesn't fully explain everything, so even more study is needed. To be brief, it's the essence of the Scientific Method.

I didn't consider that this progression could be applied to fields outside the hard sciences until my required humanities elective came up, and I chose Introduction to Philosophy. I had a new one torn in that class. "Freedom is created and maintained at the point of a gun" was the exact statement that someone brought in, and it got mauled. I regrettably wasn't active in it either way because I didn't want my butt handed to me again, but it did made me pause and consider exactly what "freedom" is. I've pondered and debated that meaning on and off for years, and you've seen the resulting complexities of my view.

So here I am, of the opinion that existence is a massive structure of interwoven layers, endlessly cross-linked. Finding the edges of one allows for a look at a lower layer, possibly even the naked truth in all its glory. Trying to isolate a single aspect will backfire, as nothing exists on its own. Everything needs to be considered at once, though I'm well aware that no man can possibly do that. Still, I continue to try. It may be quite an idiotic thing to do, but it's my choice to do so, no one else's.

Something that I keep forgetting along the way is that these buried layers are wholly unnecessary for a day-to-day understanding- They're only needed for the extremes, and the surface is good enough most of the time. I think this is a substantial fundamental difference between our views on the world, and may be the cause of many of our disagreements.

As for the debate, would you like to wrap it up so you can focus entirely on your studies? Your response to my last round of arguments, then closing statements should do, though I do understand if you'd just like to put it on hold.

The Romans didn't wipe out the Christians

Actually, they did. Read up on the Donatists, and if you want some nice bedtime reading, the Donatist Martyr Stories.

Basically, Rome killed all the Christians who didn't have a religious viewpoint sufficiently broad as to embrace the classically Roman political structure. The others turned over their sacred texts to the Romans and were eventually subsumed into the social and political fabric of Rome, where ambitious men used Christianity as the platform for their own ascendance. The last holdouts, faithful to the original Christian faith and unwilling to join the traitiori in handing over their texts in exchange for clemancy, were a North African people called the Donatists. All were eventually hunted down, tortured in a manner that even I find creative, and executed. Later, their point of view was declared heretical by . . . the Roman Church :)

I won't make you deal with Carthage or the Jewish kingdom prior to the razing of the temple/the scattering of the Jews as slaves by the Romans/the implantation of the ancestors of the Palestinians by the Romans into the Jews' old lands, but we all know these are perfect examples of how you can deal with a problematic nation state or people. The modern world does not, for the current time at least, condone the methods necessary to "wipe out" a problematic culture--but don't mistake that for the impossibility of doing so.

Excellent points, Lecter. I would counter by saying that the Catholics and Donatists were just as much having an internal power struggle between rival sects of Christianity, and that Carthage and the old kingdom of Israel, being nations, were a different matter altogether. The Christian faith remains, warped and fragmented as it may be, but the Roman nation is gone.

Interestingly, my research shows some of the Donatist beliefs made them exceptionally vulnerable as they could only make more Donatists as long as they had an unbroken chain of baptismals preformed by priests capable of giving valid sacraments. All baptismals preformed by a priest who was disqualified from giving sacraments were invalid under Donatist beliefs, and unbaptized people could not become priests. They catch-22'ed themselves out of existence by making replacements too difficult to obtain! It's hilarious!

That said, I do acknowledge the basic theory that a willingness to shed an unlimited quantity of blood would result in an end to most cultures. Today, it would be on a timescale possibly as short as ten minutes. Unfortunately, stooping so low leaves precious little time to enjoy victory before powers from within and without align to tear down what stands. Even you acknowledge that while Rome "won", it was leveraged by ambitious men so they could gain power over the current establishment, and that many Christians weren't wiped out as they accepted a compromise. Again, today, we'd only have about fifteen minutes to enjoy our victory before enough big red buttons are pressed to make it a universal draw. The ultimate experiment to determine if we are rational beings or reactive animals remains in progress.

IRS, you just made the case against your arguments:

"we'd only have about fifteen minutes to enjoy our victory before enough big red buttons are pressed to make it a universal draw"

That is how freedom is maintained at the point of a gun. As long as the U.S.A. is armed to the teeth, no one will dare try to take away our freedom; and if they do, well, we all know what happened to imperial Japan and Nazi Germany.