6 ms·

"The Administration does not support blowing up planets." I guess we're going to have to wait until the Republicans are back in the executive branch.

anewguy99 14y ago
Unless its Chuck Hagel or Rand Paul.
mscarborough 14y ago
So many things to say, but really not the right forum. Sigh. I laughed at this, it's a fun and smart response targeted to a sub-community that barely broke the threshold to get that response. But let's be real. If your standard of 'blowing up the planet' is somewhat lesser than 'the Republicans'...it might make you feel better to say it but history shows both of them are plenty happy dropping bombs for no justifiable reason.
- pekk 14y ago
  I am afraid that history doesn't show that we wage wars "for no justifiable reason".
  - jackpirate 14y ago
    How about the Mexican-American war, where US soldiers crossed the Mexican border, Mexican troops chased them away, the US decided this was a Mexican invasion, the US declared war, then we took the entire South-Eastern United States from Mexico. All because WE invaded THEM first.
    - btilly 14y ago
      Ah, but it was the Manifest Destiny of the USA to conquer North America and Mexico happened to be in the way. How much more justification do you need? (Note, I grew up in Canada, which became a single country for mutual defense in case the USA wanted to repeat the incident on its northern border. Details are a bit more complicated than that, but that is the gist of it.)
  - lostlogin 14y ago
    One can justify anything. However narrowing that statement to "for difficult to justify reasons" leads to list of wars likely in double figures.
  - mscarborough 14y ago
    How about the most recent US-Iraq war? The one justified by "OMG WMDs and Al-Qaeda", and a vial of scary stuff waved around at the UN by our Secretary of State? Merely saying a few things and seeing what might stick in order to justify your actions doesn't automatically qualify them as justified or reasoned.
spoiledtechie 14y ago
I know its a political site, but please stay away from politics as shown in the guidelines. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
jerf 14y ago
"Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe. "You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world. "Fools. "The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy." - Sam Hughes, "How to destroy the Earth" - http://qntm.org/destroy http://qntm.org/destroy
- dinkumthinkum 14y ago
  I think when people say "destroy the Earth" they are talking more about it's habitability than what a Death Star can do.
  - sneak 14y ago
    Indeed they are, which is why I asked about _that_ on Quora some time ago: http://www.quora.com/Is-it-technically-possible-for-current-human-technology-to-permanently-destroy-the-biosphere-of-Earth-Why-or-why-not http://www.quora.com/Is-it-technically-possible-for-current-... Solving it quite literally requires boiling the ocean.
  - ceol 14y ago
    Well, it recovered pretty well after a 6 mile wide rock going millions of miles per hour hit it right in the face and cause one of the biggest extinction events in its history. If that didn't destroy its habitability for good, I'm not sure we'd be able to do it.
    - autotravis 14y ago
      > "If that didn't destroy its habitability for good, I'm not sure we'd be able to do it." But we sure can make it a lot more miserable to live on.
baddox 14y ago
Cute, but excessively and erroneously partisan.

anewguy99 14y ago

Unless its Chuck Hagel or Rand Paul.

mscarborough 14y ago

So many things to say, but really not the right forum. Sigh. I laughed at this, it's a fun and smart response targeted to a sub-community that barely broke the threshold to get that response. But let's be real. If your standard of 'blowing up the planet' is somewhat lesser than 'the Republicans'...it might make you feel better to say it but history shows both of them are plenty happy dropping bombs for no justifiable reason.

pekk 14y ago
I am afraid that history doesn't show that we wage wars "for no justifiable reason".
- jackpirate 14y ago
  How about the Mexican-American war, where US soldiers crossed the Mexican border, Mexican troops chased them away, the US decided this was a Mexican invasion, the US declared war, then we took the entire South-Eastern United States from Mexico. All because WE invaded THEM first.
  - btilly 14y ago
    Ah, but it was the Manifest Destiny of the USA to conquer North America and Mexico happened to be in the way. How much more justification do you need? (Note, I grew up in Canada, which became a single country for mutual defense in case the USA wanted to repeat the incident on its northern border. Details are a bit more complicated than that, but that is the gist of it.)
- lostlogin 14y ago
  One can justify anything. However narrowing that statement to "for difficult to justify reasons" leads to list of wars likely in double figures.
- mscarborough 14y ago
  How about the most recent US-Iraq war? The one justified by "OMG WMDs and Al-Qaeda", and a vial of scary stuff waved around at the UN by our Secretary of State? Merely saying a few things and seeing what might stick in order to justify your actions doesn't automatically qualify them as justified or reasoned.

spoiledtechie 14y ago

I know its a political site, but please stay away from politics as shown in the guidelines. http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html http://ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

jerf 14y ago

"Destroying the Earth is harder than you may have been led to believe. "You've seen the action movies where the bad guy threatens to destroy the Earth. You've heard people on the news claiming that the next nuclear war or cutting down rainforests or persisting in releasing hideous quantities of pollution into the atmosphere threatens to end the world. "Fools. "The Earth is built to last. It is a 4,550,000,000-year-old, 5,973,600,000,000,000,000,000-tonne ball of iron. It has taken more devastating asteroid hits in its lifetime than you've had hot dinners, and lo, it still orbits merrily. So my first piece of advice to you, dear would-be Earth-destroyer, is: do NOT think this will be easy." - Sam Hughes, "How to destroy the Earth" - http://qntm.org/destroy http://qntm.org/destroy

dinkumthinkum 14y ago
I think when people say "destroy the Earth" they are talking more about it's habitability than what a Death Star can do.
- sneak 14y ago
  Indeed they are, which is why I asked about _that_ on Quora some time ago: http://www.quora.com/Is-it-technically-possible-for-current-human-technology-to-permanently-destroy-the-biosphere-of-Earth-Why-or-why-not http://www.quora.com/Is-it-technically-possible-for-current-... Solving it quite literally requires boiling the ocean.
- ceol 14y ago
  Well, it recovered pretty well after a 6 mile wide rock going millions of miles per hour hit it right in the face and cause one of the biggest extinction events in its history. If that didn't destroy its habitability for good, I'm not sure we'd be able to do it.
  - autotravis 14y ago
    > "If that didn't destroy its habitability for good, I'm not sure we'd be able to do it." But we sure can make it a lot more miserable to live on.

baddox 14y ago

Cute, but excessively and erroneously partisan.