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We have about 2,500,000 people serving in the military right now, all employed by the government and supported by the tax payers. That ends up costing us ~$70,000,000,000 in annual salaries.
My question to you is: How is that not considered Socialist?
I personally do not support the health care plan and I do not support the idea that we need a military that large to survive.
I SERVED IN THE US NAVY, but as an officer who was highly qualified for his job. Most of the kids who served under me were just in the Navy because they needed a paycheck and couldn't get a job anywhere else. Sure, there were the gung-ho types, but most of the kids were just in it for the paycheck or for Uncle Sam to pay for college. I think that if we cut the budget for military paychecks to 25% of what it is now, our country would still be protected and we'd have BILLIONS in savings.
Personally, I'd rather pay my taxes to support a doctor who provides care to the needy than to pay for some 18 year old kid from Nebraska to be stationed San Diego where he will go to strip clubs and bars in Tijuana with my tax dollars. Actually, I'd rather not pay for either and just have national taxes on consumption and not on our incomes to pay for the necessary government programs.
Because it is a volunteer army and we need them. How long do you think we would last without them? Perhaps that is your w#$ dream?
At what point are you going to finally understand that having the government control 1/6th of the economy is a horrendous idea??? When are you going to let that finally sink in?
Um, that was my whole point.
The government DOES control 1/6th of the economy through MILITARY SPENDING. We could cut that in half, and use the other half to pay for people like you to get educated so they can LEARN HOW TO READ.
We have about 2,500,000 people serving in the military right now, all employed by the government and supported by the tax payers. That ends up costing us ~$70,000,000,000 in annual salaries.
My question to you is: How is that not considered Socialist?
I personally do not support the health care plan and I do not support the idea that we need a military that large to survive.
I SERVED IN THE US NAVY, but as an officer who was highly qualified for his job. Most of the kids who served under me were just in the Navy because they needed a paycheck and couldn't get a job anywhere else. Sure, there were the gung-ho types, but most of the kids were just in it for the paycheck or for Uncle Sam to pay for college. I think that if we cut the budget for military paychecks to 25% of what it is now, our country would still be protected and we'd have BILLIONS in savings.
Personally, I'd rather pay my taxes to support a doctor who provides care to the needy than to pay for some 18 year old kid from Nebraska to be stationed San Diego where he will go to strip clubs and bars in Tijuana with my tax dollars. Actually, I'd rather not pay for either and just have national taxes on consumption and not on our incomes to pay for the necessary government programs.
First of all you need to look closely at the definition of Socialism. I am aware that there may be variations but generaly it will be the same.
Now, the military is a mandate from the Constitution as a responsibility of the federal government. They are responsible for the common defense. Health care is not a specific duty listed in the Constitution so the debate is whether it should be a state program since the Constitution says those things not enumerated for the federal government is up to the states.
The founding fathers in their wisdom came up with a pretty decent piece of paper in the Constitution.
Not long ago I read in one of my economic classes textbook how some programs are national and how some are not.
Example: National defense. It seems the founding fathers realize that this program has to be centraly supported and funded. It is not reasonable that each individual will pay for his own personal defense. My neighborg my have guard outside his house. In turn I may feel safer knowing that guy can at least see my home in case someone wants to go into my house. To say the least he is a deterrent so I may decide not to pay for someone to look at my house. I may not care much about our national borders because they are so far from me. Even then not everybody wants to pay for his hired Soldier to be at the border to guard us.
For this reason the founding father may have decided to make sure a national police (Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard) is the responsiblity of the federal government. All of us as a nation need that specific protection.
Now, health care. We all need health care. I know that. But in this type of need people want to have the ability to choose what doctor to have and where to go. If you get sick, it does not directly affect me. I pretty much care about me and my loved ones. However, as a society I believe we can take care of those that have less than us. I believe the moral fiber of a society is reflected on how we take care of our children, elders, and the poor. We can have programs for them but since that is not directly enumerated as a responsibility of the federal government the states can have certain programs. It is not cost effective to have a national health care program to mandate on everybody and take away the right to choose who you want to see for your health care. I do not agree with a program that will cover Bill Gates. He has enough money to take care of himself. It is a waste of money to have taxpayer money for him too.
I am somewhat surprised you make the comment giving examples of servicemembers you feel are a waste of money. I am sure the examples you cite are true. I have seen it. I am not denying that. But...I will tell you that many of the young men in the clubs while in the States have died in the defense of our country also and I honor their sacrifice even though they may have "wasted" money as you state. In many cases they are not a waste. To have an Army it takes training and be ready for when the time comes. It does not make sense to me to cut down on defense and when we need an Army due to some attack or whatever to expect for people to respond overnight. Even if they do, it takes at least a six weeks of basic training and a few more to go into their specialty training and then be ready to go to war. It just does not work that way Sir. At times of peace you have a standing Army and during that time you train to be ready for the call. The same with equipment. So if tomorrow the need is there, do you expect for the Army to produce thousands of pieces of equipment and go to war withing a week?
I admit I am surprised at your comments since you said you were an officer. I am a Noncommissioned Officer and have been serving for the last 31 years. I have served in peace and war times and I base my reply on what I have seen all these years. I just do not share your view.
Now, can we improve the system? We sure can. But to go about the way you say I just do not agree as I said. We do waste money I admit but to some degree that is the nature of the beast and the best we can do is cut down on that. I am the Sergeant Major of Public Works at my duty station and I am a hound dog looking for the smeel of people that waste the taxpayer money and I bite as hard as I can to reduce wasteful actions.
Dude,
E3 Jimmy's money is no longet tax payer money once it is given to him in a paycheck. It is his money to do as he pleases with. He worked for it, it was not a gift.
Dude, it was my money he is earning...to do nothing. He didn't EARN it...he just gets it for signing up at his nearest recruitment center.
The whole point is that he shouldn't be taking my money when HE doesn't provide me with any protection of any sort. Your typical Private/Seaman is useless and will be out of the military before he ever becomes useful...when he takes the money and runs to the next stage of his life.
Any idiot can join the military and immeditely start pulling in paychecks on the tax-payer's dollar.
It was a gift because his job is unnecessary and he's merely employed by the government in a Socialist way to ensure that he's got a job.
The Navy Seal or the Nuclear Submarine Engineer or the Army Ranger DO deserve their jobs and paychecks. There's a huge difference. We could fire 1,000,000 people from the military and reserves tomorrow and we'd still have a HUGE military and we'd be saving $20,000,000,000/year in their salaries. We'd still have the weapons, the people trained to operate them and the people who build and design them and those who can plan military engagements.
I don't disagree with this in theory, I just think the practical apllication will be problematic. Under your strategy, the only rapid response options available for scenarios beyond the capabilities of a special forces team would be tactical or strategic nukes (or something equivalent). As I said, I'm actually fine with this, but I think it would severely **** off allot of people.
This statement though is flat wrong, I'm actually surprised you believe this. While I'm all for deploying more subs, the whole point of terrorism is to sidestep any conventional detterent capabilities. 9/11 is the obvious example - wouldn't have mattered how many subs we had off the coasts.
I know the sub thing was a stretch, we'd also need some carriers...but that'd still not protect us from 9/11 because it was a hijacked commercial airliner. We could make hijack-proof airplanes pretty easily by segregating the cockpit from the rest of the plane.
I believe that INTEL, TECHNOLOGY and SPECIAL FORCES are the only way to protect the country...50,000 boys in the middle of Texas really doesn't do too much to protect us in San Diego, NYC, Boston, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Savannah, Miami...
Because it is a volunteer army and we need them. How long do you think we would last without them? Perhaps that is your w#$ dream?
It's amazing how some people just come into a thread, completely misunderstand the post and then try to insinuate someone about the original poster.
In my freaking original post, which you clearly didn't read, I stated that we should cut the budget for personnel by 25%. That is not a whole lot. We'd still have over 1,500,000 people in the military and we'd still have all the guns, nukes, jets, carriers, subs, cruisers, destroyers, specialists, etc.
A socialist country is one that pays the salaries of its people...how is it not socialism when we're paying our soldiers? It's not a "volunteer" army...I volunteer as a Little League coach because I don't get paid. I'd be "employed" as a coach if I did. The soldiers are Employed by the people. My good friend spend 8 years in the Marines, getting them to pay for college (plus hookers, strippers, tequila, tacos, beer and weed) and never once did he do anything to protect the country. He did get to play paintball on the Military's dime every weekend though. He also got to play BILLIARDS on the military's dime with a Marine's Billiards team. He's out now, and he took about $200,000 with him for those 8 years of service. I would have rather spent that $200,000 to send 5 kids to 4 years of UCLA.
We have about 2,500,000 people serving in the military right now, all employed by the government and supported by the tax payers. That ends up costing us ~$70,000,000,000 in annual salaries.
My question to you is: How is that not considered Socialist?
I personally do not support the health care plan and I do not support the idea that we need a military that large to survive.
I SERVED IN THE US NAVY, but as an officer who was highly qualified for his job. Most of the kids who served under me were just in the Navy because they needed a paycheck and couldn't get a job anywhere else. Sure, there were the gung-ho types, but most of the kids were just in it for the paycheck or for Uncle Sam to pay for college. I think that if we cut the budget for military paychecks to 25% of what it is now, our country would still be protected and we'd have BILLIONS in savings.
Personally, I'd rather pay my taxes to support a doctor who provides care to the needy than to pay for some 18 year old kid from Nebraska to be stationed San Diego where he will go to strip clubs and bars in Tijuana with my tax dollars. Actually, I'd rather not pay for either and just have national taxes on consumption and not on our incomes to pay for the necessary government programs.
Not all jobs require years of education. What are you suggesting? ...that we simply downsize the military ,that we re-evaluate the antiquated officer/enlisted paradigm, both, or other? If you want to reduce it by 25%, I'm with you, but I don't think it should apply strictly to the size of the military (i.e. paychecks).
I know the sub thing was a stretch, we'd also need some carriers...but that'd still not protect us from 9/11 because it was a hijacked commercial airliner. We could make hijack-proof airplanes pretty easily by segregating the cockpit from the rest of the plane.
I believe that INTEL, TECHNOLOGY and SPECIAL FORCES are the only way to protect the country...50,000 boys in the middle of Texas really doesn't do too much to protect us in San Diego, NYC, Boston, DC, Seattle, San Francisco, Portland, Savannah, Miami...
The services do have different specialties and missions and the Armed Forces are not just guarding the borders. Can we improve guarding the border? We probably can but move everybody to the borders as you seem to imply is not necessarily the right thing to do. I admit that some of the base realignments going on do have political biases by congressmen and I am not sure we can change that much. Despite the fact that we have the present system, we are generally safe. If any enemy wants to do heavy damage, they sure can and in many ways and forms but our intelligence is pretty good, not perfect I know. When we look at what happened at the Twin Towers and what we know how they orchestrated that, do you really think that having all Armed Forces in the borders could have avoided it? Probably not because those guys are not dumb. We try to see what is their next move.
Our system has its weaknesses. We are an open society and that openess does leaves vulnerable in many ways and that is the price we pay. Do you want to lock up and build a wall all around the country?
Since it became a place for young idiots to get paid to play soldier in Oklahoma and Arkansas...
We do not need MILLIONS of soldiers. I never said "I don't believe in a military"...I'm a freaking Navy Veteran.
The WHOLE POINT OF THIS THREAD is to point out the hypocrisy of people who support us having 50,000 troops in Germany (cause they serve a purpose...right?) but do not support medical Socialism.
The only difference is that paying for doctors would support educated Americans with valuable skills who would help keep Americans healthy...so what's your reason for saying "I believe that we need more soldiers than medical professionals in this country"? What purpose does it serve to pay BILLIONS every year for a million soldiers who will never see any military action in their careers?
We spend more than FIVE BILLION EVERY MONTH paying the salaries of these soldiers (not including the billions in other expenses to keep them around) while most of them do NOTHING to protect the nation.
We are fighting a war and less than 10% of our soldiers are actually doing the fighting...why do we need the other 90%?
Why do we need to have so many grunt soldiers when we're not in a war?
I have NOTHING against having a military, but only one of highly trained specialists, inventors and engineers, the other people can enlist if we ever have another conflict similar to WWII. If San Diego was bombed by Belgium tomorrow, I'd immeditely join the military to fight Belgium...I wouldn't need the government supporting my drinking and partying and strip club habits in the off chance that I might be needed at some point.
We have military neighborhoods where our military members get all kinds of benefits, including free utilities, cable and internet...all paid for by the Tax payers. THIS IS SOCIALISM.
Just look at the chart below...we've moved from a nation where military spending was only noticible during a time of war to one where it became a major part of our GDP. Since WWII we've been clinging onto a Socialist military force, one that is supported by the tax payers.
I'm just curious, What did you do in the Navy?
Because we don't maintain a Navy for what they do in home port, We maintain it for what they do when they are at sea & in harm's way. You do understand that, right?
A socialist country is one that pays the salaries of its people...how is it not socialism when we're paying our soldiers? It's not a "volunteer" army...I volunteer as a Little League coach because I don't get paid. I'd be "employed" as a coach if I did. The soldiers are Employed by the people.
The term Volunteer is used so as to differentiate itself from Conscription, which we have not had since 1973. I would think that rather obvious.
That said, military personnel are indeed employed by the government. All nations have governments. Having a government requires people to administer it and defend it. Therefore I think you OP premise is faulty as there is no correlation between the military and socialism (I see the point you are trying to make, but its not going to work and will only frustrate you).
On a side note, private "armies" are far from unknown- check out Weimar Germany as well as modern day Lebanon, Colombia, and Iraq for a plethora of examples, none of them anything to emulate.
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