The liberal press is right, this IS an election about nothing. All the high-minded ideals that conservatives and libertarians and republicans cling to are nothing but vapour. Even if the GOP sweeps the election the actual GOP politicians could not care less about any of that nonsense and they will do none of the things that this election is supposedly “about”. Are they going to impeach Obama? Nope. Are they going to jail corrupt administrators? Nope. Are they going to cut the budget or even just stop its growth? Nope. It’s going to be business as usual for them and the notion that once they have power they’ll champion the same values as the voters is ludicrous.
Obama may be a corrupt incompetent, but so is the GOP as an institution. They have no interest in cleaning up anything when they are 50% of the problem.
Well, speaking personally, I would like to see a little more competent rebellion than we’ve had the last few years.
1) Cease fighting over the debt limit. It’s a stupid idea. Pay your bills. If you don’t, you crash the USA’s credit. Don’t do it; it’s the wrong issue to fight about. In fact, I’d be in favor of a bill that cancels the whole idea of a debt limit. Whatever Congress authorizes, the Treasure is authorized to pay for.
2) Get rid of the filibuster rules, or at least get rid of the recent modifications where you don’t need to actually filibuster. If Democratics want to speak for hours, they can filibuster. Historically, no one does that except for the most extreme causes, and that’s what it’s good for. Otherwise, majority rule – this has been the situation for most of the history of the Senate.
2) Republicans will now be able to pass any bills they want. They can pass a budget that defunds Obamacare and the Department of Education. However, Obama will veto it. If they hold out, we get a government shut-down with everyone blaming everyone. If they just pass a continuing resolution to tide us over, Obama will just veto everything else. Congress controls the budget, but what’s the answer?
Instead, pass the budget in pieces. Anything that is clearly necessary and desirable for the government, pass as separate bills. Lots of them. Will the president veto a bill funding the Coast Guard? Or the FAA? Send him a bunch of such bills and dare him to veto them.
Assure the American public that we’re not cancelling everything else, we just want to get the essential stuff funded so things won’t shut down while we’re arguing. Once those are signed, _then_ write a budget and let the president veto it if he doesn’t want anything else funded, or let him deal. Congress controls the budget.
3) Do some tough stuff. We don’t need all the military spending that we have. We just don’t. We should not be paying for NATO’s military, for Japan’s military, for South Korea’s military, for most of the UN’s military. Those Republicans who agree with me should buck the rest of their party and get together with some Democrats; this is a place that spending should be cut in a bipartisan way. I’m sorry if it will upset other Republicans. Not all Republicans are pro-big-military. They should stick together on things they agree on.
4) Reform the tax laws. Deductions are a giveaway from the government, taking from other tax-payers to pay people who own houses, people who are farmers, etc. I don’t understand why Republicans should be supporting these things. Low taxes doesn’t mean that you have to pay me for my house. Bowles-Simpson suggested getting rid of a large chunk of deductions all at once to help with the political fallout, and that’s how it should be done.
5) Do not infuriate poor people, help them. Talk to them, and tell them that with all the government programs that we are planning to defund, that doesn’t mean we are going to defund you. We care about you, not about the bureaucrats who run those programs. The US government is currently spending tens of thousands of dollars on welfare programs per person in the US. Poor people don’t get most of it, lots of it stays in Washington. We’re going to take the same amount of money and cut you a check, every month. You’ll get every dollar; you’ll get more than you’re getting now, without having to visit twenty different agencies and fill out forty different forms. The US government is very good at cutting checks to millions of people.
Look, I know that Republicans don’t approve of welfare. So what? This idea doesn’t cost anything, should refute a lot of the stuff that poor Americans think about Republicans, and would almost completely get rid of one of the largest and most important Democratic power blocs: federal workers. And it would be better for the poor; they could decide what to do with their money. Charles Murray suggested it long ago.
1) Cease fighting over the debt limit.
2) Get rid of the filibuster rules
Hear, hear.
Once those are signed, _then_ write a budget and let the president veto it if he doesn’t want anything else funded, or let him deal. Congress controls the budget.
Some budget items (Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare) are funded with permanent appropriations. To change those Congress needs a presidential signature, or to override the veto.
The US government is currently spending tens of thousands of dollars on welfare programs per person in the US.
Do you mean per person in the U.S., or per welfare recipient?
We’re going to take the same amount of money and cut you a check, every month. You’ll get every dollar; you’ll get more than you’re getting now, without having to visit twenty different agencies and fill out forty different forms.
That’s a great idea.
Hello inflation.
And the chances that any of that will actually happen? Zero.
You’re not voting for some revolutionary GOP platform, you’re voting for the same old cronies that you’ve always voted for. Don’t kid yourself that they think or believe the way you do. Conservatives have been sucked by that particular delusion for far too long now.
“Some budget items (Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare) are funded with permanent appropriations. To change those Congress needs a presidential signature, or to override the veto.” That’s interesting. Is it so clear that today’s House can tie the hands of tomorrow’s House, to remove their ability to control the budget? Or is that a question that the Supreme Court has decided?
Congress can change any law any time — with a bill passed in both houses and sent to the President for his signature.
On this, Jim is having his broken clock moment: he is right. Permanent appropriations should be unconstitutional IMO, but don’t ask John Roberts to declare it so.
“you’re voting for the same old cronies that you’ve always voted for.” To some extent I agree with that. But the Congress is far more polarized than it has been for a long time. Obamacare got zero Republican votes. There are some things that the Republican Party agrees on today. On other things, you would need to pick up some Democratic Party votes; Bowles-Simpson was bipartisan.
The problem is getting the message out. Lots of town meetings. For the next two years they should focus on #5. Get rid of the bureaucrats first. The poor don’t like the bureaucrats any more than the republicans do. Point out that Obama gave no COLA for two years. Do the poor believe the cost of living didn’t go up those two years or any other? Then make the single combined check bigger including those lost COLA. Also means testing. Disability is for those with less than $100,000 income (hard to believe some make more and still get disability?) We have to be prepared for dems trotting out a vet with a leg blown off but it’s a winning argument. Disability goes broke in two years if we do nothing.
Making the military smaller is foolish in this dangerous world but we could certainly spend it wiser. The rest can wait til we control the WH.
“Making the military smaller is foolish in this dangerous world” – you understand that we spend more than everyone else, almost more than everyone else put together? They aren’t foolish – they let us do it for them.
You need to decide what your military needs to be able to do. We make no sense. We need a good-sized Navy to fight pirates and allow rapid response to small problems anywhere in the world. We do not need a large Army right now. A large Army is what we put together for major emergencies like WWII or the Cold War. It is only good for conquering other countries, and we don’t need to be able to do that at a moment’s notice. Obviously, you need to have continuity, and to plan for what you need to be able to do. But traditionally America did not have a large standing Army; it was filled out by the draft when needed.
“We do not need a large Army right now. A large Army is what we put together for major emergencies like WWII or the Cold War. ”
You know it’s really funny…That was France’s thinking between WWI and WWII. They kept a cadre of 100,000 full timers and had all able males do some basic training with a little bit of recurrency training – you know the usual a weekend each month and 2 weeks in the Summer sort of thing.
Took Germany a whole 4 weeks.
And we don’t even have the forced basic for all able males.
We have geographic advantages that France lacked. To quote Lincoln from 1838:
At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia, and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest, with a Bonaparte for a commander, could not by force take a drink from the Ohio or make a track on the Blue Ridge in a trial of a thousand years. At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer. If it ever reach us it must spring up amongst us; it cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen we must live through all time or die by suicide.
If that is the case, why did we fight WW II?
It wasn’t to keep Japan and Germany from invading the U.S.
Logistics make the challenge of physically invading and conquering the United States extremely difficult if not impossible. However, in the age of ICBMs (the last 57 years), SLBMs, nuclear bombers, and potential nuclear/chemical/biological terrorism, you don’t have to invade the US to cause great death and destruction.
Not to mention cyber attacks.
A large standing Army isn’t a great defense against any of those threats.
“A large standing Army isn’t a great defense against any of those threats.”
Define “large”.
And for god’s sake would you please PLEASE read some history before you open your yap,
and spare us your ignorant blatherings.
I recommend to you two time periods and/or concepts for careful study:
1) Flexible Response and it’s genesis
2) Study carefully OPLAN 4102 and the associated plans in case a second war occurred in Asia.
And if you think times have changed, well your dopey clown president has brought them back,
Following WWI, America demobilized. The military was only a fraction of the wartime size. As of 1939, our military ranked somewhere around 18th in the world in terms of size. After WWII broke out in Europe (and Asia), FDR was able to get the nation’s first peacetime draft enacted in 1940. It was only for a year. The following year, the draft was renewed by a one vote margin in Congress. In the meantime, FDR was able to get his Lend-Lease program in place and to begin building up production of weapons. Still, in the great 1941 Louisiana War Games, the military was so poorly equipped that men trained with wooden machine guns and trucks with signs indicating they were tanks.
Following Pearl Harbor, the men who were already in the service were largely used as a stopgap while production of men and material was ramped up. It took until 1943 before the military was becoming well equipped and experienced enough for what was demanded of them. Production pretty well peaked in 1944, years after the war started. Just as one data point, some 80,000 airplanes were built in 1944.
Following WWII, America again demobilized from a peak of over 12 million men in uniform (I’ve seen numbers as high as 16 million) down to around 1-2 million. Five years later, Americans were involved in combat once again in Korea. They went in with largely leftover (frequently worn out) equipment and poorly trained troops. They were almost ran off of the Korean peninsula. Following Korea, America decided to maintain a larger military because the ramp up, fight, demobilize cycle took too long and cost too much, especially in lives. After Viet Nam, there was another drawdown but not as severe as for previous wars. Following the end of the Cold War, the military was downsized over 30%.
America has made the decision that with expensive weapons and better communications, we don’t need as many people in uniform. Modern weapons are expensive and take a long time to produce. Military aircraft production of all types numbers at best a few hundred per year and there’s no way to quickly increase that number due to their complexity and production bottlenecks. It also takes longer to train new troops and get them proficient enough to use those weapons effectively.
Your post (quoting Lincoln): At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?.
We responded.
You reply by saying that a large, standing army won’t prevent that.
At what point did we mention a large, standing army? Your quote implied that Lincoln (and you) are not afraid of external attacks from great armies. We replied by saying that attacks do not require large armies anymore, and then you say that a large army won’t prevent it.
God man, you know how to twist arguments. A sophist if there ever was one.
MikeR said we don’t need a large standing Army. Gregg disagreed, pointing to WWII France. I disagreed with Gregg, citing Lincoln. Does that clarify the context?
Lincoln did not anticipate the nuclear ICBM, but nonetheless he was right that, even today, no foreign power can “by force take a drink from the Ohio”.
“MikeR said we don’t need a large standing Army. Gregg disagreed, pointing to WWII France. I disagreed with Gregg, citing Lincoln.”
And your disagreement is wholly idiotic.
I copy my above response:
Define “large”.
And for god’s sake would you please PLEASE read some history before you open your yap,
and spare us your ignorant blatherings.
I recommend to you two time periods and/or concepts for careful study:
1) Flexible Response and it’s genesis
2) Study carefully OPLAN 4102 and the associated plans in case a second war occurred in Asia.
And if you think times have changed, well your dopey clown president has brought them back,
Democrat tears make my coffee taste especially sweet this morning.
Several comments have defended the necessity for a very large army. One compared us to France after WWI. But they are not dealing with the reality of what the rest of the world is doing. No one else is doing this. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
No matter how much we spend, someone can try and justify why we need to spend more. But we spend four times as much as our closest competitor.
Perfect security is unattainable. But every other country in the world has to make do with less than perfect security. Some of them have to make do with this scary opponent (us) overwhelmingly outspending them.
This all reminds me of the discussion one has with someone in a teachers’ union. “It’s a bad thing that your union doesn’t let the school board fire incompetent or malevolent teachers.” “Can you imagine what it would be like if the union weren’t protecting our interests? Any of us could be fired _at any time_, at the whim of some supervisor who doesn’t like them!” “Uh – welcome to the real world. All the rest of us have jobs just like that – we can be fired at any time at the whim of some supervisor. We don’t like it much either, but that’s the norm in real life.”
You are basing your judgment on what we _must_ do for defense on a cursory glance at what we did last year, instead of on an overall look at the forest.
Jim says: “To quote Lincoln from 1838:”
But Jim forgets…or probably never new….that we have a treaty to defend Western Europe.
Lincoln labored and thought under no such requirement.
…you understand that we spend more than everyone else, almost more than everyone else put together?
Yes and for a reason. How do you think the Ukraine feels now about agreeing to disarm before Putin annexed Crimea and is doing the same to eastern Ukraine? Do you think Putin would do either if he thought we were a danger to his plans? He would have taken Crimea right after half of Georgia but wasn’t sure then that he could get away with it. As it was the world bought his lies that it was Georgia’s fault (logistics are unable to lie as politicians are.)
We don’t need much of an armed force if the world were full of our friends. It isn’t. If our enemies see weakness they may join together or at least come at us from various directions, not all being militarily but still war by other means.
You don’t even need to defeat an army to defeat a nation but having an army gives the enemy pause if he believes you’re willing to use it. Overwhelming force is hard to ignore in those calculations. But a weak president like Obama makes even that possible. People that thought the danger was over were idiots.
America survives only if we can meet the unanticipated. Better to err on the side that survives. Our overwhelming force could be neutralized quickly if we don’t remain vigilant.
“we have a treaty to defend Western Europe.” Sounds like a good reason for Western Europe to spend four times as much on its military as anyone else.
“…He would have taken Crimea right after half of Georgia but wasn’t sure then that he could get away with it. …” Sounds like a good reason for Western Europe to spend four times as much on its military as anyone else.
Seriously, your reaction to all this is just out of long habit. You’re thinking that we are the Emperor of the World, and that the whole world happily lives under a Pax Americana. We aren’t and it doesn’t. South Korean hate us. If they want our help to keep off North Korea, they should be paying us well to do it. Japan should be paying us well to fend off China, or they should be preparing to do it themselves. Western Europe is not actually afraid of Putin’s tanks coming to France; they are much stronger than Russia. They are concerned about places like Ukraine. That is their responsibility. Not ours.
In WWII, no one could save the world but us, so we rolled up our sleeves and did it. No one could fight the Cold War against Soviet domination but us, so we rolled up our sleeves and did it. That doesn’t make it a rule of nature. We are not Emperor. Certainly we are not competent at it. Great Britain became rich while it had an empire, bringing in wealth from around the world. We are “above that”. That doesn’t mean we have to be patsies.
The liberal press is right, this IS an election about nothing. All the high-minded ideals that conservatives and libertarians and republicans cling to are nothing but vapour. Even if the GOP sweeps the election the actual GOP politicians could not care less about any of that nonsense and they will do none of the things that this election is supposedly “about”. Are they going to impeach Obama? Nope. Are they going to jail corrupt administrators? Nope. Are they going to cut the budget or even just stop its growth? Nope. It’s going to be business as usual for them and the notion that once they have power they’ll champion the same values as the voters is ludicrous.
Obama may be a corrupt incompetent, but so is the GOP as an institution. They have no interest in cleaning up anything when they are 50% of the problem.
Well, speaking personally, I would like to see a little more competent rebellion than we’ve had the last few years.
1) Cease fighting over the debt limit. It’s a stupid idea. Pay your bills. If you don’t, you crash the USA’s credit. Don’t do it; it’s the wrong issue to fight about. In fact, I’d be in favor of a bill that cancels the whole idea of a debt limit. Whatever Congress authorizes, the Treasure is authorized to pay for.
2) Get rid of the filibuster rules, or at least get rid of the recent modifications where you don’t need to actually filibuster. If Democratics want to speak for hours, they can filibuster. Historically, no one does that except for the most extreme causes, and that’s what it’s good for. Otherwise, majority rule – this has been the situation for most of the history of the Senate.
2) Republicans will now be able to pass any bills they want. They can pass a budget that defunds Obamacare and the Department of Education. However, Obama will veto it. If they hold out, we get a government shut-down with everyone blaming everyone. If they just pass a continuing resolution to tide us over, Obama will just veto everything else. Congress controls the budget, but what’s the answer?
Instead, pass the budget in pieces. Anything that is clearly necessary and desirable for the government, pass as separate bills. Lots of them. Will the president veto a bill funding the Coast Guard? Or the FAA? Send him a bunch of such bills and dare him to veto them.
Assure the American public that we’re not cancelling everything else, we just want to get the essential stuff funded so things won’t shut down while we’re arguing. Once those are signed, _then_ write a budget and let the president veto it if he doesn’t want anything else funded, or let him deal. Congress controls the budget.
3) Do some tough stuff. We don’t need all the military spending that we have. We just don’t. We should not be paying for NATO’s military, for Japan’s military, for South Korea’s military, for most of the UN’s military. Those Republicans who agree with me should buck the rest of their party and get together with some Democrats; this is a place that spending should be cut in a bipartisan way. I’m sorry if it will upset other Republicans. Not all Republicans are pro-big-military. They should stick together on things they agree on.
4) Reform the tax laws. Deductions are a giveaway from the government, taking from other tax-payers to pay people who own houses, people who are farmers, etc. I don’t understand why Republicans should be supporting these things. Low taxes doesn’t mean that you have to pay me for my house. Bowles-Simpson suggested getting rid of a large chunk of deductions all at once to help with the political fallout, and that’s how it should be done.
5) Do not infuriate poor people, help them. Talk to them, and tell them that with all the government programs that we are planning to defund, that doesn’t mean we are going to defund you. We care about you, not about the bureaucrats who run those programs. The US government is currently spending tens of thousands of dollars on welfare programs per person in the US. Poor people don’t get most of it, lots of it stays in Washington. We’re going to take the same amount of money and cut you a check, every month. You’ll get every dollar; you’ll get more than you’re getting now, without having to visit twenty different agencies and fill out forty different forms. The US government is very good at cutting checks to millions of people.
Look, I know that Republicans don’t approve of welfare. So what? This idea doesn’t cost anything, should refute a lot of the stuff that poor Americans think about Republicans, and would almost completely get rid of one of the largest and most important Democratic power blocs: federal workers. And it would be better for the poor; they could decide what to do with their money. Charles Murray suggested it long ago.
1) Cease fighting over the debt limit.
2) Get rid of the filibuster rules
Hear, hear.
Once those are signed, _then_ write a budget and let the president veto it if he doesn’t want anything else funded, or let him deal. Congress controls the budget.
Some budget items (Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare) are funded with permanent appropriations. To change those Congress needs a presidential signature, or to override the veto.
The US government is currently spending tens of thousands of dollars on welfare programs per person in the US.
Do you mean per person in the U.S., or per welfare recipient?
We’re going to take the same amount of money and cut you a check, every month. You’ll get every dollar; you’ll get more than you’re getting now, without having to visit twenty different agencies and fill out forty different forms.
That’s a great idea.
Hello inflation.
And the chances that any of that will actually happen? Zero.
You’re not voting for some revolutionary GOP platform, you’re voting for the same old cronies that you’ve always voted for. Don’t kid yourself that they think or believe the way you do. Conservatives have been sucked by that particular delusion for far too long now.
“Some budget items (Social Security, Medicare, Obamacare) are funded with permanent appropriations. To change those Congress needs a presidential signature, or to override the veto.” That’s interesting. Is it so clear that today’s House can tie the hands of tomorrow’s House, to remove their ability to control the budget? Or is that a question that the Supreme Court has decided?
Congress can change any law any time — with a bill passed in both houses and sent to the President for his signature.
On this, Jim is having his broken clock moment: he is right. Permanent appropriations should be unconstitutional IMO, but don’t ask John Roberts to declare it so.
“you’re voting for the same old cronies that you’ve always voted for.” To some extent I agree with that. But the Congress is far more polarized than it has been for a long time. Obamacare got zero Republican votes. There are some things that the Republican Party agrees on today. On other things, you would need to pick up some Democratic Party votes; Bowles-Simpson was bipartisan.
The problem is getting the message out. Lots of town meetings. For the next two years they should focus on #5. Get rid of the bureaucrats first. The poor don’t like the bureaucrats any more than the republicans do. Point out that Obama gave no COLA for two years. Do the poor believe the cost of living didn’t go up those two years or any other? Then make the single combined check bigger including those lost COLA. Also means testing. Disability is for those with less than $100,000 income (hard to believe some make more and still get disability?) We have to be prepared for dems trotting out a vet with a leg blown off but it’s a winning argument. Disability goes broke in two years if we do nothing.
Making the military smaller is foolish in this dangerous world but we could certainly spend it wiser. The rest can wait til we control the WH.
“Making the military smaller is foolish in this dangerous world” – you understand that we spend more than everyone else, almost more than everyone else put together? They aren’t foolish – they let us do it for them.
You need to decide what your military needs to be able to do. We make no sense. We need a good-sized Navy to fight pirates and allow rapid response to small problems anywhere in the world. We do not need a large Army right now. A large Army is what we put together for major emergencies like WWII or the Cold War. It is only good for conquering other countries, and we don’t need to be able to do that at a moment’s notice. Obviously, you need to have continuity, and to plan for what you need to be able to do. But traditionally America did not have a large standing Army; it was filled out by the draft when needed.
“We do not need a large Army right now. A large Army is what we put together for major emergencies like WWII or the Cold War. ”
You know it’s really funny…That was France’s thinking between WWI and WWII. They kept a cadre of 100,000 full timers and had all able males do some basic training with a little bit of recurrency training – you know the usual a weekend each month and 2 weeks in the Summer sort of thing.
Took Germany a whole 4 weeks.
And we don’t even have the forced basic for all able males.
We have geographic advantages that France lacked. To quote Lincoln from 1838:
If that is the case, why did we fight WW II?
It wasn’t to keep Japan and Germany from invading the U.S.
Logistics make the challenge of physically invading and conquering the United States extremely difficult if not impossible. However, in the age of ICBMs (the last 57 years), SLBMs, nuclear bombers, and potential nuclear/chemical/biological terrorism, you don’t have to invade the US to cause great death and destruction.
Not to mention cyber attacks.
A large standing Army isn’t a great defense against any of those threats.
“A large standing Army isn’t a great defense against any of those threats.”
Define “large”.
And for god’s sake would you please PLEASE read some history before you open your yap,
and spare us your ignorant blatherings.
I recommend to you two time periods and/or concepts for careful study:
1) Flexible Response and it’s genesis
2) Study carefully OPLAN 4102 and the associated plans in case a second war occurred in Asia.
And if you think times have changed, well your dopey clown president has brought them back,
Following WWI, America demobilized. The military was only a fraction of the wartime size. As of 1939, our military ranked somewhere around 18th in the world in terms of size. After WWII broke out in Europe (and Asia), FDR was able to get the nation’s first peacetime draft enacted in 1940. It was only for a year. The following year, the draft was renewed by a one vote margin in Congress. In the meantime, FDR was able to get his Lend-Lease program in place and to begin building up production of weapons. Still, in the great 1941 Louisiana War Games, the military was so poorly equipped that men trained with wooden machine guns and trucks with signs indicating they were tanks.
Following Pearl Harbor, the men who were already in the service were largely used as a stopgap while production of men and material was ramped up. It took until 1943 before the military was becoming well equipped and experienced enough for what was demanded of them. Production pretty well peaked in 1944, years after the war started. Just as one data point, some 80,000 airplanes were built in 1944.
Following WWII, America again demobilized from a peak of over 12 million men in uniform (I’ve seen numbers as high as 16 million) down to around 1-2 million. Five years later, Americans were involved in combat once again in Korea. They went in with largely leftover (frequently worn out) equipment and poorly trained troops. They were almost ran off of the Korean peninsula. Following Korea, America decided to maintain a larger military because the ramp up, fight, demobilize cycle took too long and cost too much, especially in lives. After Viet Nam, there was another drawdown but not as severe as for previous wars. Following the end of the Cold War, the military was downsized over 30%.
America has made the decision that with expensive weapons and better communications, we don’t need as many people in uniform. Modern weapons are expensive and take a long time to produce. Military aircraft production of all types numbers at best a few hundred per year and there’s no way to quickly increase that number due to their complexity and production bottlenecks. It also takes longer to train new troops and get them proficient enough to use those weapons effectively.
Your post (quoting Lincoln):
At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected?.
We responded.
You reply by saying that a large, standing army won’t prevent that.
At what point did we mention a large, standing army? Your quote implied that Lincoln (and you) are not afraid of external attacks from great armies. We replied by saying that attacks do not require large armies anymore, and then you say that a large army won’t prevent it.
God man, you know how to twist arguments. A sophist if there ever was one.
MikeR said we don’t need a large standing Army. Gregg disagreed, pointing to WWII France. I disagreed with Gregg, citing Lincoln. Does that clarify the context?
Lincoln did not anticipate the nuclear ICBM, but nonetheless he was right that, even today, no foreign power can “by force take a drink from the Ohio”.
“MikeR said we don’t need a large standing Army. Gregg disagreed, pointing to WWII France. I disagreed with Gregg, citing Lincoln.”
And your disagreement is wholly idiotic.
I copy my above response:
Define “large”.
And for god’s sake would you please PLEASE read some history before you open your yap,
and spare us your ignorant blatherings.
I recommend to you two time periods and/or concepts for careful study:
1) Flexible Response and it’s genesis
2) Study carefully OPLAN 4102 and the associated plans in case a second war occurred in Asia.
And if you think times have changed, well your dopey clown president has brought them back,
Democrat tears make my coffee taste especially sweet this morning.
Several comments have defended the necessity for a very large army. One compared us to France after WWI. But they are not dealing with the reality of what the rest of the world is doing. No one else is doing this.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_military_expenditures
No matter how much we spend, someone can try and justify why we need to spend more. But we spend four times as much as our closest competitor.
Perfect security is unattainable. But every other country in the world has to make do with less than perfect security. Some of them have to make do with this scary opponent (us) overwhelmingly outspending them.
This all reminds me of the discussion one has with someone in a teachers’ union. “It’s a bad thing that your union doesn’t let the school board fire incompetent or malevolent teachers.” “Can you imagine what it would be like if the union weren’t protecting our interests? Any of us could be fired _at any time_, at the whim of some supervisor who doesn’t like them!” “Uh – welcome to the real world. All the rest of us have jobs just like that – we can be fired at any time at the whim of some supervisor. We don’t like it much either, but that’s the norm in real life.”
You are basing your judgment on what we _must_ do for defense on a cursory glance at what we did last year, instead of on an overall look at the forest.
Jim says: “To quote Lincoln from 1838:”
But Jim forgets…or probably never new….that we have a treaty to defend Western Europe.
Lincoln labored and thought under no such requirement.
…you understand that we spend more than everyone else, almost more than everyone else put together?
Yes and for a reason. How do you think the Ukraine feels now about agreeing to disarm before Putin annexed Crimea and is doing the same to eastern Ukraine? Do you think Putin would do either if he thought we were a danger to his plans? He would have taken Crimea right after half of Georgia but wasn’t sure then that he could get away with it. As it was the world bought his lies that it was Georgia’s fault (logistics are unable to lie as politicians are.)
We don’t need much of an armed force if the world were full of our friends. It isn’t. If our enemies see weakness they may join together or at least come at us from various directions, not all being militarily but still war by other means.
You don’t even need to defeat an army to defeat a nation but having an army gives the enemy pause if he believes you’re willing to use it. Overwhelming force is hard to ignore in those calculations. But a weak president like Obama makes even that possible. People that thought the danger was over were idiots.
America survives only if we can meet the unanticipated. Better to err on the side that survives. Our overwhelming force could be neutralized quickly if we don’t remain vigilant.
“we have a treaty to defend Western Europe.” Sounds like a good reason for Western Europe to spend four times as much on its military as anyone else.
“…He would have taken Crimea right after half of Georgia but wasn’t sure then that he could get away with it. …” Sounds like a good reason for Western Europe to spend four times as much on its military as anyone else.
Seriously, your reaction to all this is just out of long habit. You’re thinking that we are the Emperor of the World, and that the whole world happily lives under a Pax Americana. We aren’t and it doesn’t. South Korean hate us. If they want our help to keep off North Korea, they should be paying us well to do it. Japan should be paying us well to fend off China, or they should be preparing to do it themselves. Western Europe is not actually afraid of Putin’s tanks coming to France; they are much stronger than Russia. They are concerned about places like Ukraine. That is their responsibility. Not ours.
In WWII, no one could save the world but us, so we rolled up our sleeves and did it. No one could fight the Cold War against Soviet domination but us, so we rolled up our sleeves and did it. That doesn’t make it a rule of nature. We are not Emperor. Certainly we are not competent at it. Great Britain became rich while it had an empire, bringing in wealth from around the world. We are “above that”. That doesn’t mean we have to be patsies.