Trump teams with Russia

[canpakes]

There is a great opportunity for the democrats to call out stupid spending on the republican side. I hope that happens, but I doubt it will.

A smart Democrat might even point to selected budget suspects or programs, and make a point of repeating the target as specifically and often as possible. Either they’ll be rewarded with a cut to something that they believe needs cutting, or Republicans and DOGE will go ‘reverse psychology’ and get caught protecting it or throwing even more money at it, which will shine some light on to actual intent.

The budget-cutting sword has two edges; might as well put them both to work.

[Gadianton]

there is probably some unnecessary republican project that needs to be axed.

Right, Republican regressive tax cuts need to be axed. They haven't found a shred of malfeasance; just because they don't find value in a program doesn't mean its fraud. And all of this is pennies. It's a show. Until they cut medicare/medicaid or defense spending it won't amount to much. Either do that or raise taxes. Or just keep going as it is, nobody knows how much debt is too much debt. So what if we default on China?

I don't think anyone needs to join in. Let them do their worst. The average republican isn't wealthy and relies on social security, medicaid, and medicare; the right-wingers in my neighborhood I talk to are retired and use it, they were convinced Trump wouldn't touch their benefits prior to the election. They are wealthy and don't need it but wealthy republicans think they are poor and so psychologically they will be impacted along with everyone else.

If Democrats find a way to save everything, great, but it only prolongs the problem of right-wingers driving drunk without a seatbelt.

[Moksha]

The average republican isn't wealthy and relies on social security, medicaid, and medicare; the right-wingers in my neighborhood I talk to are retired and use it, they were convinced Trump wouldn't touch their benefits prior to the election.

I am elderly, but I had hoped to die by natural causes rather than starvation. It is no fun being on the losing side of class warfare.

[Dr. Shades]

Dollar for dollar, every dollar spent on diplomacy and development — the growth of democratic institutions or at least civil institutions in countries that allow their leadership to be sensitive to the needs of their citizens — are immensely more effective ... than having to deploy soldiers, sailors, airmen or marines to a crisis where we have to fix a problem...” ~General Paul Selva

Since when, and why, does the United States “have” to fix a problem any more often than does, say, Switzerland?

[Physics Guy]

Since when, and why, does the United States “have” to fix a problem any more often than does, say, Switzerland?

I've often wondered that. Up to a point it may be that the US has more international trade than Switzerland and therefore stands to suffer more if things go wrong for its foreign markets and suppliers. I don't even know whether Switzerland is really less economically entangled with the world than the US is, though; it could well be more.

Switzerland does have a long tradition of holing up in its mountains and sitting things out, while the US has fancied itself as an international player since at least the Monroe Doctrine. On the other hand Switzerland did use to get a lot of its GDP from exporting mercenary soldiers, so maybe traditions can slowly change between isolationism and interventionism.

Or maybe the older Swiss tradition is a route the US could go in the future, renting out the Sixth Fleet.

It has frankly seemed to me for quite a while that the main reason the US spends so much on its military is just that it's a kind of collective hobby for Americans, like spending a lot of money on a sports car. It has mostly been nice for the rest of the world to have Americans defending democracy and human rights globally (at least a bit, kind of, in theory), but it's really not clear to me why Americans do it.

I'm not a defense expert but my naïve guess is that the USA could probably cut its defense budget by 80% and still be perfectly safe. It's just that most Americans want to keep that cool national sports car.

[I Have Questions]

From what I perceive, most of the problems that America wants to fix in other countries relate to either the perceived threat of communist encroachment, or a potential threat to the wealth of the 1% who run the nation. That or they want to "fix" the problem of not having access to mineral rights or mining rights, or some other natural resource that the wealthy 1% want to get their hands on but which currently doesn't belong to them.

The American military doesn't altruistically help other nations with problems. Ever. There's always got to be something in it for "them".

Now that may also be true for Switzerland, but they seem much less intent on global domination than, say, America, Russia, or China. If every country minded it's own business, a small number of people would stand to lose a great deal of personal income.

[canpakes]

Since when, and why, does the United States “have” to fix a problem any more often than does, say, Switzerland?

Those Swiss folks are slackers, anyway. Have you seen all of the holes in their cheese?

[ajax18]

The only authoritarians I see are the Democratic socialist who are butthurt right now that the American people have said, "No, no you don't get to tax and bring us down into debt slavery, ad infinitum. No you don't get to leave our borders open and give away the country, yes our country! No, you don't get anything for free, because whether you think it should be or not, nothing is free! Leftist might make great poets and lawyers, but they make very poor soldiers and even worse engineers.

Where on earth does the idea come from that 'leftists think that they can get things for free'? For a start, in the leftist movements of the 20th century, much stress was laid on pointing out that the large group of people who work hard for wages do the essential work of producing stuff, but for some reason a much smaller group get huge rewards for working a lot less hard, and saying that this ought to stop. Both the Russian and the Chinese communist revolutions made this claim very strongly.

Please note that I am not a communist, and I am not making any claim that these revolutions were good things. But if you don't like leftists, opposing them by attributing stupid and distorted positions to them such as 'everything should be free' is no more than the straw-man fallacy in action.

This Soviet poster shows the worker refusing food to idlers, with the words "Whoever does not work shall not eat". I would have though Ajax would like that ...

That's a pretty cool picture Chap. I actually knew enough Russian to not have to translate it. I found it even more surprising that in communist Russia unwed mothers didn't have 10 kids from 7 different men like they do in Democratic socialist America. In fact it was still considered shameful to have children out or wedlock. Russia didn't have open borders with China. Nor would they consider having drag queen story time in public schools. But Bernie Sanders sure liked the fact that they only had one kind of toothpaste. They only had one type of cheese as well. No sharp cheddar, pepperjack, swiss, provolone, just сыр and that was it.

[Chap]

Where on earth does the idea come from that 'leftists think that they can get things for free'? For a start, in the leftist movements of the 20th century, much stress was laid on pointing out that the large group of people who work hard for wages do the essential work of producing stuff, but for some reason a much smaller group get huge rewards for working a lot less hard, and saying that this ought to stop. Both the Russian and the Chinese communist revolutions made this claim very strongly.

Please note that I am not a communist, and I am not making any claim that these revolutions were good things. But if you don't like leftists, opposing them by attributing stupid and distorted positions to them such as 'everything should be free' is no more than the straw-man fallacy in action.

This Soviet poster shows the worker refusing food to idlers, with the words "Whoever does not work shall not eat". I would have though Ajax would like that ...

That's a pretty cool picture Chap. I actually knew enough Russian to not have to translate it. I found it even more surprising that in communist Russia unwed mothers didn't have 10 kids from 7 different men like they do in Democratic socialist America. In fact it was still considered shameful to have children out or wedlock. Russia didn't have open borders with China. Nor would they consider having drag queen story time in public schools. But Bernie Sanders sure liked the fact that they only had one kind of toothpaste. They only had one type of cheese as well. No sharp cheddar, pepperjack, swiss, provolone, just сыр and that was it.

Unwed mothers ... drag queens ... open borders ... toothpaste ... cheese ... whatever turns you on, it's a free discussion board here.

But aren't you slightly off the point I was addressing, which was your apparent belief that 'leftists think that they can get things for free'? I mean, that picture makes it pretty clear that is not the case. There are two classic definitions of leftist visions of possible societies, which are as follows:

1. Socialism: "From each according to their ability, to each according to their work".
2. Communism: " "From each according to their ability, to each according to their need".

Neither of these suggests that those who are able to work and don't should get anything at all. You really need to drop this notion, which simply does not represent any serious current of leftist thought.