Originally Posted by dyna mo

It's fascinating! And I'm glad ADG brought up Eisenhower as a trumpeter of anti-military in this discussion because it lends credence to my view of looking at the US realistically.

And realistically we are a nation built on guns and war. Not ideals. Our founding fathers were aristocratic land owners who didn't allow women to vote and mistrusted the rest so bad they created a representative government with an electoral college to usurp votes.

Looking into Eisenhower we can see that the fear of the enemy started at the very top and our leaders had no problem sacrificing 100 million AMericans in a nuclear war to combat the communist threat. That was almost 70 years ago and not only has nothing changed, it's been embraced and advanced to the point we are spending 3/4 of $trillion a year on military and the military is the biggest employer in the country.

As much as the idealistic side of me wishes that could change, the realist in me knows it ain't gonna. Not to mention the devastation to our economy and the world economy if we moved away from what we do best.

Keep the military, keep the spending, but use it in such a way to provide value. Not f35 programs and nonsense but as an employer of people who work to rebuild infrastructure, provide food and attention to those around the world who need it, etc.