And so it goes - those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it.

It truly amazes me that people will still vote for any Domocrat when history always debunks their agendas.

mmccrindle is right: I am equally amazed at Democrat arrogance thinking that they can defy the lessons of history. Great column.

so what is your solution crindle? you criticize prolifically and offer nothing else. i'm neither demo nor repub and as an independent i think that like most situations in life, the solutions (there's never just one) lie somewhere in the middle.

what would you do with a larger conventional military? did you serve in any of the branches? did the author of this article? why not put everybody in the military and we can all stay in for 20 years and retire. what then? who will be in the private sector to pay those salaries and retirements? how will you determine the right size of the military if you are not going to have 100% participation? how is a huge peacetime military different in principle from make work welfare?(shovel ready as the author describes it) why do you doubt that if this country was ever attacked by armies (not skyjackers)that the citizenry wouldn't rise to the occasion? Assuming that the armies could even get close given our current detection capabilities?

you or the other crindle labeled a response of mine the other day as marxist propaganda when i essentially stated the realities of our current situation and that we must hold our government and ourselves accountable first before we go venturing out into the world.

please tell us what being an armchair patriot feels like....

@Marcus

And you can tell us what an ignorant usefull idiot feels like!

For your information, I served 26 years in the United States Air Force, in more countries than most Americans have States, and can say your opinion that my service was "make work welfare" is despicable on so many levels. While you are free to scribe your head in the sand drivel, our military is supporting freedom for you and many opresse people throughout the world. Your childish fantasy of whirrled peas, maybe you have seen those idiodic bumper stickers, that you espouse as reality are a delusional result of believing the propoganda of a leftist media. We have a voluntary military force, so your inane drivel of putting everyone in wouldn't work, there will always be cowards such as yourself who reap all the benefits of freedom the brave patriots in the military provide, while you sit on your backside and disparage what they do. We are at war with Islam, and your isolationist cowardly media driven beleifs would only get you killed. Please stay in your armchair and feel free to type some more. There are real men and women Patriots our there protecting your right to speak or write freeley, even if your missives prove ignorant and foolish.

@ Marcus-

One thing the Constitution instructs the Federal Gvt. to do is to defend our country.

We have the best military in the world and we need to keep it that way. Obama cut off the production of the F-22's shortly after taking office. Big mistake, but then again he has done nothing but harm our country since he's been in office.

Where in the Constitution does it give the Feds responsibility for education, health care, charity, welfare or any other frivilous social issue?

Please don't say the commerse clause. The wack-job lefties and their rendition of a 'living constitutiion' make me ill. They can twist that clause into having the authority to go into your kitchen to inspect the dust puppies under your fridge.

My solution?

A return to strict rule of law restrained by the Constitution.

That would of course entail getting rid of or severeley reducing entitlements. Citizens (notice I didn't include immigrants as did Pres. Carter) that are in such entitlements now would still get them but later new enrollees would see a whole new ballgame.

What the progressives (from Wilson/FDR on) have promised is simply unsustainable. The country is broke.

Couple that with the fact that we really do not have a revenue problem - we have a spending problem.

In short, The Government IS the problem and my answer is to make it smaller and make it do it's job as outlined by the Constitution like, HEY!, provide for the commen defense!!!!

BTW- When was the last time Obama tried to compromise on anything.

The Democrap party is not the party of JFK. It is now the puppet of the Shadow party.

Todays so called Independants should familiar themselves with the differences between socialism, capitalism and republics and democracies.

Read up on greats like Friedman, Hayek some of the more notable conservative writers of today.

Or just be another Independent useful idiot (as my brother so aplty puts it) and continue to believe yourself so smart and noble as to split your ticket and keep believing in the lefts oh-so-noble causes.

A very strong military is quite necessary for the same reason that you should not go to a gunfight in which you will be starring armed with a knife. We have kept the various world miscreants at bay (the sane ones anyway) because they know our capabilities. Osama bin Laden certainly knew that he would sooner or later die a violent death. The American citizenry does not own, nor knows how to operate fighters, missiles, or tanks. We must have specialists to do that. It is called our military.

Excellent post Victor.

The military implies dealing with reality. Liberals and their democrat party do not deal with reality, they prefer illusion.

BHO has gutted the military his entire Presidency. He has already cut the f22, laser and f35 out of his Presidencys spending.

However he spent nearly a trillion on his democrat policy of socialism, which BTW served his cronys well. Apparently, for libera/democrats, tis not nice to ask what you can do for your country, but only nice to ask what your country can do for you.

As the democrats and Obama smash their ideological wrecking ball into America, America begins to crumble, they are killing America.

Nobama 2012, vote republican. Thankyou.