Boin-ney, did I say it right?

[KevinM1]

I think that if you asked most people, they wouldn't want to fight another war.  Between the costs (both human and monetary) and our shitty recent track record, more war is really unpalatable.  Right now.  The problem is, people (for some reason) buy into the beat coming from the war drums whenever the government starts beating on them.  Plus, we're currently living in a climate where if you dare question anything to do with the military, you don't "Support the Troops™" and are thus a bad person.

Regarding military equipment, at least the F-22 is actual functional, and the idea is sound.  A multi-role platform with good-to-great performance and stealth.  It cost a ton, but it works.  

The F-35 has been a complete debacle, even more so because the entire idea behind it was to greatly reduce costs (l-o-fucking-l).  The idea, again, is sound: an air frame that is used in three branches of the military, with about ~75% of the construction and replacement parts identical across branch versions.  And the basic shape and systems based on the proven F-22, and made (supposedly) to be simpler.  Then, somehow, everything got fucked up, things didn't work, prices skyrocketed, and it's just this too-big-to-fail albatross, much like Donald Drumpf's many bankruptcies.  I mean, shit, they're having new problems with the radar software right now, which may delay certification again: http://arstechnica.com/information-techn...in-flight/

But, to address your larger point, yes, we need to stop giving the military a blank check.  We need to stop going into regions that hate us already, toppling regimes, and then doing fuckall to fix the instability (either by not going in to begin with, or having the testicular fortitude to stay for the generations necessary to see the job done).  We need to stop spying on our fellow citizens and force law enforcement at all levels to obtain warrants.  We need to demilitarize our police.  We need to enact sensible gun control.  We need to close tax loopholes so large employers like Walmart pay their fair share if they're going to pay wages low enough that make people apply for welfare.  And so much more.

To answer Drich's question, Bernie is the only one who will actually try to do those things.  His lifetime of work proves it.  Clinton panders to the left, but she's essentially a 1980's non-evangelical Republican.  Her track record belies her rhetoric.  Drumpf is just an idiot.

IDK where you guys have gotten you facts, but Obama has defunded the military down to levels we saw at the beginning of the iraq war... Yet we are facing a much larger and far more dangerous threat in ISIS

http://useconomy.about.com/od/usfederalb...3-0-ab_gsb

Lowered military funding != ISIS

ISIS primarily comes from George W. Bush capitalizing on our post-9/11 fear and anger to invade Iraq, selling it as a quick and easy war ("They'll welcome us as liberators!  We'll use that sweet, sweet Iraqi oil to pay for it!") when anyone with even the vaguest notions of actual foreign policy knew it was doomed to fail.  

So, we remove a tyrant who kept the various sects in line through brutality, and, surprise, the people don't want us there.  They don't want us to prop up what they see is an illegitimate puppet government.  They don't want us interfering with their sectarian conflicts.  In order to keep the peace, we have the 'surge', which wasn't just more boots on the ground, but millions if not billions of dollars paid to the various warlords for them to play nice.

And things did cool down, but it was never a tenable solution.  Bribing people to behave doesn't address the underlying issues.  And after being there for over a decade, with our kids still getting killed with IEDs and the occasional attack, and the Iraqis begging us to leave, we did.  And all of the problems that come with toppling a regime (most notably a power vacuum) came roaring back and Iraq slipped back into instability.

It's not all Dubya's fault.  We did the same thing in Libya under Obama, and Syria has been going on for years.  But the thing that underpins it all is a lack of post-regime toppling planning, our seemingly incessant need to meddle in the area every generation, and an utter ignorance about the various political and religious sects in play and their attitudes.  We have made the region worse and more dangerous just about every time we've been involved, settling for quick, near term solutions rather than looking at the bigger picture.  And more military funding isn't the magic bullet that addresses those issues.