Snipped from PopulistAmerica.com.

Now here is someone that actually thinks with his cerebrum, and not his penis. While I was reading this, I kept saying to myself, “this is exactly what I have been saying … damn it, why is this type of thinking so rare?” If one wants to truly solve our geopolitical problems, then close all of our military bases, cut military spending by half or MORE, and bring every single troop home. Militarily speaking, become an isolationist nation.

Take all the left over money (hundreds of billions of dollars) that would go to the military (for killing, scaring people) and then become more diplomatic, philanthropic and giving. This way, we are not threating, bullying, coercing or manipulating nations into hating us, but winning over the hearts and minds of other nations … sound familiar?

Well, here is what another intellectual had to say about this idea, which happens to be scarily similar to what I have been saying for years.

Here is a small portion of the article:

What if the US just packed up and left Iraq and Afghanistan, and brought the troops all home, shut down the 750-odd overseas bases we operate around the globe, and slashed our military budget by 75 percent?
That would be an instant savings of roughly $365 billion per year.

Now, the first thing we need to do is address the criticism that such an action would be abandoning the people of Afghanistan and Iraq, whose countries we have been systematically destroying for the last four to six years.

Okay. I agree we have an obligation here. So let’s allocate say $50 billion in annual aid to those two countries, to be funneled through international aid organizations, from the U.N. to CARE and the Red Cross/Red Crescent.
That still leaves $315 billion in funds to play with.

We also have to address those who will ask fearfully if we aren’t opening ourselves to attack from our many enemies abroad.

But hold on a minute. If we cut the US military budget down to a paltry $115 billion a year, that would still leave us with by far the largest military budget in the entire world. The next biggest spender on its military is China, at $62.5 billion, followed by Russia, at $62 billion. That is to say, our military budget, if slashed by three quarters, would still be about equal to Russia’s and China’s military budgets combined. And that only tells part of the story. …

What might we do with all that money?

Well, for starters, if we accept for argument’s sake that the Social Security System is running at a deficit and will eventually be defunded (which, by the way, I do not for a minute believe), actuaries say that injecting about $130 billion a year into the fund (the equivalent of increasing everyone’s SSI payroll tax by 2 percent) would solve the alleged problem indefinitely, allowing all current and future Americans to count on an inflation-adjusted secure retirement forever. So let’s do that. Then there’s education. Currently, the federal government spends about $58 billion a year on education. That gives us classroom sizes in our cities of 30-35 kids (40 here in Philadelphia). That’s not education - that’s child abuse (and teacher abuse). So what say we boost that amount by 50 percent - a much better educational reform than a lot of stupid “No Child Left Behind” testing regimens. Then there’s healthcare, on which the government spends a paltry $52 billion, leaving us with declining life expectancies and infant mortality rates, particularly among our poorest citizens, that are a scandal. Let’s boost that spending by 50 percent, too. …

So who’s going to make this eminently sensible proposal?

I’m frankly sick to death of hearing about how “tough” our next president is going to be.

Our current president has shown just what being tough is good for: nothing. The country is less safe, we’ve got 80,000 returned soldiers suffering from life-long injuries, we’ve made enemies out of friends all over the world, and this country’s been going down the tube, with joblessness rising, the economy teetering and the once mighty dollar headed for Third World currency status.

Until I hear political candidates start talking about slashing military spending - and I mean on the order of 75 percent, none of this nickel-and-dime stuff, and about funding the things that really need funding - I’m not even listening to these moronic campaigns.