Saturday, February 18, 2017

A Pearl Harbor Of Our Own Making

                The hybrid-Prius-driving liberal loonies with the “It will be a great day when our schools get all the money they need and the air force has to hold a bake sale to buy a bomber” bumper stickers are close to getting their wish. (A bumper sticker one would never see in Russia, Iran, China, North Korea, etc., by-the-way).
                According to DefenseNews.com, almost two-thirds of the U.S. Navy’s strike fighters are unusable because there isn’t enough money to repair them. President Obama inflicted severe damage on his navy, air force, army and marines by implementing massive cuts to the budget of the military as a whole. The navy doesn’t have the money to fix its ships, either. Maintenance of some ships has been deferred- or cancelled outright. A number of the Navy’s submarines have been out of service for years. One sub, the Boise, forfeited its diving certification because it was out of commission for so long. Officials say that another five submarines could lose their certification soon, if more money doesn’t become available. The other service branches, including the Coast Guard, are also in dire need of bigger budgets if they are to be able to effectively carry out their duties.
                Governments are formed in large part to protect their citizens. That is the single most important function with which they are charged. If they fail in this obligation, no other mission matters. U.S. politicians used to know this, but now too many believe the single most important function they have is to keep themselves in power by bribing the large segment of the citizenry…and non-citizenry…whose morals have atrophied to the point that they believe they are limitlessly entitled to the fruits of other’s labor.
                In the U.S., defense spending as a percentage of GNP has plummeted over the years (Obama cut long-term spending on defense programs by almost $1 trillion dollars in fiscal years 2009 to 2023) while entitlement spending by the same measure has skyrocketed. Similarly, spending on education has soared in recent years, even as educational performance, by various measures, has sharply declined. The United States spent over two and a half trillion dollars on ‘entitlement’ programs in 2016. It spent well over $650 billion on education last year, though the real figure is hard to calculate- and certainly much, much higher than that- due to the difficulty of tabulating expenses across the federal, state and local level. And this doesn’t even include the staggering sums of cash schools coerce their student’s family, friends and neighbors into spending on donations, bake sales, chocolate and candy, flowers, fees to attend school functions, etc., etc., etc. That $650 billion education figure alone is tens of billions of dollars more than the country spent for national defense in 2016, but two and a half trillion dollars?!
                I know a certain amount of the money I pay in taxes goes to the defense budget…and I’m fine with that. But I pay more than that for our schools and education. (And, obviously, for “entitlements”). Moreover, the schools ask for new spending almost every year. Rarely an election goes by without another bleeping school-spending referendum. Add up the levees, money spent on musical equipment, band trips, field trips, sports equipment, the cost of attending games, concerts, plays, lunch money, property taxes given over to the local school district, etc., etc., ad infinitem, and the amount we pay for education is truly staggering.
                And our kids knew more…much more… at least of what’s actually important, such as systems of government and Western thought, back when many were educated in one-room school houses. If you don’t believe me, take an (online, as everything is nowadays) 8th or 10th grade test from the mid or late 1800's. Good luck.
                The United States has been out of service for over eight years now, so it mirrors the condition of its dilapidated military. Its morals and reason have sat, rotting and ignored, for far too long.
                The Trump administration appears willing to make a concerted effort to bring the country- and its military- back to life. If gypsies, tramps and thieves stymie it in its mission, and insist that their self-proclaimed ‘freak flags’ fly higher than Old Glory, it’s curtains for the shining city on a hill.

                And lights out for the rest of the world as well.
               



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