a wealthy person is not someone who constantly works and accumulates money most who do save up to millions, keep their attitude of accumulating all the way to their grave, they constantly work and save up till they die, usually they are sick bastards who will not even leave a penny for their children, because they believe everyone has to suffer in order to obtain such so called wealth wealth in real terms is what you are born into (the rich and respectful family), in that case it is in your blood, it is in your genes, it is then not about accumulating but about spending wisely, it is about respect, the people who you call friends if you don't understand the difference between a wealthy person, and someone who accumulates wealth, you have no idea who wealthy people are
The only way out of our fiscal problems is to grow our way out, saving and cutting spending alone will not work as we owe too much and too much of our GDP is consumption. The current crop of democrats are not progrowth: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120312350441273057.html?mod=hpp_us_whats_news
Is anyone concerned that wealth is in fewer and fewer hands....and we are taking HUGE amounts of money. Does anyone care that the US is now laughed at, that the government went from a surplus to a crippling deficit...and what about the sub prime fiasco? Personally, I don't see how Obama could do any worse. With McCain, you can bet there will be mandatory drafts....do you really want your kids fighting a one hundred year war, and for what?
You peace-nicks and code-pinkers cry and whine to bring the troops home for what? To save money? Of all govt spendings this is one of the few that is vital and makes good sense. Why do our troops need to be home sitting on bases in the US? They are immensely more productive in securing the future of the nation by being right where they are-in a key part of the world that our enemies are salivating over taking control of and using against us as they used our airliners against us. Watch things fall apart and see our spending in blood and treasure be much greater in the long run if either Clinton or Obama win and keep their promises. The idiot on here who claims there is no difference between Clinton, Obama or McCain is obviously paying more attention to what he is smoking than any facts. Ron Paul- OK, good for spending, taxation, size of govt and individual freedom, but is absolutely insane to think we can be isolationists in today's world. Isolationism works in the old world, not this one. Survial requires more. What good is being a libertarian when your country withers and dies.
Our war spending increases our risks of dying from terrorist attacks. The problem is that we piss off the Arabs by taking Israel's side, and our interventionist foreign policy that has nothing to do with the security of American citizens and everything to do with maximizing corporate profits has over the years created so many international enemies because of the US Gov's terorrist actions that if we said we would suddenly turn non-interventionist, no one would believe us and our enemies would still fear us. When you go to a country like Iraq and shoot unarmed civilians and our soldiers have a "shit happens" mentality, that just creates an entire generation of radicals who will seek revenge. The Iraq war is not winnable. We slipped up by going in there and we know it. We just showed our hand to the world and proved that we cannot take control of foreign countries, only nuke them. The mentality that interventionism is the only way to survive in this world is the same type of mentality that the FED has in lowering rates as the mortgage scam reveals itself. Putting more cheap credit into the system, just because there is already so much cheap credit that dealing with the consequences will be painful, is not the way to solve a problem created by too much cheap credit. Similarly, continuing to be extremely aggressive with a massive offence budget and trying to police the world is not the way to solve a problem created by too much international interventionism. The more interventionism we have to enage in because of our past militaristic ventures which existed primarily for the benefits of American corporations, the more new enemies we will create, which will require more preemptive wars, which leads to only two possible endings. The US dominates the entire world and has the majority of it enslaved, or the US gets nuked. I don't like either of those scenarios. The best way to lesson the hatred the rest of the world has against us for our past genocides, crimes, and terrorist activity (yes, some of the US hatred is also jealousy too) is to show that we are changing from our past and stop doing the things that are pissing the rest of the world off. Shitting all over the Arabs by giving Israel our money and trying to instill a sham government in Iraq is hardly the answer to our national security.
ElatedMaverick's seemingly hamfisted post is, in fact, quite nuanced. NYOBScalper's seemingly nuanced post is, in fact, quite hamfisted. Just go to show how murky these waters are, and how cautious we should be when preparing to send someone as untested as Obama to the helm of our leaky ship o' state...
We have two choices: 1) If we do nothing and become isolationists, the Arabs are pissed and they want to murder you. 2) If we intervene and promote democracy, the Arabs are pissed and they want to murder you. Regardless of what we do, the Arabs are pissed and they want to murder you. Which approach will protect us as much as possible? Exactly, #2 and that's why were are over there promoting demcracy. Turkey is a democracy and they're also a predominately muslim country. Iraq can be the same type of country.
Who said America has to make friends with every totalitarian regime in the world? Do Germany and Japan have a sham government too?
Care to explain the holes in my reasoning and show what you believe I am missing? Any of the claims I made I can backup with credible, incontraverible evidence. I understand the reasoning that spending heavily on national security though pre-emptive military positioning in regions with a particularly high frequency of radical anti-Americans could be a wise idea; if we don't stop these people, our infrastructure and the ability of Joe American to live his Joe American life is threatened, and not spending on Iraq would therefore be penny wise and pound foolish for America. This reasoning is, however, entirely incorrect as A) our stated mission is unaccomplishable, and B) in chasing the unachevievable mission, we only create more unachievable missions which we'll have to take on; throughout our history, this has been the case. Why would this time be different?