I'm sorry if I'm being ignorant, but I don't honestly remember. Would you be so kind as to remind me when a war has been the only option, or even the only sensible option? I'm mainly talking about the attacker's perspective, since defense is pretty much always the only sensible option when someone's attacking you.

I was going to mention this. The Reagan Admististrations response to the AIDS epideminc was criminally negligent.

Yes. Yes, they did. A bad one. People were dying like flies. Many of them misrable in pain and alone without any help because hospitals would refuse to treat them. And the Reagan administration stood by doing nothing for large parts of it, presumably because it was predominantly gay people dying at first. They only started funding research when Rock Hudson, Reagans close personal friend died of it, years into the epidemic and even then the governmental response was slow and insufficient. They even decreased funding several times during the height of the epidemic.

Advances in AIDS reseach and treatment, during the time were largely driven by doctors and activists from within the gay community trying to understand and cure what was wasting them away. Most of the early research was privately funded. While there probably was no way of preventing HIV from getting into the national blood supply, suffcient research into the cause of GRID as AIDS was known at the time could have lead to effective tests faster and protected thousands from getting infected. It was gay activists who first outlined and promoted what we know today as 'safe sex'. They single-handedly brought the condom industry back into full swing. The governement meanwhile had no official guideline on risk-behaviours or cause of AIDS.

A single pamphlet called 'How to have sex in an epidemic' (penned by gay AIDS victims) drastically brought down infection rates of various STDs in gay men by as much as 90% within weeks. This shows how a more swift response from the government with proper research-funding and information on risk-behavious could have prevented lots of new infections and saved countless of lives. And this is not even taking any kind of research into life-prolonging measurements or even a cure into account.

So yeah, the Reagan administration did huge damage there. Just from a standpoint of desease control their response was catastrophic. But then again, there is no real guarantee that a democratic/non Reagan republican administration would have reacted much different. There was no gay friendly party really, until one of the activists got into a shouting match with Bill Clinton, making him promise that he would take the epidemic and research into a cure head-on if he got into office.

Alkibiádēs said: KingofTrolls said: 1. Soviet Union economy was 2nd in the world, Russia is 5th ( European Union is a mix of European Countries ) List by the International Monetary Fund (Estimates for 2016)[4] List by the CIA World Factbook (1993–2015)[6] Rank Country GDP (millions of Int$)    World 119,097,427 1  China 21,269,331 —  European Union[n 1] 19,748,883 2  United States 18,562,129 3  India 8,720,758 4  Japan 4,932,102 5  Germany 3,979,664 6  Russia 3,745,081 7  Brazil 3,134,247 8  Indonesia 3,027,746 9  United Kingdom 2,787,748 10  France 2,736,378 11  Mexico 2,227,17 2. South Korea is 13th. 3. The consumption of alcohol in Russia is decreasing.Yes, it is a problem, but not as important as u want it to be. 4. No, simple the punishment for 1st time , non serious home violence is soften, they have 360 mandatory hours of work instead of immediately prison etc. The rest is the same. And yes, Eastern Europe in general is homophobic. This simple doesnt fit us. 5. GDP per capita ? Quatar, u are the very best economy, true glory of humankind. Lmao, India is third on that list and that's practically a third world country.

Practically? It is a 3rd world country.

This. Jesus I remember the stories my parents told me how bad it was in the 80s. Wasn't as bad within Canada, but a lot of people died.

Nah just logic something the ill left is incapable of handling.  

Clinton was in favor of a syrian no flyzone potentialy getting into a shooting war when Russia says fuck that we own these skies.

Its Trump being elected that kileld any chance of that happening.  

No, u are not ignorant - the simple fact that u are asking = u r not ignorant. I'm not native English speaker so the rest of my post may be a deep mess, but i will try to show u another point of view.

The rest of ur post - if I see it correctly - is like " there is no justification for war, never ever ". Sadly, all of the biggest and most famous civilizations on this planet were created only by conquer and wars. All of them, Roman Empire, Soviet Union, USA, British Empire etc. The one who won wars created a country, later the empire, the ones who lost their wars vanish. 

U are asking me where war was the only sensible option - everytime when the challengers do not get high enough place in the world order, that they deserves thanks to theirs military,economy,etc power. 

In the spirit of this thread I would like to encourage all doomsayers to politely hand over their wealth to me for safe protection, after all you don't need it if the world comes to an end.

That is actually because they didn't get to set the doomsday clock during the Cuba crisis before the whole thing was solved and Soviet had removed the threat...

WHAT? Are you serious?

People were shot when they tried to flee to the West, Journalists, Artists and everybody else who spoke his opinion was send to work camps and were never seen again. There was no Opposition, just one political party to vote for who won with 90% or above.

What the hell of this was better than the freedom to go everywhere we want anytime we want, express anything we want without fear for our lifes?

Thinking anything in Russia is more democratic than we have in the West is an agenda or fiction but not true. I would dare standing in Berlin and shouting "Merkel is a bitch". Would you dare standing on the Red Place and shout "Putin is a bitch"? Who do you think of us two will have a longer life?

Science is under the chains of a very particular agenda right now. Not to fear. This is the last year of George Soros and, hopefuly, his friends and followers will understand his ideas where poison and thus leave scientists to do real science, not this fear porn circle jerking.