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> Governments. Not people.

I've never known a government to start a war. I've known people that make up a government to start one, however.

> We've become overly permissive with those who govern us.

We are not qualified to decide how we are governed, but we are qualified to start a war?

> I don't want a vote-grabbing whore to be able to make those decisions.

So who should make the decision? Only those that vote?

> Not sure what will stop it or change the course.

Definitely not with flame-induced rants like this. You choose words precisely to evoke emotion. Rather than approach this rationally, you hide behind passion, and hope that anyone reading this will be to emotional one way or another to understand what you are trying to say.

In every way, you are acting the part of the vote-grabbing whore you so disdain.

That's seriously splitting hairs. By extension you are saying "I don't know anyone in government who started a war they simply signed a piece of paper giving authority to other humans to start killing another group of humans and the money to do so."

Wars only destroy so when no one is threatening you in any serious way engaging in them is crazy.

> That's seriously splitting hairs.

No, it's not. And by extension, I'm saying anything of the sort.

OP keeps using the word government and then people, as if the two are distinct and different. It's a technique to make you ignore the fact that the government isn't some other being. It's made up of people.

Treating the government as some alien entity is a political tactic used to frighten people.

> Wars only destroy so when no one is threatening you in any serious way engaging in them is crazy.

That's a rather naive look, and ignores the own premise set forth by the OP I was responding to (in his case, the people should decide).

He's under the belief that the people wouldn't have supported war with Iraq (despite overwhelming support in 2003 for the war).

So, I'm not sure what you are really trying to say? On one hand, the OP says we should attack regardless of a direct threat. On the other hand, you say we should only attack unless we are seriously threatened (and the will of the people be damned). Maybe you think we should be seriously threatened and require that people support the war? This would of course require that people be told how the threat is seriously threatening them.

And that's how we got into the war with Iraq.

Ok well it seems like you are confusing the concept of society and government. They aren't the same thing.

By serious threat I really mean someone is attacking you actively. No sure how you would ever seriously think Iraq could injure the United States. They had to tell quite a few lies to convince people of that.

> They had to tell quite a few lies to convince people of that.

If the government started the war, why would they have to tell lies to convince the people?

>"By extension you are saying "I don't know anyone in government who started a war they simply signed a piece of paper giving authority to other humans to start killing another group of humans and the money to do so."

That seems to be his point; at any time one of those people (read: politicians) could have said, "I ain't signing this".

It was down to the individual decisions of people, not some mysterious enigma labelled government.

Right but we haven't really learned anything by saying that. It's like saying that Germany didn't invade Poland in 1939 but rather a collection of humans carrying guns and some driving tanks wandered into what was called in some parts "Poland". We have not really advanced the argument or our understanding by breaking it down like that.

> We have not really advanced the argument or our understanding by breaking it down like that.

Breaking it down by saying:

"It's like saying that Germany didn't invade Poland in 1939 but rather a collection of humans carrying guns and some driving tanks wandered into what was called in some parts "Poland"."

Because I've never heard anyone seriously break it down like that. Rather, I hear it like so: Germany invaded Poland.

So, to contend: "We have not really advanced the argument or our understanding by breaking it down like that." ignores the very relevant fact that it's never really been broken down like that.

Regardless, that ruins the argument of breaking it down by US government and the citizens of the US (which is what you are suggesting we do).

If anything, history shows that generalizing or stereotyping people into groups (e.g. "the government" or "blacks" or "the jews" continuing from your example) has done more harm.

The wars we are currently in have not affected me one bit, except perhaps by adjusting prices for various goods by slim amounts that I can afford to ignore. Most people are like me. Saying that wars will affect all of us and our children as well is a huge exaggeration (unless you actually believe the government will attempt to pay down the national debt, which is just preposterous). It doesn't affect most people in any noticeable way, which is verified by how most people don't care.

If we weren't in all of these wars, we could afford to cut your tax rate in half (and every other federal tax rate) without changing anything else. That's equivalent at least an instant 10% raise, maybe more depending on your tax bracket.

If you believe that the US government determines the tax rate based on anything remotely related to the amount that it spends, I just don't know what to say to you. Did your taxes really increase by 11% when the wars started?

He means that the military engine that keeps us constantly able to fight these wars is expensive. If we did not fight foreign wars, we would have a much smaller military budget. The would mean that federal government spending would be lower, which would reduce the need to revenue. While it is true that the federal government finances part of its huge budget with debt so sudden increases are not immediately felt, they do translate into increased interest payments which must be financed by revenue, and again, there is also the need to pay for the general level of power and readiness to fight between wars.

Now that it's more clear what the poster meant, you should be able to think of something to say.

But even eliminating the wars, spending is higher than revenue. And historically, we can see that the government does not finance its spending with revenue, it does so with borrowing, and it pays back its loans with more borrowing. Lower spending does not reduce taxes, nor does increased spending raise them. To say otherwise is to ignore the facts.

Yes, the wars contribute to spending but it's not being argued they are the entirety of excess spending.

We do perpetually borrow but our finance charges steadily increase, and not all of that is able to be deferred. The deferral will eventually have to be repaid or there will be an enormous disaster. It's actually worse in the long run than steady expenses.

To use an everyday example, it is similar to saying a laptop is not expensive because it's on a credit card and the credit card payments are financed with another credit card and so on. The laptop eventually costs more for using such a scheme.

Sure, but my point was that in the meantime, payments aren't actually higher, which is what was originally asserted. IOW, the average citizen such as myself isn't materially affected by this ballooning debt.

You're right that during the deferment there isn't much effect. I'm not sure if that's all he was arguing, but of so he's not right.

Governments are the equilibrium that comes from the reality that people will do anything, including violence, to get what they want and everyone will always have unmet desires. Wars are a disturbance in that equilibrium. I think what will eventually make governments behave better is a free market in governments and ease of movement. You basically want the entire world to be so interdependent on each other that the incentive for war is far worse than the incentive for business. It would be horrible for China to attack the USA at this point for example.

You point out yourself that the US government is a vote collecting machine, which is how the incentive system was created in the first place. The entire money system is a social contact that organizes human behavior for example. Creating social contacts that people will follow to organize humanity is very difficult.