Monday, October 4, 2010

Another slow pitch

Yglesias (and don't go clicking the link to read the rest, cuz this is all there is):
According to my calculation, if we were to cut America’s $663.8 billion defense budget by 1%, that would free up enough funds to double the budget of the FBI. Doesn’t it seem like that would probably, on net, reduce the risk of Americans dying in a terrorist attack? And in the meantime we might catch some more bank robbers or other banal threats to public safety.
I'm all for cutting the "defense" budget, of course, but this post came only slightly more than a week after the mass FBI raids of anti-war activists and really just in general diverting military spending to law enforcement is such a goddamn reprehensible bit of shittery. Why not cut military spending by 1% and give it to me? We'll be just as safe from "terrorists" and maybe I'll even use it in ways that would end up reducing some of those "banal threats to public safety." Which, incidentally, jackass.

PS If you're robbing a bank, and you're successful, more power to you. That's fucking God's work there.

UPDATE: Al takes over where I left off.

6 comments:

Richard said...

God he's such a fucking dickhead. How people can read him and not want to vomit is beyond me.

Also, for all time, fuck the fucking FBI.

Ethan said...

Most of the time I just find Yglesias's obsessively managerial focus on trivia more depressing than evil, but sometimes he lets out some utter shit like this.

Soj said...

Why not give that 1% to the Department of Homeland Security since that is, you know, supposed to be what their speciality is (securing the homeland)?

Why the FBI? Why not the CIA or NSA or DIA or Northcom or postal inspectors? After all, the LAST successful terrorist attack was via the postal system.

On and on and on...

Ethan said...

Or me, duh.

And yeah, if we were making a list of "best places to divert 1% of the military budget," I think perhaps the FBI would be last on my list. Or maybe not quite, but damn close.

Randal Graves said...

Damn right, I can buy my own tactical nukes!

Hmm, that sounded like I was disagreeing with you, whereas I completely agree. One of these years I'll get the hang of this English.

Ethan said...

Which English?