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The 2006 United States military budget was slated at 441.6 billion dollars which is as much as that of the next 17 largest nations combined. This means that the United States has spent nearly as much money as the entire rest of the world on military expenditures and six times as much as Russia, which is the world's second largest military budget. Americans, despite this spending, fears threatened by terrorism to the point of paranoid neuroticism.
This spending does not include the additional "supplemental" monies requested and received by President Bush for Iraq and Afghanistan to the tune of 81 billion dollars. Nor does it include money in the budget devoted to military spending for Defense/Civil programs ($44.5 billion);, Homeland Security ($33.3 billion);, and Veterans Affairs ($68.3 billion), all pushing the total closer to 668.7 billion dollars. In addition when we add in the fact that a good deal of this money is borrowed and comes with interest, which of course is rarely considered publicly in budget requests, this adds approximately 130 billion to the bill, making a round about figure of 799 billion dollars. In essence the United States is realistically spending about 30% of its total government funding on the military, which is a little higher and more realistic than the published 17% in the budget report. Yet Americans fear being attacked or invaded like a child fears the darkness on a stormy night.
Have we become a nation of cowards steeped in a crippling grip of fear that our imaginations have conjured up? No one will argue that terrorism does not exist or that it presents a clear danger to our nation’s people, but is this amount of fear justified? After all in America you stand a much better chance of being struck by lightning than being killed by a terrorist act. You will die several thousand times over from a heart attacked caused by a lousy diet and lethargic stagnation than you will from being killed by a terrorist. You stand a better chance of being killed by just about anything before being killed by an act of terrorism, and yet the fear of dying from such an act causes Americans to spend untold billions of dollars, take outrageous precautions like making mothers drink breast milk of their babies at airports, and altering the lives of 300 million people on a daily basis. So Americans half ignore the greatest threats like fast food cheeseburgers or bad driving habits and instead focus on things that have as much chance of happening to them as winning the lotto twice in a row.
Our national way of life was most certainly changed by the events of that horrible and sad day to the point we are no longer the same people we once were. A fearless people, a charitable people, and nation of thinkers and doers that would thrive on solving the problems of the day through the use of rational thought, logic and good old common sense. A nation of people that the bulk of the world looked up to and wanted to emulate because of our principles, ideals, and freedoms led to strength, prosperity, and security. However, today we are quickly becoming a nation of gutless cowards who despite being militarily and economically superior to any nation on the planet fear the unlikely, beg for extreme protection from a government that has an 11% approval rating while using the currency of their liberties to pay for it. Simply pathetic…
Slipping away is the joy a person once had of raising a family and living among a people who feared little, did much, and shared a kinship of simply being American regardless of religion, race, belief, or ideology. Growing closer is a nation of people embracing an existence dependent upon that of the corrupt state, a dependence upon faith instead of personal effort, achievement, and coexistence, and are becoming instead an entire nation of cowardly lions in search of courage.
Dangers do exist from abroad and they also exist from within but most likely the danger lies with the surrender of individual responsibility to each other that we share as countrymen.
Last edited by TnHilltopper; 11-19-2007 at 11:24 AM..
The famous old Will Durant quote that great nations are not destroyed from without BEFORE they are destroyed from within is certainly worth remembering.
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I think the fact that many high-ranking military people retire and move into highly paid defense contractor/lobby postions has as much to do with it as what the American public fears.
I think the fact that many high-ranking military people retire and move into highly paid defense contractor/lobby postions has as much to do with it as what the American public fears.
Double-dipping is what we call it - and it happens frequently for the contractor and civilian jobs for many reasons:
1) They've already got enough experience with the red-tape
2) Finding individuals who can actually get a security clearance (Juvie records can keep you from it!)
3) Don't need insurance, they've already got it for life.
I think the fact that many high-ranking military people retire and move into highly paid defense contractor/lobby postions has as much to do with it as what the American public fears.
Well there are certainly groups and factions within the current establishment that wish to continue the status quo of our times. It is not with these people that change will be affected or even desired, it is the average citizen in which any change of course must take place.
I am not sure at what point must be reached (if at all) in which fear of losing the right to travel without papers to get a Big Mac in front of a plasma TV will surpass the fear of islamofascism or body snatching viruses from space.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TnHilltopper
I am not sure at what point must be reached (if at all) in which fear of losing the right to travel without papers to get a Big Mac in front of a plasma TV will surpass the fear of islamofascism or body snatching viruses from space.
While there's no doubt terrorism is a threat that must be addressed it sometimes seems that since the fall of the USSR that there are some in government who've felt a need to develop the next big threat in the minds of the people. I believe there are probably some in the defense industry troubled by the fact that a war on terror cannot be fought effectively in the same manner as a 'traditional war' that the industry has developed expertise in fighting.
Interesting how the OP couldn't get the percentage he wanted without combining several other bills. Why couldn't he just say that $441.6 billion allocated to the Department of Defense in H.R. 3222 equates to 15% of the total federal budget? Because it would've taken the wind out of his rant.
The OP also seems to equate defense spending with "fear." Using that logic I suppose that the OP considers the period of time between 1942 and 1946 to be when Americans were the most afraid. Funny how the OP seems to forget that we were, and are, in a state of war then, just as we are now. Perhaps the OP should consider that we spend money on defense so we don't have to live in a state of fear.
Quote:
Slipping away is the joy a person once had of raising a family and living among a people who feared little, did much, and shared a kinship of simply being American regardless of religion, race, belief, or ideology.
I don't know what planet the OP is on, but this America never existed. I suppose we will never be "brave" enough for the OP until after we surrender to al Qaeda. Why am I not surprised?
OK I'll say it again. I suggest reading Chalmers Johnson's Blowback trilogy. He explained, in excruciating detail, how rampant militarism is destroying America's culture and economy.
It can be summarized by saying that military spending is like taking crack cocaine to an economy. It feels good until the end. We are approaching the end.
I don't know what planet the OP is on, but this America never existed. I suppose we will never be "brave" enough for the OP until after we surrender to al Qaeda. Why am I not surprised?
Hey, I really enjoyed how you worked this sentence, classic!
No, it is just that I don't live my life in fear like a child seeking the protection of a parent and my fears are based upon the reality of likely events to occur. You are welcome to live your life afraid of what the TV tells you to be afraid of, I realize that requires only the most basic level of emotional response and not one iota of independent thought or effort. Intellectual and physical laziness is befitting of many these days.
You see back not long ago, America's ambitions supported by its economics and and sheer will to do things like go to the moon and enter mankind into the realm of space were the order of the day. Not long ago America addressed serious social issues of the day such as civil rights or the rights of women with a vigor and determination long since forgotten. A little while back during the last world war, Americans put aside their fears and addressed two aggressive nations, one that was even so bold as to attack us. Not all that long ago America did fear something that common sense would suggest we should have been afraid of and that was the Soviet Union, the worlds second largest military power and a nuclear nation entering into a war of global obliteration. Yes, that is a fairly rational fear, one based upon something that Al Qaeda does not possess nor will it ever likely possess.
Despite that every two years the United States spends as much money on its military apparatus as the entire rest of planet earth combined, we fear a nationless groups of mere thugs as though millions of baby eating radical Muslims were storming the shores of Daytona Beach, Florida at this very moment and we are powerless to stop them.
No, I'm not nearly as afraid of radical Islam as I am of glue sniffing emotional cowardly and invertebrate fellow Americans who are so afraid of anything that looks different, worships different, speaks different that their first response is to become the very bloodthirsty backward savage they fear.
While fear may be necessary for human survival, it is also a tool used to keep the simpletons obedient and unable to quantify real fear from the pseudo.
His 'blowback' theory could explain that the Barbary War (the Islamic Terrorists of their time) inspired bin Laden: it is -always- the US fault.
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