Dr. Martin Hash Podcast

The military is the greatest jobs program in America. It employees many, many people who would not otherwise be employed, it teaches them to be responsible for themselves & how to follow authority, it gives them pride in themselves & their country, and it gives them role models & maturity. Some people complain that minorities are over-represented in the military but that's simply a sign that it's working, especially with All-Volunteer recruitment. The military also serves as an example of successful socialist totalitarianism, not something to be emulated in other parts of government but it does provide useful perspective.

Military expenditures are also a Keynesian wet-dream: train people to design bombs, train people to build bombs, train people to drop bombs, bombs explode, repeat. Plus, there's no competition with the private sector, no supplanting private employment production opportunities with public employment consumption. The Military Industrial Complex is probably the best kind of stimulus spending there is because all education & income levels are represented. This is contrary to something like the Space Program or basic medical research, which have laudable goals & fill a public need, but only employ people that could just as easily be in the private sector because they are so highly trained. Lastly, and most importantly, the military does serve the very important function of protecting us from the tribe across the hill. Every nation needs Eisenhowers to protect its Einsteins.