Political Football

Disclaimer: this is all the opinion of this blogspace owner and links have been provided to as much supporting documentation as practical.

As I mentioned previously, much has changed since our Founding Fathers planned on a small standing army.

A favorite Ronald Reagan quote:

Of the four wars in my lifetime none came about because the United States of American was too strong.

The Republican Party in at least the last 50 years has been known for a stong national defense. The phrase (with a smile) is translated by some to “peace through superior fire power”.

A common myth is that the Defense Budget overwhelms any other Budget item. As you can see by the chart above The defense budget is only a small part of the total Gross Domestic Product.

The cold war fostered the arms race in the 60’s and 70’s of the last century. “Mutually Assured Destruction “MAD” with a few Strategic Arms Limitation pacts signed over the years, kept nuclear war at bay. Some people say, “Give Peace a Chance”. Why doesn’t that work? One of my favorite columnists right now is Mark Steyn. Recently he said

(During the Cold War), only five guys had their fingers on the nuclear button – Britain, America, France, China and the Soviet Union – but because two of those fingers belonged to Ron and Maggie the Left was convinced the apocalypse was just around the corner. Now we’re at the dawn of the freelance nuke era, and the Left is positively insouciant about it.

Why do you suppose that is?

Regardless of the reasons posed for the wall separating East and West Berlin being torn down shortly after Ronald Reagan left office; it would NOT have happened if we had backed down to the Russian threat of the last century.

Now let’s talk about the military. From 1948 to 1973 men were drafted to fill vacancies in the military. Since 1974 the USA moved to an all volunteer Army.

[edit] I need to go back to this source document and write what each quartile is salary wize – I did not carry that text onto what I posted above. As I recall, the first quartile then moving to the right after that = $20,000 annual salary previous to enlistment, 2nd Quartile – $20-40,000, 3rd Quartile $40-70,000 and the 4th Quartile = more than $70,000 annual salary before enlistment. This (IMO) shows how military support for this war is not based on “need for a job” as some Democrats suggest. [end edit]

The media and Democrats would like you to think the Military is full of poor minorities who have no options for jobs and don’t want to fight. This chart shows the income level rising among recruits. The last I saw, the percentage of white soldiers KIA has been around 75% leaving 25% to various minority groups. Roughly our current ethnic split in the US.

The US Military is without question, the finest in the world. But we as a country still struggle defining the role of the military related to the War on Terror. Republicans mostly want to stay on offense and fight abroad, and Democrats aren’t sure there is a War on Terror worth fighting.

The Bush 43 administration didn’t campaign or go into its first term with a Nation Building agenda, or plans to invade Iraq – far from it. September 11, 2001 changed everything – the President’s world perspective changed in an instant and changed forever.

Like Rudy Giuliani says, “I don’t blame people for not getting it before 9/11. But I do blame people who don’t get it now.”

Republicans want to stay on offense and trust our military to do their job. Democrats are confused and don’t know what do to or say. They have a natural urge to be opposite of what Republicans are, but most were FOR the war when the opinion polls were in the 70’s in favor of invading Iraq. Comfortably, some democrats like Hillary and “it’s a bumper sticker statement, that War on Terror” – John Edwards – they were for the war before they were against the war, but it’s really Bush’s fault because he fooled them – so there.Or then we have the junior senator from Illinois say that genocide would be an acceptable outcome in Iraq, that he would never consider using nuclear weapons under any circumstances, and promised to hold meetings with the leaders of every rogue state under the sun, while threatening to invade an weakly positioned Muslim ally (and did I tell you this ally was a nuclear power?). Wow. talk about being a Cowboy! (ooops, that was Bush and this is a Democrat)

Can Democrats and Republicans ever position to present a united front to the world again?

Find personal rants here and here and other places on this blog.

Part 4 – Republicans & Democrats – Paradigm shift

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