According to Bill Maher, America is becoming "a nation of 'dickless' armchair warriors..." His words, not mine...
He wondered why America spends more on defense than the next 13 countries combined... so I went and looked at the numbers... and [by jove...] he's right...
In 2012, the United States spent a staggering $1,738 trillion on national defense. The next largest defense expenditure came from China at $143 billion, followed by Russia (the former Soviet Union), the UK, France, Japan, India, Saudi Arabia, Germany, Italy, South Korea, Australia and finally Canada weighing in at approximately $25 billion. Compared to the U.S., just a fraction on defense.
My question is... "why"... why so much for defense?
Are we really in such grave danger, or is this mostly manufactured by the "military industrial complex" to keep us in a perpetual state of fear?
Ever read George Orwell's book "1984"?
Whenever I reflect back on the book, I'm reminded of just how easy it is to shift the "bad guys" around so we're always having to look over our shoulder, which seems to be the case these days...
Remember when the "bad guys" were the former Soviet Union. For decades we learned to "duck and cover" in the event of a nuclear explosion just outside our classroom, or around the next block. Truthfully, I don't think we completely understood the ramifications of exactly what would happen in this type of event... after all, we were just kids.
We've now shifted our attention from the former Soviet Union, to the Middle East... and although the weapons aren't nearly as high tech [remember how airplanes on 9-11 were forced down using nothing more dangerous than box cutters?] And if the Middle East wasn't evil enough for America's armchair "dickless wusses," we also have threats coming from North Korea. But unless Kim Jong Un is amazingly stupid, or has an extreme death wish, he would be an utter fool to follow through with any threat against this country. I mean, really... even if he was able to get one warhead into the air, the reality of our nuclear arsenal flattening his country would destroy any hope for a second strike.
So, I think we need to get a grip...
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