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This may be a hot take, and one that's very biased, but I think people with bad intentions exist, and when they make a move against the interests of the good, w

This may be a hot take, and one that's very biased, but I think people with bad intentions exist, and when they make a move against the interests of the good, we need to both be prepared to and willing to face that evil. This isn't to say that the US hasn't done countless things in the name of this idea that have been misguided at best, but there has been plenty of good things that have came from being a military superpower, and I truly believe WWII is an example of that. The Nazi military complex was incredibly strong, and without an equally strong response from the allies it's hard to see how we would've prevented them from going onto their larger goal of world domination. I don't think the incredible allied response was a bad thing, despite all of the bad things that happened as a part of that pursuing that interest. In my opinion, we can't unilaterally invest resources otherwise invested in our military without equally opening ourselves and our allies to opportunistic attack.

xarope 3y ago
Agreed. Better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.
Modified3019 3y ago
Exactly. Imagine someone saying we shouldn't spend money on antibiotics and antibiotic research, because of some neotenic sentiment of "guys just think of how much better off we'd be if humans and flesh eating bacteria just got along". Well yeah, no shit. But that's not the world we live in. A favorite quote of mine comes to mind, while I'm not really a fan on most of Joseph de Maistre's ideas, the following perfectly encapsulates the reality of the world that I observe daily as an agronomist: >In the immense sphere of living things, the obvious rule is violence, a kind of inevitable frenzy which arms all things in mutua funera. Once you leave the world of insensible substances, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life. Even in the vegetable kingdom, this law can be perceived: from the huge catalpa to the smallest of grasses, how many plants die and how many are killed! >But once you enter the animal kingdom, the law suddenly becomes frighteningly obvious. A power at once hidden and palpable appears constantly occupied in bringing to light the principle of life by violent means. In each great division of the animal world, it has chosen a certain number of animals charged with devouring the others; so there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fish of prey, and quadrupeds of prey. There is not an instant of time when some living creature is not devoured by another […] >Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, until the extinction of evil, until the death of death. >Joseph de Maistre

xarope 3y ago

Agreed. Better to be a warrior in a garden, than a gardener in a war.

Modified3019 3y ago

Exactly. Imagine someone saying we shouldn't spend money on antibiotics and antibiotic research, because of some neotenic sentiment of "guys just think of how much better off we'd be if humans and flesh eating bacteria just got along". Well yeah, no shit. But that's not the world we live in. A favorite quote of mine comes to mind, while I'm not really a fan on most of Joseph de Maistre's ideas, the following perfectly encapsulates the reality of the world that I observe daily as an agronomist: >In the immense sphere of living things, the obvious rule is violence, a kind of inevitable frenzy which arms all things in mutua funera. Once you leave the world of insensible substances, you find the decree of violent death written on the very frontiers of life. Even in the vegetable kingdom, this law can be perceived: from the huge catalpa to the smallest of grasses, how many plants die and how many are killed! >But once you enter the animal kingdom, the law suddenly becomes frighteningly obvious. A power at once hidden and palpable appears constantly occupied in bringing to light the principle of life by violent means. In each great division of the animal world, it has chosen a certain number of animals charged with devouring the others; so there are insects of prey, reptiles of prey, birds of prey, fish of prey, and quadrupeds of prey. There is not an instant of time when some living creature is not devoured by another […] >Thus is worked out, from maggots up to man, the universal law of the violent destruction of living beings. The whole earth, continually steeped in blood, is nothing but an immense altar on which every living thing must be sacrificed without end, without restraint, without respite until the consummation of the world, until the extinction of evil, until the death of death. >Joseph de Maistre