re: Political cartoon about eliminating funding for the National Endowment for the Arts

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SO you are OK with sending your money to South Korea to fund the arts in South Korea but not OK with doing so in the US? Is that the idea? Why?

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I think most of us would be ok with slashing foreign aid across the board. You do realize that foreign aid increased significantly under Barack Obama, right?

LINK

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Well, your point is nonsense.

You don't support the need for funding A by citing the existence of funding B.

Sorry. That's just dumb. Using that approach, NOTHING could EVER be cut.

Of course, that's why liberals use the approach.

It's also how you justify any and all spending.

"Well, if we're going to fund X, then we must fund Y".

Sorry. Your approach is that of a 5 year old. Try again.

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No, my friend, you understanding is that of a 5 year old. No one is claiming that if your fund a you must fund b....and your summation that would mean you could never stop funding anything is absurd beyond words...if you are funding the funeral of a loved one you wouldn't continue to fund their dinner every evening...you funded one thing and stopped funding another...


The point is that why are y'all so excited about cutting funding to the arts in the US when you are equally excited to continue to fund the arts around the world?

South Korea is a prime example of this....SK only exists at the pleasure of the US Taxpayer.....they are the ultimate welfare queens....without you and I they would not exist as a nation, period. And they spend a sizeable amount of public money funding the arts in their nation....along with all sorts of other niceties that ya';; would do away with here in the US but gladly pay for in Korea....meanwhile Hyundai, Samsung and a host of other Korean companies compete against US manufactures and workers on what ya'll like to refer to as a "level playing field" but when Bush and Obama bailed out the US Auto industry y'all threw a hissy fit...meanwhile, Japan, with a military budget the size of some people in ths US clothing allowance, ships Toyota trucks all over the globe because they know that the US will keep the markets and the sea lanes open and as risk free as possible.

And now your boy Trump comes along and says we need to do even more for Korea and Japan. I know y'all will now claim that he is saying they will have to pay more but his actions speak much louder than his words....the rest of the world understands full well that A) an increase in the military budget of the US means they can decrease their own spending and B) That same increase means that the US will be quicker to come to their aid should it become necessary than ever before.

On the other hand....drastically cut spending on things like submarines and aircraft carriers and troops abroad and all of a sudden South Korea has to go to Hyundai and Samsung and tell them the jig is up, boys....Uncle Sam and his mean, green fighting machine ain't going to be here like they always have been....they would have NO choice.

If we are so broke that we can't afford to fund sesame street any longer then we by fricking god can't afford to fund Hyundai and Samsung and a host of other companies around the globe that are making a tremendous amount of money and not helping out nearly as much as the typical middle class American worker is.....and that, in a nut shell, is what is wrong with the American right....we are financing socialized nations around the globe and asking our workers and companies to compete on a "level playing field" while we take money from those wallets and place in wallets around the globe....and the right blames it on poor people and working people...IN THE UNITED STATES......

Hey! Looking at paintings make us cultured, DAMMIT!!

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and your summation that would mean you could never stop funding anything is absurd beyond words

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Fair enough. What would you like to cut? I'm curious.

And make your case of why we should continue to fund the NEA since your premise is not based on, "Because we fund North Korea", etc.
You keep saying your premise is not based on that...but that is all you keep saying.

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I think most of us would be ok with slashing foreign aid across the board. You do realize that foreign aid increased significantly under Barack Obama, right?

LINK

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Its not just foreign aide, my friend.....that is another complete issue which we fail to consider. I am talking about military spending, period. And I know that some of you will say something to the effect that we only spend X amount of money on troops in Europe or whatever....but the fact of the matter is that every penny we spend on the Military is a penny the rest of the world can spend on something else. And they do.

I have worked for years around various military's from around the world...mainly European but also with the Japanese and the Aussies....and I assure you that they know who is footing the bill....every funding consideration is based on what the US is doing....no discussion of project budget does not include discussions about what the US is doing.

You don't have to be in on those meetings though to understand this....all you have to do is stop and think and consider the math....There is X amount of cost to provide the world with its current level of security....if one entity is paying 25% of that cost the rest only have to come up with 75%...if the first entity ups their spending to 30% the rest can cut theirs to 70%.....it really is that simple.

Except it isn't because everyone on the globe is banking on the fact that we will spend even more if conditions warrant it. Lets say North Korea all of a sudden makes a move....we aren't going to sit back and wait on a check from the south to move in....


I have made a damn good living helping the US Military spend y'alls money around the globe...I am still making a damn good living at it...I know exactly what foreign military's think of US Tax Payers and I know from observation what their nations do with the resources which you free up by paying for their security.....there is no such thing as a level playing field when one side is paying for the referees and not getting an advantageous call from time to time...and then, in the ultimate of insult, the right blames all of this on poor people and working people in the United States.....

So you help facilitate wasteful spending. You are the ultimate hypocrite. That high horse you are on has three legs.

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And now your boy Trump comes along and says we need to do even more for Korea and Japan. I know y'all will now claim that he is saying they will have to pay more but his actions speak much louder than his words....

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Did he not just tell Angela Merkel that Germany needed to get their obligations paid up to the UN? Are those the actions you are talking about?

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Its not just foreign aide, my friend.....that is another complete issue which we fail to consider. I am talking about military spending, period. And I know that some of you will say something to the effect that we only spend X amount of money on troops in Europe or whatever....but the fact of the matter is that every penny we spend on the Military is a penny the rest of the world can spend on something else. And they do.

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Did military spending not go up under Obama, too?
Did you know that Obama sought to quadruple military spending in Europe?
Were you outraged by that, or were you ok with it since they could spend more on the arts?

LINK

Washington (CNN)President Barack Obama's administration said Tuesday it was seeking to expand U.S. military spending in Europe four-fold in a bid to reassure allies still unsettled by Russia's incursion into Ukraine.

True and even worse...brags about it and virtue signals while doing it.

Probably doesn't volunteer for shite and likely doesn't give all he can to charities because clearly he is a selfish hypocrite.

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Fair enough. What would you like to cut? I'm curious.

And make your case of why we should continue to fund the NEA since your premise is not based on, "Because we fund North Korea", etc.
You keep saying your premise is not based on that...but that is all you keep saying.

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First off I am not completely opposed to cutting much of anything....but what we should do...and what we are going to do by cirumstance someday...is not only cut back on military spending BUT make it abundantly clear to the world that our #1 priority is domestic security.

I have been told numerous times abroad by fellow engineers working on projects in shite holes that their employer is investing in shite holes instead of the United States because of high labor costs, regulations, and taxation. That is a fair enough assertion...but they never stop and think about how it is that their employer is weighing the risks associated with investing in those shite holes without the knowledge that the US Military will make things right should the shite hit the fan (it is always curious to me that the military is there for a few months before the investors start showing up....in my experience it never happens the other way around). If you add the cost of providing safe passage and markets to the costs of that investment AND the risk of that shite hole turning on you there is NO WAY that those companies would risk investing in those parts of the world...and by those parts of the world I am including almost all of Eastern Europe and a good portion of Central Europe.

So I don't know if it is possible to cut that spending....I think China and Russia would be more than happy to fill the void....and wouldn't be as benevolent as we are (although I imagine our benevolence looks much different to foreigners than it does to us). But I do know that we should stop pretending as if we are looking for a level playing field when it is our money which is tilting the field in our competition's favor. It may simply be that we must pay for the security of the globe AND for the NEA....we ain't exactly bankrupt you know....we have the money to do both....and if Trump would stop with the silly idea of insisting our allies pay more even as we pay more ourselves it may just be that we find ourselves with more self sufficient allies in the future....