How does a religious person rationalize turning the other cheek yet wants the biggest army? Many claim to have a deep love of Jesus but the same zealots (i'm thinking of Romney now) push to build the biggest army. Where is the logic? Of course once you buid new weapons the first thing the enemy does is steal it. Once they have it then comes the buildup by both sides who, not too long ago didn't even care for them. We end up with a whole pile of now dangerous weapons placed in reach of all our front doors and run the real risk of some whackjob actually using them. Damn crazy, Jesus was right.
I understand and appreciate your sentiments but unfortunatly violence is a fact of life.We all have the right to defend ourselves.The universe is a very violent place,our earth no exception.It's around us all the time.Even Jesus chased the money changers out of the temple with a whip made of ropes. As long as there is evil in the world we need defense,and yes that means arming ourselves.
It's not just the threat of weapons. What about the need to listen in to every phone call, more impersonal 'strip-searches', more cameras on you and the rest of it that comes alongside the build up. You might as well wrap yourself in a blanket and stay there. One will be scared to do anything. I see China's got nothing on its people compared to what ultra-security demands, which is where you will end up in the search for self-protection. Plus, how long before they decide they need to build up their army again if only to combat the growing threat of the US, who has previously shown they're willing to use their army to take over other country's recources. Evil, just like Good is self-perpetuating. I think it's switching sides ATM.
Just an example of where 'protectionists' thought leads. Eugenics in the United States - I'm sure you can find many more if you care to. Eugenics was practiced in the United States many years before eugenics programs in Nazi Germany and actually, U.S. programs provided much of the inspiration for the latter. Stefan Kühl has documented the consensus between Nazi race policies and those of eugenicists in other countries, including the United States, and points out that eugenecists understood Nazi policies and measures as the realization of their goals and demands. One's ideals are one thing but what other people turn it into is another. The US begins sterilizing it's people, Hitler sees that is good and takes it the next step. When someone turns it around on you what are you going to tell your kids? Same as we do today I guess, "it wasn't my fault !" whilst knowing it was you who supported and helped it happen. Whilst I agree it's nice to defend yourself if so needed, usually, someone's only out to kill you if you do them wrong so why is the fear within most of you? Who have you personally f%$ked over that you need to defend yourself from? Why do you need such an army to defend you? The problem is you throw a lot of money into defense then someone wants to use all that useless stuff and all those men to warrant spending so much money on it. More resources needed to run that unnessary imho army and the cycle gets worse. As someone said earlier, it's currently a train that will derail. It's not as if the USA doesn't already rule the world. If it wants it, it gets it.
Excellent, you get my point. WE did that first then someone runs with the idea and makes it even worse. We can learn from the past mistakes, though some don't want to.
Sometimes to defend one's self requires him/her to take the offensive. It's still a strategy to defend. It's when the offensive is undertaken not for survival but for the purpose of profit or gain that takes it away altogether from the concept of defense..