Comcast interrupts a conversation about political philosophy basics
or, Pertaining to a conversation about political philosophy basics, interrupted by a Comcast service interruption
In a strictly unpolitical setting, one of my many online acquaintances recently said something without warning that spurred a fun dialog that we were forced to carry on in private; "OBAMA HAS SPENT MORE IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF HIS PRESIDENCY THAN ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED!"
This at once sounded outrageous and impossible to me and a few other people, and not just because of some level of liberal, Democratic, or Obama bias. I asked him to cite a source, and he said simply "public documents." I told him that this was sort of like citing "books" as a source, but he stood by his statement. I take this kind of thing as a challenge since this kind of disagreement, contention over a fact that should be cleared up with a bit of research, is a great opportunity to educate myself or my "opponent."
I tried searching for the original claim, assuming that some conservative columnist or personality was behind perhaps an earlier form of the statement. Strangely, I could only find it on message boards and "crowd sourcing" question/answer services like wikianswers, askyahoo, and whatever, and none of them pointed to an original source (which leads me to believe that it originated from an emailed chain letter or something).
Then I looked up the CBO and historical US Treasury documents, which of course showed how ridiculous the claim was, that the deficit left by G. W. Bush was a few billion under 11 trillion and that the current deficit is a few billion over 11 trillion. I tried to look further at what similar claim could be made that could, with the telephone effect, have become the one that began my research, but could not. The closest I could come was a few graphs that did not look like they used adjusted dollars that compared projected deficits to GWB's deficits. As always, if anyone has any other information on this subject, I'd be delighted to hear it.
So I gave him my report, but first I told him my position: all politicians, anyone who holds or seeks power, should be distrusted and held accountable, but attacking them with incorrect information is more helpful to other corrupt politicians than the common good. My acquaintance had another beef with Obama, that he was "cutting defense spending during a time of war," another weird conservative myth which a bit of research revealed was not true, that Obama's slight increase in defense spending is one of the campaign promises that he kept. He was pretty sure that this wasn't true, but I could provide sources while he could only barely remember hearing something on TV. I attributed his confusion on this issue to the retirement of some programs meant to fight massive conventional wars with military equals, like a united Russia and China (with the addition of alien technology or something). The only specific example I could think of was an increase in small arms purchases offset by the decision to not purchase any more F-117s, which have never been needed anyway [NOTE: I looked this up, and it looks like I was thinking of the F-22 which, pending congressional approval, will leave us with "only" 187]. The point, which I didn't get to explain to him, is that our military was organized to fight wars that are not expected and probably won't ever happen, while it is not organized for the types of wars we are fighting and expect to fight. I also would have made the case that the reason why he was hearing complaints from politicians about the decision to not order more of these was because it will cost some manufacturing jobs in their states and cost them some kickbacks from weapons-industry contractors, so to push back they would try to frame their complaint as Obama being soft on defense.
At this point, after soundly (I think) making the case that the budget has been increased but also funds have been redistributed to recast the military to handle many smaller situations instead of a giant 2-front war with the USSR ("you do know the USSR doesn't exist anymore, right?" "Uh, yeah, that's why it's better to retool to fight the enemies we have instead of the enemy we don't"), I threw him my curveball; "so Obama has definitely not decreased military spending, but he SHOULD cut it in half" to which his response was, "... you don't care about keeping our country safe?" and just before I was disconnected by Comcast (which later denied any service problems and said they would charge 50 bucks if they sent someone to fix it and they didn't find the problem) he said something about how China has enough people to march over us and that their technology is improving.
That's where we get to a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative assumptions, and a really interesting conversation COULD have begun.
The question I wish I had been able to ask was, how safe is someone who has a gun? Provided this person is adequately trained in gun use and gun safety, they're certainly safer in certain specific situations, like maybe in a battle, a bank robbery, a shooting spree, or an attempted rape. But simply having the gun does't necessarily make even a highly trained person safe in these situations, and absolutely does not make them safe in many other more common situations: avoiding high crime areas especially at night, installing security systems on your house, and not being an asshole so your family or neighbors don't kill you are all things that would be far more effective at keeping you alive by preventing life-threatening situations than a gun might be at keeping you safe DURING such situations.
So it is that the liberal will cite a positive reputation around the world and active economic participation as a greater deterrent against state aggression than military power, and in fact, the sheer size of our military (and our nuclear arsenal), coupled with our willingness (eagerness?) throughout recent history to use this force actually emboldens politicians around the world that ride to power on the idea that the U.S. is a dangerous empire. Meanwhile, a conservative will follow the refrain called out since the rise of Mao, that being "soft" was the cause, and that liberals were too soft on communism, soft on terrorism, and soft on defense -- so opposed are they to "soft power" that conservative voices have said "liberals want the enemy to win."
I would have laughed at the idea of a Chinese military invasion, and was preparing to say that nearly every tactician from Sun Tzu and on have said that the worst position for a rational state acting in its own interests is to begin a long and sticky occupation and that China (like North Korea) is too busy ensuring domestic stability through the constant pressure of oppression to survive a long term foreign entanglement and would never attack such an important economic partner. Walmart and the world economy have far more to do with normalization and stability of U.S.-Sino relations than the F-117, F-22, or military capacity in general. Hell, we have Latin America and China has Tibet, all governments are probably evil, but we didn't conquer Russia when Moscow was crippled with confusion by the collapse of the USSR, nor would China suddenly develop a taste for world conquest if we stop buying any more stealth-bombers, nuclear submarines, and amphibious assault tanks.
If we really want safety, we should pursue universal nuclear de-armament, reduce military spending, reassure the world that we would prefer to speak softly and carry a stick (instead of yelling and hitting people with a giant stick), and act as a consistent moral example to follow in foreign and domestic policies.
In a strictly unpolitical setting, one of my many online acquaintances recently said something without warning that spurred a fun dialog that we were forced to carry on in private; "OBAMA HAS SPENT MORE IN THE FIRST THREE MONTHS OF HIS PRESIDENCY THAN ALL OTHER PRESIDENTS COMBINED!"
This at once sounded outrageous and impossible to me and a few other people, and not just because of some level of liberal, Democratic, or Obama bias. I asked him to cite a source, and he said simply "public documents." I told him that this was sort of like citing "books" as a source, but he stood by his statement. I take this kind of thing as a challenge since this kind of disagreement, contention over a fact that should be cleared up with a bit of research, is a great opportunity to educate myself or my "opponent."
I tried searching for the original claim, assuming that some conservative columnist or personality was behind perhaps an earlier form of the statement. Strangely, I could only find it on message boards and "crowd sourcing" question/answer services like wikianswers, askyahoo, and whatever, and none of them pointed to an original source (which leads me to believe that it originated from an emailed chain letter or something).
Then I looked up the CBO and historical US Treasury documents, which of course showed how ridiculous the claim was, that the deficit left by G. W. Bush was a few billion under 11 trillion and that the current deficit is a few billion over 11 trillion. I tried to look further at what similar claim could be made that could, with the telephone effect, have become the one that began my research, but could not. The closest I could come was a few graphs that did not look like they used adjusted dollars that compared projected deficits to GWB's deficits. As always, if anyone has any other information on this subject, I'd be delighted to hear it.
So I gave him my report, but first I told him my position: all politicians, anyone who holds or seeks power, should be distrusted and held accountable, but attacking them with incorrect information is more helpful to other corrupt politicians than the common good. My acquaintance had another beef with Obama, that he was "cutting defense spending during a time of war," another weird conservative myth which a bit of research revealed was not true, that Obama's slight increase in defense spending is one of the campaign promises that he kept. He was pretty sure that this wasn't true, but I could provide sources while he could only barely remember hearing something on TV. I attributed his confusion on this issue to the retirement of some programs meant to fight massive conventional wars with military equals, like a united Russia and China (with the addition of alien technology or something). The only specific example I could think of was an increase in small arms purchases offset by the decision to not purchase any more F-117s, which have never been needed anyway [NOTE: I looked this up, and it looks like I was thinking of the F-22 which, pending congressional approval, will leave us with "only" 187]. The point, which I didn't get to explain to him, is that our military was organized to fight wars that are not expected and probably won't ever happen, while it is not organized for the types of wars we are fighting and expect to fight. I also would have made the case that the reason why he was hearing complaints from politicians about the decision to not order more of these was because it will cost some manufacturing jobs in their states and cost them some kickbacks from weapons-industry contractors, so to push back they would try to frame their complaint as Obama being soft on defense.
At this point, after soundly (I think) making the case that the budget has been increased but also funds have been redistributed to recast the military to handle many smaller situations instead of a giant 2-front war with the USSR ("you do know the USSR doesn't exist anymore, right?" "Uh, yeah, that's why it's better to retool to fight the enemies we have instead of the enemy we don't"), I threw him my curveball; "so Obama has definitely not decreased military spending, but he SHOULD cut it in half" to which his response was, "... you don't care about keeping our country safe?" and just before I was disconnected by Comcast (which later denied any service problems and said they would charge 50 bucks if they sent someone to fix it and they didn't find the problem) he said something about how China has enough people to march over us and that their technology is improving.
That's where we get to a fundamental difference between liberal and conservative assumptions, and a really interesting conversation COULD have begun.
The question I wish I had been able to ask was, how safe is someone who has a gun? Provided this person is adequately trained in gun use and gun safety, they're certainly safer in certain specific situations, like maybe in a battle, a bank robbery, a shooting spree, or an attempted rape. But simply having the gun does't necessarily make even a highly trained person safe in these situations, and absolutely does not make them safe in many other more common situations: avoiding high crime areas especially at night, installing security systems on your house, and not being an asshole so your family or neighbors don't kill you are all things that would be far more effective at keeping you alive by preventing life-threatening situations than a gun might be at keeping you safe DURING such situations.
So it is that the liberal will cite a positive reputation around the world and active economic participation as a greater deterrent against state aggression than military power, and in fact, the sheer size of our military (and our nuclear arsenal), coupled with our willingness (eagerness?) throughout recent history to use this force actually emboldens politicians around the world that ride to power on the idea that the U.S. is a dangerous empire. Meanwhile, a conservative will follow the refrain called out since the rise of Mao, that being "soft" was the cause, and that liberals were too soft on communism, soft on terrorism, and soft on defense -- so opposed are they to "soft power" that conservative voices have said "liberals want the enemy to win."
I would have laughed at the idea of a Chinese military invasion, and was preparing to say that nearly every tactician from Sun Tzu and on have said that the worst position for a rational state acting in its own interests is to begin a long and sticky occupation and that China (like North Korea) is too busy ensuring domestic stability through the constant pressure of oppression to survive a long term foreign entanglement and would never attack such an important economic partner. Walmart and the world economy have far more to do with normalization and stability of U.S.-Sino relations than the F-117, F-22, or military capacity in general. Hell, we have Latin America and China has Tibet, all governments are probably evil, but we didn't conquer Russia when Moscow was crippled with confusion by the collapse of the USSR, nor would China suddenly develop a taste for world conquest if we stop buying any more stealth-bombers, nuclear submarines, and amphibious assault tanks.
If we really want safety, we should pursue universal nuclear de-armament, reduce military spending, reassure the world that we would prefer to speak softly and carry a stick (instead of yelling and hitting people with a giant stick), and act as a consistent moral example to follow in foreign and domestic policies.