Just a thought. What would happen if we closed every US military base and bought home every single GI overseas and let the rest of the world fend for themselves? Re-deploy the troops along the US border making it as secure as it could possibly be. And use all the money saved to rebuild this nation into the great civilization it should be, by taking care of business at home (education, crime, poverty, etc.) first. Then venture back out into the world again after we've cleaned up our house. A pipe dream? Probably. Simplistic? Yes. Gotta start somewhere.
state and federal income tax could be <5% FLAT if your plan were adopted... we could still pipe the current amount of spending into intelligence, and tip off other countries who may actually give a damn. being geographically isolated, you'd think we'd use it more to our advantage...but it's hard to steal oil that way.
We wouldn't have to steal oil if we weren't a society of over-consuming apathetics. The goverment is merely a mirror of the people that elect it. And let no one say it's the big corporations fault, they're just filling a need and profiting from it. Halliburton would cease to exist if the general public weaned itself off oil. We are all responsible.
A good place to start would be Bosnia/Kosovo. I recall Clinton promising many years ago those troops would be home "by Christmas." Guess he didn't specify the year. Pat Buchanan ran for President articulating a similar policy and was excoriated for it, both on the withdrawing from our worldwide "commitments" and for securing our borders. I haven't noticed us stealing oil. I have noticed a criminal gang called OPEC robbing us.
I was hoping to get some of our european (or any other country for that matter) buddies to chime in on this thread. Seems they would have much to say about something like this. Except Israel. I don't think they'd be too happy with it.