Political Meme Thread 21.9.5 Endwalker

"But did she..."

Probably, and apparently it was important.

Bitch sucked more dick than NYC crack hoes combined.

None of the above, please.

I’m all for cutting the military budget, but do you expect the military to have no budget at all?

The point of the meme is that the US military asks for X amount of dollars, and Congress just cuts the check without much bickering over the price. Contrast that with almost any other government spending. No matter what it is, people scream and moan. And most of us have no idea of what we actually get for all that money we're spending on the military, except in the abstract, nor exactly if we really do need all that we're paying for.

This meme is an attempt to show what we could have if we spent that same amount of money elsewhere (and not necessarily saying that we should cut the defense budget). So, it's not just someone screaming, "We should spend that money on social programs!" it's showing you what one could get if they spent that money on social programs.

Not talked about today, but I can remember as a kid, people freaking the fuck out because the Soviets were (supposedly) busy handing out Communist propaganda in Black neighborhoods, and that one of the reasons why civil rights leaders like MLK, Jr were able to actually accomplish things is because the Soviets were promising Blacks that everyone would be equal under Communism.

But let's shift all of this in some slightly different directions. Can we honestly say that American security will be compromised if we don't keep buying F-35s? Given that the planes seem to be Edsels and that it's been almost 80 years since we've had to fight an opponent who was our technological equal in direct combat, that seems a bit of a stretch. Besides, it doesn't really matter if we have technological superiority over the Chinese if we go to war with them, all of our electronics rely on parts made in China, so all they have to do is cut off our supply and wait a while, and we'll fold because we can't field any equipment.

Even if we could manage to get electronics factories up and running in time to end our reliance on Chinese made components (we can't, it takes years to get a chip foundry up and running because they're such complicated beasts) what happens if Chinese forces invade an economically depressed part of the US and start improving the living standards of folks there (or at least promising to do so)? Patriotism only gets you so far, and doesn't fill your belly. Supposedly, when the Germans first rolled into Ukraine, they were greeted as liberators, and it was only when the Nazis started rounding up folks and executing them for not being Aryan, that the Ukrainians realized they needed to do something.

With the various inequalities in America, an invading force that knew what it was doing could exploit those inequalities to gain support among the local populations. This would make it easier to control territory with a minimum of military force. Do any potential invaders of the US have the kind of smarts to do that?

And if you want to put into simply "return on investment" terms, for every $1 we spend on defense, we get $3 in economic growth. For every $1 we spend on education, we get $7 in economic growth. Okay, so if every dollar we spend on defense is absolutely vital, shouldn't we also spend the same amount on education because of the tremendous economic benefits it provides us?

Funnily enough I'm doing a Red Dead Redemption 2 replay right now and shot a Klan fucker in the face just last night. Plus that moaning asshole who used to hunt down escaped slaves and got all bitchy when the Emancipation Proclamation took his "livelihood" as a "gentleman" away.

I missed it on my prior playthrough, but Arthur says of the Klan than he "lives to shoot you hooded worms". And this is a guy who might shoot random strangers just for a gold pocketwatch.

I've been playing online because there's usually people online around christmas time.

How many people in that candle factory ended up dead?