At this time in history, should the US plan on spending more on national defense?

[kentuck]

As a general rule, liberals tend to be against spending more money on weaponry.

However, some might argue that the leadership of this country is so incompetent that it might induce others to attack our country?

I do believe that vigilance is the price of liberty. And that the "free press" is in the First Amendment. It was put into our Constitution, even before they put in the Second Amendment. That is evidence of how important they viewed the right to "free speech" and a "free press". Those rights are worthy of protecting with our lives.

As of late, we have witnessed a real threat coming thru our political system, centralized in Washington, DC. A tyrant has taken over an entire political Party. He has successfully confused and divided this nation. We are threatened from within. They swore to defend our rights and our Constitution from all enemies, foreign and domestic.

Without free speech, there is no understanding. It is necessary, in order to survive.

[doc03]

1. NO.

[Warpy]

2. We need to stop spending it so stupidly

on over engineered pieces of crap like the F-35, huge ships the Navy doesn't want and can'd use, and all the other boondoggles GOP mobsters are fond of because it makes them look tough on defense.

What they need to spend their bucks on is attracting the best talent worldwide to wage the cyber war that is already underway, the US being caught flatfooted so far.

And since that would be cheaper than the overengineered boondoggles, maybe we could have nice things once in a while, like living wages or health care.

[zipplewrath]

4. This is the problem

There are a multitude of problems associated with our military spending. First and foremost it the problem that a tremendous amount of money has nothing to do with weapons, at least not directly. There is the whole health care thing, and a tremendous amount of scientific research that is purely theoretical work. Alot of materials research goes on as well. Much of this doesn't need to be within the auspices of the military and would be more efficiently done otherwise.

There is a tremendous amount of redundancy as well. 3 services creating a tremendous amount of duplication (and now they want a fourth). The Navy has planes, the Air Force has ships, the Army has helicopters. There are 3 Academies as well.

There's too much duplication, too much overhead, too much of everything.

[bluedigger]

3. Probably, seeing as how we are gutting the State Department.

Actions have consequences.