"I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget."
I never suggested cutting the defense budget.
"This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases."
What logic are you attributing to me?
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It's unfortunate, but the discussions here take on an adversarial aspect so often that I have to try to discern what the posters are trying to say, when they don't come right out and say it. I'll explain why I took your post to mean that you supported the writer's premise in the article that started the thread.
In your first post to me, you provided a graph depicting the military budget was 18.74% of the overall budget. You quoted my comment regarding the initial post on the thread, "Defense DOES NOT equal 20% of the budget", and then stated, "He (the writer of that article) said roughly a fifth of the budget. 18.74% is close enough." You didn't just provide the information. You also provided an evaluation, a defense (of the writer) of sorts. This lead me to believe you were in support of his positions. What other conclusion would be reasonable?
I did some research and came up with a graph showing the military spending was almost exactly 20%. I did however explain that this was a wartime budget, and that normal military spending is less than this, a smaller percentage. I also mentioned that the complete FBI budget was included in the figures I found.
From my point of view it seemed as if you were trying to prove my post wrong, where I stated military spending wasn't 20%. You having provided that information, it seemed like you were taking the side of the writer, defending his estimate of our military spending. And quite naturally, I responded as if your take on things were similar to his.
Sorry, I have gone round and round here with folks who think our military should be cut considerably. Many of them start out with short comments intended to prove you wrong without being confrontational. When you begin to discuss the matter with them, this whole long ideology unfolds.
Here's a question from my initial post to you. I don't think it's out of line, but look at your response. It was giving you a chance to clairify your position. You could easily have explained that you didn't think your numbers were quite as solid as you first did. We would have dropped the whole thing right there. Instead you refused to respond, after re-posting the question.
Do you believe it’s reasoned to take the military budget in a time of war and use that as your baseline for the military slice of the pie?
I was responding to your statement, "Defense DOES NOT equal 20% of the budget either". Nothing more.
Look at that. You provide a graph that depicts our military spending to be 18.74% of the entire budget, and say that is close enough to prove the writer right. Then when I point out that this is a war-time budget, you suddenly claim to only be providing information, and not interested in making any other comments. That's funny, because earlier you had been willing to comment that the 18.74% was close enough, when it backed the writer. Now that it might not actually back up the writer's premise, you don't want to talk about it.
Okay, so I responded with this:
<>I know you think you scored here, but cutting a war-time budget would leave a woefully inadequate peace-time budget. The military DOES NOT make up 20% of a non-wartime budget.
This is the kind of logic and game-playing that costs us F22 and F35 programs. It cost us half our Navy and many U.S. Military bases.
It might also be of interest to note that the total budget for the FBI was included in that military budget.
I don’t blame you for not addressing more than those figures, because those figures are bogus and misrepresentative for purposes of this discussion. (And they were)
Was it reasonale for me to make these comments? Yes.
You refused to be candid about what the numbers you provided actually meant. How was I supposed to react to that other than to take you to be hostile to my point of view?
Did I state here that you actually backed anything? Well actually no. I merely mentioned what the thinking of people who disagreed with me normally wound up costing us.
Then you responded saying I was lying about you. No, actually I wasn't.
In the future, you may wish to think twice before entering a thread to prove someone wrong, if you're not willing to discuss what the information you provide actually means.
As for the moron who wrote this article, he spend quite a bit of time saying very little in order to post stats that support the notion that military spending is out of control.
And while you didn't actually back him on that point, you were pleased as punch to back some of his underlying claims, specifically the percentage of the full budget, that the military makes up.
Well, it isn't one-fifth of the budget. Sorry to ruin your day. Nice try.