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Is the price of Imperialism worth it?

Is the US Military budget morally reasonable and sane?

  • The budget is reasonable.

    Votes: 7 35.0%
  • The budget is unreasonable.

    Votes: 6 30.0%
  • The military budget is insane.

    Votes: 6 30.0%
  • The military budget is immoral and insane.

    Votes: 8 40.0%
  • War is good business and that is big military.

    Votes: 1 5.0%
  • Imperialism and Empire are expensive, military required.

    Votes: 2 10.0%

  • Total voters
    20
  • Poll closed .

DaveFagan

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The US is the World's Biggest War-Monger | This Can't Be Happening

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”(Dwight D. Eisenhower)

Are we the World's most Imperialistic Nation?
Don't people realize what is happening?
Is this news in the Major Media?
Are we over-militarized?
Who gets the profit from all this?
Why isn't this a campaign issue?










 
Are we the World's most Imperialistic Nation?
Yes. We are an empire.


Don't people realize what is happening?
No. The vast majority dont, and the vast majority dont care because they believe we are making the world a better place by bombing the **** out of countries getting involved in other countries affairs and setting up regimes.

Is this news in the Major Media?
Nope.

Are we over-militarized?
**** yes!!

Who gets the profit from all this?
Arms manufacturing, weapon manufactures, mercenary groups, natural resource companies, companies that "rebuild destroyed countries".

Why isn't this a campaign issue?
Private money in campaigns.
 
You and I seem to agree on many issues. It is difficult to get any interest from posters to try to get them to educate themselves or even broaden their perspectives. If they don't participate in this thread, they figure it will go away. They're right. I only posted it for 180 days. Still, one would hope that there would be posters absolutely certain that their side of this issue is correct and want to debate. That, or they know this issue is true and are ashamed of it. Who knows?
 
I'm one of those "crazy, nutty, kooky doomsday theorists" who thinks US foreign policy is preparatory for an endgame scenario in which the whole world is in an energy war. Oh my goodness, I'm positively bonkers, yes, I know. But if you pretend just for a moment that our elite intelligence knows more or less that something historically bad is about to happen and imagine what they'd want to do in advance, suddenly our foreign interventionism and "insane and immoral" military budget makes quite a bit of sense.
 
we are a cultural empire, sure

despite you guys feeling that nobody else knows what is happening, the vast majority know exactly what is happening... and a good portion approve of it.

is it news?... sure, from time to time.
well, not the ultra lefty spin... just the mainstream news on military happenings around the world.

are we over-militarized?... I believe so... but as per our role on the global stage, not really.

who profits?.. in what way? money?
a case can be made for everybody in America profiting, as well as our allies.
the socialists' spin is rather incomplete and narrow


why isn't this a campaign issue?.. because it's one of the rare things both major parties agree on.
 
Americans have great culture, nice houses, green meadows and beautiful people. Too bad they are not preoccupied with that instead of being preoccupied with war.
 
Americans have great culture, nice houses, green meadows and beautiful people. Too bad they are not preoccupied with that instead of being preoccupied with war.

It's hard to rest with our brothers toiling beneath horrible tyranny. Like Uriah (2Sam11:6+), we sleep at the gates despite the lure of luxury.
 
[
Are we the World's most Imperialistic Nation?
Don't people realize what is happening?
Is this news in the Major Media?
Are we over-militarized?
Who gets the profit from all this?
Why isn't this a campaign issue?
[/I]

There is little doubt that the US is the most imperialistic nation, but we have plenty of allies in this both in the sense of nations and people within opposed nation's.

I think that a great many people do not understand it, in fact go to your workplace and ask people there if they know the name of the Secretary of defense....

NPR tends to only touch on it every now and again, and mainly to question the cost rather than the purpose itself. The BBC also occasionally mentions just how much more military power we have than Tue rest of the world....but I cannot really think of any other outlets really discussing anything beyond election year military cuts.

I would say it is a given that we are over militarized as there isn't really a credible threat to our nation from the army of any other nation in conventional warfare.

Who profits? I do. Both indirectly due to the jobs in DC which is where I live, and directly from my partners income which comes from the defense industry. I am gonna have to cite a conflict of interest for myself here.

It isn't a campaign issue becaue these are jobs, and the way this election haw gone a single job seems worth quite a few lives, or at least that is how hard they are spinning it.
 
The budget is reasonable and could surely be reduced (at least, reduced in increase from the previous year if not actually cut).
 
The US is the World's Biggest War-Monger | This Can't Be Happening

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”(Dwight D. Eisenhower)


Eisenhower was a failure as a president.

Are we the World's most Imperialistic Nation?

Imperialism is dead. We are NOT an empire. Not even the Soviets were an empire. What we have is a large sphere of influence over a number of nations. However, we don't directly dictate to any other nation. They CHOOSE to be allied with us, because we provide a benefit to them.

Don't people realize what is happening?

What is happening? The USA is the world's only superpower. I think the world does realize that, yes. Here is my question to you - why is that a problem?

Is this news in the Major Media?

What news?

Are we over-militarized?

In what sense? In a practical sense, no. We are engaged all over the world and that justifies our expenditure. Morally? Well that's your call. Personally, I think the USA is a benevolent superpower, and I'm glad that power vacuum isn't being filled by the Chinese or the Russians.

Who gets the profit from all this?

Europeans. They spend nothing on a military, and get all the benefits of peace and stability on America's dime. Personally, I think we should charge for our services.

Why isn't this a campaign issue?
Why isn't what a campaign issue? Military spending? I'm sure it will be. Check out the debates.
 
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It's hard to rest with our brothers toiling beneath horrible tyranny. Like Uriah (2Sam11:6+), we sleep at the gates despite the lure of luxury.

OK, I got your point. Be at peace. :)
 
No he didn't.

Like most of what you say.

It has no basis in reality.

Welcome back by the way.

You are most entertaining.

Thanks, I took a break from politics and I think some of my philosophies have matured and shifted since the last go-round.

I don't like the way Eisenhower handled the Suez crisis, Korea, or how the Soviet Union achieved superiority in the space race under his leadership. I think he was a well-meaning man, which you can see with some of what he tried to do in the civil rights arena, but he really sucked at taking his good intentions and turning them in to good plans that actually panned out to anything good.
 
I don't like the way Eisenhower handled the Suez crisis

He stopped Russia from getting involved in a conflict with Britain and France which would have forced the USA to intervene, the consequences of which would have been devestating.


His hard line stance against China ended the war and provided for the relative peace we still enjoy today in the region.

or how the Soviet Union achieved superiority in the space race under his leadership.

Some people do give him flack for that but at the end of the day, there is absolutely no tactical edge the USA got from the moon landings except prestige.

It is rumoured that JFK discussed the possibility of a joint moon landing with the Soviet Union with Kruschev

However it is also rumoured that Kruschev turned down the venture as he didn't want NASA scientists discovering just how inferior their technology was to the USA's.

The Soviet Union may have got the first satellite and the first person in space, but they did it by utulizing technology that wouldn't stand up to a Tomogochi in the 90's.

The space Race as it were, is nothing more than a fable.

The USA always had the edge.

I think he was a well-meaning man

He is one of the greatest Americans to ever live.

Between his actions as Supreme Allied Commander and President one can honestly say he will go down in history as not only a great American, but a great human being.

He wasn't the most lively or exciting President in the Republics history, but he was certainly one of the most practical.

His biggest failure as President was not standing up to Mccarthysm.
 
He stopped Russia from getting involved in a conflict with Britain and France which would have forced the USA to intervene, the consequences of which would have been devestating.

He took the wrong side in this dispute. He hung our allies out to dry and supported Nasser and the Egyptians for no other reason than that he was butthurt because nobody bothered to consult him before they went in.


His hard line stance against China ended the war and provided for the relative peace we still enjoy today in the region.

He was SOFT on China, just like he was soft on the middle east. In the Korean war, once it was discovered that the Chinese had entered the war by sending a million troops across the border, General Macarthur wanted to attack Chinese cities. At that time, we could have beaten China, and won the Korean war outright.... although it would have taken a while and cost a lot more.

Eisenhower refused, and he fired Macarthur over it. He wanted the Korean war to be "limited" and so leaving the problem to future generations (us).

Douglas Macarthur is a far greater hero than Eisenhower ever will be. If Macarthur had his way, and assuming he was successful, there would be no North Korea today, and there would not be a communist China.

We are unstable in that part of the world precisely because Eisenhower didn't have the balls to get the job done.

Some people do give him flack for that but at the end of the day, there is absolutely no tactical edge the USA got from the moon landings except prestige.

It is rumoured that JFK discussed the possibility of a joint moon landing with the Soviet Union with Kruschev

However it is also rumoured that Kruschev turned down the venture as he didn't want NASA scientists discovering just how inferior their technology was to the USA's.

The Soviet Union may have got the first satellite and the first person in space, but they did it by utulizing technology that wouldn't stand up to a Tomogochi in the 90's.

The space Race as it were, is nothing more than a fable.

The USA always had the edge.

The Cold War was as much a propaganda war as it was an arms race. It was about winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world, who had to decide whether to adopt capitalism or communism. Sputnik and the early Soviet successes in the space race were a win for them.

I think Kennedy was an utter failure on Cuba, but he did a great job getting us back in the space race.





His biggest failure as President was not standing up to Mccarthysm.

Yes, and here's another one I forgot about: he let thousands of Hungarians get slaughtered by the Soviets in Budapest because he would not support their uprising against the Soviet Union. Disgraceful.
 
I agree that American Imperialism needs to end. We need to pull all of our military and diplomatic forces back inside the US Borders, throw the Useless Nations out on their ear, along with all foreign embassies and consulates here in the US, close the borders, and tell the rest of the world to go to Hell. We should be using those returned US forces to secure OUR borders. Maybe a couple divisions of Marines along some of those CA and AZ border areas with ROE that says "Shoot to KILL, on sight" will make the coyotes and illegals think twice about trying to cross the border. Sticking a couple US Navy vessels between FL and Cuba ought to end the raft people issue.

Maybe after the next Volcano/Tsunami/Earthquake/German Invasion where the US doesn't show up to save the day people around the world will start to get a better idea of what they'd be missing.
 
He took the wrong side in this dispute. He hung our allies out to dry and supported Nasser and the Egyptians for no other reason than that he was butthurt because nobody bothered to consult him before they went in.

He may have ended a nuclear war.

And as a Brit stopped us from making a terrible mistake, we went into the Suez to recover our investments as a nation under the false pretense of peacekeeping.

Eisenhower did the right thing.

He was SOFT on China, just like he was soft on the middle east. In the Korean war, once it was discovered that the Chinese had entered the war by sending a million troops across the border, General Macarthur wanted to attack Chinese cities. At that time, we could have beaten China, and won the Korean war outright.... although it would have taken a while and cost a lot more.

Eisenhower refused, and he fired Macarthur over it. He wanted the Korean war to be "limited" and so leaving the problem to future generations (us).

Eisenhower threatened Nuclear War against China and the threats worked.

Eisenhower showed great judgement in not getting involved in a ground war with the Chinese in North Korea or Chinese Soil.

The continuation of North Korea is unfortunate but it was alot better than the alternative.

Douglas Macarthur is a far greater hero than Eisenhower ever will be. If Macarthur had his way, and assuming he was successful, there would be no North Korea today, and there would not be a communist China.

Macarthur had his day during WW2.

Macarthur overeached during Korea and his dismissal by Truman was one of the most important in the United States history in maintaining civilian control over the military.

The Cold War was as much a propaganda war as it was an arms race. It was about winning the hearts and minds of the rest of the world, who had to decide whether to adopt capitalism or communism. Sputnik and the early Soviet successes in the space race were a win for them.

At the end of the day the point stands.

The space race provided no tactical advantage for either party.

We can get into an argument over how the moon landings or Sputnik effected the worlds view of the respective powers but at the end of the day that doesn't mean jack within the confines of who would have won a military conflict.

Nations who aligned themselves with either side did not do so on the basis of who had the fanciest space toys.

They did so in who offered them the most, whether that be financial, military or other aid.

Yes, and here's another one I forgot about: he let thousands of Hungarians get slaughtered by the Soviets in Budapest because he would not support their uprising against the Soviet Union. Disgraceful.

Again... unfortunate.

But intervening may have meant an armed conflict between the USSR and the USA and it's allies.

Not an option.

Once again Eisenhower saw the bigger picture.

He was a great president.
 
Are we the World's most Imperialistic Nation?

We are the global hegemon, or the closest to it and we are a new form of Empire, a Democratic Empire. It is in our interests to promote democracy abroad, to shore up and create alliances and concerts amongst the global democracies, and to hem in and eventually overcome our autocratic opponents.

Don't people realize what is happening?

I would imagine so. It's been a major public policy discussion for quite some time.

Is this news in the Major Media?

You mean "News Flash: US Global Military Power, and wages wars and conducts policy to further its interests!" No I don't think that happens often.

Are we over-militarized?

No, under-militarized in terms of proportional expenditure and what I personally think deserves priority.

Who gets the profit from all this?

In the long run the United States, and the rest of the world.

Why isn't this a campaign issue?

Is foreign policy and defense spending not an issue that has been brought up in this campaign?
 
It all depends on your values. If killing millions to access their resources on your terms is morally ok with you, then it is worth it. If breaking the nation by imperial over reach disturbs you then it is not worth it. Only one politician or pundit has ever dared to say that empire is breaking us and that is Ron Paul. No, I won't vote for him. I admire his honesty but unfortunately he advocates dog eat dog economics as well. He is that rarity of rarities, a true believer.

If anyone is interested in studying up on our empire I suggest Chalmers Johnson's trilogy on the subject. It is not only detailed but an easy read. For those who don't value the facts I can think of many bumper stickers that will do the job. :)

In my opinion few Americans care about the morality involved. Most on the right will tell you that our government lies and is not to be trusted (true). They will tell you the government can't do anything right (true sometimes). The one time they will tell you that you are a traitor for not believing the government is when it is killing foreigners. Go figure.
 
Americans have great culture, nice houses, green meadows and beautiful people. Too bad they are not preoccupied with that instead of being preoccupied with war.

I'm afraid you have it backwards. Most Americans are preoccupied with their private lives and don't look behind the corporate news media which never mentions the horrors we inflict on other peoples. Beautiful people? Some of us are and some of us are very ugly and vicious, just like people everywhere. The difference here is that they are like mushrooms. They are kept in the dark and fed lost of horse byproduct.
 
I think that the USA'a wars have been about Corporate control of assets. Iraq-OIL. Don't say democracy because Maliki did not get elected and is a dictatorial regime. Libya-OIL. The USA supported this insurrection with weapons and money and assets on the ground. Latin America-Produce. Our Corporations influence the change of allegedly Democratic gov'ts as a matter of labor/management policy not freedom and democracy. Panama-Cocaine. We invaded and replaced Noreiga because of cocaine trafficing, but he was our ally and CIA asset doing our business, like Operation Phoenix in Southeast Asia. Vietnam-Military spending. This was a nice profitable war for the sellers of military equipment, ammo, etc. Maybe the OIL deposits in the South China sea. Syria-OIL and pipeline routes and get Russia out of Syria's great port. This appears to be another insurrection that we have had a hand and money in instigating. It's certainly not about freedom and democracy. Is that what we put in Iraq? The policies and agendas of the USA have been the major cause of Global Warming and we are the Nation weaseling out of responsibility because it would be a Corporate liability. Currently we influence the world with a currency that is supported by huge, unmanageable debt and is getting worse. We have created a banking system that is rife with fraud. It's all about big business, the American Way and it is gonna bite us.
 
I'm afraid you have it backwards. Most Americans are preoccupied with their private lives and don't look behind the corporate news media which never mentions the horrors we inflict on other peoples. Beautiful people? Some of us are and some of us are very ugly and vicious, just like people everywhere. The difference here is that they are like mushrooms. They are kept in the dark and fed lost of horse byproduct.

I'm glad I'm wrong on that one. :)
 
We would not have invaded Iraq if Saddam had accepted the deal he was offered which was the same deal the Saudis took. His biggest sin was to sell oil for Euros instead of dollars. In the words of our lying government, he "destabilized" the oil markets. The petrodollar was a key ingredient in making the dollar the reserve currency of the world. For this we killed over a million Iraqis.
 
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