This would have something going for it if there were other - smarter - initiatives that the Democrats supported that strengthened the military. But I can’t recall any, and no Democrats have come up with any in this thread. The only military initiative that I can recall Democrats showing great enthusiasm for is getting gays into it. Not going to do it.
Bottom line is that if the Democrats fully had their way, the military would be a lot weaker than if the Republicans had their way. The justifiable position that Democrats can take - and the one I see you taking - is that the country is better off not devoting its recources trying to develop great military strength. That the money needed for this is better spent elsewhere, and that better foreign policy might obviate the need for much military action. Fine (& debatable). But this does not equal “strong on defence”.
(You can debate whether a guy who spends hours daily working out at the gym and practicing judo could spend his time better elsewhere. But he is tougher than you are, and when the going gets rough he might be the guy you’d rather have around).
Izzy: You want different, smarter initiatives from the Democrats? Knock yourself out. I won’t vouch for everything there, especially since I haven’t read that much of it, but there really are serious Democrative proposals for shaping a strong, modern military.
Remember that we are (or at least I am) comparing Republicans to Democrats. So if these proposals become serious proposals and draw more support from Democrats than Republicans we can talk. Pointing to an obscure idea dreamed up by a Democratic thinker - with no idea as to how much support it would draw from either Republicans or Democrats means nothing at all.
The DLC is not obscure (though they are to the right of mainstream Democrats), but these particular ideas are obscure, in that they have not become major national issues. As a result, there is no way to measure the relative support that these proposals would attract from Republicans & Democrats. Further, they cannot be said to represent the Democratic position on military matters in contrast to the Democratic record with regards to issues that have become major national issues.
IOW, if the Democrats are indeed the party of a “smarter” military, this should be reflected in legislative proposals that they’ve had ample opportunity to come up with over the past 2 decades. If you can come up with these, great. If you can’t, then you can’t point to some proposals that no one has ever heard of and claim that these represent Democratic policy on military affairs.
LOL. Now you are starting to really sound like a Democrat politician. “Depends on what the meaning of the word ‘is’ is.”
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Yep, you’re right. I confused your posts with others in this thread. You have been consistent. Consistently wrong, but consistent.
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Asked and dodged.
If we were talking about the Republicans and the environment who would we compare them to? The Democrats. It just makes sense to compare the two major political parties in this country to eachother. If I ask “how are the Rep’s on environmental issues” I would expect an answer that compares them to the Dems not to, say, the Soviet Union in the 1970’s.
So, if we are talking about the Dems and military spending it is completely fair and proper to compare them to the Republicans.
A small 17% of the federal budget is all that we spend on the military.
BTW, I won’t be on the boards for the rest of the week. You are going to love this, but yes, tomorrow is the first day of hunting season in NH and I plan on being in the woods.
Debaser, I already said that you’re perfectly entitled to compare the positions of the parties and their politicians on defense matters. I am aware that $R > $D. Now, are you even going to attempt to show that $D < required?
Izzy, you asked for “other - smarter - initiatives that the Democrats supported that strengthened the military.” I gave you a link to multiple pages of such proposals from a major organization within the Democratic party, many written by prominent Democratic politicians. If you think that’s “obscure,” I’m afraid I’m simply going to have to label your expectations as “unreasonable.”
Sometimes a guy is sorry he went away for a long week-end—looking at this thread this is not one of those times. The course of the debate here has been thoroughly predictable and fully illuminates the nature of the debate ever since someone stood up and demanded to know why the Truman Administration lost China to the Communists.
For some reason the Conservative-Republican-Cheap mantra has been that public education or public health or interstate highways or something else cannot be fixed by throwing money at it, but at the same time the hard core of the same out fit seem to be convinced that if enough money is spent on new or more weapons systems all the threats to the national security, real and imagined, can be defeated and we will then be the Queen of the May.
What is lost in all the smoke and heat of the debate is that we are talking about three separate defense policies. We have defense policy designed to counter realistic threats to the legitimate international interests of the United States—this is the policy that says that once the Soviet Union ceased to be a legitimate threat there was no longer a valid reason to maintain four heavy divisions in Southern Germany and no longer a need to build a new fleet of inter-continental ballistic missile launching nuclear submarines and no need to maintain a domestic military establishment at Cold War-Vietnam levels. That is the policy that Minty and Elvis have been posting about.
There is a defense policy that is designed to be an economic stimulus and economic base. That policy operates largely independently of the threat based policy and is the darling of what President Eisenhower called the Military-Industrial Complex. This is the policy that calls for the continued development of air craft intended to sneak under Soviet radar and the re-commissioning of battleships and the construction of navel vessels the Navy says it doesn’t need. The purpose of this policy is to redistribute tax money in order to enrich favored communities and enhance the status of favored politicians. This is the policy that Sam Stone and others have been talking about and which some characterize as one that says that some Congressmen have never met a weapons system they didn’t like.
The third policy is one directed toward simple prestige and pride in having the biggest gadget. It says that is a good thing to have the biggest gun because having a big gun is its own reward.
When, for instance, a Democrat is accused of being soft on defense all too often it means that the Democrat is soft on policies two and three, and policy one is not even considered. The SDI is probably a good example of this. Here we have a speculative weapons system that may never come into battery designed to combat a speculative threat that may never come into existence. It fails to be a legitimate object of policy one but it can’t be doubted that it is in perfect alignment with policies two and three. Base closings fall into the same category, the multitude of half strength bases scattered across the country do little or nothing to enhance national security but decommissioning them will be a severe economic blow to the communities that provide the civilian employees, and sell gas and beer to the troops and generally subsist on employment and commerce provided by the post. Closing those posts is in keeping with policy one but is counterproductive as to policies two and three.
The ultimate question is what is the function of the armed forces. Is it to defend the United States from enemies foreign and domestic or is it to be a huge cash cow for off-post towns and weapons manufacturers? The basic fight lies in the answer to that question. It seems to me that in my memory (which extends to the first Truman Administration) the complaint about Democrats has been over policies two and three, not policy one.
Well, that isn’t the question in the thread title, which is quite a bit broader than that.
Sam Stone and others seem to have made a damn strong case that a big part of the Democratic party are almost reflexively against any military spending. And I will toss the ball back into your court to find me an instance where Democrats were pushing for the use of the military, and the Republicans were not. In every instance for the last thirty years, it has been the other way around.
If you are going to use this as an example, you are going to need an instance where Dems were pro-the use of force, and Republicans were anti. Afghanistan is certainly not one of them.
And your example of the Clinton years seems to imply that Democrats are only willing to consider the use of force if it is one of their own at the helm, and not any other time.
“Sure I’m pro-defense, except if the President is Republican.” Shouldn’t national security be the primary consideration?
At least if you want to be considered as serious on the issue.
Well, that isn’t the question in the thread title, which is quite a bit broader than that.
Sam Stone and others seem to have made a damn strong case that a big part of the Democratic party are almost reflexively against any military spending. And I will toss the ball back into your court to find me an instance where Democrats were pushing for the use of the military, and the Republicans were not. In every instance for the last thirty years, it has been the other way around.
If you are going to use this as an example, you are going to need an instance where Dems were pro-the use of force, and Republicans were anti. Afghanistan is certainly not one of them.
And your example of the Clinton years seems to imply that Democrats are only willing to consider the use of force if it is one of their own at the helm, and not any other time.
“Sure I’m pro-defense, except if the President is Republican.” Shouldn’t national security be the primary consideration?
At least if you want to be considered as serious on the issue.
Well sure. Shodan Republicans are for excessive military spending and Democrats are for sensible levels. The fact that you can demostrate that Republicans want more spending than Democrats only confirms that fact.
When you compare a thoughtful sensible person with a beserker, it’s no surprise when you discover that the sensible person never advocates violence when the beserker isn’t for it as well.
Pro militiary spending isn’t the same thing as pro-defense. Some militiary spending is pure pork, while other spending is purely offensive, rather than defensive. (Stealth bomber anyone?)
Whether or not the president is a Republican has nothing to do with it, it’s whether or not the president is a trigger-happy simpleton. Poppy Bush was no loose cannon, so when he went to war, most democrats supported it. But the son just can’t be trusted to make wise decisions, or for that matter, not to put American soldiers in harms way just to win an election. He gets no support for his military adventures because he’s forfeited that support by treating war as a game.
“I’d be with that fool of a president if he were pro-defense rather than for getting elected” is closer to the point.
Actually, this would be what we call an “opinion” rather than a fact. An opinion based, apparently, on nothing whatsoever.
Of course, if your theoretical sensible person will never authorize the use of violence even in self-defense, or in defense of an innocent third party, and never advocates violence even in circumstances when it is fairly obvious that violence is called for, it would be naive to say that Mr. Theoretically Sensible is not soft on security.
What you seem to be saying is that Democrats are really hard-liners on national security, who never want to spend any money on it, and never want to take any action to defend it.
By that standard, I am a hard-liner on a boatload of Democratic issues.
You lost me. Are you saying the Stealth bomber is purely defensive because of its deterrent effect? Or is it purely offensive, because it was used to take out the Iraqi radar installations during the first hours of the Gulf War?
Perhaps you could list some defense systems that are purely defensive. I assume you are not talking about missile defense.
What exactly are you talking about, anyway?
No support? Really? I thought the resolution authorizing war against Iraq had passed (despite Democratic resistance). I thought the UN had authorized a resolution to compel Iraq to admit inspectors again.
The rest of your little rant isn’t worth the bandwidth to bother about. It will serve as an example of how certain liberals will say they don’t concern themselves with whether the President is Republican or Democrat - but they cannot be trusted when they do.
I suspect that for those like you, “trigger-happy simpleton” means nothing more or less than “Republican”. If it were President Clinton or President Gore leading the charge against Iraq, you would still be screaming - just out of the other side of your mouth.
As I said - national security ought to be the overriding concern in matters of, well, national security. Liberal or conservative, if you flip-flop depending on who won the election will never win one themselves. Nor should they.
Shodan, hasn’t anyone ever told you that posting and smoking crack at the same time is a bad idea?
Izzy showed that Democrats consistently want to spend less money on defense than Republicans do. Do you know the difference between “less” and “none”?
If you want to support that wee bit o’ hyperbole, you need to show that a significant number of Democrats “never want to spend any money on” national security.
It is beyond absurd to suggest that “will never authorize the use of violence even in self-defense.”
Much as I’d like to claim full credit, it was actually Sam Stone who showed this. I just went along for the ride.
If you reread this thread, I believe you will see that there is hyperbole being spewed from both sides of the aisle. Not from you though, that I remember.
From this, with your logic, we thus very obviously conclude that the Republicans are “soft on environmental protection”! Hell, by almost any measure, the difference between the Dems and Reps on the environment is way larger than on defense!
And, worse yet, while the U.S. has by far the best military in the world…spending more than many of the leading contenders combined…we certainly do not have the best environmental protection. In fact, with less than 5% of the population, we are responsible for ~25% of greenhouse gas emissions. Our emissions are even higher per capita than most of the other nations with a similar standard of living. And, unlike other industrialized nations, we have not pledged to reduce them. [Now, I’ve already gone further than you guys have, in one short post, because I’ve provided some international comparative norms that show how soft the Republicans are on the environment!!!]
Well, Tejota had a good point in response to this as a measure. But, I would also point out that the use of the U.S. military in both Balkans situations (Bosnia and Kosovo) was the policy of a Democratic President that seemed to have considerable resistance from some Republicans.
Speaking of talking out of both sides of one’s mouth, when you make up your mind as to whether Democrats reflexively oppose the use of military force or whether they support its use reflexively when a Democratic President is leading the way and oppose it reflexively otherwise, could you kindly let us know?
Well, I had just finished typing another long, researched list of Democratic opposition to non-spending military issues. For instance, the Democrats not only disagreed with the invasion of Panama, but in 1986 the Republicans tried to get an intelligence bill passed to put assets in Panama because of worries about Noriega. The Democrats defeated it.
The Democrats were also opposed to all intervention in Central America, supporting rebels in Angola, and arming the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan.
The Democrats tried twice to force the U.S. into a unilateral nuclear freeze, and were defeated by an overwhelming percentage of Republicans. Instead, Reagan adopted the policy of ‘negotiation through strength’, and achieved the greatest reduction in Soviet weapons in the history of the cold war. He was bitterly opposed by Democrats the whole way.
The Democrats introduced a bill in 1989 that would remove all U.S. forces from South Korea. It was defeated by 89% of Republicans. Does anyone today think leaving South Korea on its own would have been a good idea?
How about military culture? How do the Democrats do there? Lousy. The hostility towards Democrats inside the miitary is well known, and for good reason. Democrats have been confrontational towards the military for a long time. Remember Tailhook? The Navy is still pissed about that. A number of very good officers were cashiered over that. How about ‘Don’t ask - don’t tell’? Plus the Democrats are associated with the left in general, and the left is openly hostile to the military. Don’t belivee me? Try walking through Berkeley in a uniform. Many universities refuse to allow ROTC and recruiting.
Now, do we need to start talking about intelligence agencies and Democratic support? I’d really rather not have to do all that work again, because the Democrats have been even more opposed to the CIA and NSA than they are to military spending.
I may be talking at cross purposes with some of the other posters to this thread, but I should clarify that in terms of the definitions and context that I’ve been using in this thread, this is quite correct - the Republicans are most definitely “soft on environmental protection”.
Again, this does not imply that this stance is wrong - environmental protection cannot be looked at as a one dimensional issue in a vacuum - it is affected by many valid and competing interests, much as military spending is. But it does imply that environmental protection is not a selling point for the Republicans, and someone for whom environmental protection is an overriding concern is more likely to vote Democratic. Should a 9/11-type environmental catastrophe occur, it would not spell good news for the Republican Party, electorally. But at the moment, that is not the situation we are in.
And thank goodness I bothered to save my post of five hours ago.
Shodan:
The thread title asks about defense, not offense. We were
definitely on the offense in Desert Storm.
Utter nonsense. Show me where Democrats have
been against “any defense spending.” Not just defense
spending on any particular expenditure, and not just
lower defense spending, but against any defense
spending at all. Sheesh, enough with the hyperbole if
you meant what you said, and enough with beating the
dead horse of $R > $D.
Iraq, winter of 1998-99. You may remember
the phrase “Wag the dog,” yes? Actually, the R’s were
almost reflexively opposed to anything Clinton did
with the military, including Bosnia and Kosovo. Not
that it matters anyway, any more than it matters
whether the R’s support the XY-26 Super Duper
Boondoggle System while the D’s oppose it. “Soft on
defense” is measured in the aggregate, not by
anecdotes.
Republicans make me yawn. You either blow up everyone besides yourself or shut the hell up! And stop wasting money!
Stop wasting peoples lives! Sit the fuck down and shoot yourself in the head, you fucking dumbass Republican stupid greedy plutocratic, inbred fuckin’ insolent fool. If you don’t USE the bombs; then don’t MAKE the bombs you shit fuck. Blow shit up; blow it all up you moron - do something consistent with that retard brain of yours. Build eugenic biological warfare bombs and blow all the shit to kingdom-come except you and your gun tottling half-breeds who suck these ideas from geniuses who made those guns you stupid fucking retards!
Oh never mind! You need someone to be racist about =(
