55 percent of American voters — reportedly support shutting government down — so as to increase U.S. military spending

© 2018 Peter Free

 

22 January 2018

 

 

The Military Industrial Complex can rejoice!

 

According to Politico, writing with regard to the US government's shut-down:

 

 

A 55 percent majority of voters say it would be worth shutting down the government to secure an increase in funding for defense and homeland security.

 

Only 30 percent say an increase in defense spending isn’t important enough to shut down the government.

 

The POLITICO/Morning Consult poll was conducted January 18-19. The poll surveyed 1,017 registered voters and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

 

© 2018 Steven Shepard, Who gets blamed for the shutdown? Here's what the polls say, Politico (21 January 2018)

 

 

The moral? — Apparently, only about 30 percent of American voters are capable of exercising even minimal common sense

 

Public stupidity, combined with our quaking civilian cowardice, are admittedly good for the Blow Everything Up business that the U.S. is in.

 

I doubt, however, that these less than ideal human traits will long support survival of the American Empire.

 

A greedy and cowardly public cannot bullet and bomb its way to world domination, as well as to perceived domestic safety, without simultaneously making enemies all over the place and spending itself into ruin.

 

As William Astore said a few days ago:

 

 

America’s empire . . . is now in decline, and a key reason is imperial overstretch as manifested by endless wars and overspending on the military . . . .

 

America is running a national debt of roughly 20 trillion dollars.  The future is being sacrificed for the present, a tragic reality reflected in the latest Republican tax cut, which benefits the richest Americans the most, along with big corporations, and which will likely add another trillion to the national debt.

 

[T]he American political scene is driven by fear: of immigrants, of a nuclear war with North Korea, of Russian meddling (real or imagined), of growing Chinese power, and of the perpetually-hyped threat of terrorist attacks on “the Homeland.”

 

© 2018 W. J. Astore, The Fall of the American Empire, Bracing Views (20 January 2018)

 

 

Our rancorous culture cannot even keep its own government running.

 

What does that tell you (a) about us and (b) about our fitness for world domination?