Okay. Forget the tax. Straight-up tribute instead.

[Andrew D]

If the US were to require payment for the service which it provides, it would still be the most benign superpower the world has ever seen.

It would not be, like the British Empire, the biggest slave-trader the world has ever seen.

It would not be, like the Roman Empire, maintained by terror and torture.

It would simply be no longer taken advantage of by the beneficiaries of its largesse.

[Andrew D]

Okay, a US Navy ship is old and worn out.

(And let's not confuse ourselves. The USS Essex in question is an amphibious assault ship. The former aircraft carrier USS Essex was decommissioned and sold for scrap decades ago.)

That does not change the essential -- Essexential? -- facts: The US Navy rules the high seas. The US Navy protects international shipping (not to be confused with disputes over fishing rights in international waters) for everyone, even for nations which consider the US "the Great Satan".

Funny how they don't find us quite so satanic when we're plucking their drowning sailors out of the ocean ....

[Lord Jim]

Funny how they don't find us quite so satanic when we're plucking their drowning sailors out of the ocean ....

But of course The Mad Emperor's proposal is that we cause mass drownings....

[Andrew D]

Actually, the proposal is that we avoid them.

Ever going to back up your accusations?

Nah.

I didn't think so.

Nor did anyone else.

[Lord Jim]

Other countries pay the US whatever the US is pleased to command them to pay, and the US allows them passage in international waters. They decline to pay, and their ships end up at the bottom of the ocean.

[Andrew D]

And if they do not decline to pay, no one ends up drowning.

Ooh! I can do the big-text thing too! Ooh!

Got anything to say yet about your lies?

Able yet to put up something to substantiate them?

Nah.

I didn't think so.

[Lord Jim]

[Andrew D]

Still nothing.

Still not even an attempt to support the accusation.

Just nothing.

Just as in bed. Nothing.

[Lord Jim]

[Andrew D]

Still waiting for a straight answer to a straight question:

Lay out my words -- my exact, directly quoted words -- and state the basis of your claim that those words are dishonest.

He won't. because he can't.