/liberty/ - Liberty

>>68782

Which military?

>>68783

US

the only one that matters

>>68784

Unless you work in it, it's overbloated. It's on the pretext that it's not enough to protect America itself, but "American interests" must also be secured, which can pretty much justify any and all aggression.

Probably a necessity, but we should look for opportunities to take peace dividends where we can. Military spending is economically injurious.

>>68785

This. The fiscal effects alone should be enough to make anyone with two brain cells think twice whether we need it. Add to that the fact that its foreign policy has made the US less secure, not more.

>>68814

Not this. Helicopter memes are just that: Memes.

I don't really trust the international geopolitical environment. Demilitarization is a wonderful luxury for any country that can afford it, but the few that can afford it can do so because they have friends both peaceful and well-armed.

I like britain's 19th century strategy of being at least 3x as powerful as the runner up Germany, in the modern case Russia and China.

It would be a better dividend to cut social spending first.

>>68821

Wouldn't it make more sense to keep your troops at home, then, and not divided in over a hundred military bases?

>>68824

>Military spending

>Not social spending under a fancier name

Far too big. A hiring freeze should be implemented for all branches. The middle east and all african nations should be withdrawn from, with the possible tolerance of a single base in each nation like Guantanamo. Efforts should be focused solely on domestic protection and surveillance of openly hostile nations/imminent threats like certain asian nuclear states.

>>68814

>/pol/ is /liberty/

Low effort meme

>>68824

So the US's already bloated homeless rate can spike further?

>>68837

US needs a good weeding-out anyways.

>>68837

You get more of what you subsidize. Don't want to see men not working? Don't pay men not to work. Socialism chains the underclass in place to use it as a planners' bogeyman. Capitalism actually uplifts the poor.

>>68847

>You get more of what you subsidize.

And there's also a substantial transfer effect. Both are important.

>Socialism chains the underclass in place to use it as a planners' bogeyman.

It's not socialism. And there's plenty of reason to suppose that welfare can help the poor out of poverty, whereas absence of welfare causes them to sink further into poverty.

The change in behaviour is probably not that significant considering that many of these programmes are tied to working, temporary, or both.

>>68850

Economic progress solves poverty. Welfare only teaches dependency. Welfare is instituted because of the perceived class interests of the rich, who believe they must stabilize the system against the threat of uprising should the poor become ambitious. Welfare makes people plantation voters, reliably bought, and it takes away the drive to improve their own lives that would make them stand on their own. Instead of fearing the poor or condescending to them, we should be doing what actually helps them in the long run, which is finding for them places in society.

>>68851

>ideological spewing

Read my post.

>>68852

I did. I had a thought to share, you closed-minded fool. If you want to destroy civilization for your primitivist utopia by teaching everyone to live at the expense of everyone else, go right ahead.

>>68821

There's demilitarization, and then there's reigning in the DoD's budget. A proper audit could easily cut the budget in half with no effective loss to fighting strength, but we both know that will never happen because the MICC has a stranglehold on every part of the process. The DoD is now a glorified jobs program and there's always a reason concocted to drop some million-dollar bombs on dirt farmers.

>>68852

I see a bunch of statements but I don't see an argument.

>>68850

>And there's plenty of reason to suppose that welfare can help the poor out of poverty, whereas absence of welfare causes them to sink further into poverty.

Those reasons being? Welfare is one of the biggest drains on an economy save perhaps for military spending, and an extremely efficient disincentive to work. It also coincided both with the drug epidemic and the rise in violent crime.

>>68862

It's so efficient and lucrative that private business has to be compelled by the force of a gun to invest in something that obviously works and provides positive benefit.

>>68853

Well all the points you said were addressed in my post.

>>68862

There is a large transfer effect associated with welfare, and households with more money provide a better home environment for children.

I'm sure you can think of other reasons too. How are you going to get a good job when you're homeless?

As for crime- countries with bigger welfare states have less crime overwhelmingly. Many things coincided with the rise in violent crime. Society changed a lot

>>68782

Over bloated to the extreme. One of the biggest reasons our debt is ever riding and not slowing down. All in the pretense of "protecting our freedom" when nothing the military has done in at the very least the past 50 years has had anything to do with protecting our freedom; often it has to do with tearing down our freedom and that of other nations.

>>68879

>a good job

Are you owed a "good job"? Because there is always "a job" to take.

>households with more money provide a better home environment for children

Why are you having children if you can't take care of them?

>as for crime- countries with bigger welfare states have less crime overwhelmingly

Why would I need to steal if I don't have to work to begin with? Even if correct, your assumption is not a desirable outcome.

>>68916

So now you're just admitting that you don't actually care about people's welfare, just about blaming them for their hardships etc

Good, but you should start like this, it's more honest

>>68932

>So now you're just admitting that you don't actually care about people's welfare, just about blaming them for their hardships

You're not going to play the shaming game with me. Address any of what I said and don't be vague about it. Nobody inherently deserves anything. I don't care about "the poor" as a vaguely defined class of individuals. I can care about someone I know, but I don't have to. Before proposing extortion to fund your philanthropy, think again who has to be on the defensive morally.

>What do you mean that 600 million dollar ballistic missiles don't make budgetary sense? And besides, it's not like our military coupes for American interests will never backfire in the slightest.