Is there no good news in the world? There's precious little in this thread.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by Ghoulish Delight

No slight intended, what I meant was, "conveniently for me". But my point still stands. Contrary to what you said, there ARE issues where your only objection is that your tax dollars are being used to fund it.

OK...cool.

I think we agree. WB was expressing disgust that her tax dollars are being used for it. OK. I get that. There are things that the feds spend money on (LOTS of things) that I am disgusted with. Not because they are bad (though I think the large majority of federally funded social programs are failures) in and of themselves, but because it is not (nor should it be) the job of the federal government to fund such things.

Of course, that may be the end of our agreement.

From one of my two favorite economists/constitutionalists, being Walter Williams:

James Madison, the father of our constitution, irate over a $15,000 congressional appropriation to assist some French refugees, said, "I cannot undertake to lay my finger on that article of the Constitution which granted a right to Congress of expending, on objects of benevolence, the money of their constituents."

Complete column from which that was taken

However, defense is specifically mandated by the constitution. I have no problems with the debate as to whether this is actually defense of the country (and by extension our allies, as treaties trump the constitution).

So....yes, I do object to my tax dollars being used for a lot of things. I would guess that all of them fall under what I consider NOT to be the job of the federal government.

[Alex]

Here is good news currently found on the home page of CNN. Some require certain specific worldviews, however.

Vioxx Plaintiff Awarded $9 million (good news if you're anti-pharma)
Sharon declared permanently incapacitated (good news if you're anti-Semitic)
Super Bowl MVP eases way for biracial kids
Tarzan's Pal Cheetah turns 74 with cake, Diet Coke
Retired generals call for Rumfeld's head (good news if you're anti-scaeagles)
Lawyers: No DNA link to Duke rape claim (good news if you're the mother of a Duke lacrosse player)
Probe reaches orbit around Venus
Shuttle program full of ups and downs (good news if you're looking for justification to serially murder headline writers)

[Cadaverous Pallor]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

Here is good news currently found on the home page of CNN. Some require certain specific worldviews, however.

I'd mojo you for that post, funny stuff.

The issue of "support" hits home for me because my brother is in the Air Force. No, he's not deployed and in all likelyhood won't be, thank God. Even so, he's a part of the war machine. He has always had a conservative world view and that has intensified 10X since he's enlisted. Why? Because he has to view the world that way.

At one point he said to me that it's a given that he'd be a Republican because any time the Dems get in office the defense spending is cut. He was told stories by his fellow officers that in the Clinton years they didn't have money for tools and other necessities. I told him that I'm in a vice versa situation - any time Republicans get in control, education spending is cut, which chops into my own workplace.

We had a moment where we realized that we had ended up on diametrically opposed sides of a cliff...and then we let it go.

Anyway. Do I "support" my brother and what he's bought into? No. I understand that there is a need for a defense, same way there's a need for log-rolling politicians and slick marketing executives (or rather, the lemmings that work beneath these figureheads that actually muck around in the slime for them). These are ugly occupations to me, the true dirty work. I dislike their very existance but they are a part of us, and I can't deny that.

So, we have to have people ready to kill at a moment's notice, or we'll all get killed by the rest of the world. This is the way it is. And these people MUST be robots, MUST be brainwashed, because otherwise they may not kill for us, and we'll die.

I saw what they did to my brother's rebellious nature when I visited him after his bootcamp. He was a half-starved shell of a person, flinching at every person that came into the room, eyes dodging about, making sure he was what he needed to be at all times. This was just Air Force boot camp, the easiest of the branches.

I do not blame them morally for any wars that they are sent to fight. They have been trained to do so. Their point of view has been washed down the drain. By the time they are sent to kill they are not people like you and I anymore. They can't be.

I feel sorry for them. They are victims of the system and victims of society. Yes, they are heroes. Yes, they help protect us. In fact, I know that there are people that were born to do this, and are great at it. God bless them for doing the dirty work that I could never do, the poor bastards.

I know this has nothing to do with this war in particular, and that's fine by me, as I hate even thinking about the can of worms this country is in, no matter how you look at it.

[Prudence]

Originally Posted by Cadaverous Pallor

At one point he said to me that it's a given that he'd be a Republican because any time the Dems get in office the defense spending is cut.

And when they get out, they learn that "Republicans" cut VA funding. Disabled vets can be a politically conflicted bunch.

[sleepyjeff]

Originally Posted by Prudence

And when they get out, they learn that "Republicans" cut VA funding. Disabled vets can be a politically conflicted bunch.

Can you back up that claim? I am not really doubting you but there does tend to be a media trick out there for the last 20 years or so of calling any budget increase smaller then originally projected a cut.

I am just curious if this is one of those instances.

[wendybeth]

Originally Posted by sleepyjeff

Can you back up that claim? I am not really doubting you but there does tend to be a media trick out there for the last 20 years or so of calling any budget increase smaller then originally projected a cut.

I am just curious if this is one of those instances.

I'm sure Prudence has many sources, but a quick search led to this and this and this.

Of course, it was a bit of a challenge sorting through all the 'Veteran's for Peace' and 'Veteran's Against the Iraq war' sites...

At a time when we are at war and incurring casualites, not to mention that there are numerous vets from other wars that still need care, of course a decrease would be considered a cut- there is a shortfall regardless of what you call it.

[scaeagles]

Originally Posted by wendybeth

At a time when we are at war and incurring casualites, not to mention that there are numerous vets from other wars that still need care, of course a decrease would be considered a cut- there is a shortfall regardless of what you call it.

Admittedly, I have not clicked your links. I have mentioned this before, but as a brief reminder, during the Carter years, something called "baseline budgeting" was started. Every year, an automatic 10% increase was required when submitting your budget for whatever. This was for a few reasons, primarily so that spineless politicians could automatically increase their spending.

If the news was presented as "Veteren's affairs gets a 5% budget increase", that's good news. However, with baseline budgeting, the story is "Veteren's affairs cut by 5%", because the amount increasing only went up 5% instead of the automatic 10% is was supposed to get.

VA may very well be underfunded (though I suspect that it is more about waste and top heavy spending with the money not getting where it needs to), but I doubt it has been cut (meaning a real cut of actual dollars).