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On January 06 2011 13:59 Superiorwolf wrote:
Okay I can understand the last part of your earlier post now, but I still don't think it is a viable argument. Certainly, the Wikileaks cables did reveal that there was evidence of WMDs in Iraq afaik, but it still is questionable as to why we continued to stay there after we found no WMDs. If anything, US Army presence instigates further violence in the area from the Taliban/Al-Qaeda, and I'm glad we're finally withdrawing slowly but it's something we should have done a long time ago. I don't think it's in the business of America to continue acting imperialistic with all these wars, meddling in the business of other nations only gets more people hostile towards America. We should instead focus on the domestic sector and improving life at home, whether that means creating new jobs with green technology (aka a way to reduce our dependence on oil) or reducing our ever-increasing federal debt.
Don't start this. This is another topic. Stay on point.
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On January 06 2011 13:53 furymonkey wrote:
USA is much richer than rest of the world
ask china
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Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't.
Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not.
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What saddens me about the budget debates, is that everyone in both parties are ignoring the single biggest budget problem facing us in the future: the aging demographic of the United States. Improvements in medicine have meant that we live longer then ever, but do not work proportionately longer. People are having less children, and people are entering the work force much later due to the increased educational requirements of a technologically advanced society.
What this means is that we have a big social security crisis coming, as receipts will be vastly less then expenditures. Both parties are paralyzed be special interest blocks that seem only interested in preserving the status quo. Pre-9/11 Bush Jr. actually tried reforming it and was met by stiff resistance and failure. Obama has not even tried to approach the topic. There are a number of great ways to approach the problem but no-one will even talk about them for fear of losing the senior vote(and the senior vote is huge, they vote disproportionally in elections because they do not have jobs and young children to take up their time.
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On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't.
Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not.
Yeah.
I mean the point is we have tons of shit. If we don't have substantial military to back that up we're a prime target for blackmail/implied threat of attack.
Lots of the defense budget is going to having tons of people on the ground overseas which is bad, but the notion we should have the same defense budget as sweden per capita is preposterous. Fine for sweden. USA is a bit of a larger target...
The world isn't fluffy and happy: military might still plays a role.
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On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't.
Did anyone claim that we are? Or are you just arguing with yourself?
Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not.
Did anyone propose that we stop all military spending? We are discussing the amount of military spending, not the concept of it existing entirely. You seem desperately confused over the topic of debate.
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On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war.
"The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world.
I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ.
Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt.
I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic.
And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >>
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On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't.
Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not.
Agreed, but we don't need the level we have now. We outspend the entire rest of the industrialized world 2 to 1.
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On January 06 2011 14:01 poor newb wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:53 furymonkey wrote:
USA is much richer than rest of the world ask china
GDP per capita(PPP) numbers, 2010:
6 United States 47,123
93 China, People's Republic of 7,518
The US is indeed much richer then China. Chinas growth rate is quite high, but the US is much, much richer, exceeding China in both GDP per capita, and gross GDP by huge margins. In fact the only countries "richer" then the united states are micro-states/Norway(which is basically a micro state by population).
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On January 06 2011 13:52 Lefnui wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies.. Again, please learn the definition of the word socialist and then get back to us.
Edit:
My friend informs me that I'm actually still wrong and that entitlements are in fact socialist in that they offer a uniform option to everyone controlled by the gov't, and that they are essentially a "gov't option" whereby the industry is partially controlled by the gov't being involved.
It's not pure socialist it's mixed.
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On January 06 2011 14:04 Gentleman7 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't.
Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not. Agreed, but we don't need the level we have now. We outspend the entire rest of the industrialized world 2 to 1.
Again, china and russia are definitely not disclosing their entire budgets.
There was some report that found that, I'll try and dig it up.
We should cut funding by stopping our deployments, not by lessening our defense at home.
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On January 06 2011 14:03 Lefnui wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't. Did anyone claim that we are? Or are you just arguing with yourself? Show nested quote +Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not. Did anyone propose that we stop all military spending? We are discussing the amount of military spending, not the concept of it existing entirely. You seem desperately confused over the topic of debate.
I simply replied to your statement about USA spending is much higher than the rest of the world, that the spending is backed up by the % of GDP, also an indication of standard of living.
The assets I refer to aren't just physical things within the country, but influence over the world.
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On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >>
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budget
There you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up.
Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact.
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On January 06 2011 13:51 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:33 Superiorwolf wrote:[Eternal]Phoenix, do you really think we should cut things that help the American people in favor of a pointless and stupid war? We should force American people at home to suffer just because politicians in Washington feel the need to flex their political muscle? Do you know that our spending on military alone is greater than the spending on military for the entire rest of the world COMBINED? Half of our discretionary budget is spent on defense. Fifty percent! Medicare / Social Security are necessary things paid for by tax revenues, the war spending is unnecessary and guess what - people WANT to spend taxes for welfare like Medicare / Social Security because it benefits THEM. At this point almost no one wants to fund America's stupid wars, except for our crazy politicans and military-industrial complex. I don't understand. If you're an old person, would you like to have your social security check cut by 10% because some diehard conservative wants to fund a pointless war? That might be your only source of income. let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. Ok I guess you're trolling o.o This country has existed for 150 years before social security was even conceived of. In addition, social security actually is a byproduct of a mass of failed (and some decently successful) experiments in the Great Depression. Nobody needs it, and in fact every person nowadays is urged to save for their own retirement and invest privately because only an idiot would rely on social security for their wellbeing. If we didn't have it at all, people on the whole would actually be better off since everyone would be forced to take care of themselves. The good part of social security is of course helping disabled people, or elderly who've lost pensions or such. It does play a good role, but it's so bloated and misused it's become a broken system. Cutting it does more good than harm to the country at this point IMO, but that's just my opinion. As for medicare/medicaid, these ideas were invented less than half a century ago. America was just fine in the 1950s before these ideas were even implemented. Sure, there were other problems with 1950s America (social equality, racism, sexism, etc.) but those have nothing to do with gov't entitlement. And lastly, I just supported the so called "pointless war" with 2 powerful arguments that you just ignored. First, there was clear indication of a WMD developmental project in Iraq. If they got ahold of those weapons they could end up in the hands of terrorists who could harm America or its allies. In addition, if Israel ever finds out any non-friendly nation in the region has nuclear weapons they will destroy them, and nuclear capabilities will almost certainly be used. They have too much to lose by 1 nuke going off in their country to risk it. Any violence in the region would lead to economic disaster in the area, skyrocketing the price of oil, hurting American economy by impacting industry, which means less taxes and higher prices for all of America. In the end, every American is losing more money by having to buy more expensive goods and having to pay more taxes to make up for the lost revenue from commerce. Either way we pay, but in this case a war is actually cheaper (and it stimulates the defense sector, creating jobs!)
I'm going to entirely ignore your bit on the middle east, because if you don't believe the reports that their were no WMDs in Iraq, then theirs no point in discussing that with you.
Social Security is important for a few reasons:
1. People pay into it. When they get their monthly check, its like an investment into the govt. being paid back to them. This has a few positive effects:
a. Good flow of money.
b. Government gets a loan and thus more spending money.
2. The only people who lose money in the system are the super rich who would be more inclined to save that money anyway, thus being a detriment to the economy.
3. All of these welfare programs could be paid for simply by increasing tax rates to what they were pre- Reagan. (Which, I might add, you said was a good era in American history (the 1950's that is)).
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On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact.
Yeah, I'm sure he'd want them, but he was probably way far away.
If you look at the evidence I'm of the opinion his scientists asserted they were farther than they were to appease him. Just my personal conspiracy theory, but I think he thought he was further than he is, further contributing to our confusion.
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On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
The tea party is such a joke the majority of them are idiots like the ones who wrote this bill. How can you lower the deficit while also cutting taxes for everyone (especially the richest 2% of people ya lets make sure they have as much money as possible). At least the democrats are up front about how they want to pay for all this crap, the republicans are such hypocrites. Although i think the hypocrisy is mostly unconscious since 95% of them in the government are just bat shit stupid.
And so now the house doesn't get to deliberate on our budget because its created by some small committee and doesn't get voted on? Why would anyone think that is a good idea...
lieing so you can keep sitting around doing nothing and get a nice paycheck seems like a pretty sweet gig
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On January 06 2011 13:04 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:
blah blah blah...
Either way, the era of democrat control is over blah blah blah...
You call two years an era?
On January 06 2011 13:09 Superiorwolf wrote:Show nested quote +Obama can pull a Clinton and just cede authority to the Republican congress and let them pass what they want in order to make it look like he's both more moderate (which might make him reelectable, as per Clinton) and like he's accomplishing something. Has he not been doing this for the past two years? Has he not been the most moderate, bipartisan president in recent decades? Has he accomplished absolutely nothing because he insists on cooperating with the Republicans, aka the "Party of No," who have blatantly stated that their top priority in 2010 is to make sure Obama isn't reelected (Mitch McConnell)? Check.
Completely agree with what's said here.
I get upset when people spout nonsense without looking at what has actually been happening over the past decade. People are just so damned short-sighted it's disgusting...
EDIT
On January 06 2011 14:01 poor newb wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 13:53 furymonkey wrote:
USA is much richer than rest of the world ask china
Oh hey look another idiot spouting some politico nonsense with two words to make himself feel cool. Get out of this thread if all you can do is copy and paste bullshit, please. One sec, lemme ask China. Hey China, are you richer than the US? China's summarized response, "No."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)
I'd like to point out that per capita the gap widens. Think before you post, please.
((Yes, I know GDP isn't everything but GDP is the closest China comes to the US in any measure of wealth))
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On January 06 2011 14:09 furymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:03 Lefnui wrote:On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't. Did anyone claim that we are? Or are you just arguing with yourself? Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not. Did anyone propose that we stop all military spending? We are discussing the amount of military spending, not the concept of it existing entirely. You seem desperately confused over the topic of debate. I simply replied to your statement about USA spending is much higher than the rest of the world, that the spending is backed up by the % of GDP, also an indication of standard of living. The assets I refer to aren't just physical things within the country, but influence over the world.
US defense spending is also well below historical norms. Graph stops in 2003, but the current number is 4.6% of the GDP, 10% of what it was during WW2 and 50% of what it was during Vietnam.
http://www.truthandpolitics.org/military-relative-size-graph.php?meas=GDP
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On January 06 2011 14:09 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:03 Gentleman7 wrote:On January 06 2011 13:19 [Eternal]Phoenix wrote:On January 06 2011 12:52 happyness wrote:On January 06 2011 11:00 funnybananaman wrote:
You can't cut the deficit AND cut taxes AND spend retarded amounts of money funding stupid wars and throwing all our taxpayer money into the military all at the same time.
Too true. I don't hate the tea party or anything. I believe we need to get out of debt and taxes should be as low as possible, but the wars we are in are by far the biggest burden to the budget. I don't see why conservatives can't see this. Look at the budgets and spending of this country and try to support your claim. Social policies such as SS, medicare, medicaid, and welfare represent substantially more spending than on defense. Allow me to point some facts out. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_WarCheck out the amount of money spent on the Iraq War. The total cost of the war barely exceeds the cost of just 1 year of social security. Add in medicare, medicaid and other entitlements and compare. If you cut those programs by half you could fund over 5 Iraq wars a year! The defense budget for 2010 is listed as $664 billion. Compare this to those 3 big entitlement expenditures listed above: $1421 billion! Do you really think we're in a costly war? We could cut out entitlements for an entire year and that would cover 3 Iraqs. We haven't even been close to full war mode since WWII. If we actually had a serious war that was a direct threat to the American people, we effectively could spend dozens of times more money on it without risking inflation, simply by cutting socialist welfare policies. People don't realize it, but the US is a massive welfare state. The amount of money we spend on helping out the poor, elderly, disabled, or just outright lazy is astronomical. So, you could reduce the amount of everyone's social security checks by 10% or let a madman research nuclear devices for use on our allies. And lets not forget, any conflict in the middle east drives up oil prices and costs the US possibly even more than we'd have ever spent on this war. "The US is a massive welfare state" Really? Have you ever been outside of the country? We are one of the MOST conservative industrialized countries on the world. I'm not sure what you mean by "welfare" but if you mean unemployment benefits, you have no grasp on how economics works. Same for you social security arguments; end SS and you end spending by the elderly which hurts our econ. Not to mention the fact that the "social policies" are designed to HELP whereas Iraq did nothing but hurt. I'd also like to see a source for the 1.4kb number - is that since Roosevelt and the great depression? If so, it's a ridiculous statistic. And no, Hussein was not going after Nukes when we invaded >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2010_United_States_federal_budgetThere you go. Look for yourself. I don't make this stuff up. You don't believe it because you cannot hold your beliefs about gov't economics if you know it's true. Misinformation is a serious problem when it comes to our spending, and people need to wake the hell up. Oh and Hussein was definitely going after nukes when we invaded. It's fact.
Social Security taxes actually entirely cover their part of the budget, and if we were to make tax hikes on the rich and spending cuts in mil we'd be fine.
Defense dept. spending isn't the entirety of the mil. budget, you also have to factor in VA, which is another 72 Bil.
We spend as much on the DoD as we do on SS and thats with us out of Iraq this year. Medicare and medicaid together at 750b, which I would again argue could easily be covered by a tax hike and cuts to the military expenditure. The NYT had a cool interactive "Balance the Budget" thingy a little while ago - you could cut military spending and just raise taxes and be fine.
Furthermore, it's entirley unrealistic to cut SS (leave most of the elderly broke) or medicare and medicaid (anyone who gets a disease but doesn't have health insurance = fucked either financially or physically). Our government sets out to insure people's health, which is a much better cause than invading Iraq (had nothing to do with 9/11, provide a source for WMDs that isn't fox news) and Afghanistan.
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On January 06 2011 14:09 furymonkey wrote:Show nested quote +On January 06 2011 14:03 Lefnui wrote:On January 06 2011 14:01 furymonkey wrote:
Sorry, as much as you hope that we are living in a utopia world, we aren't. Did anyone claim that we are? Or are you just arguing with yourself? Military power is one of the elements to have to be influential in the world. Without it, you will find many country would not give a crap about you. There-by you will be losing assets, physically or not. Did anyone propose that we stop all military spending? We are discussing the amount of military spending, not the concept of it existing entirely. You seem desperately confused over the topic of debate. I simply replied to your statement about USA spending is much higher than the rest of the world, that the spending is backed up by the % of GDP, also an indication of standard of living. The assets I refer to aren't just physical things within the country, but influence over the world.
No, you simply misrepresented what I said. I never claimed nor implied that we are living in a perfect world.
How is the extent of our military spending protecting our assets throughout the world? I've yet to see a single piece of evidence supporting the idea that if we weren't spending this much on defense that our "assets"(which you haven't even clearly defined) would be put at risk.
You seem to be making a very basic argument now, that if we didn't have a military that our influence and power would be greatly reduced. Well, of course, no one has argued against that. What we are discussing is the extent of that spending.
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EPT
