Two facts, not really open to debate by anyone dwelling this side of the moon.
One, the U.S. economy is the largest in the world. And not the largest in a my-bigger-brother kind of way; largest in a twice-your-size beat you into the dirt kind of way. About twice the size of China. (And China has what, five times the population? Meaning we’re tenfold in productivity per capita.) China may catch us someday..perhaps. There’s no certainty of it.
Two, the military budget of the United States, is always going to be a certain chunk of the Federal budget. Maybe liberal hippie presidents like Carter will whittle away at it; a Reagan will come along and fix the damage and then some. But it will always be there, always some solid percentage of our Federal effort.
The conflation of these facts provides a common ground for conservatives and liberals.
Liberals want to curb the American hyperpower. They want us - let’s be fair - to be a strong voice among many other strong voices. They don’t want us defeated, just maybe humbled some - maybe in a place where we listened to France about as much as France listens to us.
Conservatives want the United States government to back the hell off of being the 1,000 ton leviathan state. We don’t want the states to pick up a whole lot of the slack, either. (Maybe towns could do more.) If we’re not getting that, well, then the leviathan state is going to do the kinds of things WE want it to do. Kill communists, knock off unprofitable dictators, make the world safe for McDonalds, that sort of thing.
We can both get our way. If we reduce the Federal government to, say, 30% of its current size, and cap that as a maximum - and agree to keep that size as a fixed portion of our national revenues barring things like a World War II - then both parties get their wish.
Liberals get their chastened hyperpower by default. Conservatives get a strongly-defended nation without substantial global reach, and a major shift in power to local communities - one of our core ideals. Everybody wins (except for the millions of people who would get dumped out of Federal assistance programs of one variety or another).
This doesn’t have to break the war on terror. Any such shift is going to take decades; plenty of time to send terrorists for a visit with God. Hopefully, the other powers of the world will step up, and build their own strong regional militaries; if they don’t, well, then we get to be the hyperpower again by default.
It’s a win-win. True, the liberals have to give up their dream of welfare statism - but if their own beliefs about the origins of the terror war are true, then they’ll be buying peace and prosperity for the entire world.
All it will cost them is freedom for us.
