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Culture War Roundup for the week of January 30, 2023

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Do you want "a say" or do you want to decide, because if all you want is a say you are free to vote for representatives who will oppose aid for Ukraine just as I am free to vote against them. If you want to decide, well tough shit, it's not your call to make.

For my part I find the moral/political arguments against providing Aid to Ukraine repugnant and the to cost/limited recourses unconvincing. Something like 30 Billion dollars might sound like a lot in absolute terms (and it is) but it is quite literally pocket change when viewed in the context of the wider US Federal budget. For comparison It's about twice what the Obama administration was spending a year on solar power subsidies and less than a tenth of what the Biden Administration has proposed spending on student loan forgiveness. Furthermore, as far as government expenditures go this one seems to offer a pretty large and immediate ROI. Seems to me that reinforcing the post WWI norm of "don't invade your neighbors" while simultaneously undermining a significant geo-political rival and diminishing a clear and present threat to our allies would be a worth while at several times the price.

As an aside did you know that a lot of munitions, especially the larger more complicated stuff like like artillery rounds, missiles, etc... have a shelf life? Sure that shelf life is measured in decades and our ability to spin up new production on a moment's notice might not be what it used to be, but a lot of the stuff we've been sending Ukraine was looking to be scrapped anyway and maybe I'm just being weirdly irrational and sentimental but I feel that it's only "proper" to dispose of a missile by launching it rather than sending it to the scrap heap.