[baobabaobab]

"I think this statement further reinforces the GP's point. Simply "stop funding the military" isn't "easy""

No one serious is seriously saying that the military shouldn't be funded. What people are saying is that maybe if the DOD actually kept track of where all it's money went, and made national defense a priority over enriching contractors, it could get by with a reduced budget.

[jMyles]

> No one serious is seriously saying that the military shouldn't be funded.

Sure they are - at least some elements of it. And they have been for 200 years.

The constitutional specifically prohibits a standing army; one of the biggest jokes in the contemporary political condition is that the USA doesn't have one.

I want the military defunded in its entirety, save the divisions of navy which protect coastal states from attack.

[twoodfin]

The constitutional specifically prohibits a standing army

No, it doesn't:

The Congress shall have Power ... To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

As long as Congress keeps appropriating money for it, we can have a standing army.

[jMyles]

That's not a "standing" army - that's the whole point. The debate raged back and forth at the CC on this point with everyone ultimately agreeing that this two-year limitation was something short of a "standing" army.

[afarrell]

I think that a conventionally-dominant global superpower suddenly becoming drastically less powerful would make for a fascinating novel or TV series. The conflicts that arise as nations rush in to fill the power vacuum and adjust to a dramatically different security situation would, in the hands of a skilled writer/director be far more interesting than Game of Thrones.

[politician]

> I want the military defunded in its entirety, save the divisions of navy which protect coastal states from attack.

Do you consider space-based threats in the realm of the Navy?

[jMyles]

I guess so, right?