Me either. Even if, by some strange set of occurrences and defying all odds, I should lose, I have a built-in excuse!

En garde! You ruffian!

Feel free. I don’t mind fighting outnumbered.

I’ll post something up in the new Open Mic thread later on today, given that I appear to have derailed the discussion again. Time’s a little tight for me right now.

I won’t add anything of substance at the moment, because I don’t want to pile on. I’ll wait and pounce when the conversation appears to be about to die down.

To my way of thinking, America in 2012 is in a similar position to Japan of the early 20th Century (http://www.independent.org/newsroom/article.asp?id=1930). We were once self-sufficient, which gave us strength. Now, our appetite for cheap energy has forced us to climb into bed with unstable and undemocratic regimes, particularly in the Middle East.

To redirect funding to a program of energy independence, or at least, reliance on North American energy, would mean we’re not subjecting our soldiers to incredibly expensive asymmetric warfare in Iraq and Afghanistan and we can focus on defending our borders and living in peace with other nations, attacking only when directly provoked — the way the Founding Fathers clearly intended in our Constitution.

AW,
I dispute the theory that we’re not spending enough on the military.  In fact, I think that we should spend far less — and spend some of the savings on boosting American science, industry, and agriculture, alternative (to fossil fuel) energy, and infrastructure.

As it is, we’re creating a society that’s only good for kicking the crap out of weaker nations, while China is becoming an industrial powerhouse.  Ever read up on just why the Allies won WWII?  Why the North won in that fracas in the 1860’s?
And then there’s the incredible damage we’re doing to our people, to our politics, when the military and their co-dependents are becoming so powerful.

“ I notice that none of you have actu­ally dis­puted my point about readi­ness ”

Then you were not paying attention to my rejoinders concerning the purchase of systems in search of a mission and the overrun and overspending by significant percentages for many existing systems and the Congressional mandated purchasing of systems the the Pentagon flatly DOES NOT WANT! All of which have NOTHING to do with “readiness”.

“Readiness” is an extremely subjective concept as there is no such thing for EVERY possible scenario. Meanwhile, you have not demonstrated “readiness” for what?

You complained once about the “Clinton cutbacks”. Please explain, in gory detail and in military terms, the practical and strategic lapse in Pentagon capabilities that the level of spending for DoD for FY’s 1996–2001 that allowed the half million dollar operation that was 9/11 to occur. Then explain, in gory detail and in military terms, the practical and strategic readiness that has been gained DIRECTLY as a result of the $3 TRILLION increase in DoD budgets for the past tens years that would prevent a couple million dollar operation by like minded operatives from occurring today. 

Because you and I BOTH know that there are SEVERAL easy access points that could be exploited that has NOTHING to do with DoD mission coverage. 

Finally, given everything that, in your opinion, would make the DoD “ready” to face every conceivable threat, please tell us your cost estimate for the FY2013 DoD budget,  along with what you would expect the annual escalators for the next ten year would be needed.

As I said before: “I don’t want to have to come out there!” Especially since Mila Kunis quit over at Turtle Bay! I just DON’T know where I’d stay.

The reason other countries get mentioned is because THAT’S the contrast.

If we were back in Roman times, America is Rome at the height of its powers. You’re arguing that more money should be spent on the army now because its not strong enough — when what ruined Rome wasn’t a lack of military prowess at all, and not for another couple of centuries.

Or lets look at those “off the book” projects — Iraq and Afghanistan. It cost the UK somewhere over £20 Billion to be in those two countries — about $30-$40 Billion.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10359548 (link is from 2 years ago, but Iraq costs should be low/nonexistant since then).

Very roughly, the US has had 10 times the number of troops compared to the UK involved in these two conflicts.

The US figure just for Iraq? Nearly $3 TRILLION, about 100 times the UK figure. 10 times as much per troop.

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_cost_of_the_Iraq_War

If you can’t see waste there, you’re blind.

On the 1st: Hap­pens every day! For every pro­posed and enacted bud­get con­tains that EXACT thing. Lim­ited funds, and the way avail­able finds ARE spent, cause lives to be lost as a result of those decisions.

Rarely, however, is one able to establish causation as I have here.

On the 2nd: Yes, pretty much they are. We are spend­ing $1T MORE than we take in each year. Even with the end of the Bush Rev­enue Killer rates for folks mak­ing less than $250K, that num­ber will STILL be $700B/​year. Resources ARE finite.

It’s called entitlement reform. We need to do it. We also need to raise taxes more (much more) than current weaksauce proposals call for.

Everyone else in this discussion,

I notice that none of you have actually disputed my point about readiness with more than overheated anti-military rhetoric. If American military spending is so “wasteful” and this is so self-evident I expect that any of you could explain why you hold this position (beyond blunt reference to other countries’ spending, which needs to be, you know, put in context to be anything more than a rhetorical device used to bludgeon the armed forces in a budget fight), which appears to me to be motivated by sheer antipathy to the armed services and/or the use of military coercion in foreign policy. I’ve gone into the weeds on my side of the issue many times.

I imag­ine there are mighty few times this year that PPP has shown a result thats 5+ pts more favor­able to the Repub­li­can than Ras­mussen.

More than you imagine.