Originally Posted by willravel

Let's say that you have the biggest, most powerful military in the world. Againt you, no conventional military could hope to stand. You could even take on the second, third, and fourth most powerful militaries in the world at once and win. Let's also say that this military is massively expensive. It's so powerful that it's bankrupting your country. Also, the military spending is involved in a revolving door policy between the weapons manufacturers and politicans. In order for the manufacturers, and thus the politicans, to get madly rich, they need to constantly be increasing spending. How coud they possibly justify this in a time of war? That's simple. We seek out enemies. We even create them. We are in a constant state of conflict. But what happens when everyone is subserviant? What happens when we eventually nuke the ME, and China, and Europe? The we turn on ourselves. There has always been healthy descent among Americans because of free speech. I can go out and say that the war in Iraq is wrong, and no one shoots me (yet). Of course, now that it's legal to break the Geneva Convention, Habaes Corpus, etc. What does that mean? I can be arrested for protesting, and they can use ridiculous military and/or police force to get me.

I think the interesting part is that the founders understood the dangers of a standing military hundreds of years ago. These were some amazingly brillient men.