Actually, no we don’t. We spend around 4.3 to 4.8% of GDP on the dept of defense (depending on which exact year you want to look at). There are nations that spend over 7%. So comparatively speaking, we actually don’t spend a ridiculous amount on a GDP basis.
That’s fine, and I actually would totally support expanding foreign aid. However did foreign aid stop Timor? Rwanda? Darfur? Congo? Khmer Rouge? Etc. There’s limits to what throwing money at a problem can do. Some places in the world would be vastly improved by a squad of US Marines waving around machine guns and yelling ‘Ya’ll wanna knock that shit off now?’
How we use the military is a slightly different argument than if we should have one or not. Although, even taking this argument at face value, casualties of staying out of Afghanistan: 2,996 in one day. Casualties of invading Afghanistan: 1434 over nine years. I don’t accept the premise that having an isolationist military policy is superior.
That’s a fair point. I definitely believe we should be using the military differently, and with different goals, than we have in the recent past. Although I would like to learn about those cheaper methods of stopping genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Three words: World War One.
Besides, Iraq was not a quagmire of a war. Iraq was a stunningly successful war, perhaps the most successful war in history. It was very quick, had few casualties, and all organized military opposition was destroyed with such ease that we were caught flatfooted by how simple it all was. Now governing a defeated nation, we screwed the pooch pretty good on that one, but that happened after we won the war.
Although even including the post war occupation, US casualties in Iraq are one tenth what they were in Vietnam. Iraq was no vietnam, no matter which way you want to look at it.
I claim it is rational for the US to spend enough to have a superior military than those nations that have the most potential to be our enemies. I don’t give a shit if we’re superior to England or not. It’s very unlikely we’ll need to fight England. I also don’t give a shit if we spend more or less than, say, North Korea as long as our military is superior to North Korea’s. It’s about capability, not the amount of dollars spent.
We’re number 11.
Of the top ten, six are in the Middle East, three are in Africa, all are in places where military activity on their soil is a significant possibility if not a current actuality. Israel is the only true democracy among them (I’ll set aside debates about whether they’re actually a democracy; let’s stipulate that they are). Most of them are either involved in ongoing wars or are giving their neighbors the hairy eyeball.
That list has 154 countries on it. To get to the next democracy on the list, organized by percentage of GDP, I believe you’ve got to go to Greece, at 3.6% of its GDP.
Yes, Rwanda would totally have been helped by military intervention. I’m not at all opposed to our joining in treaty organization efforts. What I am opposed to is to our spending tremendous amounts of money on a military, when we could be spending that money on other things. Shit, we could have bribed every man, woman, and child in Iraq with $2000 not to fight us (or we could have targeted that bribery toward populations most on the fence), and still saved ourselves $100 billion bucks, for the financial cost of the war. Or we could have spent those three-quarters-of-a-trillion dollars on ensuring that everyone on the planet has access to clean water, or on ramping up our food program, or just on making our schools work better.
Look not at what the military can do, but what it actually does; and compare that to the opportunity cost. What else could we do with that much money and manpower?
What I meant was that there are cheaper methods of not stopping genocide and ethnic cleansing, like we currently are. If we cut down on military spending almost entirely, it would be cheaper and accomplish almost as much of those tasks as we currently accomplish. Although of course the better alternative is to actually use our troops to stop genocide and ethnic cleansing.
Massive defense cuts. Oh good lord you have no idea. Let other countries do the new weapons research & we can reverse-engineer their successes for a change. Replace all the “defense” pork with explicit public works & public welfare programs. There’s more value in building public hospitals & training medical personnel for civilian treatment than in building ever more stockpiles of redundant weapons.
Public hospitals. Build a teaching hospital for every Congressional district. Treat all comers like Willy Stark did in* All the King’s Men*, or like the British do in real life. At least, build more hospitals, train more physicians, lab techs, nurses, etc. I want a glut, you hear me, a glut of trained medical personnel. I want some physicians who are guilty of repeated malpractice to leave the field because no one needs them. I want us to export doctors instead of importing them. I want nurses to normally retire after ten years because so many new ones are coming in. If we get the supply up, we could even keep a heavy private component in the system, & have affordable care.
But, well, Medicare should be for everybody. Every business pays for it, but their employees don’t benefit. That’s sick and wrong.
Negative income tax, basic income guarantee, whatever you want to call it. Every adult in the country should pay a surtax of ~15% of income, then get a standard stipend back equal to ~15% of per capita GDP. Redistribution shouldn’t be a dirty word. People with purchasing power drive demand, redistribution is good for business.
And this one should be a constitutional amendment: The government has a constitutional obligation to preserve our environment & natural resource base. Left, right, it doesn’t matter: If you are against conservation, you are evil.
ETA: Note that I didn’t mention the sexy morals issues like gay marriage & abortion. That’s because that social-liberal crap is beside the point as far as I’m concerned. Fundamental economic reform & ecological commitment are more vital. I haven’t read the thread, I’m not responding to anyone, that’s just my belief.
Oh, I forgot. Close the damn secret prisons/unlawful combatant dungeons already. Try 'em, publicly, or set them free with an annual stipend for the rest of their lives as apology. I don’t care what secrets you think are compromised, a decade is more than long enough to sort this out.
As for the regular prisons, I’d like punishments to fit crimes. Drug possession doesn’t need to be a felony; most felonies don’t require sentences > 10 years; drug dealing is not intrinsically worse than murder; environmental pollution, on a large enough scale, might be considerably worse than murder.
I consider myself a liberal, but i am also a big selfish asshole and i see a direct correlation between “having the biggest guns” and “having a much better standard of living than the countries without guns” so I’m not that big on defense cuts. I’ve lived in a shitty country before and didn’t much like it.
Everything else that most people are mentioning like universal health care and equal rights for gays is what i would shoot for.
What if any effect do you think the fact that the top 10 percent of the people owns 90 percent of the wealth in the US should have on this line of reasoning?
Yes, I do expect them to be independent, if that is their charter. Why should they not? As for where they come from, I imagine geographers could do it … academics, perhaps?
I’m not suggesting that government start out by getting into the business of being a single payer … no taxpayer monies are envisioned here. Right now, today, this moment, all of the state and local government employees in Georgia have the same insurance plan, actually a selection of several insurance plans offered by United Health Insurance. The rates are VERY good and the benefits are VERY good because the risk pool is huge and the state has professional insurance negotiators who are in a powerful position to negotiate. I’m just saying, let private firms in Georgia join in the state insurance program, and private individuals, too. The governnment will not be donating to their insurance of course, because they don’t employ those people, but they’ll get the same rates the people in the state pool get. In my experience, the difference in rates is so huge that people could foot the entire bill by themselves for much much less than most small private insurance pools charge employees.
Health insurance companies would still be free to negotiate with the state and any private firms, there’s no government mandate other than the power the government has by having such a large risk pool represented by professional negoatiators. I think the ultimate EFFECT of the program would be that practically all private firms would sign up for the government risk pool, but it would be COMPLETELY voluntary. The only compulsion would be the compulsion of the free market with regard to insurance, that is, that it’s a lot cheaper to administer huge risk pools than it is to handle lots of tiny ones.
Imagine that.
Well the problem is that in the financial sector all the pressure is for their to be higher and higher rates of return, and all other considerations tend to fall by the wayside, without effective government regulation. It happened in the Great Depression, it is happened in the Great Recession, it will happen again if we don’t reinstate Glass-Steagal, it’s that simple.
The naming of a bill is an important cue as to its content. Scientists have proven that the closer a bill comes to being named “The Mom’s Apple Pie Kissable Babies and Cute Puppies of American Security Act” the more likely it is to be substantively evil.
I am not a socialist, and unlike a lot of liberals I am not that concerned with the poor, mainly because of the vacuum effect of improving things for the middle class, which is, generally when the lot of the middle class improves there is a tendency for poor people’s lots to be improved as well. Also, I believe that a healthy and robust middle class is what is key to American economic success. Every last country in the world has a wealthy class, granted, in some cases a very small one. It is the countries with a strong middle class that tend to do well financially, because that is where the work gets done, it’s where the innovators come from, and it’s where the consumption gets done too. I’m not reasonable, I’m a realist. Oh, sure there are times I want to haul out the bankers and shoot them all too. But I’d rather have a healthy middle class even if that means the scumbags are still snorting coke off their mistress’ groins with hundred dollar bills in their mansion playrooms.
Look, there’s no cause-and-effect relationship there. A less-armed America could still have a high standard of living. Higher than we have now. The most prosperous country in Central America is Costa Rica – the one with no army.
The people who have 10% of the wealth have 90% of the vote. Sadly they (we) have been too stupid to use it, which is how 10% ended up with 90% in the first place. I still think free speech and political debate are too important to mess with. Remember, if you own a media outlet, you are spending your own money on free speech. So should we start regulating the media outlets? Yes, I know Fox News is an evil entity, but it got that way because we allowed an Australian to bribe US politicians to create a personal dream act so he could become a US citizen and purchase a regulated media outlet. And those politicians were elected by the 90%.
Nobody is independent. This would be another political layer that wouldn’t solve anything. A formula will do a reasonable job.
It still worries me. But I don’t see free enterprise as the solution to everything either. I just don’t see that we’ve ever had a properly regulated, competitive insurance market. I also have concerns about the power of the government to use this pool for political purposes. But construction of the law could probably avoid, or at least minimize that problem.
Agreed. I don’t think we have much free enterprise anymore, just corporate communism. I don’t understand the basis for changing banking laws to guarantee profits for banks. Nobody changed the laws to guarantee my business a profit. I guess I should have spent more money bribing politicians. Oh well, live and learn.
Now you’re arguing the other side. I’d rather have good content. I still don’t like the use of deceptive naming.
Note that I distinquish between small ‘l’ liberals, and big ‘L’ liberals, and the same for Conservatives and other political designations. The big letter names rarely practise the principles they name themselves after.
Health Care
Free universal coverage for anyone that walks through the door. All doctors and other medical professionals would be civil servants, getting paid by number of procedures performed and adjusted using performance measures (death ratio, excessive numbers of procedures, etc.)
Gun Control
All rifles, shotguns, and handguns to be identified with serial numbers and ballistic samples collected for applicable weapons. No possession of weaponry capable of holding more than 6 rounds of ammo. Annual gun licenses to work in same manner as auto registration. All transfers of guns to be tracked much like vehicle sales. All gun owners to be fingerprinted. Penalty for possession of unlicensed weapon: life in prison without parole.
Abortion
Free abortions for anyone in first trimester, for reasonable medical reasons in second trimester, and for extraordinary medial reasons in third trimester.
Taxes
Very progressive tax rates with top rates say of 50% or so.
Media
Any news network program that wants to display the “RA” seal in the lower right corner (for Reasonably Accurate) must request an independent party to review its broadcasts for fairness and accuracy and is allowed to display this seal only when the review is positive. This review would recur at periodic intervals or when reports of violations are received. It would not be expected that FOX would even bother putting in for the RA seal.
Internet
All internet providers must provide completely uncensored content with no favoritism or disfavoritism for or against any site.
Welfare
Any person may live a spartan existence at government expense. Basic shelter, food, clothing, and medical care is a human right. Anything beyond that requires getting a job or having other means of support.
Voting
Voting by paper ballots only, although punch cards and electronically read ballots are permitted. If it doesn’t leave a permanent paper record, it is not going to be used.
a major initiative to overhaul our use of energy, including a plan to phase out fossil fuels, and smothering regulations on polluters.
MASSIVE tax hikes on the rich.
A ban on American companies being able to outsource manufacturing or jobs.
Legalize all drugs.
Federal Abortion Rights Act prohibiting states from making any restrictions on abortion.
Some kind of workable amnesty and path to citizenship for all undocumented immigrants.
A federal act guaranteeing a right to same-sex marriage and equal opportunity to same-sex couples for adoption.
An end to all military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan, a formal end to the “war on terror,” immediate release of all Gitmo detainees (with free US citizenship and monetary restitution), and a formal condemnation of the invasion of Iraq as illegal and unjustified.
An investigation of top Bush adminstration officials for war crimes.
An allocation of funds for a new Vikings stadium in Minnesota.
A formal statement in Congress that Tim Pawlenty is a DOOSH for cutting funding for MNDOT, so that it still takes an hour to drive to work 3 days after the storm. Buy some fucking SALT, you asshole. You aren’t going to get elected President. You don’t need to keep trying to maintain this LIE you’ve been trying to polish that you “balanced the budget without raising taxes.” you didn’t balance the budget, you fucking LIAR, you just deferred the debt to come due after your bitch ass is gone, and you used Obama’s stimulus money to paper over your debts. I can’t wait until the Primaries, Sarah Palin is going to fuck you in the ass, man. All those teabaggers you’re trying to pander to won’t give you a second look, and they’ll turn on you like hyenas if you say a critical word about poor Sarah. It’s going to be hilarious watching you guys try to battle that imbecile in two years.
As the above makes obvious, you are never going to get people to agree on anything. I totally support Health Care reform, drastically cutting the military, and SSM, but you’ll get my guns when you pry etc.
Personally, I’d like to see the penalties for “white collar crime” upped substantially. Make fraud and embezzlement of over a threshold amount a capital crime. Then make the threshold $1000. Hold executives personally responsible for the actions of their companies.
Greece is part of NATO and the EU. Which means Greece is under the US umbrella and does not need to spend as much on military as a result. The same is true for most other democracies. And yet, Greece is only spending 1% of their GDP less than the US. Hardly a sign that US military spending is out of control.
If we spent that money and manpower in other ways, would western Europe have been free for the six decades it took the USSR to blow up? Would the USSR have blown up without a constant military threat it had to match? Would South Korea be free now? Would Taiwan even exist? We could have done a lot of other things with that much money and manpower, but it’s hard to imagine what else we could have done that had such remarkable results as the US military.
You mean the nation with a per capita income of ~ $10,500? That’s the nation you think the US should start emulating?
Look guys, I’m not rah-rah prowar kill em all, but it seems some people (and I’m being generic here, not targeting anyone specifically) seem to believe in a chamberlain peace in our time thing. There’s a reason Pax Americana translates to American Peace, and that wouldn’t exist without the US military.
As for redistricting… get rid of geographical districts entirely. They made sense for logistical reasons back in the olde days. These days, groups of people with similar interests can be scattered around a state but still get together online and organize and share their views, etc. If 500,000 Californians all put X as their top priority and want to elect representatives who will do X, their ability to do so should not be contingent on whether they all live in the same town or not.
Not sure what you’re saying here. Are you saying their should be no outside censorship of what internet providers choose to carry or are you saying the government should regulate internet providers?
I’m aware that many internet providers want to make extra revenue by selling priority service to big companies. And not being a big company, I don’t like that. But I also don’t like the idea of the government stepping in to tell internet providers what they should be doing. You give today’s government the power to regulate the internet for something good, it’s almost certain that tomorrow’s government tomorrow will use that same power to do something bad.
An education system that is not based on the economic well-being of the district/county where the school is located.
A similar reform of polling places, so that every citizen has equal access and convenience in voting. An economically advantaged citizen should not have a easier, more convenient voting experience than his less advantaged fellow citizen.
I’m saying the providers shouldn’t be able to give preferential treatment to some customers over others. If I want to visit site A or site B, I don’t want my ISP to force me to wait longer for A just because it has a cozy deal with B.
Then I’m sticking by what I wrote. I don’t like that internet providers give some customers preferential service. But I’d like it a lot less if the government stepped in and started regulating what internet providers do. I don’t want to set any precedents in that area lest we end up with an American version of the Golden Shield Project.