a disservice, like being props at a political rally, or sent to the border or to American cities to gin up the political base

one time fee then you’re free

ill even loan you the money

Two separate issues.

First issue, National security: Can be accomplished for well less than 30% of the current budget with a robust strategic deterrent force, a coast guard, and an air national guard. We live behind the two largest moats in military history, they can't come get us with land forces. Totally abdicate the global cop role, nullify all alliances and defense treaties.

Europe would fall to the new Russian Putinic Empire (established just last week), Asia to the People's Democratic Empire of China (Alaska would revert to Russia, Hawaii to China).

Downside: we now live in a world where the global economic shots are called by others, except for what we can manage in our isolationist economy (it would be a large isolationist economy). Eventually they might team up and try to move in from the north and south, although that's a very difficult logistics proposition.


Second Issue, Global Cop: We fell into that role after WW-2.

Abdicating that would leave a power vacuum (any marginal student of history can tell you what happens next), our current force structure prevents that by it's very existence. Politicians may on occasion utilize that force structure for their own opportunistic purposes, but that does not invalidate the fundamental benefit of that force structure or the reason we kept funding it over many decades.

It also provides a very powerful leveraged benefit... with enough confidence in OUR capabilities and intentions, many other nations will line up on the side of democratic values. Without confidence in us, many of those nations would have to make deals with the devil.

If doing it for the general good isn't enough for you, any reasonable calculation shows that we gain far more in economic value from the free world than we spend on defense/global cop. I satisfied myself of that long ago.

And don't go talking about "can't we all just get along". That might be possible on an individual human level, but it's absolutely not possible when you're talking autocratic regimes run by sociopathic tyrants. History is batting 100% on THAT.

Rick7777 is right. Too bad the one person that’s needs to understand that the post WWII world order was made by us for us is calling the shots.

I agree with you. Always another generation to throw at conflicts burning on vested interest capital somewhere. Families grieve, boys return scarred for life. Unpaid debt mounts for the next gen to cover. You're called, you go. Topple Jefferson Davis. May the fallen RIP. https://youtu.be/bLPCBnodI-0

The fruits of your labor are not being stolen from you. Taxes support the society that makes it possible for you to earn that money in the first place. Taxes paid for your primary education, provided a cheap and stable food supply, funded infrastructure that makes a large and productive economy possible, provided a stable finical market for you to get a mortgage, and supported the FAA which makes your career possible. The UAE, Bermuda, and Monaco don't have income taxes. Do you really think your life would be as good if you grew up in those countries?

Comparing income tax to chattel slavery. LMFAO

I'm not laughing.

We can reasonably agree to pay our fair share of community infrastructure (roads, defense, etc).

When a bunch of people can vote themselves a big share of the fruits of my labor... not sure what the right word is, maybe theft more than slavery.

it’s not, in any way, akin to chattel slavery. It’s a laughable comparison and hilarious that anyone would even bring it up

Are you talking about our social safety net programs? If you are, let's put that "big share" into context in terms of percentage of the federal budget.

CHIP: 0.3%
TANF: 0.3%
Earned income tax credit: 1.2%
SSI: 1.2%
Medicaid: 9.3%
SNAP: 1.4%
Unemployment: 0.5%

The total is 14.2%. So, only 14.2% of your taxes goes towards all those programs we love to hate. The average American pays $8,400 in taxes. 14.2% of that is about $1,200.

And then you honestly have to ask yourself what our country would look like if we got rid of these programs. For example, unemployment allows a family to pay rent while they look for another job. That rent allows the landlord to pay their mortgage. I wonder if that landlord also views that 0.5% of their taxes as theft?

Our political system spends about 80% of its energy arguing over 14% of our budget.