Russia vs. Ukraine Part 2

[Route 45]

Wait. You said 5% of the defense budget? We’ve spent > $100B on this. Defens budget is $750B or something like that. Is that really nothing?

Why is it our place to do this. Like I said. You should go purchase your virtue with your own money.

I was always taught that it was smarter to use other people's money.

Thanks for your contribution in preventing the rebuilding of the Soviet Union.

 

[BigRed]

My personal checkbook is my business. You'll have to speak with Uncle Sam about that labor cut thingy.

Yet you seem to think folks that simply want to be left alone are the problem.

 

[Route 45]

Yet you seem to think folks that simply want to be left alone are the problem.

Nowhere on Earth does being "left alone" equate to not paying taxes for things that you may not agree with.

If you are truly losing sleep over how much is being spent by the government for whatever it is you wanna rage against, you should be thankful that you don't have any real problems.

 

[BigRed]

Nowhere on Earth does being "left alone" equate to not paying taxes for things that you may not agree with.

If you are truly losing sleep over how much is being spent by the government for whatever it is you wanna rage against, you should be thankful that you don't have any real problems.

You are so omnipotent you know if I sleep or do not sleep? Whether I have what you describe as "problems" with our children and grandchildren being sold into slavery, or whether I do not?

That's truly miraculous!

My sincere apologies for even questioning a central state that routinely breaches the agreement....let alone your insights.

 

[Libertarian01]

I think this disconnect happens between accepting that yes, we have a legitimate interest, both ethically and strategically, in seeing that Russia is defeated in Ukraine, to then jumping to, let's pay for college for all Ukrainian nationals. Is there a rational point where we can say, hey, some of the money being spent just feels over the top, and is quite likely being used as cover for less-than-ethical dealings, given the Ukrainian government's history of corruption, with the Biden family in particular?

Also (and, please be aware, the following is NOT a rhetorical question; I genuinely don't know enough to form a judgement, and I'm interested in hearing different perspectives on it) how certain is it that Reagan's massive spending is what really crippled the USSR, and led to their downfall and the? I don't doubt that it was a factor, but I wonder how much more of a factor was simply his hard-line stance against communism, and his display of US resolve? Of course, I realize that the massive spending was actually a component of his hard-line stance, but I think one could rationally argue that we could have put on a display of resolve without spending ourselves into a massive hole, right?

(Okay, the following is more of my own opinion, and less a question, now.)

Which is actually one point of disagreement I actually do have with you, in that I don't see how one can call $2-3T a "puny" cost. How long would it take the US to pay back $2T, even if we were trying? How does $2T look in comparison to the amount of debt we racked up during the entirety of WWII? Is there any amount you wouldn't call "puny" if it's being spent purportedly to defeat communism?

Another thing you mentioned was the massive collapse in birth rates in the USSR (which, while you mentioned it happening in countries that were former USSR after the collapse, to my understanding it seems like it was already underway even before the collapse.) I'm wondering how/if you are saying that was tied to the USA's fight against communism? It seems to me that it was more a fruit of the moral decay brought about by communist society. One of the central tenets of communism is that it sets itself in opposition to the traditional family. In communist thought, parenthood and the task of rearing children are looked upon with disdain, and both men and women are expected to leave the raising of children more or less to the state, and instead focus on work outside the home. When you couple this with the fact that abortion was pushed harder in the USSR than even in extremely liberal western countries today (for instance, protesting abortion was completely illegal, from what I understand) the collapsing birth rate seems to me to be more of a fruit of the evil mentality being foisted on those countries by their communist overlords, and less a fruit of western economic pressure.

To start with my answer to the question in red above, I believe it was both the spending and rhetoric combined.

Every president, and most western leaders, spoke against the tyranny of the Soviet Union, a country in which Stalin killed an estimated 37 million of his own subjects. A regime that valued nothing of human life so long as it was spent in service to the state.

However, it was ONLY President Reagan that really backed up his words with pushing for massive military spend. Pushing for Star Wars, a terrain that no one had previously pushed.

I believe that the Soviets were never a healthy economy. One need only look at the lines they stood in for anything, the low quality of cars and other products, the lack of what the west would consider standard products, not luxury.

However, the Soviet Union may have gone on for decades had it not attempted to keep up with Reagan's spending policy, something we could afford and they could not.

To steal a quote from Animal Mother (Adam Baldwin) from Full Metal Jacket, "You talk the talk, do you walk the walk?" I believe every president before Reagan economically talked the talk, Reagan walked it. Reagan was willing to be bullish on building the military and hammering home the message both to the home audience and the world. According to Peter Zeihan Gorbachev thought the new frontier was space lasers, so he ordered the build out of the infrastructure to start making them when the Soviets could do so. They never did, but it was from plants in Ukraine and Russia that we got neon, now repurposed for laser etching semiconductors instead of space lasers.

Am I 100% correct? Of course not. But I do believe I am far above 0%. I don't believe we can discount Reagan's rhetoric backed by credibly buildup as a major factor contributing to Soviet collapse.

In doing light research for this discussion I came across a very interesting article. In it the author(s) write, "Gorbachev, ably aided by Shevardnadze, set out to end the “new Cold War” that had broken out in the late 1970s. A key reason for this was that the new leadership had come to the conclusion that the defense burden was crippling the Soviet Union."

It is a good read.

Link: https://www.britannica.com/place/Soviet-Union/Economic-policy

---

Regarding the birth rate collapse it had much to do with a lack of hope. Imagine your world has fallen apart. Unemployment is massive. Teachers are paid in Vodka. You knew things were bad but now your nose is rubbed in the sheer economic hopelessness of it all. Would you really want to bring a child into this? You cannot afford to feed yourself let alone a son or daughter. To my thinking it wasn't people being evil, it was people being without hope.

Admittedly, the Soviet system did crush the church. Marx wrote, "Communism begins where atheism begins." Stalin embraced this. Not, I believe, because he hated religion, but he didn't want people to question his authority. How could he run the country if people believed in a higher authority? Yes, he could keep shooting them (and he did) but even a dictator wants to get on with his agenda and not constantly put down uprisings. So he shuttered the churches.

My foray into History 101 isn't to rehash things completely, but rather to emphasize the hopelessness of the Russians after the Soviet collapse. They had NOWHERE to turn. The state was providing nothing. Everyone was in the same boat, and they could not easily turn to God because most had been raised without going to church at all. There was nowhere they could turn for comfort or hope.

I think we Americans have a hard time truly understanding what life was like under the Soviet system. We vote on everything! We vote for neighborhood leaders, we vote for bowling league leaders. Everywhere. We have multiple levels of help if we fall into distress. There are federal programs, state programs, nonprofits, churches, the United Way, Salvation Army, on and on. When the Soviets collapsed they had one (1) authority - the STATE. When it was gone the hit the fan. Everything collapsed. When there is no hope for yourself there is a moral argument for not bringing children into this.

I'd ramble forever so I'll end now.

Regards,

Doug

 

[AndreusMaximus]

Nowhere on Earth does being "left alone" equate to not paying taxes for things that you may not agree with.

If you are truly losing sleep over how much is being spent by the government for whatever it is you wanna rage against, you should be thankful that you don't have any real problems.

So you really have no limit, then?

Again, I'll happily argue the case that supporting Ukraine is a worthy investment of our tax dollars, and support you if you want to make that argument.

But like jamil said, there has to be a reasonable limit set, and that has to be balanced against the good likely to be achieved. I don't think we've reached that limit yet, either, but I'm darned if I'm gonna tell a tax-paying citizen they shouldn't be asking questions about it.

This is taking "pay, pray, and obey" to whole new levels...

 

[jamil]

I was always taught that it was smarter to use other people's money.

Thanks for your contribution in preventing the rebuilding of the Soviet Union.

That’s what you believe? You’re willing to bleed the US dry on a whim? Do you give money to all Nigerian princes who devise stories to bilk you out of your money?

 

[nra4ever]

Tack on another $10 Billion

 

[bobzilla]

For the record, us defense budget for the last several years:

FY23 Defense Budget Breakdown | Bloomberg Government

Gain detailed insights and analysis on the 2022 defense budget and discover big opportunities and potential partnerships for winning bids.

about.bgov.com

About $400b the last few years

 

[actaeon277]

 

[BigRed]

Tack on another $10 Billion

It's easy to be generous with money you have plundered from others.

Meanwhile, the invasion of the southern border continues unabated and aided by these mother ******* ********.

 

[printcraft]

No need to play chess when you can play dominoes.

Trillion plus down the drain. They won't even do their small part propping up the petrodollar.

Yep, in response to the "investment in ukraine" some here seem to have a big hard on for.

Okay US. Your trillion dollar investment didn't win this time, but keep playing - Ukraine is bound to be a winner!

It will work this time guys, just like communism hasn't been tried by the right people yet.

 

[Ark]

Yep, in response to the "investment in ukraine" some here seem to have a big hard on for.

It will work this time guys, just like communism hasn't been tried by the right people yet.

Iraq

Afghanistan

Libya

Vietnam

Trust me bro it'll be different this time, please bro just give me a trillion dollars and thousands of your sons' lives for Ukraine

 

[Route 45]

That’s what you believe? You’re willing to bleed the US dry on a whim? Do you give money to all Nigerian princes who devise stories to bilk you out of your money?

5% of our defense budget is not even close to "bLeEdiNg uS dRy."

And preventing the rebirth of the Soviet Union is not a "whim."

If you equate geopolitical politics and defense spending with Nigerian prince scams and your personal checking account, that tells me all I need to know about your understanding of the matter.

 

[bobzilla]

5% of our defense budget is not even close to "bLeEdiNg uS dRy."

And preventing the rebirth of the Soviet Union is not a "whim."

If you equate geopolitical politics and defense spending with Nigerian prince scams and your personal checking account, that tells me all I need to know about your understanding of the matter.

It's a lot more than 5% though. I posted it earlier but we average about $400B in defense funding per year. WE've sent a total of $113B in aid, $67B in military assistance. Military aid alone is about 17%, total aid 28% of our defense budget.

Not saying its right or wrong, but your numbers are off.

 

[BugI02]

We have no national interest in Ukraine.

Prove me wrong?

Outsourcing secret biowarfare labs?

 

[BugI02]

do you have a limit or not?

He thinks of it as 'other people's money', so probably not

 

[gassprint1]

please bro just give me a trillion dollars and thousands of your sons' lives for Ukraine

Just outfit an army of squirrels with air rifles.

 

[BugI02]

I was always taught that it was smarter to use other people's money.

Thanks for your contribution in preventing the rebuilding of the Soviet Union.

Unlimited aid to Ukraine or allow the rebuilding of the Soviet Union is a false dichotomy

 

[bobzilla]

Unlimited aid to Ukraine or allow the rebuilding of the Soviet Union is a false dichotomy

Invading a sovereign country isn't cool either. Blah blah blah I know we have done it too. Doesn't make it right. I don't know what the "right" answer is at this point and have begun to suspect there may not be one.