In As We Go Marching, John T. Flynn detailed the progression from liberty to fascism in Italy. In a World Magazine interview with Marvin Olasky, possible presidential candidate Rick Santorum rehearses his version of a vintage 1920′s Italy stump speech.
First, Flynn:
For imperialism flows as logically from militarism as militarism from spending.
Second, Santorum:
Q: Will [Obamacare] spending have an effect on our military? No European socialist country has any military to speak of, because they can’t afford it. We spend $650 billion a year on the military. You’re going to hear in the next year or so that we must dramatically cut the military because we can’t pay for it: “We can’t afford to be the policeman of the world. America’s role has to change.” The Chinese and the Russians are sitting there licking their chops. This is exactly what the left would like to see, since they see America as an oppressive imperialist country.”
Finally, Fedako:
Does anyone really believe that on-the-books military spending of $650 billion per year is for anything short of imperialism?
A question on Santorumian logic: Are China and Russia no longer socialist? Hmmm.
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China and Russia are not European.
channah,
Russia is most certainly European. But that is not the argument. Santorum’s argument is as follows:
1. Countries with nationalized healthcare cannot “afford” a large military.
2. Obamacare is nationalized healthcare.
3. Therefore, US cannot “afford” a large military and Obamacare.
His evidence is European countries, though he fails to note that Russia is European and that both Russia and China have nationized healthcare. Why does he fail to mention that? Because he is employing fear of Russia and China to defend militarism and imperialism.
HIs fallacy is equivocation on the term afford. No country (including the US) can (thankfully) afford an imperial military, regardless of the structure of its healthcare system.
What is most important to note is that Santorum’s main objection with nationalized healthcare is its cost. Santorum is simply the voice of the right that justifies a growing government based on militarism while the left justifies a growing government based on healthcare.
Both views are required to advance the state without majority objection.
I think what Santorum might be doing is using an pseudo-economic argument to both justify the continued existence and expansion of the empire AND to argue against Obamacare. It’s a brilliant piece of double-speak.
“Because he is employing fear of Russia and China to defend militarism and imperialism.”
That’s not how I read it. It’s an attack on obamacare, not a defense of militarism. No doubt Santorum would be happy to make a defense of militarism; but here he’s simply taking it for granted that militarism is popular with his audience, casting obamacare as a threat to militarism in order to discredit obamacare.
When he said “European socialist” he obviously meant welfare socialist (Social Democracy) rather than just central-planning socialist. Clearly France and China are hugely different in political and economic circumstances. For the moment the US needs to retain some capacity of “world police”, since it at least has a degree of boundaries on its aggression. Without the USA in this role the world returns to pre-WW1 style diplomatic and colonial maneuvering (with China, Russia and India the prime offenders). Still I agree that a major part of that $650 billion pa is a waste. That said, there are many other even more useless expenditures that can be cut with great benefit (both in justice and economics).
Dave, you want to have your cake and eat it too? The assumption of world policing necessarily leads to all of the things you think wasteful.
Looks like Obama-care might have some upside after all.
Jim, “militarism” as you call it is what many of us believe is necessary to defend our nation. You see, defense at a distance by manipulation is better than waiting until global powers amass on our shorelines. But most importantly, this “militarism” is Constitutionally mandated. Obamacare is not defending our health, providing a valuable service, and is certainly not a power entrusted to the federal government by our Constitution. Costly or not, we must cut Obamacare and preserve the military.
Socialism and central planning in healthcare is a bad idea but in defense it works?
Matt,
A “Power to” is not a mandate. Your “must” is a false argument. Please review the Constitution once more.
Regardless, no country can fund an imperial military indefinitely. Sorry.
If you think the defense of the United States requires that our military budget account for 40% of the cumulative military spending of the entire planet, I have to wonder against exactly what you are planning to defend. Space aliens? Godzilla?
Your belief is exactly that: a belief with no basis in reality.
Did you even pay attention to the second sentence you wrote, “defense at a distance by manipulation”? Are you saying that we are really morally justified in imposing our will on people who are not Americans for the simple reason that they may be doing things our bureaucrats do not like? Tell me, do you exercise this doctrine on an individual level also or only on the arbitrary nation-state level? Do you constantly employ people to point shotguns at your neighbors house on the off chance he may engage in behavior you rather he did not do?
The concept is no less absurd on the level of the nation-state than at the level of individuals or small communities.
Perhaps you can show us some evidence to show that had we not taken over the role of master when the Europeans left their old Middle Eastern colonies, that these countries would have attacked us anyway.
How on earth is it that certain portions of the right can plainly see that government interventions in the general economy will never in the long run actually accomplish their goals, but at the same time expect this exact same thing to happen with respect to government interventions in other country’s foreign affairs (since a military intervention is by definition a government intervention)?
Matt, in what alternative universe has the USA ever actually faced real armies “amass on our shorelines” since the War of 1812? Such is not our universe. Even FDR’s attempt to pretend that the Nazi’s were going to hop from Europe to Africa to S. America… and, whacko, smacko, bomb DC had no basis in reality. — One might argue, as I suspect you do, that it’s because we’ve had a couple hundred military bases worldwide for the better part of a century (or even a bit more if we count Guantanamo, Hawaii etc). But with that argument, why not just conquer the entire planet… then we’d be safe, right? Once started, where does imperialism end? — There is no “foreign enemy” that can do more than, say, turn our own civilian planes into bombs and crash them into a couple buildings. Horrible, but hardly the basis for an endless worldwide war. — The myth of foreign (“alien”) threat is always the excuse for interventionism. And as Mises taught us, every intervention calls forth the “need” for more intervention. Warfare state / welfare state … perfect together.
“There is no “foreign enemy” that can do more than, say, turn our own civilian planes into bombs and crash them into a couple buildings.”
Yeah, until our passivity allows Iran to get nukes. Then, who knows?
@ Russ The Apostate,
“Yeah, until our passivity allows Iran to get nukes. Then, who knows?”
You watch too many movies/read too many comic books. Political and military leaders tend to be rational. They achieved their status by manipulating the masses in order to attain power. They want to keep this power, which is why they fought so hard for it. In other words, the last thing they want to do is destroy the world by starting a nuclear war (mutually assured destruction).
But you probably think that Ahmadinejad is just some Islamic lunatic that wants to destroy Christianity at all costs. If so, than nothing can convince you, and devoting every single resource towards military spending is not only justifiable, but may be absolutely necessary.
How can anyone reasonably fear a nuclear Iran? I’d be genuinely curious what reasoning leads a person there. What threat would a nuclear Iran be to the US? Even assuming they eventually build rockets capable of delivering such a device all the way over here why in the hell would they shoot a nuke at us? It makes no sense. I can only think of two scenarios for harming us–a fired nuke, or handing one off to a terrorist–and both end in the complete and utter destruction of Iran, which I somehow doubt would be in the best interests of Iran’s ruling class.What threat or scenario do the Iran as nuclear boogie man crowd see that I don’t see?
How can anyone reasonably not fear a nuclear Iran? I understand that the idea that a nuclear Iran poses an actual threat doesn’t fit very well into your ideology, but that doesn’t mean Iran doesn’t pose a threat. MAD only works when all sides are rational, and Ahmadinejad has not exactly given me the impression that he is all that rational.
Ahmadinejad is not the ruler of Iran anyway.
Russ, what total nonsense you have fallen for. Ahmadinejad, for all his faults, is more rational than virtually every member of the American ruling class, Ron Paul excepted.
Our political class is the most irrational, self-contradicting resource-suck on the planet. They routinely engage in daily mass murder. This is an incontravertible fact. And you fear Iran. A country that couldn’t even defeat Iraq in the 80′s. Right. How “rational” of you.
May I also add that if the best way to judge the future is by the past, only one country has a record of actually using a nuke on a civilian population. Hint: it’s not Iran.
If you fear Iran, you are a big giant wuss, and you have seriously fallen for one of the most transparent pieces of propaganda ever created in human history.
maybe iran with nukes will stabilize the region. israel won’t be able to risk unilateral action. mexican stand-off beats war any day.
I seem to recall a few years ago that Santorum (who even by the admittedly low standards of American conservatism is remarkably stupid) sponspored some resolution (in the Senate, I think) to withold Federal tax dollars from any universities that did not prohibit anti-Israel discussion on their campuses. Didn’t seem to help him much with his re-election bid (he was painted in the media, probably accurately, as a strident Religious Rightist and lost).
Iran lacks a delivery method to get those nukes outside their borders. The first nukes they’ll be able to produce, if at all, will require large bomber-style aircraft to deliver the weapon. Early nuclear weapons, which is what Iran will be closest to making, weigh several tons. Effectively miniaturizing the weapon onto a warhead will take them centuries if we extrapolate the pace its taking them to actually get a single working weapon despite the fact that the technology and information on how to build a working nuclear weapon is available through the Internet for anyone to look at. Even then, building a single weapon is immensely expensive and time consuming. Outside of Russia and the United States, no nation has a significant nuclear arsenal. Even China’s arsenal is something like 20 in total. Iran simply lacks the resources to build any significant arsenal of even the more primitive models.
Even if, in some outside Marvel Comics universe where Iran does manage to actually build a functioning weapon, does somehow smuggle it into the United States, and does somehow manage to set it off, that was their one and only weapon. What do you think will happen to Iran in that situation? It will no longer exist.
Even if they do miniaturize the weapon enough, what then? Iran’s most sophisticated missile has a maximum range to reach Greece, or about 1/4 the way to Washington D.C. And this is assuming their technology is even reliable, which it isn’t. What they have is a delivery system that, assuming it actually functions, could at best hit Israel, which is the #1 source of Iranian ire. Even if Iran manages to fire off a missile that doesn’t blow up on the launch pad (which is what their missiles tend to do over there) or dud out shortly after take-off and land impotently on Iranian soil (the second most common effect of an Iranian missile), Israel will easily make Iran a non-existent nation within a few hours considering Israel also has a large enough nuclear arsenal to wipe out Tehran and every major city in-between.
Iran is about as threatening as the skinny 12 year old across the street that threatens world domination.
Santorum is a … presidential candidate? &!%+!!
What has this world come to?
There is a reason for why Santorum appears under “sexual neologism”.
He hopes to do well enough so that he will be considered for some kind of post or future spot I am sure.
Re: Santorum = “sexual neologism”. That is f’n funny! But is it really sexual or psychopathy?
There is some false information in the post. The military spending budget isn’t $650 billion. That is the base-line DoD budget. A large volume of military spending is done outside the DoD, which fools people into thinking military spending is far lower than it really is. For instance, a major military expense is set up under its own department, with it’s own accounting line, called the Department of Veteran’s Affairs, which spent around $88 billion last year. This $88 billion is not rolled into the official annual military spending numbers. Further, the actions in Iraq and Afghanistan are also given their own budgets and are not part of the DoD budget, which are also hilariously left out of military spending.
Further, a large number of other departments have significant military spending components. The Department of Homeland Security is handling functions that were part of the DoD prior to its existence, such as the Coast Guard. 1/3 of the FBI budget is devoted to security of overseas military bases. Most of the State Department spending is related to paying for foreign military base rental costs to foreign governments and they handle the foreign military sales of our equipment (equipment is nearly always sold at a loss since it costs more to convert equipment into salable form than the sale nets).
All told, military spending when appropriately allocated to military related activities ran around $1.2 trillion in 2009.
Very informing.
I believe this point is conceded in the post and is what is meant by “on the books”.
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