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Originally Posted by spence
Sorry, I had to deal with kids so I just condensed my stream.
No need to apologize. I like figuring out puzzles. Besides, why apologize for being complemented?
But in the real world our defense and our economy are completely interwoven.
Of course they're "interwoven" when a unitary weaver is the master and manipulator of the weave. The interweaving is a result of top-down totalitarian method of governing--the rule by men.
But they are "interdependent" when all facets of society participate on their own volition and with different individual talents and are not coerced by others. All, including the government, in this method, are limited by rule of law
This has been a big reason for the growth of the US economy and the growth of the global economy. It was a marriage of convenience more than an ideological motivation.
The U.S. economy has grown through the contributive efforts of its people. It grew faster and more powerfully when its people were less "regulated" by government. The "economy" grows more sluggishly when top down regulations are imposed--from which it recovers with new innovations in response. But as the cycles continue, it becomes more difficult for the smaller entrepreneurs to flourish and more necessary for "business" to become larger to comply with expanding regulations. To which government responds with more regulations, which, since they are in response to "economies of scale," favor the large and discourage the small. So the trend is bigger, and growing so, government and corporations. Individuals become cogs in the "interwoven" system.
So the "real world" to which you refer is the progressive/socialist dream/objective of the all-powerful central bureaucracy directing the distribution of wealth, either directly or through its subsidiary economies of scale, to the complacent masses who are kept "happy" cradle to grave and allowed the "freedom" prescribed by the State and its ruling experts. It is a tight, efficient, weave.
Your version of the "real world" denies the existence of individuals mastering their own fate and whose interdependent cooperation and innovation can create growth. All of which would actually have the greatest evolutionary potential. Your "real world" vision leads to a relatively static statism.
I think the question today is if they're so interwoven so as to be inseparable.
My answer would be that in a statist society they are inseparable since the State determines the defense and the "economy." Insofar as the progressive State has not been completely established, individuals have been able to wiggle their way through the regulatory maze and impede its growth. Their is a sort of stand-off. If State run health care eventually happens, the wiggle room decreases dramatically.
But so much of the "defense investment" has already been diverted to other projects through the Constitutionally appropriated system. It's not just providing for common defense, it's a yearly 1.5 trillion dollar tax recycler pumping billions back into our GDP and employing millions of workers.
You said that well--Constitutionally APPROPRIATED system. The Constitution has been appropriated by progressives and "interpreted" to allow them to federally create "other projects" which the original Constitution would not have allowed the Federal Government to do. This was the first great step toward the growth in the power of the central government. This not only allows it to divert defense money to other projects, but to confiscate even much larger monies from the private sector to divert into pet projects many of which fail. And those that stick in spite of fiscal insolvency become "necessary" because they have been "interwoven" into the fabric of society.
Recycling billions of tax "revenues" back into GDP is a peculiar way to grow wealth. Take it away, then give it back. And waste a lot of it before it is returned. What?--expansion of wealth cannot occur without government laundering private sector money first? Is that middle-man confiscation prerequisite to growth? The People just aren't capable of investing their own money and employing millions of people--the government has to do it for them? No--what makes the silly process necessary is the facilitation of government control. GOVERNMENT deciding the growth and direction society.
Nonsense. You just saw a winter Olympics not more than 280 miles from where anonymous troops (wearing uniforms they picked up at the local Cabellas) are harassing Ukrainian troops. That's the distance from Providence to Philadelphia.
There were Olympics during the Cold War. And just as in Sochi, the Russians used to dominate. And that region wasn't inflamed then. It was totally and effectively dominated by Soviet rule without inflammatory resistance.
Neighbor Poland is the fastest growing economy in the EU and Belarus, Slovakia, Hungary, Turkey even Georgia are all doing impressively well.
Doesn't sound like they need our interference.
Perhaps this is why Putin is so interested in Crimea, Russia is on the defensive.
Very Orwellian--Russia is on the defensive.
Instead of investing in military I think more money has been invested to helping nations stabilize and build growth economies.
Right. "We" the government must invest in all the things necessary to stabilize and grow economies. "We" the people must wait and follow the proper commands. Well . . . that IS a form of government. There are others. It's obvious which type you prefer.
They are not different domains if your domain is the overlay between the weapons and the home. An investment in armament has to be paid twice, once the the actual arms and again for the influence to position them.
-spence
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Of course they are not different domains in your preferred form of government.
But in a republican form (small "r") with limited government and constitutional separation of powers, and wherein that government is limited to specific defined duties, the domains are separate. And the investment in the U.S. armament, no matter how many times it's paid, is the domain of the Federal government. Investment in "the home" is the domain of the private sector. Federal Government "investment" in the private sector responsibility has more often been a debilitating intrusion on the People's ability to grow and self-govern. The Federal Government would perform its duties, including arming the military, far better if it stuck to its domain instead of spreading its, and the Peoples, resources and efforts over every facet of our lives.
You seem to be so immersed in progressive status quo that nothing else can creep into your perception of possibility. You seem to have that Dr. Pangloss vision that we're in the best of all possible worlds.