The Military Industrial Complex’s Assault on Liberty | The American Conservative Michael Shindler:
June 22, 2018 - "[T]he House Appropriations Committee advanced a lavish $674.6 billion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal year 2019. That means Congress is preparing to spend even more on defense, which isn’t at all shocking. To even marginally decrease defense spending, according to its champions, would be disastrous....
"America’s military has over 800 bases worldwide, more than any other nation or empire in history. In order to staff, equip, and maintain this body, the U.S. spends more on defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, and France combined.... According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute, the strength of the American military exceeds that of all other countries.... Yet legislators still claim that the military is experiencing a 'readiness crisis,' which necessitates further fattening of the defense budget.
"This 'crisis' is often exaggerated or confused by its proponents because 'readiness' is an ambiguous term that hints at urgency without ever specifying a threat. In that vein, arguments often focus on the health of particular programs while failing to contextualize them within clearly defined geopolitical aims.... Emotion, not genuine geopolitical insight, drives popular support for inflated defense spending, and, in the words of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, 'the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.'
"When World War II ended, defense spending fell significantly. President Truman was left wondering how to persuade Congress to fund various geopolitical projects.... Senator Arthur Vandenberg forthrightly advised him to 'scare the hell out of the American people,' and so he did with great success. Later presidents followed suit throughout the Cold War and, together, they funded an extravagant arms race that lasted until the Soviet Union fell....
"Shortly, however, new demons were conjured up from the Middle Eastern sands and the defense budget has been distended ever since. If this cycle of inflated spending and fearsome rhetoric were some sort of perverse exercise towards geopolitical predictability, perhaps it would be pardonable. But it isn’t. In addition to our scruples, it costs us our liberty.
"In his famous 'Cross of Iron' speech, President Eisenhower said, '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 .... In the words of American political philosopher Lysander Spooner, 'the only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in their keeping their money in their own pockets, until they have assurances … that it will be used as they wish it to be used''....
"In a capitalist economy such as ours, money is the fuel of freedom. To take so much of it away from taxpayers to fund military bloat, which is neither necessary nor beneficial, is to not only deprive them of some good or service, but to deprive them of their choice, which is the essence of liberty."
Read more: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-military-industrial-complexs-assault-on-liberty/
'via Blog this'
June 22, 2018 - "[T]he House Appropriations Committee advanced a lavish $674.6 billion Pentagon spending bill for fiscal year 2019. That means Congress is preparing to spend even more on defense, which isn’t at all shocking. To even marginally decrease defense spending, according to its champions, would be disastrous....
"America’s military has over 800 bases worldwide, more than any other nation or empire in history. In order to staff, equip, and maintain this body, the U.S. spends more on defense than China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, the United Kingdom, India, and France combined.... According to the Credit Suisse Research Institute, the strength of the American military exceeds that of all other countries.... Yet legislators still claim that the military is experiencing a 'readiness crisis,' which necessitates further fattening of the defense budget.
"This 'crisis' is often exaggerated or confused by its proponents because 'readiness' is an ambiguous term that hints at urgency without ever specifying a threat. In that vein, arguments often focus on the health of particular programs while failing to contextualize them within clearly defined geopolitical aims.... Emotion, not genuine geopolitical insight, drives popular support for inflated defense spending, and, in the words of horror writer H. P. Lovecraft, 'the oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear.'
"When World War II ended, defense spending fell significantly. President Truman was left wondering how to persuade Congress to fund various geopolitical projects.... Senator Arthur Vandenberg forthrightly advised him to 'scare the hell out of the American people,' and so he did with great success. Later presidents followed suit throughout the Cold War and, together, they funded an extravagant arms race that lasted until the Soviet Union fell....
"Shortly, however, new demons were conjured up from the Middle Eastern sands and the defense budget has been distended ever since. If this cycle of inflated spending and fearsome rhetoric were some sort of perverse exercise towards geopolitical predictability, perhaps it would be pardonable. But it isn’t. In addition to our scruples, it costs us our liberty.
"In his famous 'Cross of Iron' speech, President Eisenhower said, '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 .... In the words of American political philosopher Lysander Spooner, 'the only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in their keeping their money in their own pockets, until they have assurances … that it will be used as they wish it to be used''....
"In a capitalist economy such as ours, money is the fuel of freedom. To take so much of it away from taxpayers to fund military bloat, which is neither necessary nor beneficial, is to not only deprive them of some good or service, but to deprive them of their choice, which is the essence of liberty."
Read more: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/the-military-industrial-complexs-assault-on-liberty/
'via Blog this'
