Berkeley City Council

the greatest threat to our daily freedoms is not some tiny and overrated group like AQ but our own politicians and OTHER civilians (non politicians) who are pushing their lifestyle agendas on eveyone else.

The nation's population is never at peril and never has been due to the two friends known as the Atlantic and Pacific. Terrorism is not a military problem but an ideological one and no amount of invasions will solve it completely; if the bad guys are in Houston already, securing the mideast does no good.
 
Next thing you know there will be a draft in Berkeley.
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9/11 put the public at peril on a bigger scale than your common mass murder but the overall US population was never at peril. Did you really feel threatened that day? I went to Walmart and saved the receipt "9-11-01".

this WOT is vastly overrated and has been misappropriated by the military when it is an intelligence front not a conventional one.
 
Let's make a list of all the highly industrialized countries in history with a true democracy. I'll guess maybe thirty are on this list including all your Icelands and Luxembourgs. Now let's identify the ones where the military has taken away their freedom. I count zero. Zip. Null. Nada.

Now, back to Berkeley.
 
The two oceans are a two-edge sword. Particularly now since since we produce so little of what we consume. If we had "zero military," the United States could be blockaded/isolated and our economy and way of life would grind to a halt.
 
Okay Tom,

Answer this, then. What is the objective of the US military since WW2? Why do we spend more on our military then the rest of the world combined? How many times has an invading force occupied a part of a US state since 1812?

We're not defending ourselves or our freedom in Iraq. We're not defending ourselves or our freedom in Korea. We weren't defending ourselves or our freedom in Vietnam. We're not even defending ourselves or our freedom in Afghanistan. So what are we doing? We're pushing our ideals on others. At best we are defending the freedom of others, not Americans. We're acting as the world police. Why can these countries not defend or govern themselves? And why did it become our responsibility to not only defend them and establish their governments, but to fund their defense and government? I've seen you rail on government spending. Yet you seem to be for this bloated military that we have that accounts for half of all government spending. Perhaps you only hate spending thats actually spent on Americans. I'm fine with a military who's mission is the defense of its citizens. Our military's mission is a projection of power. And I don't blame the soldiers, they are just doing their job. I blame the government and I blame those like you that support that projection of power. You can close your eyes and wrap yourself in the flag all you want with talks of greatest generations, etc, etc, etc. I already said we should have fought ww2. Both of my grandfathers fought in it and both of them will tell you they don't like what we're involved in these days. All I asked was when were we ever threatened with occupation since 1812, and that answer is never, so when was our freedom actually at risk. My eyes are open.

I'll let Eisenhower say it. Was he not part of the greatest generation?
"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist."

We are already there.

Edit: Forgot to answer these

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Can those countries not take care of themselves?

They could if they had to. They don't. They'll just let us spend all our money on them and why wouldn't they? All three of those countries have money. At the very least, they should be paying for us to defend them. They are certainly not the elderly or the poor. And I may be wrong, but weren't you on another thread speaking out against welfare and universal healthcare?
 
Tag out. You haven't read or responded to a single question I've posed anyways. Instead you just fire up your copy of Saving Private Ryan and talk about individual sacrifice.

I'm talking about global scale. Kuwait, for example, could have paid us to defend them. South Korea could definitely be paying now even though they couldn't have initially.

You said the military is providing freedom for Americans. You've then tried to back that up by showing that the US military is providing freedom for others at American taxpayer expense. Why stop there. Why not include Taiwan and Japan. We run a trade deficit with every one of these countries because they can operate without having to worry about their own defense. We can't stay at this level of debt. We are at our breaking point. If we do, we are going to collapse just like the Soviet Union did.

As I said before. Right now, South Korea has more than twice the population of North Korea and probably 100 times the wealth. We can sell them all the equipment they need. We don't have to provide everything free of charge and be the world police.

You're using the goods. Pay into the pot. Isn't that what conservatives want here? Why give it away free elsewhere?
 
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