I'm not enthused about interventionism and the US being the World's policeman either.

But I am even less enthused about the kind of world we will have if Russia, or China become the world cops.

Power abhors a vacuum.

Have young people ever been very for military interventions? I mean, even in my parents' day they were putting flowers in rifles and stuff...

> I don't think we should be -- or can
> afford to be -- the world's policeman.

A punishingly naive trope, that: "The world's policeman." You oughta know better. Everyone graduated 7th grade oughta to know better.

For every race, religion or generation, there is one nation to which the world turns for deployment of deadly force in defense of virtue: The United States of America. This trust in our decency —whether subtle or explicit, but always reflexive— has much to do with the global flowering of wealth and peace (and feminism) over the last century or so.

No other superpower could have chaperoned these miracles.

No other superpower ever did.

Also (and I've been meaning to tease many of you about this for some time)— Demands for American military engagement come from every corner of the globe. During the Arab Spring crises in Syria and Libya, the Arab League shamelessly asked for United States military action. (And exactly how long ago were the 'Dubya wars' in Afghanistan and Iraq?)

Who y'gonna call?

Not a policeman... When civilization's child-cultures get in trouble, they turn to the planet's adults. Not to Canada, not to Europe, not to Cameroon or Uruguay.

You're going to call the United States.




> Have young people ever been very for
> military interventions?

They've certainly been more stoic than they are today. Read any popular thinking on the topic before we went to Korea.

You're right Crid - but how has that helped us?

Well, first, it's made us less prone to selfish, zero-sum thinking.

Many if us, anyway.

It's made the world's resources --intellectual, natural and manufactured-- available to us in reliable markets. And again, that includes the women's contributions.

And thirdly, global stability has allowed us to avoid conflagrations such as World War II, which required devastating American response in each ocean and continent.

But most of all, we're the good guys. We're indispensable, and you'd be a fool --or a viper-- to deny it.

The teenage fantasy of smug isolation isn't applicable... we're globally dependent and globally engaged. Idiots from every corner of our world will always be able to fly our air planes into our skyscrapers.

Adulthood is vulnerable that way.

You're right Crid - but how has that helped us?

Posted by: Snoopy at March 31, 2014 3:20 AM

Are you not living in the most prosperous and free country that has ever existed in the history of the world?

What do you think you should have that you don't have now?

There is no way to figure out what the world would have been like if the US hadn't been stepping up for the last hundred years.

Considering that human history is pretty much unending warfare, and famine, it would be a much grimmer place without the US policies so it has helped "us" in every way.

How has it helped us? You're not speaking German or Japanese or Russian. This was not an inevitable outcome of events which happened in the lifetimes of your fellow citizens. You might think differently, but you would be wrong. I forgive the lazy, and the ignorant. They were taught that their country was always wrong. Imperfect, but hardly wanting when compared to any other.

> it's made us less prone to selfish, zero-sum thinking.

I'm not sure how that works, but in any event, so has the internet, at much less cost to human life

> It's made the world's resources --intellectual,
> natural and manufactured-- available to us in
> reliable markets.

Afghanistan? Which resources there have benefited us?

> global stability has allowed us to avoid
> conflagrations such as World War II

How have actions in Afghanistan contributed to global stability?

> We're indispensable

Sure, but how does that make our lives better?

> Are you not living in the most prosperous and
> free country that has ever existed in the history
> of the world?

Sure, but war by definition is bad for the economy as people and resources get destroyed. We could well be even more prosperous.

As for freedom, over the last several years lots of freedoms have been taken away in the name of security.

> There is no way to figure out what the world
> would have been like if the US hadn't been
> stepping up for the last hundred years.

I think the picture changes a lot if you just look at the last 40 to 50 years.

I used to be a non-interventionist myself, right up until 9/11. That was when I decided that I would rather we fight them "there," than "here." That and, when people say, "we're going to kill you," you should believe them, and act accordingly.

> How has it helped us? You're not speaking German
> or Japanese or Russian.

No, but there never really was a threat that I'd speak Afghani. Germany and Japan haven't been a threat for over 50 years.

I get the impulse to want to pull back. This back-and-forth has been part of our national dialog for as long as the United States has existed. However, this:

"Consider how many Americans in their 20s, 30s and 40s view the world. The Cold War to them was unnecessary--a tense and massively expensive arms race for little if any gain."

demonstrates a disgraceful level of willful ignorance. Nikita Khrushchev, we know now, spent practically his every waking moment searching for an opening to launch a preemptive nuclear first strike against the United States. Fortunately for the entire world, he never found one. The Soviet Union was the most evil and oppressive organization that human beings have ever created, and it was the work (yes, expensive work) of many people who fought the Cold War from 1950 until Reagan and the SDI boffins finally put the last nail in the coffin, who made it possible for the world as we know it to exist today. Without that, the world would have reverted to a medevial dystopia and odds are that none of us would be here to have this debate.

Part of the USA's problem has always been that our geographical isolation gives us a false sense of security. Yes, Iran and North Korea and Syria are far away, while the Playstation is right there in front of us. But we engage all over the world, and the Irans of the world have always had the ability to deliver mayhem to our doorstep -- it used to take longer than it does now, but it's always been there, and our own history shows that we ignore it at our peril. From the Barbary pirates, to France backing the Confederates during the Civil War, to 9/11, history has always show that we are never as isolated as we think we are, or might like to be.

Oh, stop arguing.

Everyone knows the best way to defend the Republic is to absolve the wealthy from military service, send the poor to fight in foreign adventures the benefit of corporations and their pet politicians, and label anyone who doesn't see the value in this as cowardly, anti-American or sexually suspect.

If you REALLY need they young to buy in, just keep the economy in the tank so they can't get jobs outside of the military, shore up their faith in the country by letting the security agencies shred their privacy, and make them proud to drop their pants in the airport at the demand of any McDonald's College dropout with a TSA nametag.

Now honestly, who wouldn't fight for that, unless they were a chickenshit commie pinko fag?

There are various arguments, true...

But it's hard to prove a negative. So let's think a bit more local.

You head down to your local store in the evening because the US is more or less civilized. There are neighborly rules, and then there are city laws... and a force of people to prosecute those laws.

Those people don't actually protect you proactively, that's neighborhood rules that do that. Most people figure it's a bad business to do bad unto others, it comes back on you. So they don't bother you on the way to the store, and they hope you won't bother them.

There is a small percentage of people who don't get that. They do bad, and either you protect yourself, or the police do later. To punish the bad there is some law and prosecution hanging over their head. This may not dissuade them all the time, but it prolly gives some pause... especially to those that would be opportunists rather than professionals.

Many places, you as an individual have latitude to defend yourself, too.

Now, lets say, you take the police outta the question. Laws exist but with no one to make them stick, they are worthless. Let's say you are also allowed to defend yourselves only with your fists. How does your place break down?

Take a look at some places in Mexico, and tell me.

Now scale up and tell me how all this works when there are countries in the world more than willing to start up empires again. Not to mention those that are looking for global caliphate.

Sure, we don't know precisely what will happen if we do nothing...

But the flakey way that foreign policy has been applied for some years, can give you a clue.

Everyone is looking for a time when the strong horse weakens, so they can tear it apart.

Iraq, and Afghanistan are bad news on their own merits and for their own reasons, and everybody is watching that.

But our current issues with our old foes stem at least as much from the feckless application of force in other place like Libya. Depose the dictator for what reason again, oh, because the Europeans want that? And now it's a fustercluck. then threaten on Syria, but never do anything strong... and now Assad knows nothing will happen.

Meanwhile Darfur is a killing field and NOBODY cares.

The Eastern Europeans no longer believe we will DO WHAT WE SAY.

Have you ever had someone lie to you, and suddenly you didn't know if you could ever trust them again?

Yeah, that.

We don't have to be the world's policemen, we just have to be ourselves... and figure out just what is wrong with a world where 2 kids can beg for help from adults and 600!!! will walk by without helping.

Don't think it could happen here? Perhaps not YET. But that IS the attitude that allows things to go to hell somewhere else, while we think, "well, it's far away."

It's not a perfect thing, this world, nor are we...

But who do we wish to become? Situationally trustworthy? Do we run towards trouble to protect those who can't get away from it?

Some people think that's arrogant. You can believe me, when those very people are in trouble, they will be looking for someone to help.

“People sleep peaceably in their bed at night only because rough men stand ready to do violence on their behalf.” somebody said this at some time, prolly NOT Orwell

throw out "Freedom is not Free" or any other likely saying, and look for the kernel of truth.

Long ago, when everything was far away, and even communicating with someone was hard, we could afford to be isolationist. Somewhere around 100 years ago, our living on borrowed time came to an end.

Here's another saying, widely attributed:
you can fence yourself in, but you cannot fence the world out.

Shall we allow the world to burn, until the flames reach our boarders? In an interconnected world, can this be afforded, and for what reason? Look all around you, and ask yourself where those things came from.

Are those people worth as much as you?

/overlong rant

"I'm not sure how that works, but in any event, so has the internet, at much less cost to human life..."

Hmm. And where did that come from?

>> it's made us less prone to selfish,
>> zero-sum thinking.

> I'm not sure how that works

We can tell!

> but in any event, so has the internet

Apparently not, Snoopy. It hasn't in your case... You're still arguing for small-mindedness.

> at much less cost to human life

Precisely backwards.

First, you've failed to take the larger point: Global warmaking and military expenditures have plummeted under American supremacy. Over my lifetime and for some time before, no nation has even dreamt of competing with American military strength. We're what's saved all those lives. That United States struck a deal with rest of the planet after World War II: You'll not be permitted to amass threatening power; but you'll be allowed (and even encouraged) to compete in the world markets, including those of the United States.

This policy has been so successful that-

[A.] YOU can't even it see it happening.

[B.] No war happens anywhere in the world without the tacit approval of the United States.

Second, your comment is crippled by irony- The internet wasn't built for facebook and pornography; it's an outgrowth of work by the United States Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

> Afghanistan? Which resources
> there have benefited us?

That's not an exception: Because it's resisted integration with the modern world, Afghanistan doesn't have any resources (except poppy fields for heroin production).

> How have actions in Afghanistan
> contributed to global stability?

It's such a primitive shithole that it's been useful place to hide from world authorities. That's not so much the case anymore.

(And even there, modernity is relentless. Google this phrase: "The Saudi Arabia of lithium.")

> war by definition is bad for the
> economy as people and resources
> get destroyed.

Only for the losers, Babe.

> We could well be even more
> prosperous.

Oh, that's just childish. People who know ("Well!") how we (or anyone) "could be even more prosperous" tend to be rich, and I bet you're not. You haven't been weeping about the wealth destruction from America's postwar defense postures. You haven't been peppering this forum with ideas for the refinement of capitalism... You certainly haven't done so in this instance. You're bullshitting.

Whoops, Nobel Peace Prize.

I often confuse all those assholes.

BTW, I stole a lot of that (except for the Pulitzer thing) from this guy.

See also.

"Sure, but war by definition is bad for the economy as people and resources get destroyed. We could well be even more prosperous."

Historically war has been very good for the US economy.

When Bill Clinton spent his "peace dividend" on expanded social programs, like affordable housing it made us "less prosperous" and most likely led directly to the mortgage meltdown of 2008.

Kagan (linked above) wrote about this topic yesterday.

Douthat offered a couple interesting replies today.

> No, but there never really was a threat that
> I'd speak Afghani. Germany and Japan haven't
> been a threat for over 50 years.

This is a rilly weird thing to say.

Hell NO they "haven't been a threat": They were firebombed and pummeled into a pitiful submission theretofore unseen in the Animal Kingdom.

Hitchens faced this "argument" once, too. I'll never forget it.

so, let's look at this a little bit differently:

http://www.geospatialworld.net/Paper/Application/ArticleView.aspx?aid=24845

here we have all the fabulousness of the GPS System [which is military] that has revolutionized ocean shipping, to allow things to move the most expeditious way possible. Look at all the pretty pictures, especially the world map.

Why do you care?

reach in your pocket. there is likely to be some kind of device there, potentially an iPhone, or an Android phone of some kind. And it came to our bounteous shores from a country far away, stacked floor to ceiling in a 40' container, piled on the deck of a transport ship, with billions of other items.

Now how would things go, if Mr. Not-Nice-Guy waited till a ship was in international waters... and then torpedoed it? Some large amount of merch lost, a VERY expensive ship at the bottom of the ocean, and 50 guys lose their lives.

If it starts happening often, you will hear a song... it's an interesting little ditty that starts: 'From the Halls of Montezuma; To the shores of Tripoli'

That this no longer happens very often, and really mostly near a specific lawless area off the east coast of Africa, is because of a "Trendline"... an 'idea'... perhaps you could call it a response. For several hundred years, there have been countries around the world who have taken a dim view of other people attacking their ships on the high seas. There have been wars started by it and over it...

But the upshot is that countries tend to espouse a do unto other as you would have them do unto you.

But why? The pickins' are easy. The oceans are VAST, and it take a long time to get places. So what's the worst that could happen? Oh, right, a sniper takes you head off. Satellites figure out your hideout, or who is sponsoring you.

Certainly, in a lot of cases, you'll ask for ransom, and the shipper will write a check, because it's easier, at least if you are just some pirate.

But if that reaches an appropriate level, someone will target you... so who has the boats? The infrastructure? The people? Who's out there training? Who has LOTS of interoperation agreements worldwide, to help?

Did all that infrastructure appear over night? Or was it caused by a security posture over a VERY long time? NOT ONLY THAT, but let's say the nice ship with your iPhone has a problem. Even though it may be a Chinese flagged ship, with their cargo...
I'd wager that ANY ship nearby will come to help, EVEN if it's a US warship on patrol. Perhaps ESPECIALLY if it's a USNavy ship. Most other navies in the world follow that idea. I wonder why?

What has caused this interoperability? Where is the infrastructure from? Where do these idas come from?

Now, how do you get your iPhone when piracy is common, and there is the potential that another country's navy would come after your ship to harm rather than help?

Oh, yeah, I guess it's not really possible to get your grapes from Chile, and your laptop from China, and Guiness from Ireland, without free trade upon the oceans? What guaruntees free trade upon the oceans?

The Iranian Navy?

This is a VERY big picture, and most people just don't think much on it.

20 question marks is a lot of question marks.

It gets to be a Colbert-style sincerity minefield, where we're no longer certain you're still sexually attracted to us.

Plus, we need a thesis sentence.

> Plus, we need a thesis sentence.

Sure, you can find it here in this article - A Radical Plan for Cutting the Defense Budget and Reconfiguring the U.S. Military by retired Col. Douglas Macgregor:

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2011/04/26/a_radical_plan_for_cutting_the_defense_budget_and_reconfiguring_the_us_military

He's a retired Colonel - hardly a pacificst!

In short, he recommends:

* Estimated annualized savings resulting from withdrawals from overseas garrisons and restructuring the United States' forward military presence: $239 billion

* Estimated annualized savings from reorganizing the Army and Marine Corps: $18 billion

* Estimated annualized savings from reductions in naval surface forces and Marine fixed-wing aviation: $10 billion

* Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the F-35B: $2.5 billion

* Estimated annualized savings from reducing the number of unified commands and single service headquarters: $1 billion

* Estimated annualized savings from eliminating the Department of Homeland Security and restructuring national intelligence and the Army National Guard: $7 billion

> Historically war has been very good for the US economy.

That's the broken window fallacy.

If you build an F-35B and it gets destroyed, all the money you put into it is destroyed too.

If instead you had put the same amount of money into something else that wasn't destroyed, say a new factory, it will continue to produce dividends.

If a 20 year old soldier is killed, then all that he would have produced for the remaining years of his life is destroyed as well.

> If you build an F-35B and it gets
> destroyed, all the money you put
> into it is destroyed too.

Yeah? So all the design and materials and fabrication and training just magically never happened, wiped from history, and the money is taken back from the people who received it?

By the way, is that for every plane, or just the F35?



> If a 20 year old soldier is killed, then
> all that he would have produced for the
> remaining years of his life is destroyed
> as well.

You're out of your depth... I think you took the shallowest possible reading of the Lomborg video.

If that 20-year-old soldier kills enough monsters in Iraq or Afghanistan (or maybe Dresden or Nagasaki) before he dies, history is changed for the better.

Besides, the thesis request was for Swissy. We already know that you're wrong.

I mean, all the things you list there are wonderful. But we're going to need to maintain military preeminence for a very long time.

Robert Kaplan says the fleet of the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force now four times as a large as the British Royal Navy. And that neighborhood is getting, um, busy.

When things start going wrong over there, who do you think is going to get the call? Who will have deeper financial and humanitarian connections to all the players than the United States?

so Snoopy, what is the endgame? I wonder if the good Col. is saying the same thing today as he did 3 years ago...

Things have changed quite a bit in the world, but quietly, in many places...

Well, with the exception of Ukraine and Crimea. Oh, and all those other places that used to be "Russian."

The thing about forces, as several presidents have discovered, is that if you let them go to seed they aren't ready when you need them.
Modernization is pretty cool, 'till a jihadi can blow the hell out of your forces with an IED and a cell phone.

The Col. isn't wrong about the way the after-the-cold-war went... he may be correct about what to do about it.

Yet humans, are powerfully strange.

I'll never know how many people have never messed with me because I am 6' and shaped like a bear.

Why does China go slow with it's interests in the South China sea? Why don't they just attack Japan and be done? Why don't they allow NORK to attack and conquer the south, and reunify the Koreas?

Y'know last mid-century, that area, and farther south was a hotbed of changes... including a war that never ended, and one we walked away from.

Was it just that everyone figured it was easier to make money with those cowboy Americans, rather than fighting?

What do you think makes China wary?

Also, are Snoopy and Swissy the same guy?

Rosen:
What threatens America directly? The ability to build nuclear weapons and the means to deliver them is spreading.

The nukes are good for dramatic effect, but bioweapons are much more practical.

Crid:
When civilization's child-cultures get in trouble, they turn to the planet's adults. Not to Canada, not to Europe,...You're going to call the United States.

You realize that you're calling a two hundred year old country the adult, while much of the world has chicken coops that are older than that, never mind their cultures?

same guy... last I checked no. Why are we sayin' the same things?

lesse... I'm sure I'll get graded hard on Thesis Statement, this being barely a hobby, but how's about:
Preparation in strength is easier than recovery in weakness.

woah, forgot a comma. "Why, are we sayin' the same things?"

Crid:
For every race...or generation, there is one nation to which the world turns for deployment of deadly force in defense of virtue: The United States of America. This trust in our decency —whether subtle or explicit, (is) always reflexive

Just out of curiosity, how would you explain this to a Vietnamese or Laotian?

> how would you explain this to a Vietnamese
> or Laotian?

Well, golly, I'd say we made mistakes.

Wouldn't you agree? We postponed the march of monstrous forces in the cruelest way imaginable.

But I'd also note that the United States wasn't the first author of the suffering in those places.

Read anything about 'Nam lately? They're doing crazycool things with capitalism.

> You realize that you're calling a two hundred
> year old country the adult, while much of the
> world has chicken coops that are older than
> that, never mind their cultures?

You realize that if these cultures were grown rather than merely olden, they'd have more going on than chicken coops?

"Much of the world" sucks, and I'm unhappy about that. I think the United States leads the way in most every facet of aspiration that comes to mind. We have many blessings, but they'd be worthless without our culture.

We're the bearers of civilization's source code, and it's foolish to deny it. What worked for us will work for anyone.




Or is there a special lesson we need to learn from some other culture? Have you got something specific in mind?

It would be great if you'd list the particulars.

Also, why did kenmce excise the word "religion" from his quotation from the earlier comment?

Does he know of a world faith that hasn't, in recent decades, counted on the United States for help?

> Yeah? So all the design and materials and
> fabrication and training just magically never
> happened, wiped from history, and the money is
> taken back from the people who received it?

Yes, funnily enough. If you have $100 million dollars and buy a plane with it, and the plane gets blown up at war, you are left with $0.

If instead of going to war, you take $100 million dollars and build a bunch of houses with it, and there is no war, you are still left with all the houses you built, and they will last for decades or longer.

Not getting things blown up means you still have them, and funnily enough, once something is blown up, you no longer have it. In my example, you are $100 million dollars ahead.

Say a war burns all the food that a farmer grows. No one can eat "the design and materials and
fabrication and training" that went into growing the food - the food is simply gone.

> By the way, is that for every plane, or just the
> F35?

I'll leave that exercise for the more advanced students.

"Yes, funnily enough. If you have $100 million dollars and buy a plane with it, and the plane gets blown up at war, you are left with $0.

If instead of going to war, you take $100 million dollars and build a bunch of houses with it, and there is no war, you are still left with all the houses you built, and they will last for decades or longer.

Not getting things blown up means you still have them, and funnily enough, once something is blown up, you no longer have it. In my example, you are $100 million dollars ahead.

Say a war burns all the food that a farmer grows. No one can eat "the design and materials and
fabrication and training" that went into growing the food - the food is simply gone."

What is your point exactly, that if you spend government money on food instead of fighters, the rest of the world will just leave you alone to grow your food in peace?

When your crop yields are down 90 percent because Putin decided that you weren't going to get any of those petroleum products that power those John Deere tractors, tell me that you don't need any stinking oil, and that somehow little fairies are going to go out and plant and harvest those nice soybeans.

Kindergarten economics, is what drives clueless socialism.

"Money" has no value. It is just a means of exchange for things that do have value.

Even Japan has fighters. So far, they have kept the Chinese tending their own rice fields, which is the point.
Money well spent. It is called "crop insurance"

Snoopy,

Crid was too nice to say it, but I frankly think you are either 14 years old, or a flipping idiot. Which is it?

> Say a war burns all the food 

I'm not certain this is the advanced kind of economic analysis you imagine it to be. Houses in Illinois are sweet, but they're no good at bombing or close air support in overseas operations.

If you want to smoke weed and imagine yourself to be too sophisticated & evolved for reliance on violent force, that's fine, and no one will care.

But when, in weeks-not-months, or hours-not-days, the rest of America disregards your childish presumptions to deliver a violent end to some loathsome personage, don't bother the rest of us with your tears. Instead, phone Amy, who will probably be mumbling something about "policemen" over and over.

Good luck out there! War! Economics!

Gizmodo comments on the Chilling Geometry of Every US Military Base Seen From Space.

"The United States military is everywhere. It's so big that it's hard to quantify just how massive it is—any number used to describe it is so large that it defies the understanding of an ordinary human brain. Which is why artist Josh Begley skips the numbers and goes straight to the visuals with this chilling map, which catalogs every U.S. military base in the world."

http://gizmodo.com/the-chilling-geometry-of-every-us-military-base-seen-fr-1481870788/all

Question: Would US security be hampered if 25% of these bases were shut down?

My answer: definitely not.

> Snoopy,

> Crid was too nice to say it, but I frankly think
> you are either 14 years old, or a flipping idiot.
> Which is it?

Well, Ron Paul agrees with me, perhaps he's 14 too?

"What makes this military spending impossible to justify is that is does not benefit the American people. Instead, by fomenting resentment and hatred among the world population, our costly interventionist foreign policy makes our people less safe. Thus, reducing spending on militarism would not only help balance the budget, but would enhance our security."

http://www.ronpaulinstitute.org/archives/featured-articles/2013/september/29/a-grand-bargain-for-liberty.aspx

> I'm not certain this is the advanced kind of
> economic analysis you imagine it to be

If you're not satisfied with my comments, you can simply Google "is war good for the economy?" and you'll find article after article with much more depth and erudition than any blog comment I could write, but they essentially say the same thing.

In fact, here's a good one:

"Nobel-prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz says that war is bad for the economy:

Stiglitz wrote in 2003:

War is widely thought to be linked to economic good times. The second world war is often said to have brought the world out of depression, and war has since enhanced its reputation as a spur to economic growth. Some even suggest that capitalism needs wars, that without them, recession would always lurk on the horizon.

Today, we know that this is nonsense. The 1990s boom showed that peace is economically far better than war. The Gulf war of 1991 demonstrated that wars can actually be bad for an economy."

http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2012/02/debunking-the-myth-that-war-is-good-for-the-economy-once-and-for-all.html

> you can simply Google "is war good for
> the economy?"

And I'd do so if the question, or the people inclined to pose or answer it in simplistic terms, were of interest. As it happens, they are not.

> "Nobel-prize winning economist
> Joseph Stiglitz says..."

The thing about the Pulitzers is...

Har! I kid! And I crack myself up! That was a good one.

Naw, Krugman has a Nobel, and he's out of his mind. (As did, and was, Arafat.) Most economists aren't good for much beyond amusement.

More to the point, war is not about low prices. It's about other things.

Read this book by the recently deceased Keegan. He convincingly argues that we often go to war for reasons having little to do with economic or personal interests.

Dear Little Snoop-Bucket: The Good Lord in Heaven did not put you on this planet to save money. He wants much more from you than thrift.

> Most economists aren't good for much beyond amusement.

Crid, you don't need a nobel prize in economics to see that an alive person is more economically productive than a dead person.

> He convincingly argues that we often go to war
> for reasons having little to do with economic or
> personal interests.

And you think ignoring one's economic and personal interests is rational?

Crid:
Also, why did kenmce excise the word "religion" from his quotation from the earlier comment?

I consider it polite to trim down quotes on this long a thread. I was doing my best to condense & summarize your main point without changing it. If you feel that religion was essential, and that removing it changed what you said unacceptably, then please excuse me.

"Question: Would US security be hampered if 25% of these bases were shut down?

My answer: definitely not."

And you know this, how? You do realize that the current number of U.S. militar bases is less than half of what existed during WWII? And, what exactly is so "chilling" about a map of military bases? Sounds like you've fallen for the leftist media trope hook, line and sinker.

And if you're quoting the Larouchite Ron Paul (not Rand, but Ron), you've definitely gone off the deep end. Try again.

"the current number of U.S. militar bases is less than half of what existed during WWII"

Just when I think there's no good news, there it is.

> polite to trim down quotes on this
> long a thread

Where those excisions consist of a single word, we'll wonder if you're trying to make a point.

> you don't need a nobel prize in
> economics to see

And you don't need an hour of kindergarten to know that defense is about more than economics.

> And you think ignoring one's economic
> and personal interests is rational?

Aw Snoopy, it's such a big planet out there, and you're just this one little guy, trying to make his way through a world that doesn't care.

Best of luck with your rationality! We'll be in touch!

> Best of luck with your rationality! We'll be in touch!

Well, this seems to summarize our differences in opinion very pithily. Best of luck with your lack of rationality. I'm sure we'll be in touch lots.

Because money! RATIONAL!

There are a number of people who are worth more dead than alive. I very well may be one of them.

The balance between globalization and isolationism is one that every country is dealing with. How much to interfere with other countries (militarily, with sanctions, etc), how open to keep borders, etc. Too much of either comes with a downside.