[OFB Cafe] Who's Still on Here?

[Timothy Butler]

> Why not cut the military down?  It's around 1000 times the size it
> needs to be to defend the country, so it gets bored and starts all
> these fights so it has something to do. And then it can't even defend
> the borders against attacks. I say take everyone but the Coast Guard
> and give them their walking papers plus 1 year severance.

	I think you would find that wholly inadequate if there were a major  
global conflict in which we or our key allies (e.g. Britain, Germany,  
Japan, South Korea, etc.) One would also have to realize that the  
proposal you suggest would destroy  the economy for at least a decade.  
While I'm a free market guy, the market's dependence on government  
intervention is not the sort of thing you can just turn off cold  
turkey. We've seen how that works in former Eastern Bloc countries.
> Anyone with a brain saw that the evidence was fabricated the day they
> put it out there. Some greedy people with brains decided that they
> could possibly make some money if they ran with the lie. But to say
> that anyone really thought that Iraq was a threat is disingenuous.  If
> you thought that, you're a moron.

	I'd deny, still, that it was all fabricated. I think some serious  
errors were made, but not all intentional. Clearly, we knew that Iraq  
had possessed biological weapons (for that matter, we had the sales  
receipts from the 1980's, for crying out loud -- a very stupid move,  
I'll admit, on our part). The international community was in pretty  
much full agreement with that assessment. That Iraq turned out not to  
have them is the sort of stuff people far smarter than I would not  
have predicted.

	Did I think Iraq was a serious threat? No, not a serious threat.  
Personally, I'd rather have had the CIA do some covert stuff and have  
taken care of the potential threat, and I think that would have been  
enough. I was not exactly gleeful at the idea of war; again, I'd note  
that Republicans supported Bush in 2000 in part because he promised  
not to do this sort of thing... the sort of thing the Democratic party  
traditionally was quite into doing.

> If someone should be over there, it sure as hell shouldn't be the US
> Army.  They're nothing but a bunch of brainless, heartless thugs. When
> all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail, and the hammer
> of the US Army is the M16 rifle. If they come across a problem, their
> only solution is to shoot at it. Iraqi kids lost their parents to a US
> checkpoint stop?  Shoot the kids too.  Someone caught stealing bread?
> Shoot 'em. Herd of sheep on the side of the road?  Well, that's not
> really a problem, but sheep are funny looking.  Shoot 'em.  Lost puppy
> wandering around?  Shoot...  er, wait, no, throw that one off a cliff,
> then try and shoot it as it falls.  These are all real events that the
> Army thugs thought were so cool, they'd upload videos of 'em to
> Youtube.

	Here's where I am pragmatic. I hate these things you describe. Any  
decent person does. But, I also realize if you have any sort of force,  
they are going to commit abuses. The vast majority are there to do  
good,  but a certain minority are not. The question is much like the  
one I mentioned about how eliminating the bulk of the military would  
crash the economy: what will do the least harm? I'd argue that leaving  
a power vacuum would be far more harmful and lead to far more deaths  
than if we stay, try to help the Iraqi government continue its  
successful building up of forces and then remove most of our troops in  
a  few years. I'd suspect we'd leave a few bases there, and that would  
likely be good strategically. Better, assuming an Iraqi democracy  
continued, than depending on bases in places like Saudi Arabia.

> Really?  Everything McCain has put out there for economic policies has
> been welfare, welfare, welfare.  US Army welfare, corporate welfare,
> gas tank welfare, etc.  McCain's plan will increase taxes across the
> board, and increase deficit spending beyond what even GWB has done.

	If you are looking for a libertarian candidate, don't vote for Obama.  
He's already committed to raising numerous taxes for people across  
much of the income spectrum and providing universal healthcare is  
welfare of a most expensive sort, last I checked. Raising the minimum  
wage further, increasing mandatory vacation time, etc. -- ideas Obama  
keeps pushing -- are also anti-free market. If you're a libertarian,  
I'm not really sure how one could be enthused about Obama.

	McCain has traditionally been at least moderately fiscally  
conservative, and his advisors are more so, so it seems to me that he  
is a safer bet.

	Neither will do everything one would hope for, though, of course.

	-Tim

---
Timothy R. Butler | "The theologian who labors without joy is not a
Editor, OfB.biz   | theologian at all. Sulky faces, morose thoughts
tbutler at ofb.biz   | and boring ways of  speaking are intolerable in
timothybutler.us  | this field."
                                                       -- Karl Barth