My real pet peeve with my home country (USA)
Actually, it's not the defense spending that bugs me. That creates jobs, keeping a lot of us well paid and employed.
What bugs me is how the American people stupidly give up their freedoms to the government simply because "I'm fat, I'm happy, and it's not in my back yard."
Here's the typical routine in America:
1. Everybody's doing whatever (whatever = booze, drugs, guns, gambling, prostitution, silicone gel breast implants, super size fries, etc.) and everyone's happy.
2. A few people get killed or messed up by whatever and sue. Their sad stories are shown on the TV over and over again.
3. Everybody stupidly thinks "Gee, if I keep doing whatever, I'll get messed up like those idiots on TV." We gotta stop this!
4. In response to everybody, the government makes whatever illegal.
5. Now that whatever is illegal, the criminals, who don't care about the law in the first place, get rich and powerful selling whatever.
6. To stay rich and powerful, the criminals eliminate whoever is a threat to them selling whatever.
7. As the criminals get more powerful, the government becomes less effective in stopping them and asks for more power.
8. The people willfully vote for the govt to get more power which usually results in people having less freedoms...all to go after those dastardly criminals who are selling whatever.
What's the result of all this? While before when whatever was legal and only a few people suffered from it, now:
1. Many more people are dying and suffering from whatever and the cost of dealing in whatever.
2. The criminals get richer.
3. The government gets more powerful.
4. The people lose more freedoms.
Don't get me wrong. I'm a very patriotic American. I just believe in the America that the founding fathers had in mind.
Paraphrasing the great Ben Franklin:
"He who sacrifices freedom in the name of safety deserves neither."