So the argument is flipped now? Protecting liberty is a liberal concept. And, what freedoms are we protecting? We spend 7 times the level of our next biggest "threat." We spend more than the next 26 highest spending countries combined. We haven't been "invaded" since 1816 and our neighbors are barely capable of marching in a straight line much less mount an offensive. We are situated 2500 miles from the next remotely viable "threats," who happen to be our biggest allies.

The "argument" is that the only reason to carry such high levels of military spending is to engage in war to feed a war machine. Without conflict, there is no justification for spend. So we've invented (rather "liberally") justifications in scores of circumstances a reason to export a savage and pointless policy.

No, Mary, they don't hate us for our freedoms, they hate us because we bully and disrespect them, then kill their children in defense of some irrelevant principle known to the merchants of weapons as profits, then transfer wealth away from hard working Americans under the guise of patriotism. We trot out the toothless and undereducated to bolster the fiction that this is the American way of life.

The sad fact is that this system is unsustainable. Which was the point. No culture in human history has been successful long term with this strategy. It is inevitable, and, some may say, already come to pass. In 4 years China will surpass the US in GDP. In 10 years, India will pass us. Our only leverage (pun intended) will be the debt we owe them for sustaining this mess of policy. We could have had universal health care gold plated for 15 years for the cost of the Iraq "war." The costs of treating the wounded from that conflict will dwarf many states' entire healthcare budget, public and private. Instead of investing in our people and our country, we've squandered our earnings and pilfered our children's piggy banks. It's like watching a pathetic gambling addicted drunk pitching pennies in an alley.