USS Enterprise sets out on its final mission

"A world without guns..."

Well, yes, and a world where chocolate ice cream falls from the sky promptly at 3pm every day is better than a world where it doesn't, and a water-fueled internal combustion engine would save me a lot of money getting to work every day. Does it matter?

Are there unicorns in your fantasy world?

A world without guns just means that those with muscle get to bully those without. Especially women.

The saying goes: God made men but Colonel Colt made them equal.

Hate to say this but...

Peace has always lived in the shadow of the sword.

Re: Curious

I believe the piracy threat referred to is that of international piracy. The US Coast Guard's mission concerns only US coastal waters not such places as the Strait of Malacca where Somalian piracy has been rampant.

Still, it's sad to see such a piece of history fall to the scrapheap rather than being preserved as one of the early milestones (for good or ill) of the nuclear age.

Re: Curious

the uk went bankrupt fighting WW2 which if you count stoping nazi and japanase expansion as protecting the empire then your point stands. After the war the various states were given full independance ( a number might have happened sooner were it not for the war)

Re: Curious

*The US seems to be following in spending more than half it's budget in military related expenses*

actually .. about 24% ... depending on what you consider *related* that is still something more than $700 billion and perhaps as much as $900 billion

in my mind WAY more than needed for defense .. though if Iran blocks the Straight of Hormus .. it's going to be the rest of the western world that will be happy that the US naval task forces are there to open them back up

Re: Curious

"The US seems to be following in spending more than half it's budget in military related expenses."

No - that would be for "entitlements" Medicare, Medicaid, and SS. DOD makes up less than 20% of the budget - and that was while we were still in IRAQ.

Re: Curious

@ Paul McClure: "I recall the UK went bankrupt by holding on to it's empire"

No we almost went bankrupt paying back the USA for assisting us in that little conflict called World War 2 - we only finally finished paying the bill in 2001. UK had war rationing until the mid 50s because the US Marshall Plan was only designed to help with reconstruction in the parts of Europe that LOST the war, not the parts that won it. There are still gaps in the buildings in Central London that were bombed by the Luftwaffe 70 years ago! (okay they are now used as car parks but the gaps are there because of German bombs)

Re: Graham Dawson & Paul McClure

"The UK went bankrupt fighting Germany whilst the US profited by selling the British old armaments at high prices. There's a reason the US came out of WWII far richer than when it went in."

Waaaaaaaah.... waaaaaah. Do I hear a child crying?

The UK went bankrupt trying to keep a colonial hold over most of the world.

The US came out of WWII with far higher output but much poorer than it went in. In particular, 400,000 Americans died because European countries like the UK first got into colonial rivalries, then slaughtered each other silly over them, completely made a hash out of the peace, went into a second bloody war and had to be rescued again by the US -- at great human cost -- for the second time in 30 years.

Then the US decided that the Europeans needed to be watched more closely -- we stayed to protect you from the commies -- and we've had 67 years of peace there.

Don't worry: Ingratitude and a desire to blame others for your own shortcomings are common character flaws.

You are welcome.

Re: Graham Dawson & Paul McClure

Roosevelt, unlike his WW1 predecessors, wasn't selling to both parties. Churchill was more than willing to hold off any involvement in Europe because the Soviets and Germans were killing each other off. While I don't blame him, in some respect, he was not helping to end the war. Roosevelt had to push Churchill to action in Europe, the U.S. being responsible for the taking western Europe back, not the English. You should also appreciate the fact that Roosevelt and Stalin had agreed on how Europe would be split, since the U.S. was in no position ot stop the Soviets if they decided to keep rolling west of Berlin. Getting our old equipment under lend/lease was about the best Roosevelt could do with a country that didn't really see the Nazi's as bad enough to go to war, a moral failing on the part of the U.S. Lend/lease also allowed the U.S. to pick a side in the war without 'technically' picking a side. Unfortunately, my country currently resorts to military actions due to poor long term political planning, so I don't this this aspect improving any time soon.

"Those pesky law things again. They ruin everyone's fun."

The trouble with western do-gooders is that one fundamental thing they fail to understand is that what they seen as being fair and even handed is interpreted as being weak. Somali pirates being caught and given a stern talking to don't go away hanging their heads in shame determined to behave better, they go away thinking the west is soft and weak and they can behave as they wish without any real consequence. You can extend this analogy to any number of other situations too.

Here in Britain we have the same problem in our classrooms on our streets. Our teachers have virtually no power to punish and consequently almost all our schools have major behavioural problems and on our streets the police are given virtually no respect and are made to do their jobs hamstrung by rules and regulations which make them almost powerless. I remember reading an interest blog during the London riots written by a Philipino guy living in the Philipines (but who had lived in London) saying he was astonished at how powerless and ineffective the UK police were after he'd been mugged. They were completely terrified of being accused of any number of things and were accordingly unwilling to investigate the crime despite the perpetraters (of Pakistani origin, according to the blogger) still being in the vacinity.

Rather than try to understand the naughty pirates and let them off with a warning, I wonder if a more effective deterent might be that the next time they are seen harrassing a merchant ship with AK47's and RPG's that the warship on the scene blows them out of the water. It would only take 2 or 3 such responses and the pirates would get the message.

Re: The WWII Enterprise was "The Enterprise"

I have to correct myself - the Saratoga too survived WWII, but was sunk in the atomic experiments around Bikini in 1946.