In-depth political discussion from around the world; if it's a political happening, you can post it here.
These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.
Subcommunities on Beehaw:
This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.
Why can't we cut military spending instead? It's definitely going to shitty contractors and not to veteran health care anyway
The MIC will never release it's chokehold on the House; both Ds and Rs support bills to raise the DoD's budget.
They couldn't pass a military spending bill today either.
We only spend about 3% of our gdp on defense. That’s below most other countries. We are obligated to spend at least 2% due to treaty obligations.
Only? The US accounts for 40% of all military spending in the world. We are at nearly 3 times second place, China, $876 billion to $290 billion. Considering the US has the most billionaires and compilation of billionaire wealth, I really don't think GDP is the great earmark you are portraying it as.
And? We only have the largest gdp and a professional army.
GDP is the standard used.
Look at Ukraine and you will see the money has been well spent. A small country has been able to fight off a previous super power for over a year.
That’s only with a 3% spend. So I fully support the military as it also paid for my education.
GDP isn’t the end-all be-all for economic performance. Consider that real estate also contributes to GDP, and we have been getting some fucking expensive housing in recent years. It doesn’t equate to more money, so it’s effectively padding our GDP. All GDP does is give a rough estimation of how much a country is valued at best, and at worst it’s a padding game to show who has the biggest number.
If you want a good indicator for how well a country is doing economically, CPI is a better start than GDP - which, by the way, China is fucking decimating the US in that regard. Their reported CPI is around 100 points while the US is at around 300 points. You generally want lower CPI as it indicates inflation if it’s super high like the US.
Just a side note but Ukraine isn't a small country
Compare it to Russia and its small
Russia is 28 times the size of Ukraine.
Ukraine has 42 million people. Russia has 142 million people.
These are not minor differences.
Compare Russia to Africa and it's small. One thing being larger doesn't make another thing small, just smaller
I have no clue what point you’re trying to make. Russia isn’t at war with Africa. Russia is at war with Ukraine. It’s about 3 times larger than Ukraine.
Yet, you talk about Africa as if it’s relevant or even a coherent statement.
It most certainly is. Nobody's talking about geography when they say it's a small country. They're 8th in Europe in population and 26th in GDP. That's small when repelling a Russian invasion.
Subtract the “defense” costs that are paid for by other means in most of the world (healthcare, education, medical research), adjust the rest for purchasing power parity, and get back to me on that.
We spend 3.5% of our GDP on defense and that's actually far more than most countries. We have the 6th highest GPD to military spending ratio in the world. The countries who spend more of their GDP are relativity tiny. They amount to 11% of the total global spending on defense vs the USA's 39%.
The second largest GDP is China- they spend 1.6% of their GDP on defense. Third is Japan @ 1.1%... You get the idea.
Regarding the 2% NATO obligation- most members don't make it so it doesn't seem to be a real obligation.
its what jesus would do, after all
"Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's, hand over the rest to me. Empty your fucking pockets, now!" - Jesus, #Thuglyfe 4:20
Also Republicans:
Folks, let me tell you, Jesus was a great guy, the best. When he started preaching, the people loved him. Tremendous crowds. Nobody got crowds like Jesus. Sadly, the fake news media of the time didn't want to cover him. They said he was a radical. Can you believe it?
When Pontius Pilate, not a good guy, said he found no guilt in Jesus, the crowd went crazy. They wanted Barabbas released instead, a real criminal. Total loser. Pilate should have stood up to them. Weak! In the end, they crucified our Lord and Savior. A total witch hunt. It was a perfect resurrection, many are saying the best. Many people are still talking about it.
Can you believe the apostles? Losers, everyone said. But they went out and started this little religion. Now, two thousand years later, it's the biggest deal in the world. Paul went all over spreading the word. A real worker. They didn't have planes back then, can you believe it? He walked everywhere.
The Bible folks, it's a great book, the best. People are always asking me, they say, "Sir, what's your favorite book?" And I say the Bible. It's got the best stories, the best morals. Nobody knows the Bible like me. I know it better than anybody.
I'll leave it at that. The New Testament, it's something very special. I'm proud to be a Christian.
(Courtesy of GPT)
Folks, let me tell you, Jesus was a great guy, the best. When he started preaching, the people loved him. Tremendous crowds. Nobody got crowds like Jesus. Sadly, the fake news media of the time didn't want to cover him. They said he was a radical. Can you believe it?
When Pontius Pilate, not a good guy, said he found no guilt in Jesus, the crowd went crazy. They wanted Barabbas released instead, a real criminal. Total loser. Pilate should have stood up to them. Weak! In the end, they crucified our Lord and Savior. A total witch hunt. It was a perfect resurrection, many are saying the best. Many people are still talking about it.
Can you believe the apostles? Losers, everyone said. But they went out and started this little religion. Now, two thousand years later, it's the biggest deal in the world. Paul went all over spreading the word. A real worker. They didn't have planes back then, can you believe it? He walked everywhere.
The Bible folks, it's a great book, the best. People are always asking me, they say, "Sir, what's your favorite book?" And I say the Bible. It's got the best stories, the best morals. Nobody knows the Bible like me. I know it better than anybody.
I'll leave it at that. The New Testament, it's something very special. I'm proud to be a Christian.
(Courtesy of GPT)
Republicans can go fuck themselves, how about that?
Gavin McInnes has entered the chat.
I remember watching this a while back expecting it to end up being a video of him putting the dildo "in" but just using camera angles or some similar method to make it appear like he was doing it, but nope. He unequivocally stuck a dildo up his ass because somehow that means he doesn't hate gay people. It honestly baffles me to try and understand how that makes logical sense to him
They technically are, since Republican states keep voting for these guys
Republicans want to punish the poor.. but tax cuts for the filthy rich.. such pieces of shit, I sure hope the karma train runs over these motherfuckers
The cruelty is the point.
How about we cut the salaries of all elected officials in DC to zero? They don’t work for us so why should they get paid out of our tax dollars? They get paid plenty by whoring themselves to the highest bidder.
Because this only harms the ones who aren’t corrupt and doesn’t do anything for the ones who are corrupt.
What they should be doing is getting rid of lobbying and disallowing corporate and business interests in politics, but we fucked that up decades ago, so I’ll settle for forcing politicians to wear tracksuits that have patches from every single person and company that had paid them.
The actual answer is that not paying your public officials makes them even more susceptible to corruption.
Yup. I'd rather if failure to create budgets was defined as failure to enact their duty and then we held new elections.
No.
The elected officials who actually give a shit about you and are trying to help aren't millionaires and this will severely impact them.
The elected officials who don't give a shit if you die starving in the gutter are already millionaires and won't give a shit about their salary.
They also don't get paid much. The real money's in the bribes and insider trading
So you want them to be bought out... more?
The solution is to create a system where their political prostitution is both illegal and unnecessary.
That’s the only way you get to shift politicians into working for “the people” and not their backers.
Obviously not a guarantee, but if they could stop spending 40% of their time worrying about being re-elected and financing their re-election that would probably be a boon. Maybe they could even read some of the legislation they’re passing.
Even after fixing this issue you have the other one where you have a shitload of politicians which seems to be members of a cult, not a political organization and millions of Americans voting for them.
You vote them out. Unfortunately you are just one person in one district. But volunteering for campaigns of people you believe in, and donating to their campaign fund are two ways to help.
How the fuck aren't you guys hunting them for sport
Liberals have been disarming themselves for decades
They won't be able to pass it and even if they did it will go nowhere in the Senate. They know this. There will be a shutdown.
Is this the same GOP that's worried about losing 'trillions and trillions of dollars' over 'a tiny fraction of CO2 in the atmosphere' in the name of climate change? They truly are a bunch of devilish scumbags without whom the world would be infinitely more pleasant.