We didn't go broke with military spending on the Empire either.
So how do you think a civilization can avoid the trap of a permanent military? Maybe follow the Constitution? But how to you guarantee that, given the impulse to Empire?
You progressives all have point solutions for particular problems, but the system fails.
Having picked the smallest nits, everyone can go on ignoring the main point : we are not winning with our foreign policy and huge military spending.
We cannot win, that is an intellectual task very, very, very far too large for human minds.
Neutrality is the only winning strategy : let others waste their resources playing the un-winnable game.
Ditto for all of the social engineering within our country.
The USofA was a huge win for the 99.9% for a lot of its history. Then Progressives of the Left and the Right took us over starting end of the 1900s. They now control all major institutions in our society, and we in the 99.9% are losing badly.
All miss the full context, e.g all empires die of military spending, we can't even engineer improvements in our own society, all countries that have implemented Progressive policies are deeply in debt, have insolvent banking systems, lousy economies with high unemployment and aging populations.
The US also, and we add $1T in foreign-policy and military spending, mostly created $. Also, we haven't won a war since Korea, despite having such an amazing military.
But I am sure all of you very literate foreign policy experts will get this fixed, as soon as you attend to it. And the equally-literate commenters on various domestic policies ditto.
A foreign policy that benefits us in the 99.99% of citizens is completely impossible.
Consider multi-lateral diplomacy with war as a game, like chess, but more complex. Instead of 16 pieces each for 2 players, we have 10s of players, each with 100s of pieces. Instead of individual pieces having a couple or 3 possible types of moves, each piece in the foreign policy game, e.g. military units, businesses, NGOs, federal, state or local gov, political groups, economic groups, ... have dozens of possible responses to any event. Instead of the players taking turns, with time to think between moves, any player can make any move at any time, simultaneously with the other players doing the same.
Chess is at the limit of human comprehension. Nobody plays 3-way or 3D chess because the game is so complex it isn't possible to play enough games in a lifetime.
I could do the math, but trust me, multi-lateral diplomacy with war makes 3-way chess look as simple as Tic-Tac-Toe.
OTOH, a foreign policy that benefits large campaign contributors is easy, precisely the one that we have.
This is why being a neutral nation is such a great benefit to citizens : it prevents our gov from another form of crony-capitalism.
Why has no one made the connection between NSA's work with foreign entities and their joint spying on US citizens in violation of the US Constitution.
Treason is conspiring against the Constitution with foreigners. NSA certainly fits that definition.
But not Snowdon, he worked for the Constitution, he followed his oath of office.
Nathanial :
We didn't go broke with military spending on the Empire either.
So how do you think a civilization can avoid the trap of a permanent military? Maybe follow the Constitution? But how to you guarantee that, given the impulse to Empire?
You progressives all have point solutions for particular problems, but the system fails.
Having picked the smallest nits, everyone can go on ignoring the main point : we are not winning with our foreign policy and huge military spending.
We cannot win, that is an intellectual task very, very, very far too large for human minds.
Neutrality is the only winning strategy : let others waste their resources playing the un-winnable game.
Ditto for all of the social engineering within our country.
The USofA was a huge win for the 99.9% for a lot of its history. Then Progressives of the Left and the Right took us over starting end of the 1900s. They now control all major institutions in our society, and we in the 99.9% are losing badly.
War? I thought that was known as 'the turkey shoot'.
Be serious. 100,000 air sorties with 75 planes lost? What would be the accident rate for that number?
M1 Abrams against Chinese Type 69s and T-72s with poor training. Domination of the air. Most Coalition troops lost to friendly fire.
Not a war, whatever our corrupt leadership calls it.
And now we will see the threads carefully ignore our posts. Too much cognitive dissonance, I guess.
Everyone is so literate, has so many good points.
All miss the full context, e.g all empires die of military spending, we can't even engineer improvements in our own society, all countries that have implemented Progressive policies are deeply in debt, have insolvent banking systems, lousy economies with high unemployment and aging populations.
The US also, and we add $1T in foreign-policy and military spending, mostly created $. Also, we haven't won a war since Korea, despite having such an amazing military.
But I am sure all of you very literate foreign policy experts will get this fixed, as soon as you attend to it. And the equally-literate commenters on various domestic policies ditto.
"enough games in a lifetime to know whether you are getting better".
A foreign policy that benefits us in the 99.99% of citizens is completely impossible.
Consider multi-lateral diplomacy with war as a game, like chess, but more complex. Instead of 16 pieces each for 2 players, we have 10s of players, each with 100s of pieces. Instead of individual pieces having a couple or 3 possible types of moves, each piece in the foreign policy game, e.g. military units, businesses, NGOs, federal, state or local gov, political groups, economic groups, ... have dozens of possible responses to any event. Instead of the players taking turns, with time to think between moves, any player can make any move at any time, simultaneously with the other players doing the same.
Chess is at the limit of human comprehension. Nobody plays 3-way or 3D chess because the game is so complex it isn't possible to play enough games in a lifetime.
I could do the math, but trust me, multi-lateral diplomacy with war makes 3-way chess look as simple as Tic-Tac-Toe.
OTOH, a foreign policy that benefits large campaign contributors is easy, precisely the one that we have.
This is why being a neutral nation is such a great benefit to citizens : it prevents our gov from another form of crony-capitalism.