# Where's the outrage from fiscal conservatives over Iraq? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 25, 2009, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180 "2009-07-25T01:11:06Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/61 "2009-07-26T21:10:19Z")
I grovel before the shapely and the sexy, but its a question of values, I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/62 "2009-07-26T22:05:49Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Well put. And we’re almost there now…with the bottom 50% of taxpayers contributing only 3% to the Federal income-tax purse, and the top 50% contributing 97%. > > Once it swings over the 50/50 line, as our current President would love to have it, where does the runaway train stop? How could you ever vote down a tax increase? 51% of the population will be getting something for nothing…or at least they think they will…so why would they vote otherwise? The bottom 50% don’t get a say in tax rates, both parties look after the top few percent because they’re the only ones who pay campaign contributions. Them and corporations, so they’re the ones who benefit from any changes to the tax code as we’ve seen over at least the last thirty years. While the top few percent do pay such a huge chunk of the income tax there’s a reason why, it’s because so much of the total income is earned by those people. But when it comes to effective tax rates on the wealthy, they pay a far smaller percentage of their total income in taxes. Somebody like Cindy McCain pays a 20-25% effective tax rate while the median US family, total yearly income $50 000, can pay about half that in taxes if you include State income taxes, FICA taxes, sales taxes, property taxes, vehicle taxes, gasoline taxes etc. When the right campaign for and get tax cuts it’s never the above taxes, the ones that low/middle income people pay a disproportionate amount of, that they want cutting. It’s income and capital gains taxes. ---
**Author:** ![IdahoMauleMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/71c47a/32.png) [@IdahoMauleMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IdahoMauleMan)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 11:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/63 "2009-07-26T23:31:18Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > \ > > If you refuse to allow a fish to own a bicycle, how has the fish been injured? If a man has more than he can possibly use, what justifies insisting that he keep it? When did property rights become the most important human right, the one that all the other human rights must bow and make obeisance? > > Fuck _that_ shit! But weren’t you the one that was justifying the murder of the rich back in the ‘New Orleans after the hurricane thread’ in order to get the generator, rather than pay the going rate? Because that was The Right Thing To Do? Or am I confusing you with someone else on the Board? Apologies if that’s the case. It all starts to run together after a while. See…that’s the pesky problem with this whole wealth creation thing. I haven’t been able to figure it out yet. Maybe you can help me. If you kill the rich back in New Orleans to take their generators, they won’t be around any more to invest, create jobs, and pay more taxes. There’s nothing they can do to help after you’ve stripped them of their property, and presumably their life. That’s the little issue that I get hung up on, from time to time. Fortunately, you seem to have found a solution. What is working on your side here is that wealth is a fixed-pie. I was under the foolish impression that wealth and improved living standards came from investment and job creation that created more new pies, all the time. I missed your point, and it’s an important one. But I’ve got it now. I realize that wealth has been a static, constant stockpile - computers, automobiles, gene therapy, the Internet, the Bourne Identity trilogy - since those first humanoids starting wandering out of caves in the Rift Valley. All it took was Barack Obama to be elected, in order to start moving the fixed pieces around. Now things will be OK. He will decide what is an appropriate amount of pieces for all of us to have. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2009, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/64 "2009-07-26T23:55:00Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > If fiscal conservatives actually existed in any real numbers, they’d have withdrawn from the Republican party and voted Libertarian out of protest. It should not come as a surprise to anyone, after all these years, that the Republican Party isn’t fiscally conservative. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 12:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/65 "2009-07-27T00:17:10Z")
> [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > But weren’t you the one that was justifying the murder of the rich back in the ‘New Orleans after the hurricane thread’ in order to get the generator, rather than pay the going rate? Because that was The Right Thing To Do? No, that was me. Survival trumps property rights. > [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > If you kill the rich back in New Orleans to take their generators, they won’t be around any more to invest, create jobs, and pay more taxes. There’s nothing they can do to help after you’ve stripped them of their property, and presumably their life. But going by YOUR system most of the population of the city will be left to die because they can’t pay enough. > [@IdahoMauleMan](#): > > Fortunately, you seem to have found a solution. What is working on your side here is that wealth is a fixed-pie. I was under the foolish impression that wealth and improved living standards came from investment and job creation that created more new pies, all the time. > > I missed your point, and it’s an important one. But I’ve got it now. I realize that wealth has been a static, constant stockpile - computers, automobiles, gene therapy, the Internet, the Bourne Identity trilogy - since those first humanoids starting wandering out of caves in the Rift Valley. Oh, please; you are arguing against a strawman. A general increase in wealth does the common people no good if the wealthy take most of it. They can end up worse off even with an increase in the absolute amount of wealth if the percentage the wealthy take grows too. And you and yours want a system where the government won’t try to even the scale, but where the government’s primary function will be to enforce the looting of the common people. You libertarians want a society where the wealthy can crush the common folk as much as they like, and a government that will do little besides imprison or kill any commoner who resists. ---
**Author:** ![DanBlather](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f4b2a3/32.png) [@DanBlather](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DanBlather)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/66 "2009-07-27T00:23:20Z")
> [@Tim\_R.Mortiss](#): > > For one thing, protecting the homeland against threats foreign and domestic IS an activity authorized by the constitution. Providing universal health care is decidedly NOT authorized, and could easily be construed as prohibited by the ninth and tenth amendments…TRM let’s see: Congress is explicitltly tasked with declaring war, yet has not done so in the case or Iraq. The founding fathers warned against “foreign entanglements” and opposed a standing army. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 11:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/67 "2009-07-27T11:05:35Z")
[quote=“BigT, post:4, topic:504180”] That’s sorta it, but not quite. It has to do with two things. [LIST=1] [li]Fiscal conservatives tend to support small government. One of the main roles of a small government is defense.[/li][/QUOTE] Why? Who said so? Seems like a specious bit of circular logic to me. ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 1:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/68 "2009-07-27T13:45:11Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > let’s see: Congress is explicitltly tasked with declaring war, yet has not done so in the case or Iraq. The founding fathers warned against “foreign entanglements” and opposed a standing army. Someone will be along to point out what an antique formality a genuine declaration of war really is. Not me, but someone. ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 2:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/69 "2009-07-27T14:31:09Z")
> [@tagos](#): > > Why? Who said so? Seems like a specious bit of circular logic to me. Actually, it makes perfect sense that “defense” should be considered one of the most important purposes of government. Just like infectious diseases, fire or criminals, a lack of opposition to an aggressive military makes it more dangerous to _everyone_, not just to that individual. That said, Iraq had nothing to do with defense, so **BigT** ’s point was irrelevant to the OP. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 4:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/70 "2009-07-27T16:41:03Z")
> [@DanBlather](#): > > let’s see: Congress is explicitltly tasked with declaring war, yet has not done so in the case or Iraq. Really? What’s this, then? > **[Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iraq_Resolution)** > > The Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002, informally known as the Iraq Resolution, was a joint resolution passed by the United States Congress in October 2002 as Public Law No. 107-243, authorizing the use of the United States Armed Forces against Saddam Hussein's Ba'athist Iraqi government in what would be known as Operation Iraqi Freedom. It was repealed by the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026. > The resolution cited many factors as jus... ---
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 6:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/71 "2009-07-27T18:06:36Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > Americans make good serfs. They grovel with great enthusiasm before the rich and powerful. I would say you’re half right. What we (for I am an American) grovel before most enthusiastically are _the facts_ of money and power. Not necessarily the people possessing them, although they certainly get more than their share of deference and bootlicking. The essential difference is that the typical American believes he can _become_ rich and powerful, because we have no aristocracy of birth (which, many wrongly assume, means no aristocracy _period_ - we have many, often conflicting, aristocracies). Another thing I feel has been passed over in this discussion is conservatives’ deep regard for the military. Not merely as defenders of American “freedom” overseas, but as a beneficial and necessary institution _in domestic society._ ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/72 "2009-07-27T18:30:42Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > It should not come as a surprise to anyone, after all these years, that the Republican Party isn’t fiscally conservative. The Republicans in Congress currently have an approval rating of 11%. That means they HAVE lost the fiscal conservatives. The only reason they get the fiscal conservative vote in elections is because the Democrats are worse. Going by recent history, the Democrats are _far_ worse. But that doesn’t mean fiscal conservatives like the Republican party. I honestly think there is room for a third party in America now. More and more people have left the two parties and are declaring themselves independent. It’s happening to the Democrats as well as to the Republicans. The large center of the country is fiscally conservative and slightly center right on social issues. Not much different than Canada, actually, except the Canadian center is slightly center left. But really, not that different. I believe these are the things that attract the ‘center’ in both countries: There was widespread support in both countries for lower taxes. There was widespread support for welfare reform. There is widespread support for balanced budgets. In both countries, people tend to think abortion should be legal, but they want some restrictions (first trimester, parental notification for minors, etc). The center in both countries calls itself religious, but gets turned off by displays of religion by politicians. They want a social safety net, but they don’t want welfare to be a permanent lifestyle. They want progressive taxes, but they recoil against tax rates that become punitive - even on the rich. They want some form of universal health insurance, but they don’t want health decisions taken away from them or taken away from their doctors. In general, they support the free market and do not support socialism. Canada’s been lucky in that both major parties are centrist - the Liberals are slightly center left, the Conservatives slightly center right. In the U.S., there are two parties who have been completely captured by special interests, and whose policies are driven by their core bases. The U.S. currently does not have a centrist party, but there is a great yearning for one. So American voters tend to find the center by ping-ponging between the two parties - elect Democrats, watch them overreach to the left, Kick them out and put in Republicans, and watch them overreach in the other direction. Repeat ad nauseum. ---
**Author:** ![Der\_Trihs](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/der_trihs/32/233_2.png) [@Der\_Trihs](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Der_Trihs)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 6:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/73 "2009-07-27T18:56:46Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > I would say you’re half right. What we (for I am an American) grovel before most enthusiastically are _the facts_ of money and power. Not necessarily the people possessing them, although they certainly get more than their share of deference and bootlicking. > > The essential difference is that the typical American believes he can _become_ rich and powerful, because we have no aristocracy of birth (which, many wrongly assume, means no aristocracy _period_ - we have many, often conflicting, aristocracies). No, we have an aristocracy of birth; the majority of the wealthy started out wealthy. America is actually less social mobile than Europe these days. The Americans who think they can get rich are almost certainly deluding themselves. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 7:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/74 "2009-07-27T19:05:07Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, we have an aristocracy of birth; the majority of the wealthy started out wealthy. America is actually less social mobile than Europe these days. The Americans who think they can get rich are almost certainly deluding themselves. You say this after I recently cited data directly for you disproving what you’re talking about. You’re bordering on the intentionally dishonest now. Only 22% of the people in the top income quintile had parents who were also in the top income quintile. The majority of people in the top income quintile moved there from either the lower or middle classes. Please stop repeating nonsense. As for income mobility in the U.S. as compared to the rest fo the world, there’s actually very little difference. Some studies have concluded that Europe is slightly more mobile in the sense that parent’s income is less predictive of final outcome, but other studies disagree. Even the studies that find a difference say that the difference is no more than about 25% in terms of parental income on final outcome. But social mobility isn’t just about making it to the top quintile. It’s also about being able to move around in the middle class, or moving from absolute poverty to lower middle class. And of course, overlaid on top of the mobility statistics are the absolute income numbers. In the U.S., the income quintiles are all shifted upwards relative to Europe because Americans are wealthier in general. Being in a middle quintile in America is like being in an upper quintile in Europe. ---
**Author:** ![Sam\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Sam\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sam_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/75 "2009-07-27T19:13:51Z")
Contrary to what **Der Trihs** keeps saying, the real key to intergenerational mobility is education, not ‘connections’ or ‘aristocracy’. The reason more kids of rich families become rich themselves is because as a group, they have access to better education. All of the studies agree on this. The U.S. does not have a closed system of guilds and castes. There is actually very little nepotism in American industry. What determines how far you go and how wealthy you become is generally determined by education, health, and attitude. Take a poor kid with no connections and give him good nutrition and an excellent education and teach him a solid work ethic, and he’s just as likely to do well as the child of a millionaire. There’s no ‘aristocracy’ involved in any way. ---
**Author:** ![fruitbat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@fruitbat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fruitbat)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/76 "2009-07-27T19:38:08Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > No, we have an aristocracy of birth; the majority of the wealthy started out wealthy. America is actually less social mobile than Europe these days. The Americans who think they can get rich are almost certainly deluding themselves. I suspect this contention is necessary for you to justify your worldview. As Sam has shown it isn’t true. It is necessary because otherwise you are taking money from the people who worked hard for it, studied the things in college that weren’t as fun as anthropology or literature or theater. The tax burden doesn’t fall, for the most part on Scrooge McDuck. You want the guy who worked harder than you to hand money back. To a certain extent this is necessary and fair, to act like it is an act of avenging justice is a bit much. I find it far easier to accept an argument from someone who is in the top decile or quintile of wage earners in favor of higher taxes, than to hear from the people who are barely taxed at all that I should be taxed more. ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 8:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/77 "2009-07-27T20:35:45Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > You say this after I recently cited data directly for you disproving what you’re talking about. You’re bordering on the intentionally dishonest now. > > Only 22% of the people in the top income quintile had parents who were also in the top income quintile. The majority of people in the top income quintile moved there from either the lower or middle classes. Please stop repeating nonsense. > > As for income mobility in the U.S. as compared to the rest fo the world, there’s actually very little difference. Some studies have concluded that Europe is slightly more mobile in the sense that parent’s income is less predictive of final outcome, but other studies disagree. Even the studies that find a difference say that the difference is no more than about 25% in terms of parental income on final outcome. > > But social mobility isn’t just about making it to the top quintile. It’s also about being able to move around in the middle class, or moving from absolute poverty to lower middle class. > > And of course, overlaid on top of the mobility statistics are the absolute income numbers. In the U.S., the income quintiles are all shifted upwards relative to Europe because Americans are wealthier in general. Being in a middle quintile in America is like being in an upper quintile in Europe. Making it has been the American dream for two centuries. Horatio Alger, who died 110 years ago this month, wrote dozens of hugely popular novels (Struggling Upward, Strive and Succeed) that imprinted the aspiration on millions of minds. In their pages boys would rise from poverty to the middle class, often through the kindly intercession of older men but always with a display of grit. The theme spanned the 19th-century Atlantic: Samuel Smiles (1812-1904) promoted the theme of social advancement through individual striving in Self Help (1859) and other works. The career of his fellow Scot Andrew Carnegie, moving from real childhood rags to world-beating riches in early middle age, gave foundation to such exhortations. But where the myth had reality, it now has less. Recent studies show that the US is near the top, and the UK in the upper levels, of the league of developed states in which the poor do not or cannot help themselves to rise. One much quoted study notes that “the idea of the US as ‘the land of opportunity’ persists; and clearly seems misplaced”. […] Individual and family mobility – another irony – seems better served in states with a strong social democratic tradition. In the Scandinavian countries, Denmark in particular, movement up (and down) is better lubricated. One cannot have everything. The international tables of top universities are dominated by the US and the UK, which cater for global as well as their own elites. Hard-driving and expensive private schools are embedded in the Anglo-American social fabrics; the Cabinet Office report shows that some professions – such as the judiciary and journalism – are at the higher levels dominated by their products. When this writer began in a provincial newsroom, he was one of two graduates; the route to national glory could still be trod by a school leaver with shorthand and sharp elbows. Now, it would be far more difficult… [P]arents who push for entry to better schools, or better schooling in the one they get, are the real motor forces of a dynamic society. The antidote to social ossification would thus seem to be a new kind of class struggle, a storming of the frozen winter palaces that tutor and employ our increasingly entrenched elites. > **[The mobile society stalls at the gates of academe](https://www.ft.com/content/2f9749c8-7879-11de-bb06-00144feabdc0?_i_location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ft.com%2Fcms%2Fs%2F0%2F2f9749c8-7879-11de-bb06-00144feabdc0.html&_i_referer=http%3A%2F%2Fdelong.typepad.com%2Fsdj%2F2009%2F07%2Feducation-and-equal-opportunity.html)** And where you you get the “Being in a middle quintile in America is like being in an upper quintile in Europe.” from? ---
**Author:** ![Dick\_Dastardly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c4cdca/32.png) [@Dick\_Dastardly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dick_Dastardly)\ **Post date:** [July 27, 2009, 8:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/78 "2009-07-27T20:36:51Z")
> [@fruitbat](#): > > I suspect this contention is necessary for you to justify your worldview. As Sam has shown it isn’t true. It is necessary because otherwise you are taking money from the people who worked hard for it, studied the things in college that weren’t as fun as anthropology or literature or theater. The tax burden doesn’t fall, for the most part on Scrooge McDuck. You want the guy who worked harder than you to hand money back. To a certain extent this is necessary and fair, to act like it is an act of avenging justice is a bit much. > > I find it far easier to accept an argument from someone who is in the top decile or quintile of wage earners in favor of higher taxes, than to hear from the people who are barely taxed at all that I should be taxed more. Shouldn’t higher earners pay at least the same effective tax rate as low/middle income earners? ---
**Author:** ![Grumman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/43a26b/32.png) [@Grumman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Grumman)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/79 "2009-07-28T14:26:02Z")
> [@Dick\_Dastardly](#): > > Shouldn’t higher earners pay at least the same effective tax rate as low/middle income earners? Do high income earners impose higher costs on society than low income earners, out of proportion to their higher income? If not, I don’t think this is a self-evident viewpoint. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [July 28, 2009, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180/80 "2009-07-28T15:07:28Z")
> [@Beware\_of\_Doug](#): > > Another thing I feel has been passed over in this discussion is conservatives’ deep regard for the military. Not merely as defenders of American “freedom” overseas, but as **a beneficial and necessary institution _in domestic society._** That’s because it is. Defense contracts mean jobs. Military careers are jobs. Military bases whether at home or abroad have immense amounts of businesses that spring up that cater to the military and their families. Finally, it’s as revered as it is in some circles because of the enormous sacrifices people in the military have made throughout our history to help shape this country into what it has become. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wheres-the-outrage-from-fiscal-conservatives-over-iraq/504180.md?page=5)