At one point or another I’ve heard all the Republican candidates (except Ron Paul) attack efforts to trim defense spending, making emotional appeals that we’d be putting our freedoms at risk. I can’t figure out what world they’re living in. A recent Forbes study showed that even with budget cuts, the USA will spend $700 billion on defense in 2012…5% of GDP. Defense spending in the USA makes up 46.5% of total defense spending world-wide, with China now in second place at only 6.6%, and France trailing in third at 4.2%…and we’ve been spending at that rate, with that global differential—for more than six decades now! So…by whose math are we putting our freedoms at risk? Go to section i) Faulty Logic and Irrational Appeals to learn more about what to watch out for in political rhetoric.
The freedoms that are being put at risk by cutting our defense budget are the freedoms to kick off the yoke of the for profit war class. In the “greatest generation” we sacrificed our own blood regardless of race, wealth, education, or lineage. We also made economic sacrifices through increased taxes and war bond sales. Now due in large part to the “Cheney Doctrine” invented during his tenure as secretary of defense and perfected as a two term, two war VP, we have socialized the loss of life to the lower caste, while privatizing the profits to Blackwater and Halliburton. War is just too profitable to turn off the funding. What else would we spend it on to generate a such a generous return? Public education, health care. infrastructure, hardly the short term gain we lust after. As long as we can stoke the flames of fear, we can over invest in defense. After all the best defense is created by being offensively fearful, something we have perfected.