[Tom Doniphon]

First they protest U.S. military practice on one of their islands. We stop and the Naval Base there is probably going to be closed. It is estimated that up to $300 million annually will be pulled out of their economy. Now the idiots are accusing the U.S. of closing the base out of spite.
:D :D :D :D :D :D :D :D

[Mike Irwin]

Roosevelt Roads is going to be closed? I hadn't heard that.

Oh well, if they're not using Vieques as a target range, what's the point in having a naval base there in the first place?

[LostOneToo]

What a shame!!!! Hope they all starve to death. They'll probably apply for some type of govt(U.S.) subsidy now that they got what they wanted....:neener:

[Tom Doniphon]

Legislation should come up in 3 or 4 months to close the naval station. Votes are there in both the house and senate to close. They interviewed one of the protestors of Vieques and asked if they had not thought out the possibility of closing the base. "Yes but we didn't think they would do it."



:what: :what: :what: :what:

[4v50 Gary]

Oakland (Congresscritter Ron Dellums) & the liberals of the SF Bay Area screamed about the US military presence. SF Bay Area was slated to be the home port of the Pacific Fleet. The Pacific Fleet stayed at San Diego instead. Virtually all the military bases in SF Bay Area closed down and millions of Fed $ with it. Awwwwww. They got their cake and didn't like it. :)

[Duncan Idaho]

[NELSON LAUGH]HA-HA![/NELSON LAUGH]
Screw P.R., screw San Francisco, and screw liberals!

[HBK]

What Duncan said.

[0007]

I love it when a plan comes together...:D

[NIGHTWATCH]

Hope they all starve to death

Now thats a real ignorant thing to say. :mad: There are MANY conservative PR'S who wanted to see that base remain in service. Many who supported its presence and who were proud of it. :fire:

[RepublicanMan]

Those whining maggots down there want all the priveledges and none of the responsilities of US Citizenship. They've had ample opportunity to join and consistently choose to remain aloof. All well and good, it's their right after all, but I'll be damned if we should foot the bill to keep them fat and happy. Let them eat cake, or whatever it is they eat down there.

[Waitone]

I hope, I hope, I hope the same media outlets that gave the PR nationalists and enviro-nazis face time to push their case get a return engagement to discuss why such an economic bomb could have occurred.

I would love to see someone pin Robert Kennedy Jr. to the wall asking him how he feels about destroying the economic life of so many people. Opps, silly me. He's an environmentalists and a rich one at that. He has no dog in the fight. He only pimps for dog owners.

[Glock Glockler]

When are we going to cut Puerto Rico loose? They're officially a US territory, why? We have no need of them, especially now that we're not bombing them.

Let them go on their own and be done with it.

[4v50 Gary]

We should cut SF & the Bay Area loose too.

[Sactown]

....not to mention Los Angeles as well.

[Hkmp5sd]

They aren't screaming too loud. If the base is closed, they want it handed over to the government there free of charge. Several congressmen have already said that if they think they can benefit from killing the bombing range by having several billion $$$ worth and land and buildings handed over to them free of charge, they are nuts.

[NIGHTWATCH]

Those whining maggots down there want all of the priveleges and none of the responsabilities that come with US citizenship
Hey RepublicanMan!, and anybody else who follows his line of thought. This is the alleged problem with your party, your ignorant! :mad:

Responsabilities of US citizenship? Tell that to the over 65,000 PR'S who served and died in WWII. Not to mention Korea and Vietnam. :mad:

The island is split over statehood but what does that tell you? Half is in favor. Half want to join the union. Its comments like yours that give the LEFTISTS in PR the loadest voice! :fire:

[Art Eatman]

Y'all either go back and clean up your posts, or this thread is gonna disappear.

Art

[Keith]

Hey now, you probably wouldn't want a bombing range in your back yard either! I consider myself a patriot, but if somebody decided to use half the island I live on as a bombing range, I'd want a say in the matter - and I'd vote "no".
It's too bad the looney left got all wrapped up in the issue, because it obscures the very real problem. Vieques is a very small island (I've been there) and they have no chance to develop any tourism or industry as long as they are a bombing range. And nobody ever asked their permission to build the darned thing! The range employs perhaps a hundred people (at most) and everyone else on the island is screwed.

Vieques is maybe thirty miles from St. Croix. What is the value of an acre of land in St. Croix? In Vieques? How many tourists fly to St. Croix and drop thousands of dollars? How many fly to Vieques?

Do you see the issue? Do property rights mean anything?

Alaska has about a thousand completely uninhabited islands out in the Aleutian chain. I'm sure we can work something out!


Keith

[Byron Quick]

Alaska has about a thousand completely uninhabited islands out in the Aleutian chain. I'm sure we can work something out!

Yep, and what would the cost to the Navy be for just getting there to train? Out of every training dollar available, how much would be eaten just in transport not in training? How many days annually would be lost due to inclement weather, etc.

[Keith]

Why would it cost more for the navy to sail to the Aleutians from the west coast, than to Vieques from the east coast? Look at a map.

It really doesn't matter, anyway. You are missing the point!

The point is that in a free society, citizens have rights. One of those rights is is termed "Property Rights". We have a situation here where the government (at some point) decided their POWER to use this island as bombing range superceded the RIGHT of the people that live on the island to use their own property as they see fit. And the people of Vieques ARE American citizens!

And I point out again; if the government (or even a private corporation) built a noisy, smelly operation adjacent to your house that drove the property value to zip, and destroyed the local economy to boot, would you complain? I would.

This is the situation there. They can't build hotels or resorts (or any other sort of economic infrastructure) because nobody in their right minds would vacation or invest capital there.

Keith

[Byron Quick]

Nope, didn't miss your point. Agree with it, in fact. Go back and look at the thread. I said absolutely nothing relating to the situation on Vieques.

[Destructo6]

It would be pretty difficult for the Atlantic fleet to hop on over to Alaska for some live fire on their way to a Med cruise. That's not to mention the weather problems.

"Not in my back yard" is pretty damn selfish. We have China Lake, Camp Pendleton, Edwards, San Clemente, etc here in CA and I wish we had more.
And I point out again; if the government (or even a private corporation) built a noisy, smelly operation adjacent to your house that drove the property value to zip, and destroyed the local economy to boot, would you complain? I would.
More like it was there 50 years before you built your house next to it and then complained. Last I checked the military hasn't been really active in establishing new bases.

[Keith]

Rights is rights. The adjacent property IS devalued by the firing range and the government should do as these people wish. People lived on the island long before there was a firing range and nobody ever asked them for permission. If they had - if there had been some kind referendum which they (or their parents) had voted on, then I'd tell them pack sand! It never happened and that range destroys any chance these CITIZENS have to build an economy.

I don't hear anyone else on the east coast volunteering to host a firing range. Why do you think that is?

I know this presents a problem for the navy on the east coast, but hey, they'll have to deal with it somehow.

Keith

[Hkmp5sd]

Amusing.

On one hand, the bombing is killing their property value and they want it to stop. Ok, they stopped. Now that the military cannot use the bombing range, there is no reason to maintain a US military base at that location, so they are going to shut it down.

Ooops. The locals don't want to lose the $300,000,000 in revenue the base puts into their economy each year. They just wanted the bombing to stop. Too bad. Enjoy the peace and quiet.

[Keith]

I think you guys are missing something here!

The navy base (Roosevelt Roads) is NOT on Vieques! It's over on the main island of Puerto Rico. That base did not benefit the people of Vieques in any way.
If we don't need the base now that Vieques is closed, then we should shut it down. The purpose of the military is national defense, not pork.

As far as I'm concerned, the people of Puerto Rico proper, shouldn't have had a word to say about bombing in Vieques. It didn't affect them or their property.

Keith

[RepublicanMan]

Nightwatch, if you'RE going to take the time to type and call me names, at least use proper grammar, mmmmmk????

I stand by what I said, they want all the rights and priveledges and not the responsibilities. Prove me wrong, let them start paying taxes like the rest of the patriots that served and died in WW II. (to use your example)

[Keith]

Citizenship isn't based on paying taxes.

When you hear about government cutting off water that has irrigated farms for generations, in order to protect some endangered crawly thing in a lake, doesn't that bother you?

This thing in Vieques is quite similar. The government has rolled over the rights of these people for two generations. It's just wrong, period.

Weirdly, it's usually we conservatives who stand up and fight for property rights and against government interference, while the lefties favor government raping the landowners. Yet, in this case it is the left that has stood up for the people and against the gubmint... I find that odd, but it is a fact. Me and Al Sharpton stand with arms linked on this issue - retch, gag, aaaaarrrrrgghhhhh!!!!!

Keith

[NIGHTWATCH]

I dont have to prove you wrong, you did it for me. I already said that the vote for statehood came up just short of what was needed. PR is a democracy. Statehood will come eventually.

As far as my grammar? Goooo jUmmmP..offfff aaaaaa DeEp cLifFFFFFF....hows that? ;)

[benewton]

They asked for, got support for, and, finally, closed the only, as I remember the debate, east coast live fire training range for the Navy/Marines. So, they now have their quiet island, although I suspect that they'll also want EOD to get rid of the duds.


Now, having no reason to go there, or need for local support after the range closure, the Navy shuts down their local base.

Makes sense to me, since, somehow, the job has to be done, and that's gotta mean another base, or large scale base reconstruction, somewhere else, and that's where the money will go.


That a local economy, small or large, is effected by the removal of a significant portion of external revenue is obvious. That they voted, and obtained support by a large number of idiots, to rid their lands of the reason for the Navy to go there is clear, so we now have to hear moaning about the loss of external funds injected into their economy?

Look, they now have to deal with the consequences of their actions.
And their problem is???

Our problem is not that they suffer, since they voted for it, but how we get the necessary training done, in the most efficient manner possible, ensuring that our troops get trained to the highest standards, thus "giving" them the best chance to stay alive in environments tailored to make them dead.

As for the PR's, I'd suggest they research the previous food crops grown there.

[SodaPop]

I wish they'd open up the old Philadelphia Navy yard again. They could bomb Camden for all I care.

[benewton]

I'd suggest NYC as a tactical training/nuclear weapons test site.

NJ should be reserved for strategic weapons testing.

[Don Gwinn]

That's about enough of that. Maybe I've been dealing with seven-year-old boys too long, but I've lost all patience for people who don't have the sense to accept a friendly warning to knock off behavior they already know they shouldn't be perpetrating in the first place.

1. No Personal Attacks. Ever.

2. When a Moderator asks nicely that personal attacks cease, rather than simply banning the guilty parties so the thread can continue, it is much smarter to stop posting personal attacks than to hurry to get in one last lick.

3. When Art Eatman speaks, I listen with respect. This is not a requirement of membership; I simply offer it as helpful advice.