Gyroscopic Investing

A great power without a significant enemy? That's what the U.S. has become.

Osama bin Laden is dead. Al Qaeda is reportedly a shadow of its former self. The great regional threats of the moment, North Korea and Iran, are regimes held together by baling wire and the suffering of their populaces. The only incipient great power rival on the planet, China, has just launched its first aircraft carrier, a refurbished Ukrainian throwaway from the 1990s on whose deck the country has no planes capable of landing.

The U.S., by contrast, has 1,000 or more bases around the world. It spends as much on its military as the next 14 powers (mostly allies) combined.

It will spend an estimated $1.45 trillion to produce and operate a new aircraft, the F-35 — more than any country, the U.S. included, now spends on its national defense annually. The U.S. Navy, with its 11 nuclear-powered aircraft carrier task forces, dominates the global waves, and the U.S. Air Force controls the skies in much of the world. And the president now has at his command two specialized armies to supplement the traditional armed forces: the CIA, which has been heavily militarized and is running its own private assassination campaigns and drone air wars throughout the Middle East and environs; and the Joint Special Operations Command, cocooned inside the U.S. military, whose members are deployed to hot spots around the globe.

By all the usual measuring sticks, the U.S. should be supreme in a historically unprecedented way. And yet it couldn't be more obvious that it's not. Despite its overwhelming military superiority, nothing seems to work out in an imperially satisfying way.

"Nor do I believe we can justify war by our natural desire to bring freedom to others throughout the world, although it is perfectly proper to encourage and promote freedom. In 1941 President Roosevelt announced that we were going to establish a moral order throughout the world: freedom of speech and expression, “everywhere in the world”?; freedom to worship God “everywhere in the world”?; freedom from want, and freedom from fear “everywhere in the world.”? I pointed out then that the forcing of any special brand of freedom and democracy on a people, whether they want it or not, by the brute force of war will be a denial of those very democratic principles which we are striving to advance..."

“We can’t crusade throughout the world for the four freedoms, or force milk on people who don’t like milk without making ourselves thoroughly hated…No nation should insist on interfering with the internal affairs of other nations unless it is prepared to submit to the same interference itself.”?

-Sen. Robert Taft (R-Ohio)

MediumTex wrote: Standing armies will always find an enemy to fight.

Who wants to keep military capability on the sidelines?  Certainly not an ambitious officer corps, enormous private sector defense industry and politicians in search of glory---aka "the military industrial complex."

Weapons, like all other tools, are built to be used.

Pointedstick wrote: You have to admit though that us having guns makes us more likely to shoot someone than not having one would. Now, we probably agree that some people need to be shot (which is why we own guns), and at that point you're talking about the user and not the tool. But without the tool, there wouldn't be any shooting.

Reub wrote: What fills the vacuum when we don't stand up for our interests around the world?

Mountaineer wrote: To quote Teddy Roosevelt "walk softly and carry a big stick" will likely keep more people from being harmed more than "talk loudly to appease others and carry a small stick".

Coffee wrote:

MediumTex wrote: Standing armies will always find an enemy to fight.

Who wants to keep military capability on the sidelines?  Certainly not an ambitious officer corps, enormous private sector defense industry and politicians in search of glory---aka "the military industrial complex."

Weapons, like all other tools, are built to be used.

That's like saying: all of us gun owners are going to eventually shoot somebody, because our guns are built for killing.

TennPaGa wrote:

Reub wrote: What fills the vacuum when we don't stand up for our interests around the world?

What fills the vacuum in your own home when the U.S. government isn't telling you what to do? 

Or do I read you wrong, and that you in fact long for more government in your life?

MediumTex wrote: I don't fully understand the belief that the U.S. government has a limited ability to improve the quality of life of U.S. citizens here at home, but it does have the ability to improve the lives of other people in far flung locations all over the world.

For me, skepticism of the ability of big government to actually improve upon the affairs of human society or modify the tendencies of human nature extends to everything government seeks to do at all times and in all places.

Xan wrote: The funny thing is that our government seems to do better elsewhere than it does here.  Iraq, for example, got a flat income tax, because they didn't want to burden the burgeoning economy with a complicated tax code like our own.  Iraq also got actual voter fraud protection: index fingers dipped in ink, voter ID, etc.  Things which our own courts are brainlessly striking down.

Xan wrote: The funny thing is that our government seems to do better elsewhere than it does here.  Iraq, for example, got a flat income tax, because they didn't want to burden the burgeoning economy with a complicated tax code like our own.  Iraq also got actual voter fraud protection: index fingers dipped in ink, voter ID, etc.  Things which our own courts are brainlessly striking down.

MachineGhost wrote: As an experiment, I registered to vote providing no more identifying information than my first initial and last name, address and only the last four digits of a SSN.  It was processed.

I'm scratching my head why Voter ID laws are a bad thing?

Pointedstick wrote:

MachineGhost wrote: As an experiment, I registered to vote providing no more identifying information than my first initial and last name, address and only the last four digits of a SSN.  It was processed.

I'm scratching my head why Voter ID laws are a bad thing?

Clearly you are racist and hate poor people!