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“I think it’s time to tell the military-industrial complex they cannot get everything they want"
is he talking about active servicepeople because we've been there since forever
MIC is the private companies that supply/support the military and profit from it. Everything from fuel to uniforms to electrical wiring in the bases.
Of course not, active servicepeople are just another currency to the military-industrial complex.
Defund the police and military.
Only a Sith deals in absolutes. I think "Defund" is a bit drastic given the current state of the world, but it is possible that we don't need to maintain 11 aircraft carriers, in the same way that every small town Pennsylvania Police department doesn't need their very own armored personnel carrier. Moderation in all things.
Defund is the only slogan that has had actual sticking power though. To have nuance on this topic and have it actually matter, you would have to create a new slogan on the same level. Otherwise you're just armchair politicking from the internet same as everyone else
Now, with that out of the way, defund is still a good slogan. The primary reason is if we defund the police then we can create something that is not called police that isn't beholden to all of the laws and regulations and the corrupt unions that perpetuate the current systemic problems
Defund as a slogan is about cutting past the red tape of reform and starting from scratch to build something systemically better
The problem is we maintain half of them forward deployed in roughly 3 areas at any one time.
But yeah that's why our military is so expensive. If it wasn't constantly forward deployed it would be much cheaper.
We really should be working with our allies to get their own military in the area. Mainly in Europe. If I'm being realistic, we probably will never leave Asia.
Billions for Ukraine? No debate, full send. Billions for Israel? No debate, full send. Billions for healthcare? Whoa whoa whoa, gotta balance that budget!
Edit: if you prefer, forget I said healthcare and substitute in anything else that would help the working class.
THE ISSUE IS NOT GIVING MORE MONEY TO HEALTHCARE.
Healthcare is our largest expense. The issue is the money going there, which can easily fund universal healthcare, doesn't go towards helping people, it goes towards a select number of people.
If my taxes went up $1000 a month I would still be saving money with universal healthcare
the US already allocates $1.5 trillion for direct healthcare spending
If you don't like healthcare as an example, choose anything else that helps the working class. I don't just mean adding new money either, but how eager they are to make cuts to existing programs.
Extra spending on health care is not actually required (even though america could afford it). Americans spent more per capita on health care than anyone else already. American health spending is extremely inefficient, with parasites like for-profit insurance (whose profits and much of their revenue are literally just inefficiency in the system) embedded at every layer. The problem is that allowing it to get to this state means many of these bad actors will gladly spend hundreds of millions on politicians and ads to defend the billions they make, and American voters are easily confused.
If you call profits a bad thing too many times you get called a communist or whatever even though in this case it's objectively true. The shooting of that parasite CEO should have brought this into focus - that worthless person profited directly from making people's health care expenditures less efficient (and also from the corresponding human suffering in case anyone cares).
I agree with all of that. Almost wish I hadn't used healthcare as an example since there's plenty of other programs that suffer from low funding.
Every single time someone brings up anything about cost and the government, ask them how much money the DoD loses every year. Every single time.
see the dod brings in money because of pineapples and crack
I kind of agree, but also think it's important to understand a few things about this:
- The US needs to keep its military-industrial complex active and technologically advanced at all times if it wants to be a military powerhouse. It can't decide to start it up whenever it wants because war machines have gotten too advanced. During WWII, it was easy to get the complex rolling because they just needed to churn out simple prop planes, tanks, rifles, and food. Now, they need stealth planes, laser-guided munitions, and high-tech chips.
- Because of the geography of the US and the geopolitical situation, it would likely fight a two-front war. If the US goes to war with a formidable power, said power would surely ally with another. The US will not just fight China alone. Russia and North Korea would join. Therefore, the US military needs to be large enough to fight knowing that by population, the US is much smaller. China has just over 4 times the population of the US.
- Having an overwhelmingly large and technologically advanced military serves as a deterrent. It's best to never go to war. It saves lives, economies, social institutions, etc. By having a decisively superior military, those that would consider starting a war avoid doing so.
- The Department of Defense and military-industrial complex is a huge jobs program anyway. Service members receive training and all sorts of benefits that support them and their dependents. Military production companies receive reliable government contracts that make their business ventures stable investments while employees receive relatively adequate pay. If the government did not fund those contracts, all those businesses would go out of business and everyone involved would have to find other means of sustenance.
- The US provides military defense and deterrence for more than just itself. It's practically the department of defense for most Pacific islands including Japan and the Philippines. It's also a necessary supporter of the EU and South Korea.
I'm not saying that I agree to the spending or that we shouldn't spend more on social welfare, but the solution is not obviously clear as just spending less on defense in my opinion.
Meh, some of it sure. But actually a lot of what we'd need is much easier to mass produce and research than you think it is. Like your average artillery, armor, and infantry unit basics.
Also, it doesn't need to be a two front war. We have an entire ocean protecting us on both sides.
Our military budget is beyond ridiculous and one of the biggest waste of money are our own contractors. We've watched them charge the govt $1500 for a $10 bearing and the list of contractors has continued to shrink with a long list of acquisitions that have killed all competition. I can't imagine what this country could be if we spend half of that budget on education and modern infrastructure.
did they fuck up and send you a rhodium one by mistake or was it just billed that way
It's just par for the course. There's a reason low level commands prefer to buy things off the shelf if they can.
People are not even willing to learn how much they're being fucked. They wouldn't do much with the resources.
The US military budget is designed to independently fight and win another two-theater war in Europe and Asia. Has been since WWII. I think it would be justifiable to shrink the Europe portion of that; Russia's military capabilities are awful by this point, and Ukraine has done an excellent job demonstrating you don't need the kind of budget the US would expect to at least hold on that front.
Doubtless they’re worried about the rest of us getting ideas above our station.
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this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2024
476 points (98.8% liked)
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