Quote:
Originally Posted by Princess Doreen
Well, obviously BO was dead on serious about Afganistan. Wonder why Cindy Sheehan isn't beating her gums about it. She's off preaching to 100 people audiences about the bad Catholics who won't let her talk in their churches. Despicable woman.
But, I digress.
That's a plan, philcski - keep all our money at home. The USA becomes isolationist. Pull all the troops from every country in the world. Do away with aid to any country. Screw 'em. If they have a tsunami, an earthquake, a volcano eruption, flood, famine, whatever, let them work out their problems - 99 chances out of 100 they don't appreciate us for anything we do. We're the rich old, ugly, aunt who can afford it, and we don't give enough away or do enough anyway.
Build up the military. Close the borders. Point a nuclear missile at any country that so much as looks at us crosseyed.
That's what we'd have to do if we start pulling money away and stopped supporting and defending the few allies we have left.
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That's an extreme, and rather silly view of what I'm suggesting.
We spent much of the 1800's in a moderate isolationist period (re: the Monroe Doctrine.) The USA established itself as the premier country in the world during this period and maintained that without a lot of work or money; it allowed the country to grow organically from basically the 13 original states to almost where it is now stretching from coast to coast (before the advent of easy travel!)
Let's be realistic here. No country we couldn't squash like a bug has looked at us crosseyed since Japan/Germany in 1941. The wars we have fought since then in Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been on foreign soil to protect political interests, not in any way self defense (even though the last two have been masked as anti-terrorist, they haven't exactly succeeded at that), against opponents that if we did want to pull the nuclear trigger they would be eradicated like fruit flies. Our military/defense budget at over $1.1 trillion, or almost $4,000 per person, has spiraled out of control. You could send EVERY college student to school for free for HALF that amount. We spend 7.5X the amount of the next country in gross dollars, and as a percent of GDP there's only one developed nation that spends more (Greece at 4.5% versus the USA's 4.06%- I have no good explanation for Greece's military budget other than their GDP is minuscule.)
Providing help to our neighbors such as Haiti or Chile in times of need is obviously goodwill we can continue- but you overestimate the actual cost of this. The federal government spent $170 million on relief efforts in Haiti, a far cry from what private sources such as the Red Cross contributed. I'd love to think they appreciate our help... sometimes I'm not so sure, but I'll err on the side of humanism and say they do.
Our borders are now, for all intensive purposes, closed. A passport is required to get to Canada. CANADA, our best friends and one of the few countries that matches America's quality! I grew up on the border. We could enter and exit with a simple "what's up, eh?" and an "yo man, I'm back". That freedom will never return, ever.