Does anyone ever ask Why?

If we stay out of it they will come here, that is the point. To keep them over there. Would you rather fight a battle in their nation or ours?

 

Thoughtful answer.

 

I'm all for a 50% reduction in military spending... once Social Security and Medicare are privatized. Those are the top three budget items, and we need central, federal socialist programs even less than we need the bloated defense budget.

Since the above is a pipe dream, crossover between government, including military, and private sector contractor employment/benefit should be strictly limited. No government employee or close family/friend should ever be able to transition to the private sector and then sell goods/services back to the government.

 

You mean other than the fact that it really didn't do crap because it by and large wasn't intended to do crap? Saving government Jobs you can't afford is not a good thing. And as I have repeatedly pointed out all that is necessary to reduce the deficit is to hold the growth in spending rate to less than the amount of economic growth

 

I disliked the hell out of it over there.

 

I thought these were two very good answers to your question.

Imagine for a minute that 9/11 had happened just like it did, only in UK, France, or Germany. And the only way to retaliate was to singly invade Afghanistan, overthrow the taliban government, kill and chase Al Qaeda, and hang around in the area for a decade, eventually finding the primary perpetrator of the 9/11 attack - Osama bin Laden - in a neighboring country, and then launching an elite commando group to assault his home, kill him, and bring his body out, move it to a navy ship and dump his carcass into the ocean.

No chance.

That's a lot of "don't f-ck with us", and it does cost money.

That, and everything Spooky and Dayton3 said.

Seth

 

But we can't afford Heathcare for our Citizens !!

It's all about Big Business making money.

After the Huge Wealth Shift Legislation. Now Congress needs to fill the Tax Coffers by cutting help to the old and poor.

Bring on the 2018 Elections !!!

 

Since I have yet to read, coming from the Democrats, any actual added cost figures for such a parade in DC, keep in mind what DC amounts to. DC is the abode of the president along with the congress and the court highest system.

It is not as if Trump wants tanks roaming the streets of Los Angeles, New York City and Miami plus other cities.

All he is asking is a parade to honor our military be presented proudly in the small area called DC. My town for instance per size is 9.3 times larger than DC. And that includes homes in DC. We have 232,000 living here so we are not an appropriate city for such a parade.

DC is such a site. Now about the troops? We have thousands of troops around the DC area. VA has thousands. It is something the nation would take notice to.

Why did women go to DC to march? Why not march in Kansas City?

A military parade says to me, we have a good military and we are proud.

Trump wants to make us proud again.

All this caterwauling it is a lousy idea is by people with no pride.

 

Wait a moment. Who do you want to pay for your well being? Does this include feeding you nutritious food? Should government vehicles pull up at your home with your food to make sure you do not drink nor eat food deemed not very good for you? Isn't what you eat part of your personal commitment to health? What about going back to doctors forced to see patients at their homes? We had a nation once that the doctors sold their services to you at home. The idea you had to drive the wagon or ride the horse 40 miles was not thinkable. Doctors rode the rounds.

There is nothing the matter with business making money. Do you see money as finite? While it does have some limits, in general the government is the supplier of currency and prints what is needed so none of us need go empty as to having money.

Back in the days, it was our own George Washington who had at the time so much money he would today be called our 51st richest man in America were his wealth shown today. I heard that at Mt. Vernon from one of the volunteers who guide the tours.

So what did Washington do wrong?

Being rich is no disease. Being poor is attitude. When you do not want more than you have today, it is up to you to want more. Democrats pride themselves on not wanting more. They pride themselves on taking from others and using it to their personal benefit. This is one reason i quit the Democratic party. I got sick of approving theft.

 

One of the reasons the west will lose someday. All war is terrorism, and the civil population need to suffer to change its mind. Up to 1946 western leadership understood this. But the public found it shocking. And rather uncivilized.

It is the old trope, we can educate our enemies into peace. Invade Iraq and we will be treated as heroes - and democracy will flourish.

Lovely idea, and I really wished it worked.

But it doesn't. For every person changed by argument to your view, how many double down on stupidity? Ten? Fifty? One hundred?

For too many, only overwhelming fear will subdue a population. And only death will change a mind.

 

In Iraq, what did they have prior to Saddam being conquered by General Tommy Franks?
Iraq did vote. So long as they voted for Saddam Hussein. That is not really what is meant by voting.

Face facts. Saddam Hussein virtually owned Iraq as his personal fiefdom.

Franks busted up his party. Franks put Iraq on notice that they would now get the opportunity to actually vote for whom they wanted.

Democracy is people voting on all issues. Republics are like America where we do not use democracy, we use republicanism. We send representatives in other words.

Saddam was terrible for Iraq. Have they made better choices as leaders? We know so little about their state leaders, their city leaders and the rest it is difficult to say .... but they voted for the leaders.

We never at any stage selected their leaders. Some in America claim we did, but never have they proved it. They keep deciding for themselves who runs Iraq. We may not like who they pick, but they do pick,

 

No one should need a parade like that. It is completely irrational.

 

Well, you submitted your vote. It cancelled mine out. But I believe my case is entirely rational.

 

This is the sort of question that usually leaves Trumpsters ranting and deflecting.

Donald Trump's every move has servied to alienate our allies and friends and encourage our rivals.

Trump has retreated from the responibility of world leadership.

And modern Republican politicians, pundits, and posters on this forum talk about world affairs in terms that would sound familiar to 1920's vintage isolationists. Parochialism and xenophobia rule on the right. Fearmongering is a staple of conservative media.

So, if it is the be the policy of the United States to abandon the legacy of Churchill and Roosevelt, and return to the politics of Harding, whether we need an outsized military is a legitimate question.

If our foreign policy is going to be that of Harding and Cooldige, our military spending ought to be on a similar plane.

 

Actually who is doing the ranting? Read the above.

 

As the world centre of capitalism, the US has been able to give its mugs a few more pennies than others can, so they vote this crap to keep their masters happy.

 

To not have pride in your country or military unless they put on a little show for you? No, that's completely irrational, and frankly insulting. A good military should be a sign of a good military to you, rationally speaking. You shouldn't substitute reason for entertainment.

Also, we don't live in the same state. Our votes did not "cancel out."

 

Almost all of our citizens have access to health care. That huge wealth shift will move in the direction of people working for a living. Happens everytime unemployment drops this low.

The expanding economy will fill the coffers just fine. And government costs will decline as fewer and fewer will need government assistance to survive.

 

You still do not get it. There is no unless. Democrats pride themselves on running down America. I with enormous pride endorse my nation and though Democrats run my state in a terrible fashion, I love this state. But not the state government.

We do not want the only evidence of our military to be reports of war. We need them to also appear to be part of our arm devoted to peace.

I was saying you canceled me out as a metaphor. You and I shall never have a vote even were we in the same state.

 

Then take it up with a Democrat.

Any informed person is already aware of that aspect of our military. We don't need a circus for that.

Yes, purely symbolic and just meant for show . . . like a parade.

 

No they vote these blessing because they are happy and because more and more are beginning to understand that real prosperity is not a creation of government, rather it is that which government bleeds and if the government bleeds it too much, as in Venezuela it will cease to be and everyone suffers.

 

Right wingers here (including right on this thread) insist that we need a gigantic outsized and fiscally unaccountable military.

Then, out of the other side of their mouths, insist that we abandon our commitments to world leadership. Trump has denigrated NATO, the UN, abandoned the TPP and the Paris Accords, and openly mused more countries gaining nuclear weapons, and about the US not taking the lead on regional security issues; all to the cheers of his parochial and narrow minded base.

 

The U.S. military is barely more than half the size it was at the end of the Cold War. IIRC our army is only the 17th largest in the world.

 

Much domestic crime is terrorism also. For instance, the six young thugs who invaded a house preoccupied with watching the super bowl in Moss Point, MS. They killed a 60-year-old black man homeowner, and roughed up and robbed everybody else in the house.

All of the victims are so afraid of the gang that none will give a statement to police. That's terrorism.

The USA is becoming a nation of lawlessness, on the way to becoming a shithole like Mexico.

All the while the MSM and the left hate law and order, hate police.

 

I find it very intresting that I noted that Trump and the far right's decent into isolationism and generally giving the world the finger stands in sharp contrast to thier insistance on huge military spending.

I pointed out that the two ideas are diametrically opposed, which is obvious.

I got two responses from far right wingers, both of whom tried to ignore the point. Which is what happens when two ideas contradict one another and cognitive dissonance sets in.