"Cyber War" Is Just the Latest Grab for Defense Money 161
New submitter Curseyoukhan writes "The phrase 'cyber war' is being used to scare us into coughing up money and liberties, just like 'anarchist' once was, and 'terror' still is. To quote H.L. Mencken, 'The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.'"
Yawn. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are preaching to the choir, sir.
How about we taxpayers... (Score:3, Insightful)
...tell the government where to spend our taxes. Me regarding the taxes I pay, your regarding the taxes you pay. Extrapolate that out to realize what all else gets fixed. If you don't trust the people, then you probably support rigged elections. Does a politician who does not follow through with their campaign promises that people voted for them for, represent the people? No Taxation without representation. I'd rather realize results as being representative rather than some a person claiming to represent me.
The value of defense is more often to protect yourself from those you suspect of retaliation of the wrongs you've done against them. go figure what the cyper war crap is really about.
Everything in the USA is a "war". (Score:5, Insightful)
Americans are a very curious species. There are two things you should know about them:
1) Most Americans have never experienced real war of any sort. This includes those in the military, even those who have served in various conflicts, and even those who have killed during said conflicts. (Much of this killing has been done at great distances using missiles or munitions released by planes or drones, and was thus quite impersonal.)
2) Most Americans have a so-called "boner for war". This is especially true of those who self-identify as "Republicans", but many who identify as "Democrats" are equally afflicted.
Unfortunately, there are a lot of these people, and they have thus acquired much power within the American political system. To them, anything and everything they don't like needs to be crushed in a "war".
It doesn't matter whether their target is alcohol or drugs or Islam or homosexuality or affordable health care or free speech on the Internet. To them, "war" is the only solution possible, and they'll refer to "war" incessantly when discussing such topics.
Move along citizen (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How about we taxpayers... (Score:5, Insightful)
...tell the government where to spend our taxes. Me regarding the taxes I pay, your regarding the taxes you pay.
Only problem is what to do about things that nobody wants to think about paying for despite the fact that they have to be funded. Often these are things that don't require a lot of money (can you think of anyone who wants to fund the retirement plans of federal auditors?) but without them all sorts of things just fall apart over time.
Re:How about we taxpayers... (Score:5, Insightful)
That means that you should be calling your Congress person. Are you? The elected representative is the guy/gal who determines how the money is spent.
Re:Everything in the USA is a "war". (Score:4, Insightful)
except that (Score:4, Insightful)
1) million of attempts are made every month on US Government, and industrial systems.
2)And we have had system compromised by foreign attempts frequently.
3) It';s the military's role to protect against those threats
None of that is speculation, none of the is fear mongering. Those are are facts.
So, not it isn't the same as anarchist, of the red scare.
And the war on drugs is a completely separate issue, stop bringing it up.
Now, we can discuss where the line is, and discuss people using those facts to do things we don't want them to do, but don't pretend like they are made up threats.