At a Pentagon news conference I’m watching on TV Don Rumsfeld is explaining to me that with only 3.8% of US Gross Domestic Product going towards military spending nobody should complain since this is lower than back in the good old days of  Mutually Assured Destruction nuclear buildups.

I’m complaining.

Neoconservative hypocrisy regarding Government spending has become far more outrageous than the naivete that continues to characterize liberal notions that Governments are a good environment for the allocation of other people’s money.   They are not, and they have never been.

Political spending, whether in the social or military sectors, is rarely rational spending, and tends to evolve quickly into territorial “feathering of nests”, inefficient allocations, and choices based on conflicting sets of Government priorities. This was well understood by the founders who wanted Government small and taxes low.

Although “fighting terrorism” is a legitimate Government objective, the current approaches are so recklessly expensive it is unlikely they can continue much longer.  Also, military spending does not build infrastructure (often it destroys it), so unless you are truly saving the nation from disaster – a weak argument given the current state of the world  – wasteful military spending has far less favorable impact than, for example, wasteful spending on infrastructure.    However I’m not advocating wasteful liberal spending either.

Alternatives?    Recognize that risk is a part of life, allocate resources rationally, and trust that people will spend their money far more effectively than the neoconservatives have been spending it, or the liberals will spend it when they take control of the bloating corpse of Government spending.

Even if you are not religious and believe the world runs on fundamentally mechanistic principles you need to fear that current global tensions could in fact lead to the type of destruction envisioned by those who hold that an Apocalypse is coming … soon.

Israel could lay waste to the entire Middle east in minutes and it’s unlikely that a broader war with Iran would not bring in the USA and perhaps Europe.

Pakistan and India continue to threaten nuclear exchanges.   And North Korea?   Yikes.

But rather than *prophetic*, I find it  *ironic* that these tensions are more often than not fueled by the recent and rapid rise of thinking and analysis more in line with what was in vogue in 12th century than even the Renaissance, a curious blend of religious fantasy, zealotry, and denial.

Will we as humans pay the ultimate price for our primal notions of how the world works?   Only your primal brain knows for sure.

I love the USA, and not in that silly way many detractors talk about as in “I really love my country except that it’s a 200+ year imperial empire run by madmen hell bent on destroying liberty and freedom”.

I really think the founders launched what will be viewed for thousands of years as a fundamentally good and sound experiment in self management, freedom and economics.

However, I’m confident that the architects of our experiment would be troubled by many aspects of our modern manifestation of their bold experiment.

Here’s my presumptuous very quick take on how they’d view things on this July 4, 230 years after they started it all:

* Government: Far too large in scope and influence over citizens.

* Globalization: They’d love it.  They saw it coming and would be pleased the USA is leading the way.

* Taxes: Far too high, though I think they’d like progressive taxation.

* Military Spending:  Far too high and inefficient.   They’d have wanted infrastructure and recognized that a global military presence is far more stabilizing when it’s backed up with much more diplomacy than we’ve seen in years.

* War on Terror:  They would see us as creating far too much expense and international ill-will in our efforts to bring our democratic and economic sensibilities to the rest of the world.

* U.N.  They would approve of the concept of an international body, but shudder at the bureaucracy and cost.
* Religion.  They’d be alarmed at how much politics and religion mix and simply amazed how some 230 years later, religious intolerance all over the globe fuels so many conflicts and divides the USA on many issues.

Politics: They would  note that in some ways election processes have not changed all that much, but would be alarmed by the influence of money and media.  They’d be floored by the lack of citizen participation but would understand this is largely a function of the massive, bureaucratic government.

* Technology:  They’d be thrilled with too many devices to mention, but it’s probably fair to say that Space Flight would be the most amazing thing to them.  I can’t think of a more fitting tribute to Benjamin Franklin that today’s Space Shuttle launch.