I'm on a poll kick, tonight...

We spend more on militarism than the next 13 largest countries... combined...
We are 5% of the world,... and we are 41% of the worlds spending on military...
We're walkin' into the bar,... 6'-5", 320,... with an AK,... and a nuke...  (and there's an aircraft carrier parked in the lot)... (surrounded by battleships)...(7 drones hover overhead)...
...

Now,... hey... I get it... we're no.1!....
... but, what if we just spent double of what any other country spends?...
(I mean,... if I was twice the size of some a-hole,... I'd feel pretty good about my odds)...

Show me yer' vote... ...

Maybe someone can dumb this down for me or set me in my place but...

I am fine with having a military.
I am fine with weapons development.
I don't like a large standing army.
I don't see why we spend so much in foreign aid with people in the US dying of starvation and stricken with poverty.
We are not the world police.


--Steve

It's about the money.  All of that military money is going people who do *NOT* want the military reduced.  They killed JFK, and every President since knew/knows if they want to live.

srinath wrote on 01/08/13 at 08:11:42:


You are not familiar/experienced with how a war works then.

Very difficult question actually. This country needs to cut expenses. We have wandered places where we should not go. But for the most part adults are just older children. Remember "King of the Hill" (the game, not the TV show). For the most part all the other kids work together to take out the one so that person on top had better be awfully strong.

Now I know a whole lot of people will say we dont need to be the King. In fact we should just all be equal. But that is not how human nature works. Someone will be King of the Hill. So let me ask a new question. Givin the perameter I have set. Who do you want to be the King of the hill?

I voted double... and would settle for much less. We have become the world police and spend government dollars "for american interest" meaning to protect oil.  never beem for it... money or no... just not what I believe we should be about.  Close most of the off soil, bases.. close most of the state side bases.

We proved in WWII, its not the army you have... is the productivity to build the army you need.  We have put it backwards since... the army we have is destryoing the productivity we could have to ramp up ( a new army) in the future.  Swiss has it right.

srinath wrote on 01/08/13 at 08:11:42:

+ 1

Paladin is right about the money going to powerful folks who want the military machine to keep chugging.  They supply all the aircraft, tanks, ships, boats, guns, ammunition, radar, sonar, and various other equipment that keeps the machine doing its thing.  Now they've even expanded to outsourcing other stuff like transport, chow halls, and most likely black ops too.  It's big business; 711 billion dollars a year big.  The Chinese came in number two spending 143 billion.  They don't have the same capabilities we do (yet), but they also realize it's a lot cheaper to steal technology than to invent and develop it.