> Luke's amazing beliefs:
>
> 1. If you cut military spending, another form of government spending
> automatically appears to replace it.
Not "automatically"--but it might, and even if it didn't, the money put into military spending wouldn't evaporate (though it _might_ do more to increase median incomes if taxed and spent by the government).
> 2. "I don't think the US would care if the Middle Eastern states were all
> Western European-style social democracies."
Yes. I'm relatively sure that even Bush prefers Schroeder's Germany to Mubarak's Egypt.
> 3. Rich capitalist countries are not dependent on super-exploiting the
poor
> ones.
Well, show me a convincing argument that they _are_ dependent--i.e. why should we think that the capitalist countries wouldn't be rich if not for cheap third world labor? Sure, they wouldn't be as rich, but that's not the claim I'm denying.
> 4. Canada does not benefit from U.S. imperialism.
My claim is that the US hasn't benefited much economically from its "imperialistic" military policies over the last half century. Again, show me an argument that they have. (Oh, wait, I forgot: we're making an absolute killing off of Gult War II.)
-- Luke