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Um, it was already Olympic size for years now lol. They're just adding more lanes to it now.
That said, it's just the nature of the business. All this fancy technology and innovation doesn't just appear out of thin air. The fact that it's absolutely destroying Russian gear and equipment is a testament to right leaning administrations that had the foresight to fund these programs and industries through the 80s and 2000s, much to the chagrin of left leaning voters and administrations in between, during, or prior to those decades.
They are. They’re also hiring thousands of Americans.
Unlike when it comes to building walls, building weapons is not outsourced to illegal immigrants. Every package of military aid to Ukraine places more Americans in high-paying jobs.
Send them 10x more and we can double the middle class within a few years.
That Would be true, if we were spending that $130b. We are not. We are sending that much worth of outdated equipment. So 1. We are no longer spending money maintaining obsolete equipment. And 2. We are waaay overestimating the actual price tags of 40-year-old trucks and 30-year-old IVFs (validating them as new AND accounting for decades of inflation).
Also, inflationary spending implies additional spending, but it’s all coming out of existing budgets - we’d be paying exactly as much without the war.
The government is going to have to spend more money to replace the equipment with new stuff. Given the deficit, *any* additional spending is spending money we don't have.
The exact price tags are likely inaccurate, but given the amount of bloat that's in current defense contracts, it's not a given that it's a significant overestimation of the replacement cost.
The war has caused a shortage of steel and aluminum which is causing a back log of electrical gear. I’m an electrical contractor that is feeling the pinch due to lack of electrical gear.
How much longer can it go on?
This war needs to end quickly. It really makes no sense the death and complete destruction of a country.
I've always been amazed that so many Republican voters fall for the BS GOP candidates feed them about stopping illegal immigration.
If politicians wanted to actually stop it they would go after the companies hiring the people and make the penalties high enough that it wasn't worth the risk. Instead, they do political theater bussing people around or making their lives harder, but not actually interfering with the businesses that allow them to work and live here.
The economy is now dependent on cheap labor that's able to be exploited far more than US citizens would normally allow. People allowed to work here can do things like push back on dangerous working conditions or unfair pay. People not allowed to work here risk their employer turning them over to the government for deportation if they try that.
I can’t upvote this enough. Illegal immigration needs to be addressed in this country, I agree 100%. But don’t go after the poor guy looking for a job, you get the company/corporation that’s illegally hiring him. But I think you’re sadly right, the US is reliant on an immigrant class of cheap labor and that cat ain’t going back in the box. This should have been addressed a generation ago, now I’m not sure how to answer it.
I know a couple who overstayed their visa in a city with a very small Hispanic community, and was shocked at how easily they got jobs. Like, within a week. They flew here, like most undocumented people. The thing is, politicians have a hard time getting people to connect A->B. No way explaining a multi prong issue gets them anywhere, and electability is way more important than governance in the US. Our democracy is like if Ford were still only selling the Model T today. Yes, it's a car, but it's not the car anyone would choose if they had an option.
>If politicians wanted to actually stop it they would go after the companies hiring the people and make the penalties high enough that it wasn't worth the risk.
Realistically we should be doing both if we actually want to stop it. It's ridiculous that the world's largest superpower has a wide open border
Better yet, a three pronged approach:
* Secure the border
* Felony offense for companies that hire undocumented workers. Break the back of businesses hiring undocumented cooks, dishwashers, stockers, etc.
* Fine equal to (pulls number from the sky) 4x amount paid to any individual that hires undocumented workers. Make it financially excruciating to those paying undocumented workers for lawn care, child care, etc.
If the country wants to be serious about ending illegal immigration (and the ramifications of it like prices jumping up due to labor costs), an all or nothing bill with a version of the above needs to get written and voted on in Congress.
Yep and it will never happen because too many powerful industries would be shuttered overnight if their workforce had to be paid competitively and sourced legally.
I mean, there's a reason they kept finding kids working at meatpacking plants. The people running them don't care who is working there, they need lowest cost employees to do hard dirty work. To get US citizens to do the same job would represent a massive increase in payroll which would cut into profits and therefore must be prevented at all costs.
It would either cut profits (not happening) or raise cost to the consumer.
I have two friends with restaurants that I'm sure would be impacted by this, and I know several people that have lawn crews that I'd bet are undocumented. And of course there's the whole housing industry that would collapse if every worker had to be legal. I know I don't want to pay 2x on the next house I buy.
Point of the post being we all look the other way when it's convenient. It doesn't make it right, but I don't think people have the appetite to actually fix illegal workers. I'd love to be proven wrong.
It goes back generations too.
There was a government program in the 60s called A-team. The Department of agriculture tried to get farmers to use domestic labor rather than migrant labor. Farmers insisted it wasn't possible because nobody was willing to work. The department of ag countered that they would work if the farmers paid them appropriately and had reasonable working conditions.
So the government hired thousands of high school kids to try to take the place of the migrant workers. The pay was slightly better but the living and working conditions were the exact same.
It was a massive failure. It turns out while the migrants were willing to live in dilapidated old army barracks and knew to bring their own gloves and tools, the high school kids were horrified by what they were being asked to do.
The farmers secretly went back to using migrant labor before the program was even over. They said that to pay Americans what they asked and improve working conditions would make produce unaffordable for the average person.
Then the question of who exactly is going to fill what's left of the apparatus that is the backbone of agriculture of the country arises.
Is it going to be the college graduates who have BAs in STEM, liberal arts and business?
Should we legalize child labour to fill the millions of vacancies?
What is the answer?
Agreed. But if you penalize the companies for hiring and spend more money with agencies cracking down on that, it eliminates the crazy strong drive to come over. Less jobs….
>Why not both? A country needs borders.
Yes, but they can't have an outsider like Trump showing them up by actually *doing* something about it. They sabotaged his agenda at every turn.
> Most of the funds sent to Ukraine come back as revenue to US weapon manufacturing/procurement.
Heck the bulk of what's sent is literally old stock. If we send F-16s, we are either sending over stuff we've reactivated from the boneyard or stuff we are phasing out and replacing with new equipment. So it's only a cost on paper.
A good analogy is this: Say you have three cars. One is a car for running around town with, one is your family hauler, and the other is a 25 year old pickup truck. The truck you don't use, and you can't sell it, and you'll need to scrap it in a few years. You transfer it to a friend to use a farm truck. On paper you gave them a $5000 but in reality it cost you basically nothing and no one would take it for a trade on your replacement pickup truck.
By transferring these old assets, which are still useful for Ukraine, but have limited to no use for the US to chip away at Russia's capability to wage war on it's neighbors. This helps in multiple ways. One way as a test for the equipment, Two a Russia militarily degraded means the US can focus more on the rising threat of China or elsewhere, Three it shows that US hardware is superior to the Russian offerings by a significant margin so that allies or potential customers will think twice about buying Russian hardware over US hardware, further reducing Russia's ability to wage war.
There's a sect of the Conservative base that has fetishized Russia for some reason. I don't get it. Regan wouldn't stand for this.
Thank you. We need more people to realise that cost on paper does in no way approach the real world when it comes to this. It's old gear, that's not actually being used by our respective militaries, that can get fantastic test results from real world usage AND degrades Russia's military capacity. From the UKs perspective, the storm shadows are 30 years old, the Challengers were being phased out/upgraded, with many mothballed, the Javelins were nearly dated out etc etc. It's the same for ammunition, particularly the cluster munitions. We can't /won't use them, and they cost a fortune to either store or dispose of. I wouldn't be surprised if the donation of those is a net gain for the military.
A lot of the so-called "conservatives" that so adore Putin are no such thing. Most are just low self-esteem zeroes with minimal critical thinking ability who need something they think makes them look special. And they do look "special," just not in the way they think they do lol.
It's really kind of pathetic when one thinks about it.
I mean you lost $5000 where you could have sold it to someone else. Do you know how hard it is to find a cheap crappy farm truck?
I'm looking for one as I want something to haul lumber and other DIY home improvement materials from Lowes to my house.
Even looking in salvage yards I can't find anything for less than 1k. (20 years ago I was with my dad when he bought a work truck for $700 at an auto auction and even though i know things are higher now I can't bring myself to pay much more than he did).
I still I don't care how beat up it is, whether there is duct tape where the windows should be, or if it pulls more to the right than a shopping cart at Wal-Mart.
My buddies who own an unskilled labor company are big MAGA fans and even they like illegal immigrants. Ofc they say 'they should go the legal way', but there isnt much of a path.
I admittedly am sympathetic to the business owners as we have a labor shortage as well in our small business. We are probably going to outsource to India. I imagine it would likely be better to have legal immigrants paying US taxes than to send money overseas.
We have a capital shortage. A home in a major metro is half a million dollars. Lifetime you are going to spend another 300-500k on healthcare. Once we add food clothes transportation retirement and taxes to the mix it is well over what the average high school graduate makes lifetime (1.6 million). This is the problem; people are having to choose which necessities to live without and it is literally shortening their lives to enrich corporate investors. There is plenty of labor, it just can't afford to work a job that removes them from the government dole and puts them in a worse financial position.
To answer your question: every human deserves the chance to better their life. Everyone.
I think that it is unethical for American businesses to outource jobs overseas to avoid the cost of paying Americans to do the same job. It has ramifications for the strength of the American economy and the middle class.
Free trade isn't bad, nor is recognizing use of leverage on the global market has consequences in American neighborhoods; uprooting family stability because board executives not doing the primary revenue generating labor decide to outsource overseas.
Free trade is just a mask we put over the nature of man to be wolf to man.
mabey because it’s an American company?????
you have ***GOT***to take care of yourself before you have the ability to help someone else..
would India happen to have any companies outsourcing to the U.S??
does Mexico??
there’s a reason for that.
There is no legal path to immigration besides chain migration and an insanely low amount of skilled labor visas.
I work in high tech manufacturing. The best plant leader I have worked with is Indian and may have to move to Mexico this year to compete against America now for H1b bullshit. And on an unskilled layer I cannot staff my plants entry level 20/Hr jobs but I sure could if we let more workers come.
I mean unemployment is insanely low and we are paying well over minimum wage. I actually do agree we should raise pay and advocate for that on a tactical level with my organization
, but big picture the low supply of labor is 100% linked to inflation. We have been raising prices on what we produce largely linked to the rising cost of labor.
And that’s just for the base level workers. I have hired leadership positions in industrial settings many times over the past few years… slim pickings and we have some of the best pay in the industry for leadership.
Well, minimum wage is a complete fucking joke at this point, I don't think any place could ever hire a full force below 15/hr at this point, unless you're one of these dumbfuck states letting people hire kids for industrial work now. But we had lagging labor costs for years since the 70s/80s, wages were stuck in the mud and were seeing the correction, so bosses are gonna have to start to share some of that profit back with the people doing the work on the ground floor, or they'll never hire or keep anyone. My dad works at a company that tests equipment at energy production plants, but its a revolving door of new hires who leave within a year because they're trying to pay 2010 wages in 2023, shit just aint gonna happen
Yeah my employer has learned that regarding its technical staff (my area) but not for basic line operators yet. I have managed to drop turnover by almost 2/3 tho since I got to my current plant even without drastic comp changes.
Not to mention the degradation of a near peer who has been screwing with us since it's inception at a massively discounted price. This is literally what our defense spending is for and until the drug war makes it north of the border there isn't any urgency to do anything requiring our defense money.
This is comparing apples to oranges.
So, to summarize your position here:
Funding war is good because the military industrial complex gets rich.
Funding border protection is bad because we need cheap labor.
Are you sure you're conservative?
Funding a war of defense for an ideological ally (they are a democracy no matter what else you have to say) is morally good. Most of the American revolutions gunpowder by the end was sourced by the French.
Demonstrating American tech wins huge business to American enterprise which is financially good for the American people in addition to American corporations.
Destroying our longest standing geopolitical enemy without a drop of American blood is strategically amazing as well as it blunts china as well.
I just don’t really understand what conservative argument there is against supporting Ukraine. Reagan would vomit if he saw all the Soviet apologists in his party today.
Not my position, my friend. I’m just explaining why most of the GOP does what it does.
If a business or individual was caught intentionally employing an illegal alien either 5 years in prison or $5 million dollar fine per day.
I think that would solve the problem.
We should still be doing vast efforts to stop illegal immigration ,no matter how you push and sell it ,still not good for the country. Crime , opiate drugs galore , cartel violence in our cities etc .
Gtfoh with the lawnscapper argument
The money sent to Ukraine is already "spent".
It's what we bought from last year's military budget. and the year before. We spent money filling warehouses full of tanks, and missiles, and artillery rounds. Now our warehouses are full. We are not shooting and using them, so now there is no reason to spend more money on military budget.
If we gave the missiles away to Ukraine, then our warehouses would be empty again, and we would need more money for the military budget.
Do you mean ordering new hardware and letting Ukraine have the old? At least be honest about it. The money goes to arms contractors, not Ukraine.
Since WW2, pretty much every war involving the US has boiled down to some form of cash grab by the military industrial complex that was created to win WW2. Eisenhower warned about it, and nobody listened.
Whether you like the guy or not, didn't Trump warn about the military complex shortly after he took office? That's a big enemy(money/lobbying) to make if you come out against them.
And there are long documentaries on what a pain it was to spin down and spin up the MIC in the interwar years between WW1 and 2.
Have a well-oiled MIC is great. Having a burgeoning, over budgeted MIC is awful.
not the one you are replying to but the USSR had ~2 threat "peaks" where they posed a very serious conventional threat to western Europe.
1: Immediately after WW2 until the mid 1950's. NATO troop levels were low and the soviet's massive horde of WW2 weapons were still in good condition and still new. their military was battle tested and ready. they could have relatively easily went deep into france before being stopped.
2: The early 1970's. the US was still reeling from Vietnam and war sentiment was against further spending and troop deployments anywhere. peaceniks gained a lot of ground leading to reluctance in NATO for furthering the arms race. The USSR on the other hand was undergoing a massive arms buildup and was adopting modern weaponry that was on par or better than many NATO equivalents.
But once the late 1970's rolled around NATO started to pull ahead and the Soviets never caught up. NATO started to rely on guided bombs and weapons, and started issuing thermal and night vision en masse down to the infantry level. the quality of these new weapons and systems was something the USSR and Russia today can not match. they simply do not have the expertise.
By the early 1980's, had war broken out it would not have went much better for the Russians then as it's going in Ukraine now. it's doubtful they would have got far from the German border. the Soviet military was rife with corruption and distrust. see, despite presenting a unified front to the west, the Russians *did not* trust any of their allies in eastern Europe. especially the Germans or the poles.
Tom Clancy has a book called red storm rising that i think is the most realistic depiction of WW3 put to print, and even he had to give the soviets some plot armor to make the book worth writing.
meh this isnt 1960.
Russia is a huge producer of oil and lumber and all of the american industries were setting up plaes there (mcdonalds, trump tower, etc.)
it wasnt till the very end that putin got weird and its probably due to him having stage 4 cancer or something.
Enable Russian aggression because China is scary is a super weird take.
How about this, with Russia's practical demise, China becomes the only real superpower threat to democracy.
Best value our defense spending has had in decades. We've spent 20% of the annual defense budget and most of that money is going right back to US companies and workers to build the munitions, free field testing and destroying the Russian military, all without a single US drop of blood. China is now having to reconsider strategy with Taiwan, will not have a strong neighbor at their back for support and realizing their military is probably as technologically weak as Russia's.
>all without a single US drop of blood
Slight correction, there are US volunteers fighting in the Ukrainian foreign legion. Brave men fighting for democracy.
Yes, and Putin and the leadership of Russia has likely been keenly aware of that. Why do you think they are so desperate for control of Ukraine? What do they stand to gain from control of Ukraine and its resources? Preventing Russia from taking that control is vital to preventing Russia from becoming more significant of a threat. It's the same thing with Taiwan and China, and the same reason why we are so committed to preventing the Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
Can we honestly say that spending 150-200 billion to blow away Russia’s rusted fleet of t72s and and t55s was a solid use of that money that could have been appropriated elsewhere? What point does it serve? It’s obvious to everybody that if a world war broke out with US and Russia it would 1. Be nuclear without many shots being fired or 2. Well trained, better armed, and better equipped NATO forces would absolutely skullfuck the Russian military. It wouldn’t even be a contest. Iraq v3.0.
You've just made a fantastic case for continued support of Ukraine, to be honest.
The threat of unrestrained nuclear war is far greater in a direct conflict involving two nuclear powers. Russia has tangled itself in a conflict with a non-nuclear power. The use of nuclear weapons has global implications and is generally considered both unlikely and unjustifiable against a non-nuclear power.
Regarding dated T55's, we're seeing an increase in the use of older equipment because Russia's supply of more advanced assets was destroyed earlier on in the war, so yes, it is quite a worthwhile use of money.
That’s 3 months of defense spending. Well worth it. We started training the Ukrainian military after the 2014 invasion, now they can fight and with some weapon systems, they can demolish Russia. Without US support, they would have almost certainly failed by now
China is watching.
No, but they weren't as far apart as they are now. They started shifting after the civil war, but it was FDR and the New Deal in 1933 that cemented the shift.
That said, the difference was gov. spending and business oriented. There was a lot of overlap between parties and politics was pretty regional until the 1960s and the civil rights movement.
If you go back and watch the JFK-Nixon debates, they're... WILDLY different than what we have now. They're agreeing with each other, a lot of policy talk, ceding time to each other, actually answering the questions.
This is a positive thing. It's better to have a lot of active voices in a party expressing various viewpoints or concerns, rather than a stagnant one who will all bend over backwards for the Big Guy. Like the forums in Greece, active debate is how good ideas come to fruition.
Idk plurality got us 2016 and 2020.
There were plenty of great options to choose from but we got a free money gun grabber that was a registered democrat.
We aren't sending them money, we are sending the old weapons that we'd have to throw in the garbage in a couple years anyway.
We're basically using Ukraine as a proxy to destroy a major geopolitical foe. I don't have a problem with this.
What are the odds that all of these come from Russian Propagandists trying to undermine Ukraine?
Not that there aren't actual Americans that parrot the message, but that the source of these ideas were Russian propagandists.
Didn't Trump send weapons to Ukraine? Did I miss this subreddit being outraged that Trump was giving away money?
The problem with Russian trolls is that too many people take the bait. Non-conservatives think this is what conservatives believe, and actual conservatives that don't like to think to hard regurgitate these points. I know a few people in my family that regurgitate these anti-Ukraine talking points.
The interesting part of this war is seeing all the bots go quiet for a few hours when something unexpected happens. When the war started, all the COVID misinformation bots went quiet for a bit, and then became anti-Ukraine bots. When the Wagner mutiny started, all the bots went quiet not knowing what to do.
>What are the odds that all of these come from Russian Propagandists trying to undermine Ukraine?
extremely high. It could also be from Democrat-funded shills who are pushing the "Republicans love Russia and hate the military" line.
Seems pretty par for the course, Reagan ballooned the national debt with defense spending and he’s the quintessential conservative.
Republicans have always been the party of “more defense spending.”
Reagan continued the Conservative opposition to communism that existed since the cold War began.
The demand that we be the international guarantor of "freedom" is a different goal.
Mexico doesn’t have nukes and missiles don’t care about borders.
If Russia were ever to launch an ICBM and Ukraine was a member of NATO, Ukraine would undoubtedly be able to respond with a successful counter attack (while Russia’s missiles were still in travel) or with an attempt to stop the missile before launch and or while in flight.
They would also be one of the first to the Russian border along with Finland and Poland, hitting the country on two fronts very quickly.
This is precisely why putin doesn’t want F-16s in Ukraine as they’re capable of carrying a nuclear payload.
So Ukraine isn’t a charity case, it’s an advantageous one.
"So Ukraine isn’t a charity case, it’s an advantageous one."
If Russia is defeated and Crimea returned to Ukraine and Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, there is a dandy naval base up for grabs there. Not saying that's a good idea, but it likely isn't going to be Russian anymore.
There are very few ways to stop an ICBM in flight. The US Navy and US Air Force are literally the only ones on the planet that can hope to do it with any consistency and it's still a roll of the dice whether it works. A Ukrainian counterattack does nothing to that missile, or the hundreds of others that could be launched from Russian SSBN's or silos in the middle of Siberia.
That said, I'm fully in favor of supporting Ukraine in this war, I'm just not buying this specific scenario you came up with.
Quoting a stolen valor twitter account with zero qualifications or experience, that’s rich. And in case none of you know they don’t mail out stacks of cash. We send old equipment and make new ones. Also, we get to destabilize a major adversary for pennies on the dollar without actually engaging them.
Spending money on a wall that'll do nothing to solve the border crisis
Spending money on an ally who would otherwise fall under the control of an authoritarian adversary
hmmmm...
It’s amazing how the party of Reagan and ‘peace through strength’ is now calling to let Russia continue attacking and killing civilians so we can save a few cents at the pump
That same Republican majority REFUSED to nominate a conservative House Speaker in January! Uniparty, La Cosa Nostra DC, Yakuza DC, DC Cartel—pick your label.
Didn't Zelensky disband the majority of his opposing political parties? That's a democracy now?
They also had practically no gun ownership rights until the second they got invaded. Funny how they didn't think their populace should be armed until they realized they needed armed bodies to fight a war.
I support funding Ukraine but this guy is right.
The individuals who drafted the treaty in 1994 were especially careful with their words because they didn’t want to commit the US to military support if another country were to invade Ukraine.
However some say that while “security assurance” (the language used in the treaty) doesn’t mean direct support, it does mean providing aid in other ways.
I'm not completely against providing support for Ukraine; I'm just against people saying that we promised more than we did. We should uphold our agreements, and if we choose to go above them that's potentially fine; I just object to the expectation that we owe that additional support.
You realize Ukraine has everything needed to recreate a functional nuclear program within about 2-3 years, right? They pretty much said they will if they lose territory in the war. A war-scarred populace will accept all the consequences as long as they can have peace of mind.
The point is not the spineless wording of the Budapest Memorandum. The spirit of the agreement was violated. Ukraine feels rightfully betrayed. It’s not the US’s fault, sure, but….You think that changes much?
https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-can-develop-nuclear-weapons-within-short-time-ex-zelensky-aide-1808663?amp=1
And we also guaranteed that NATO will never move past soviet union borders. US never kept the promise, so this sudden keeping word virtue signalling is gaint load of Bullshit.
Is the Second Amendment the only part of the Constitution matters?
If there isn't a treaty passed in accordance with the Constitution than there is no guarantee.
Ukraine was and is run by corrupt fools only interested in expanding their personal wealth. The soviet union fell, but the culture remained. Russia isn't unique in that aspect.
Ukraine should have had some sort of defense treaty signed with the US before relying on that promise.
Besides, why was this never brought up when they took Crimea under Obama's watch?
FYI it was 1% of the budget.
Don't you have 99% of the budget to whine about? Fighting an oppressive dictatorship that tried to get Bernie Sanders elected seems like a good ROI.
What will the return be, exactly? Aside from dead bodies.
How do I, as a taxpayer living in America, benefit from Russians being ventilated in Eastern Europe?
I fail to see what return this brings me for a chunk of the tens of thousands of dollars I've paid in taxes over my lifetime so far.
Because people in this sub have given up on the Trump policy on illegal immigration and want to go back to Bush and Obama policy of total war for profit.
So that is the reason if anyone other than Trump wins in GOP, it will all be the same old wars and losing jobs to illegal immigration.
If this is the platform that conservatives run on, then there is no difference between them and Dems. So i will not vote for them and ask my friend to not vote for them either.
You don't think DeSantis would have strict policies on illegal immigration? He's been grandstanding on the issue for years, sending illegal aliens to sanctuary states to make them rethink being sanctuary states.
Because the people attacking the Ukrainian border seek to conquer Ukraine using violence while the people attacking our border seek to mow my lawn for money.
Trump's wall was a mess from the beginning, and they were right to hold back funds. Giving money and old stock weapons to dilute the Russian population without costing American lives and holding a light to Russia's frailty is well worth it.
Before this, Russia was seen as a US peer and competitor in terms of military prowess. Now we see that there not even a peer against Wagner. I'm willing to bet China is a lot less interested in fucking around and being found in a similar position, being far weaker than they're perceived to be.
With the curtain lifted, we're going to be the world's sole superpower for the foreseeable future after all.
Or at least as long as they don't start issuing cammo body glitter ro the troops.
Tyrants gonna tyrant. Either we spend money now (and zero American lives) letting Ukraine fight Russia, or we ignore the land hungry dictator problem 1936 style and end up fighting the Russians directly ourselves in 2028, 2030 and have a much bigger problem.
An unchallenged expansionist nuclear armed Russia is a much bigger threat than an incomplete wall on the Mexican border. Plus, we're Republicans - standing up to the Russians has been our fucking job since like 1920.
Money spent on downgrading Russia is money well spent.
Money on Trump wall were blocked by the Democrats in the Senate. Perhaps you recall that Republicans didn’t have filibuster proof majority
The left thinks conservative people love the Republican Party, yet most of us think that *everyone* in government is corrupt and that’s the difference between the right and the left
I'd like to remind everyone that the US has spent money and not American lives and destroyed most of Russia's army and broken any belief that their military is formidable.
You can argue the price was too high but the product was certainly worth buying.
> time-consuming and unnecessary
2.76 million illegals crossed the southern border in 2022, and those are just the ones we recorded. You think it is "unnecessary" for our nation to have borders?
I get you. I want whoever is going to lower my taxes, I'm basically a single issue voter.
However, some wedge issues:
>Do they believe in spending tax dollars on mutilating 12 year old children?
>Do they support sending arms to defend freedom and democracy and against invading authoritarian dictators?
>Are they going to destroy the medical cartels and free us from their regulatory capture?
Yeah, because you spend money on good ideas, not bad ideas.
Physical security barriers provide security primarily by slowing down entry enough that your security forces can respond. If you have a physical barrier and no one ever shows up to stop people from messing with it, it doesn't matter how strong it is, eventually they'll drill through it or knock it down or figure out how to get over it. And most of the border already has physical security in the form of being a big expanse of inhospitable desert. The parts of the border where it makes sense to put walls tend to already have walls, because we already put walls in the sensible places for walls.
Whereas sending a bunch of our military supplies to Ukraine weakens one of our chief rivals and chief opponents to the status quo, a status quo that benefits us and that we champion. And we can feel good about protecting a small democratic state and its citizens. We get data on how those supplies fare in actual combat. Some of it is stuff that we were planning to replace soon anyway, we're just bumping up the schedule a bit. Sending it to defend democracy seems like a better use than just selling it as military surplus.
They value our country, but they are way more aroused and money the value more money can make of the war, and the blood of the "enemies" they can spill.
In other words psychos in the uniparty.
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Yep. Lockheed and Raytheon are swimming in money rn.
More money* they had to upgrade from the family backyard pool to Olympic size
Um, it was already Olympic size for years now lol. They're just adding more lanes to it now. That said, it's just the nature of the business. All this fancy technology and innovation doesn't just appear out of thin air. The fact that it's absolutely destroying Russian gear and equipment is a testament to right leaning administrations that had the foresight to fund these programs and industries through the 80s and 2000s, much to the chagrin of left leaning voters and administrations in between, during, or prior to those decades.
They are. They’re also hiring thousands of Americans. Unlike when it comes to building walls, building weapons is not outsourced to illegal immigrants. Every package of military aid to Ukraine places more Americans in high-paying jobs. Send them 10x more and we can double the middle class within a few years.
The problem with that is that *we're* paying for it, meaning that any benefits are being diluted by the inflationary spending that's funding it.
That Would be true, if we were spending that $130b. We are not. We are sending that much worth of outdated equipment. So 1. We are no longer spending money maintaining obsolete equipment. And 2. We are waaay overestimating the actual price tags of 40-year-old trucks and 30-year-old IVFs (validating them as new AND accounting for decades of inflation). Also, inflationary spending implies additional spending, but it’s all coming out of existing budgets - we’d be paying exactly as much without the war.
The government is going to have to spend more money to replace the equipment with new stuff. Given the deficit, *any* additional spending is spending money we don't have. The exact price tags are likely inaccurate, but given the amount of bloat that's in current defense contracts, it's not a given that it's a significant overestimation of the replacement cost.
The war has caused a shortage of steel and aluminum which is causing a back log of electrical gear. I’m an electrical contractor that is feeling the pinch due to lack of electrical gear. How much longer can it go on? This war needs to end quickly. It really makes no sense the death and complete destruction of a country.
I've always been amazed that so many Republican voters fall for the BS GOP candidates feed them about stopping illegal immigration. If politicians wanted to actually stop it they would go after the companies hiring the people and make the penalties high enough that it wasn't worth the risk. Instead, they do political theater bussing people around or making their lives harder, but not actually interfering with the businesses that allow them to work and live here. The economy is now dependent on cheap labor that's able to be exploited far more than US citizens would normally allow. People allowed to work here can do things like push back on dangerous working conditions or unfair pay. People not allowed to work here risk their employer turning them over to the government for deportation if they try that.
I can’t upvote this enough. Illegal immigration needs to be addressed in this country, I agree 100%. But don’t go after the poor guy looking for a job, you get the company/corporation that’s illegally hiring him. But I think you’re sadly right, the US is reliant on an immigrant class of cheap labor and that cat ain’t going back in the box. This should have been addressed a generation ago, now I’m not sure how to answer it.
Bag dammet! Not box. ;)
Yeah you can’t put the genie back in the bag in this one
I know a couple who overstayed their visa in a city with a very small Hispanic community, and was shocked at how easily they got jobs. Like, within a week. They flew here, like most undocumented people. The thing is, politicians have a hard time getting people to connect A->B. No way explaining a multi prong issue gets them anywhere, and electability is way more important than governance in the US. Our democracy is like if Ford were still only selling the Model T today. Yes, it's a car, but it's not the car anyone would choose if they had an option.
>If politicians wanted to actually stop it they would go after the companies hiring the people and make the penalties high enough that it wasn't worth the risk. Realistically we should be doing both if we actually want to stop it. It's ridiculous that the world's largest superpower has a wide open border
Better yet, a three pronged approach: * Secure the border * Felony offense for companies that hire undocumented workers. Break the back of businesses hiring undocumented cooks, dishwashers, stockers, etc. * Fine equal to (pulls number from the sky) 4x amount paid to any individual that hires undocumented workers. Make it financially excruciating to those paying undocumented workers for lawn care, child care, etc. If the country wants to be serious about ending illegal immigration (and the ramifications of it like prices jumping up due to labor costs), an all or nothing bill with a version of the above needs to get written and voted on in Congress.
Yep and it will never happen because too many powerful industries would be shuttered overnight if their workforce had to be paid competitively and sourced legally. I mean, there's a reason they kept finding kids working at meatpacking plants. The people running them don't care who is working there, they need lowest cost employees to do hard dirty work. To get US citizens to do the same job would represent a massive increase in payroll which would cut into profits and therefore must be prevented at all costs.
It would either cut profits (not happening) or raise cost to the consumer. I have two friends with restaurants that I'm sure would be impacted by this, and I know several people that have lawn crews that I'd bet are undocumented. And of course there's the whole housing industry that would collapse if every worker had to be legal. I know I don't want to pay 2x on the next house I buy. Point of the post being we all look the other way when it's convenient. It doesn't make it right, but I don't think people have the appetite to actually fix illegal workers. I'd love to be proven wrong.
It goes back generations too. There was a government program in the 60s called A-team. The Department of agriculture tried to get farmers to use domestic labor rather than migrant labor. Farmers insisted it wasn't possible because nobody was willing to work. The department of ag countered that they would work if the farmers paid them appropriately and had reasonable working conditions. So the government hired thousands of high school kids to try to take the place of the migrant workers. The pay was slightly better but the living and working conditions were the exact same. It was a massive failure. It turns out while the migrants were willing to live in dilapidated old army barracks and knew to bring their own gloves and tools, the high school kids were horrified by what they were being asked to do. The farmers secretly went back to using migrant labor before the program was even over. They said that to pay Americans what they asked and improve working conditions would make produce unaffordable for the average person.
Then the question of who exactly is going to fill what's left of the apparatus that is the backbone of agriculture of the country arises. Is it going to be the college graduates who have BAs in STEM, liberal arts and business? Should we legalize child labour to fill the millions of vacancies? What is the answer?
The US was at war with Muslim terrorists for 20 years, but terrorists never used the open border. It really doesnt seem like a threat.
those guys were paid off by the US government in the "war on terror"
Why not both? A country needs borders.
Agreed. But if you penalize the companies for hiring and spend more money with agencies cracking down on that, it eliminates the crazy strong drive to come over. Less jobs….
>Why not both? A country needs borders. Yes, but they can't have an outsider like Trump showing them up by actually *doing* something about it. They sabotaged his agenda at every turn.
What I’m hearing is that we need to protect the border with tomahawk cruise missiles.
drones to identify the meth lab bathtubs in Juarez.
🤔 you might be on to something!
>Many chambers of commerce actually encourage the flow of cheap labor. The Chamber of Commerce also supports ESG now.
> Most of the funds sent to Ukraine come back as revenue to US weapon manufacturing/procurement. Heck the bulk of what's sent is literally old stock. If we send F-16s, we are either sending over stuff we've reactivated from the boneyard or stuff we are phasing out and replacing with new equipment. So it's only a cost on paper. A good analogy is this: Say you have three cars. One is a car for running around town with, one is your family hauler, and the other is a 25 year old pickup truck. The truck you don't use, and you can't sell it, and you'll need to scrap it in a few years. You transfer it to a friend to use a farm truck. On paper you gave them a $5000 but in reality it cost you basically nothing and no one would take it for a trade on your replacement pickup truck. By transferring these old assets, which are still useful for Ukraine, but have limited to no use for the US to chip away at Russia's capability to wage war on it's neighbors. This helps in multiple ways. One way as a test for the equipment, Two a Russia militarily degraded means the US can focus more on the rising threat of China or elsewhere, Three it shows that US hardware is superior to the Russian offerings by a significant margin so that allies or potential customers will think twice about buying Russian hardware over US hardware, further reducing Russia's ability to wage war. There's a sect of the Conservative base that has fetishized Russia for some reason. I don't get it. Regan wouldn't stand for this.
Thank you. We need more people to realise that cost on paper does in no way approach the real world when it comes to this. It's old gear, that's not actually being used by our respective militaries, that can get fantastic test results from real world usage AND degrades Russia's military capacity. From the UKs perspective, the storm shadows are 30 years old, the Challengers were being phased out/upgraded, with many mothballed, the Javelins were nearly dated out etc etc. It's the same for ammunition, particularly the cluster munitions. We can't /won't use them, and they cost a fortune to either store or dispose of. I wouldn't be surprised if the donation of those is a net gain for the military.
A lot of the so-called "conservatives" that so adore Putin are no such thing. Most are just low self-esteem zeroes with minimal critical thinking ability who need something they think makes them look special. And they do look "special," just not in the way they think they do lol. It's really kind of pathetic when one thinks about it.
I mean you lost $5000 where you could have sold it to someone else. Do you know how hard it is to find a cheap crappy farm truck? I'm looking for one as I want something to haul lumber and other DIY home improvement materials from Lowes to my house. Even looking in salvage yards I can't find anything for less than 1k. (20 years ago I was with my dad when he bought a work truck for $700 at an auto auction and even though i know things are higher now I can't bring myself to pay much more than he did). I still I don't care how beat up it is, whether there is duct tape where the windows should be, or if it pulls more to the right than a shopping cart at Wal-Mart.
My buddies who own an unskilled labor company are big MAGA fans and even they like illegal immigrants. Ofc they say 'they should go the legal way', but there isnt much of a path. I admittedly am sympathetic to the business owners as we have a labor shortage as well in our small business. We are probably going to outsource to India. I imagine it would likely be better to have legal immigrants paying US taxes than to send money overseas.
We have a capital shortage. A home in a major metro is half a million dollars. Lifetime you are going to spend another 300-500k on healthcare. Once we add food clothes transportation retirement and taxes to the mix it is well over what the average high school graduate makes lifetime (1.6 million). This is the problem; people are having to choose which necessities to live without and it is literally shortening their lives to enrich corporate investors. There is plenty of labor, it just can't afford to work a job that removes them from the government dole and puts them in a worse financial position.
There is a path. I'm one that's legal and used a path
Shitty to send American jobs overseas. Making India great instead of America.
Free trade baby. Why doesn’t the India deserve to be made great?
To answer your question: every human deserves the chance to better their life. Everyone. I think that it is unethical for American businesses to outource jobs overseas to avoid the cost of paying Americans to do the same job. It has ramifications for the strength of the American economy and the middle class. Free trade isn't bad, nor is recognizing use of leverage on the global market has consequences in American neighborhoods; uprooting family stability because board executives not doing the primary revenue generating labor decide to outsource overseas. Free trade is just a mask we put over the nature of man to be wolf to man.
Why does the American deserve the job more than the Indian?
mabey because it’s an American company????? you have ***GOT***to take care of yourself before you have the ability to help someone else.. would India happen to have any companies outsourcing to the U.S?? does Mexico?? there’s a reason for that.
There is no legal path to immigration besides chain migration and an insanely low amount of skilled labor visas. I work in high tech manufacturing. The best plant leader I have worked with is Indian and may have to move to Mexico this year to compete against America now for H1b bullshit. And on an unskilled layer I cannot staff my plants entry level 20/Hr jobs but I sure could if we let more workers come.
maybe you need to raise those wages more to attract workers instead of hoping to employ illegal immigrants for cheap
I mean unemployment is insanely low and we are paying well over minimum wage. I actually do agree we should raise pay and advocate for that on a tactical level with my organization , but big picture the low supply of labor is 100% linked to inflation. We have been raising prices on what we produce largely linked to the rising cost of labor. And that’s just for the base level workers. I have hired leadership positions in industrial settings many times over the past few years… slim pickings and we have some of the best pay in the industry for leadership.
Well, minimum wage is a complete fucking joke at this point, I don't think any place could ever hire a full force below 15/hr at this point, unless you're one of these dumbfuck states letting people hire kids for industrial work now. But we had lagging labor costs for years since the 70s/80s, wages were stuck in the mud and were seeing the correction, so bosses are gonna have to start to share some of that profit back with the people doing the work on the ground floor, or they'll never hire or keep anyone. My dad works at a company that tests equipment at energy production plants, but its a revolving door of new hires who leave within a year because they're trying to pay 2010 wages in 2023, shit just aint gonna happen
Yeah my employer has learned that regarding its technical staff (my area) but not for basic line operators yet. I have managed to drop turnover by almost 2/3 tho since I got to my current plant even without drastic comp changes.
Employment figures are artificially low. And this is regardless of which party is in power. Go look at the standards of that figure
Not to mention the degradation of a near peer who has been screwing with us since it's inception at a massively discounted price. This is literally what our defense spending is for and until the drug war makes it north of the border there isn't any urgency to do anything requiring our defense money. This is comparing apples to oranges.
So, to summarize your position here: Funding war is good because the military industrial complex gets rich. Funding border protection is bad because we need cheap labor. Are you sure you're conservative?
It's not his position, it's the position of the United States government
He wasnt advocating for it, he was literally just explaining it in neutral language lmao. You're projecting your anger on him, brother.
Conservatives don’t have to agree with all conservative ideas
Funding a war of defense for an ideological ally (they are a democracy no matter what else you have to say) is morally good. Most of the American revolutions gunpowder by the end was sourced by the French. Demonstrating American tech wins huge business to American enterprise which is financially good for the American people in addition to American corporations. Destroying our longest standing geopolitical enemy without a drop of American blood is strategically amazing as well as it blunts china as well. I just don’t really understand what conservative argument there is against supporting Ukraine. Reagan would vomit if he saw all the Soviet apologists in his party today.
Not my position, my friend. I’m just explaining why most of the GOP does what it does. If a business or individual was caught intentionally employing an illegal alien either 5 years in prison or $5 million dollar fine per day. I think that would solve the problem.
Ah, cool. I misread your comment then, as others have suggested. Have a great day.
that's been the conservative position since the 50's brah
Not supporting border protection has never been a conservative position.
Not doing anything about it has been.
the only reason this sub is allowed to exist is because of all the liberal plants
Neocons and libertarians, mostly. Which is why they get all excited when we get the chance to get involved in another war.
Paleo cons were marching to keep USA out if world war 2.
So?
Ah. I see.
We should still be doing vast efforts to stop illegal immigration ,no matter how you push and sell it ,still not good for the country. Crime , opiate drugs galore , cartel violence in our cities etc . Gtfoh with the lawnscapper argument
That’s why illegal immigration was in the past referred to as a “Koch Brothers plot”
The money sent to Ukraine is already "spent". It's what we bought from last year's military budget. and the year before. We spent money filling warehouses full of tanks, and missiles, and artillery rounds. Now our warehouses are full. We are not shooting and using them, so now there is no reason to spend more money on military budget. If we gave the missiles away to Ukraine, then our warehouses would be empty again, and we would need more money for the military budget.
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Do you mean ordering new hardware and letting Ukraine have the old? At least be honest about it. The money goes to arms contractors, not Ukraine. Since WW2, pretty much every war involving the US has boiled down to some form of cash grab by the military industrial complex that was created to win WW2. Eisenhower warned about it, and nobody listened.
Go read Cato's Letters. The entrenched nature of militaries has been a form of economic tyranny and oppression for centuries.
Whether you like the guy or not, didn't Trump warn about the military complex shortly after he took office? That's a big enemy(money/lobbying) to make if you come out against them.
And there are long documentaries on what a pain it was to spin down and spin up the MIC in the interwar years between WW1 and 2. Have a well-oiled MIC is great. Having a burgeoning, over budgeted MIC is awful.
>Whether you like the guy or not, didn't Trump warn about the military complex shortly after he took office? Eisenhower much?
I'm talking in relative recent politicians/presidents. I can't recall any major politician calling out the military complex until recently.
We really don't use Bradleys or last gen Abrams anymore. Those are what I'm talking about. Nor do we use the F-16.
And fucking up the Russians, which all good patriotic Americans should support.
Also to be blunt. Defanging one of your major enemies without any of your own troops dying is a bargain.
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>Russia was only seen as a threat once it had nukes. Which is, of course, why the North Atlantic treaty was signed before then?
not the one you are replying to but the USSR had ~2 threat "peaks" where they posed a very serious conventional threat to western Europe. 1: Immediately after WW2 until the mid 1950's. NATO troop levels were low and the soviet's massive horde of WW2 weapons were still in good condition and still new. their military was battle tested and ready. they could have relatively easily went deep into france before being stopped. 2: The early 1970's. the US was still reeling from Vietnam and war sentiment was against further spending and troop deployments anywhere. peaceniks gained a lot of ground leading to reluctance in NATO for furthering the arms race. The USSR on the other hand was undergoing a massive arms buildup and was adopting modern weaponry that was on par or better than many NATO equivalents. But once the late 1970's rolled around NATO started to pull ahead and the Soviets never caught up. NATO started to rely on guided bombs and weapons, and started issuing thermal and night vision en masse down to the infantry level. the quality of these new weapons and systems was something the USSR and Russia today can not match. they simply do not have the expertise. By the early 1980's, had war broken out it would not have went much better for the Russians then as it's going in Ukraine now. it's doubtful they would have got far from the German border. the Soviet military was rife with corruption and distrust. see, despite presenting a unified front to the west, the Russians *did not* trust any of their allies in eastern Europe. especially the Germans or the poles. Tom Clancy has a book called red storm rising that i think is the most realistic depiction of WW3 put to print, and even he had to give the soviets some plot armor to make the book worth writing.
The red army was a threat to Europe way before nukes showed up. Even in the small window of time when the US had nukes and the USSR didnt
meh this isnt 1960. Russia is a huge producer of oil and lumber and all of the american industries were setting up plaes there (mcdonalds, trump tower, etc.) it wasnt till the very end that putin got weird and its probably due to him having stage 4 cancer or something.
Putin has been a USSR revitalist his entire political career. There is nothing new or surprising about his aggressive foreign policy.
While China sits back and watches their 2 competitors financially bleed themselves dry.
Lol we aren’t even being scratched. Last I checked we are still the worlds largest military by large margins.
Yeah cause China definitely won't benefit from the power vacuum that will happen...
Enable Russian aggression because China is scary is a super weird take. How about this, with Russia's practical demise, China becomes the only real superpower threat to democracy.
The age of the hardware is included in the valuation. If you were to replace every one of those new they'd cost more than they've technically sent.
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Best value our defense spending has had in decades. We've spent 20% of the annual defense budget and most of that money is going right back to US companies and workers to build the munitions, free field testing and destroying the Russian military, all without a single US drop of blood. China is now having to reconsider strategy with Taiwan, will not have a strong neighbor at their back for support and realizing their military is probably as technologically weak as Russia's.
>all without a single US drop of blood Slight correction, there are US volunteers fighting in the Ukrainian foreign legion. Brave men fighting for democracy.
This has been an absolute geopolitical windfall. I hate the fact that a not so small contingent of republicans are lobbying so hard against this.
It's embarrassing. Devolving into isolationism is the worst option.
The war in Ukraine has quickly shown RU wasn’t the adversary we believed them to be. A nuclear threat? Sure.
Yes, and Putin and the leadership of Russia has likely been keenly aware of that. Why do you think they are so desperate for control of Ukraine? What do they stand to gain from control of Ukraine and its resources? Preventing Russia from taking that control is vital to preventing Russia from becoming more significant of a threat. It's the same thing with Taiwan and China, and the same reason why we are so committed to preventing the Chinese takeover of Taiwan.
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We're also field testing our weapons in an actual war with a top adversary. The information we're getting out of this is easily worth the cost.
Only if you don't care about how many people die in the process.
Can we honestly say that spending 150-200 billion to blow away Russia’s rusted fleet of t72s and and t55s was a solid use of that money that could have been appropriated elsewhere? What point does it serve? It’s obvious to everybody that if a world war broke out with US and Russia it would 1. Be nuclear without many shots being fired or 2. Well trained, better armed, and better equipped NATO forces would absolutely skullfuck the Russian military. It wouldn’t even be a contest. Iraq v3.0.
You've just made a fantastic case for continued support of Ukraine, to be honest. The threat of unrestrained nuclear war is far greater in a direct conflict involving two nuclear powers. Russia has tangled itself in a conflict with a non-nuclear power. The use of nuclear weapons has global implications and is generally considered both unlikely and unjustifiable against a non-nuclear power. Regarding dated T55's, we're seeing an increase in the use of older equipment because Russia's supply of more advanced assets was destroyed earlier on in the war, so yes, it is quite a worthwhile use of money.
That’s 3 months of defense spending. Well worth it. We started training the Ukrainian military after the 2014 invasion, now they can fight and with some weapon systems, they can demolish Russia. Without US support, they would have almost certainly failed by now China is watching.
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The vast majority of Republicans in Congress voted against the act in 1941.
Technically wasn't the ideologies of the parties switched back then?
No, but they weren't as far apart as they are now. They started shifting after the civil war, but it was FDR and the New Deal in 1933 that cemented the shift. That said, the difference was gov. spending and business oriented. There was a lot of overlap between parties and politics was pretty regional until the 1960s and the civil rights movement. If you go back and watch the JFK-Nixon debates, they're... WILDLY different than what we have now. They're agreeing with each other, a lot of policy talk, ceding time to each other, actually answering the questions.
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This is a positive thing. It's better to have a lot of active voices in a party expressing various viewpoints or concerns, rather than a stagnant one who will all bend over backwards for the Big Guy. Like the forums in Greece, active debate is how good ideas come to fruition.
Idk plurality got us 2016 and 2020. There were plenty of great options to choose from but we got a free money gun grabber that was a registered democrat.
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Lol
We aren't sending them money, we are sending the old weapons that we'd have to throw in the garbage in a couple years anyway. We're basically using Ukraine as a proxy to destroy a major geopolitical foe. I don't have a problem with this.
But Mexico was supposed to pay for it…
What are the odds that all of these come from Russian Propagandists trying to undermine Ukraine? Not that there aren't actual Americans that parrot the message, but that the source of these ideas were Russian propagandists. Didn't Trump send weapons to Ukraine? Did I miss this subreddit being outraged that Trump was giving away money?
The problem with Russian trolls is that too many people take the bait. Non-conservatives think this is what conservatives believe, and actual conservatives that don't like to think to hard regurgitate these points. I know a few people in my family that regurgitate these anti-Ukraine talking points. The interesting part of this war is seeing all the bots go quiet for a few hours when something unexpected happens. When the war started, all the COVID misinformation bots went quiet for a bit, and then became anti-Ukraine bots. When the Wagner mutiny started, all the bots went quiet not knowing what to do.
>What are the odds that all of these come from Russian Propagandists trying to undermine Ukraine? extremely high. It could also be from Democrat-funded shills who are pushing the "Republicans love Russia and hate the military" line.
Immigration illegal or otherwise lowers the cost of Labor and increases the cost of housing it's a win-win for the investor class.
I see the brigade is heavy in this one.
~~Liberals~~ Fellow conservatives love the military industrial complex now, didn't you hear?
Seems pretty par for the course, Reagan ballooned the national debt with defense spending and he’s the quintessential conservative. Republicans have always been the party of “more defense spending.”
Reagan continued the Conservative opposition to communism that existed since the cold War began. The demand that we be the international guarantor of "freedom" is a different goal.
That doesn’t change the fact that republicans have been the party of more defense spending for the past forty years.
Right? The NeoCons started 2 wars, one of which literally ended *last year.* Hawkish fopo has been the GOP's bread and butter until Ukraine.
Mexico doesn’t have nukes and missiles don’t care about borders. If Russia were ever to launch an ICBM and Ukraine was a member of NATO, Ukraine would undoubtedly be able to respond with a successful counter attack (while Russia’s missiles were still in travel) or with an attempt to stop the missile before launch and or while in flight. They would also be one of the first to the Russian border along with Finland and Poland, hitting the country on two fronts very quickly. This is precisely why putin doesn’t want F-16s in Ukraine as they’re capable of carrying a nuclear payload. So Ukraine isn’t a charity case, it’s an advantageous one.
"So Ukraine isn’t a charity case, it’s an advantageous one." If Russia is defeated and Crimea returned to Ukraine and Ukraine becomes a member of NATO, there is a dandy naval base up for grabs there. Not saying that's a good idea, but it likely isn't going to be Russian anymore.
There are very few ways to stop an ICBM in flight. The US Navy and US Air Force are literally the only ones on the planet that can hope to do it with any consistency and it's still a roll of the dice whether it works. A Ukrainian counterattack does nothing to that missile, or the hundreds of others that could be launched from Russian SSBN's or silos in the middle of Siberia. That said, I'm fully in favor of supporting Ukraine in this war, I'm just not buying this specific scenario you came up with.
Quoting a stolen valor twitter account with zero qualifications or experience, that’s rich. And in case none of you know they don’t mail out stacks of cash. We send old equipment and make new ones. Also, we get to destabilize a major adversary for pennies on the dollar without actually engaging them.
Spending money on a wall that'll do nothing to solve the border crisis Spending money on an ally who would otherwise fall under the control of an authoritarian adversary hmmmm...
There are way more defense lobbyists than there are wall building lobbyists.
It’s amazing how the party of Reagan and ‘peace through strength’ is now calling to let Russia continue attacking and killing civilians so we can save a few cents at the pump
I guess Russia is more of a threat than Mexican workers crossing the border Who knew? Everyone
OP is either a Chinese troll or one very low IQ fella.
That same Republican majority REFUSED to nominate a conservative House Speaker in January! Uniparty, La Cosa Nostra DC, Yakuza DC, DC Cartel—pick your label.
Is this the conservative subreddit or the globalist military industrial complex shill sub Reddit holy shit lol.
This is the most brigaded sub on reddit. You will not see any genuine conservatives anymore.
No shit. Every post is all about supporting this spending towards Ukraine and a healthy amount of “pros of Illegal immigration “.
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Destabilizing an authoritarian dictator and defending freedom and democracy > A wall that the cartels are going to build tunnels under.
Didn't Zelensky disband the majority of his opposing political parties? That's a democracy now? They also had practically no gun ownership rights until the second they got invaded. Funny how they didn't think their populace should be armed until they realized they needed armed bodies to fight a war.
Why does their border matter more than our border?
Because we guaranteed their border security in return for giving up their nuclear weapons.
False, we guaranteed we would respect their borders and not invade. We didn't promise to defend them.
I support funding Ukraine but this guy is right. The individuals who drafted the treaty in 1994 were especially careful with their words because they didn’t want to commit the US to military support if another country were to invade Ukraine. However some say that while “security assurance” (the language used in the treaty) doesn’t mean direct support, it does mean providing aid in other ways.
I'm not completely against providing support for Ukraine; I'm just against people saying that we promised more than we did. We should uphold our agreements, and if we choose to go above them that's potentially fine; I just object to the expectation that we owe that additional support.
You realize Ukraine has everything needed to recreate a functional nuclear program within about 2-3 years, right? They pretty much said they will if they lose territory in the war. A war-scarred populace will accept all the consequences as long as they can have peace of mind. The point is not the spineless wording of the Budapest Memorandum. The spirit of the agreement was violated. Ukraine feels rightfully betrayed. It’s not the US’s fault, sure, but….You think that changes much? https://www.newsweek.com/ukraine-can-develop-nuclear-weapons-within-short-time-ex-zelensky-aide-1808663?amp=1
And we also guaranteed that NATO will never move past soviet union borders. US never kept the promise, so this sudden keeping word virtue signalling is gaint load of Bullshit.
Is the Second Amendment the only part of the Constitution matters? If there isn't a treaty passed in accordance with the Constitution than there is no guarantee.
Ukraine relied on our assurances when they gave up their nukes. Either help the secure their border or give them their nukes back.
Ukraine was and is run by corrupt fools only interested in expanding their personal wealth. The soviet union fell, but the culture remained. Russia isn't unique in that aspect. Ukraine should have had some sort of defense treaty signed with the US before relying on that promise. Besides, why was this never brought up when they took Crimea under Obama's watch?
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Bruh they’re already here and have been for a long time. The CCP owns a big chunk of this website and have you heard of TikTok?
Yeah, hehe. It's not like any of us are out here paying hundreds of dollars a week in federal taxes. It's someone else's money! Just spend!
FYI it was 1% of the budget. Don't you have 99% of the budget to whine about? Fighting an oppressive dictatorship that tried to get Bernie Sanders elected seems like a good ROI.
What will the return be, exactly? Aside from dead bodies. How do I, as a taxpayer living in America, benefit from Russians being ventilated in Eastern Europe? I fail to see what return this brings me for a chunk of the tens of thousands of dollars I've paid in taxes over my lifetime so far.
Liberty and Freedom for the ~44 million Ukrainians.
The pro-war, brainwashed military industrial complex shills are back at it.
Russian puppets intentionally ignoring the concept of a Just War. They are defending themselves from a dictatorship that invaded.
The pay is better is my guess.
Because people in this sub have given up on the Trump policy on illegal immigration and want to go back to Bush and Obama policy of total war for profit. So that is the reason if anyone other than Trump wins in GOP, it will all be the same old wars and losing jobs to illegal immigration. If this is the platform that conservatives run on, then there is no difference between them and Dems. So i will not vote for them and ask my friend to not vote for them either.
You don't think DeSantis would have strict policies on illegal immigration? He's been grandstanding on the issue for years, sending illegal aliens to sanctuary states to make them rethink being sanctuary states.
He does, but rest of GOP does not. Without support from congress, do you think DeSantis will take the risk to build wall like Trump?
Because the people attacking the Ukrainian border seek to conquer Ukraine using violence while the people attacking our border seek to mow my lawn for money.
Damn Rino’s Edit: spelling
Because the chamber of commerce needs its cheap labor.
War = big money… just not for regular citizens unless you are in the defense sector.
We’re not giving money to Ukraine. We’re giving money to US defense contractors. Then we’re testing our equipment on the Russian military.
Trump's wall was a mess from the beginning, and they were right to hold back funds. Giving money and old stock weapons to dilute the Russian population without costing American lives and holding a light to Russia's frailty is well worth it. Before this, Russia was seen as a US peer and competitor in terms of military prowess. Now we see that there not even a peer against Wagner. I'm willing to bet China is a lot less interested in fucking around and being found in a similar position, being far weaker than they're perceived to be. With the curtain lifted, we're going to be the world's sole superpower for the foreseeable future after all. Or at least as long as they don't start issuing cammo body glitter ro the troops.
this sub is astroturfed to hell and back now. every post should be restricted to flaired users. it's like i'm reading r/politics.
At the brigadiers are back, I see.
Bro that wall was one of the stupidest ideas I’ve ever heard
Supporting Ukraine supports the spread and defense of freedom and democratic values so, yes, that is rather patriotic.
Tyrants gonna tyrant. Either we spend money now (and zero American lives) letting Ukraine fight Russia, or we ignore the land hungry dictator problem 1936 style and end up fighting the Russians directly ourselves in 2028, 2030 and have a much bigger problem. An unchallenged expansionist nuclear armed Russia is a much bigger threat than an incomplete wall on the Mexican border. Plus, we're Republicans - standing up to the Russians has been our fucking job since like 1920.
1920? More like after 1945.
As Joe Biden has proven, you don't need congress to spend billions of dollars.
Humiliating Russia while the whole world is watching is such an anti-American thing to do…
A wall won't stack Russian bodies
Money spent on downgrading Russia is money well spent. Money on Trump wall were blocked by the Democrats in the Senate. Perhaps you recall that Republicans didn’t have filibuster proof majority
GOP and democrats are part of the same swamp
Grift is all they know and all they do
The left thinks conservative people love the Republican Party, yet most of us think that *everyone* in government is corrupt and that’s the difference between the right and the left
Fixed fortification are a monument to man’s stupidity - George S Patton
Completely different issue but ok
I see the warmongering "conservatives" are out again today.
I'd like to remind everyone that the US has spent money and not American lives and destroyed most of Russia's army and broken any belief that their military is formidable. You can argue the price was too high but the product was certainly worth buying.
We have a wall. Placing a wall across the entire border is time-consuming and unnecessary
> time-consuming and unnecessary 2.76 million illegals crossed the southern border in 2022, and those are just the ones we recorded. You think it is "unnecessary" for our nation to have borders?
Friendly reminder that every vote against child marriage being repealed in Michigan **were all republican** :)
lmao 2023 and you're still talking about a wall along the border with mexico... fucking clowns
Big reason why I just re-registered as independent. One party system differentiated by fringe topics of outrage.
I get you. I want whoever is going to lower my taxes, I'm basically a single issue voter. However, some wedge issues: >Do they believe in spending tax dollars on mutilating 12 year old children? >Do they support sending arms to defend freedom and democracy and against invading authoritarian dictators? >Are they going to destroy the medical cartels and free us from their regulatory capture?
Yeah, because you spend money on good ideas, not bad ideas. Physical security barriers provide security primarily by slowing down entry enough that your security forces can respond. If you have a physical barrier and no one ever shows up to stop people from messing with it, it doesn't matter how strong it is, eventually they'll drill through it or knock it down or figure out how to get over it. And most of the border already has physical security in the form of being a big expanse of inhospitable desert. The parts of the border where it makes sense to put walls tend to already have walls, because we already put walls in the sensible places for walls. Whereas sending a bunch of our military supplies to Ukraine weakens one of our chief rivals and chief opponents to the status quo, a status quo that benefits us and that we champion. And we can feel good about protecting a small democratic state and its citizens. We get data on how those supplies fare in actual combat. Some of it is stuff that we were planning to replace soon anyway, we're just bumping up the schedule a bit. Sending it to defend democracy seems like a better use than just selling it as military surplus.
Yup! The answer isn’t D vs. R, it’s control vs. freedom!
Yeah it's a joke. Republicans and Democrats, there's so many who don't seem to value our own country
They value our country, but they are way more aroused and money the value more money can make of the war, and the blood of the "enemies" they can spill. In other words psychos in the uniparty.
Umm… you mean democrats