The US federal government might shutdown Friday. WTF?

[Flake]

Its just my opinion. I am sure it will get bashed cause its not liberal enough

I served in the military. I'm about as moderate as they come but you'd be amazed how many liberals are in the service. This idea that all liberals hate the military is unfounded.

[SuperAnthony64]

Its just my opinion. I am sure it will get bashed cause its not liberal enough

I served in the military. I'm about as moderate as they come but you'd be amazed how many liberals are in the service. This idea that all liberals hate the military is unfounded.

then why do you hear all these liberal congress men wanting to cut military spending? And Thank you for your service.

[saturnfan]

Its just my opinion. I am sure it will get bashed cause its not liberal enough

I served in the military. I'm about as moderate as they come but you'd be amazed how many liberals are in the service. This idea that all liberals hate the military is unfounded.

then why do you hear all these liberal congress men wanting to cut military spending? And Thank you for your service.

Eh, its all rhetoric Super Anthony. None of them all that serious about doing anything they promise.

[SuperAnthony64]

I served in the military. I'm about as moderate as they come but you'd be amazed how many liberals are in the service. This idea that all liberals hate the military is unfounded.[/quote]
then why do you hear all these liberal congress men wanting to cut military spending? And Thank you for your service.[/quote]

Eh, its all rhetoric Super Anthony. None of them all that serious about doing anything they promise.[/quote]

Rep or dem these congress men have ran their course. there are some of these politicians that have been in there forever and seem to get nothing done. Both parties strayed far from what they believe in.

[ZeroAX]

Ok, I don't know a lot about American politics, heck I'm shocked politicians are proud to be old fashioned (over here, calling someone that is most of the time, considered an insult), but since I DO watch world politics and economics, I really want to comment on 2 things you said SuperAnthony.

These people on welfare are abusing the system. Keep pushing out kids and the government will help you. Have a kid cap on welfare. Only give hand out for two kids but you can still have as many as you want but after 2 they are on your dime.

You do know, that the reason for your giant economic growth in the past 2 centuries, is because of your growing population right? In fact, check out all the emerging economies. Turkey, Brazil, India, China. Without a big population, it is very hard for industrial businesses to kick off. Plus, the Western countries are having demographic problems with the population getting older (which makes the pension system a ticking time bomb).

Do you want war on your turff? No... then stop bitching about military spending defense

I'm sorry, but this is just silly. Freaking Nazi Germany didn't want to attack you. Do you think a small group of badly equipped guerrillas will freaking invade? How exactly would they smuggle a tank inside the country? Take it apart and bring it piece by piece.

And it's not like the rest of the world is a threat right now :S
Never mind, it's not in anyone's economic interests to go to war with you (and you must be an idiot to think there ever was a war which wasn't about money), even if you did go to war, just look at the difference in military budgets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures

Heck, even if China and Russia forged an alliance against you (impossible, cause of China's huge economic interests), and the EU Japan and Korea turned their backs on you (impossible for too many reasons to state) you'd still have 4 times the budget, which in this day of technological warfare, would be a huuuge advantage.


All that is left to "justify" the huge military budget, is terrorism. Terrorism is an ugly thing the world has to live with, but unfortunately no matter how many of them you kill, even 2 people escaping your grasp can cause another 11/9. The only way to counter terrorism is with police force, not military force.

[ApolloBoy]

Arent they trying to pass the 2011 budget that the liberals should of passed back in October? Funny how you liberals think and now they are giving scare tactics to the people and saying the Republicans are going to kill kids and senior citizens with the stuff they want to cut while the Dems are trying to sneak in government payed abortions in this bill. Dont know about you but I sure as hell dont want tax payers dollars going to someones last resort birth control option.

Ho hum, another boring "let's blame liberals for everything" guy. Methinks these people need to find a new schtick, because I've heard slight variations of it for as long as I can remember.

[yomomma1]

Its just my opinion. I am sure it will get bashed cause its not liberal enough

I served in the military. I'm about as moderate as they come but you'd be amazed how many liberals are in the service. This idea that all liberals hate the military is unfounded.

then why do you hear all these liberal congress men wanting to cut military spending? And Thank you for your service.

Because most of the budget is spent on the military, medicare and social security.

[SuperAnthony64]

Ok, I don't know a lot about American politics, heck I'm shocked politicians are proud to be old fashioned (over here, calling someone that is most of the time, considered an insult), but since I DO watch world politics and economics, I really want to comment on 2 things you said SuperAnthony.

These people on welfare are abusing the system. Keep pushing out kids and the government will help you. Have a kid cap on welfare. Only give hand out for two kids but you can still have as many as you want but after 2 they are on your dime.

You do know, that the reason for your giant economic growth in the past 2 centuries, is because of your growing population right? In fact, check out all the emerging economies. Turkey, Brazil, India, China. Without a big population, it is very hard for industrial businesses to kick off. Plus, the Western countries are having demographic problems with the population getting older (which makes the pension system a ticking time bomb).

Do you want war on your turff? No... then stop bitching about military spending defense

I'm sorry, but this is just silly. Freaking Nazi Germany didn't want to attack you. Do you think a small group of badly equipped guerrillas will freaking invade? How exactly would they smuggle a tank inside the country? Take it apart and bring it piece by piece.

And it's not like the rest of the world is a threat right now :S
Never mind, it's not in anyone's economic interests to go to war with you (and you must be an idiot to think there ever was a war which wasn't about money), even if you did go to war, just look at the difference in military budgets

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_co ... penditures

Heck, even if China and Russia forged an alliance against you (impossible, cause of China's huge economic interests), and the EU Japan and Korea turned their backs on you (impossible for too many reasons to state) you'd still have 4 times the budget, which in this day of technological warfare, would be a huuuge advantage.


All that is left to "justify" the huge military budget, is terrorism. Terrorism is an ugly thing the world has to live with, but unfortunately no matter how many of them you kill, even 2 people escaping your grasp can cause another 11/9. The only way to counter terrorism is with police force, not military force.

I understand that military costs alot of money. But cutting back on it might not solve all of the problems. Theres other programs that can be cut also. I am not trying to come out and say there will be a full blown attack on us if it gets cut but if we let our guards down enough it can happen.

[SuperAnthony64]

Arent they trying to pass the 2011 budget that the liberals should of passed back in October? Funny how you liberals think and now they are giving scare tactics to the people and saying the Republicans are going to kill kids and senior citizens with the stuff they want to cut while the Dems are trying to sneak in government payed abortions in this bill. Dont know about you but I sure as hell dont want tax payers dollars going to someones last resort birth control option.

Ho hum, another boring "let's blame liberals for everything" guy. Methinks these people need to find a new schtick, because I've heard slight variations of it for as long as I can remember.

Funny how liberals have done it the whole decade and people didnt seem to care but when the tables have turned its not ok and must stop.

[Flake]

then why do you hear all these liberal congress men wanting to cut military spending? And Thank you for your service.

Because the world is constantly changing and it is important to change the military to fit it. Sometimes that means a drawing down of forces or shifting money to other defense projects.

The idea that liberals in particular hate the military is really just because it happened to be Bill Clinton in the White House in the years following the fall of the Soviet Union. The liberal president did exactly what his conservative counterpart would have - he dismantled the military. We didn't need it to be so big anymore. Who were we going to fight? Partisan fighting being what it is, the cry of 'liberals hate the military' was used to gain favor with the voters. Democrats would have done the exact same thing if they'd been in that position.

A few examples:

The F-22, back in the 90's, was heralded as the be all, end all of jet fighters. Billions of dollars went into it. So where are the vast fleets of F-22s? It was decided that they were not necessary because we have no enemies against which to use them. Our main focus is urban conflict - fighters are useless in that setting.

So instead that money was shifted over to projects like UAV, unmanned aerial vehicles. People complained that this was going to 'weaken' the military because they did not understand the changing of times. OR because this decision would hurt their own local economies where they might have jobs dedicated to the other project.

Other examples:

We used to have a 600 ship navy - now we have less than 400. We didn't need the extra 200.

We used to have division after division of tanks - when that Eastern European tank battle never happened we got rid of them for more APC's and Strykers. This caused a HUGE stink back in the 1990's, even though it was the right thing to do.

Military Pay is an interesting issue. Bush Jr. was applauded for how often he increased military pay...but he didn't really, not any more than other (more liberal) Presidents. He just did it annually in small increments instead of bi annually in larger chunks. I remember getting, on average, about a 3.2% pay increase each year....inflation was roughly 3.1%. You do the math on that one.

Liberals got a lot of blame during the Bush years for protesting a very controversial funding method that the Bush Jr administration liked to use: discretionary military spending bills. Basically, they would pass a budget for the DoD. But after 9/11, congress got into the habit of adding on these extra bills for military funding, specifically to fight overseas. These bills were considered 'emergency funding' and were NOT paid for by taxes. They went straight onto the deficit and then the debt. Liberals wanted to rein that in and get DoD spending back within the money budgeted to it - but if you remember the early years of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, it was not a very popular thing to suggest that you cut military funding. In the end the liberals did not offer a good compromise to fund the military without tossing it right onto the debt - and then everyone got so used to doing it that way that it became the norm.

Trivia: Did you know that in the history of mankind the Iraq and Afghanistan wars are the only two wars that NO taxes were placed on the populace to fund? Bonus points if you know why, kiddos.

So yeah, liberals don't hate the military. But since 'rah rah army' isn't part of the liberal political tool box to fall on in stump speeches (like the environment or civil rights) they get a name for hating the uniform.

The hippies don't help any, either.