We like to think of ourselves as an innovation nation but our government is a warfare-welfare state. To build an economy for the 21st century we need to increase the rate of innovation and to do that we need to put innovation at the center of our national vision. Innovation, however, is not a priority of our massive federal government.
Nearly two-thirds of the U.S. federal budget, $2.2 trillion annually, is spent on just the four biggest warfare and welfare programs, Medicaid, Medicare, Defense and Social Security. In contrast the National Institutes of Health, which funds medical research, spends $31 billion annually, and the National Science Foundation spends just $7 billion.
That’s me writing at The Atlantic drawing on Launching the Innovation Renaissance. Here is one more bit
Our ancestors were bold and industrious–they built a significant portion of our energy and road infrastructure more than half a century ago. It would be almost impossible to build that system today. Could we build the Hoover Dam today? We have the technology but do we have the will?
Their Chairs Are Empty, but We Know What Their Sacrifice Was For
I think how pleased my fallen comrades would be to see their country still safe, still free, still strong.
“Oh my friends, my friends don’t ask me what your sacrifice was for.” This is where art stops imitating life, the song’s tide turns, and my tears subside. We know—defiantly and with clear eyes—that some great good has come from some horrible bad. We do know what their sacrifice was for.
.. Every society requires warriors to defend its version of civilization. “If none of us is prepared to die for freedom,” the Yale historian Timothy Snyder recently wrote, “then all of us will die under tyranny.”
.. many military mottos: “Free the Oppressed”; “That Others May Live”; “Not for Self, but for Country.” It also lives on in the solemn pride expressed, only this month, by the son of a U.S. soldier killed in Afghanistan: “His life was not taken: It was given, to his country.”
Are the US Navy Carrier Fleets Obsolete?
Simple Math Favors the Attacker of Ships
Jeremy Corbyn’s Disgusting, Cowardly Response to the Manchester Attack
The Labour leader used Monday’s brutal attack as a chance to blame Islamist terror on Western foreign policy.
We will also change what we do abroad. Many experts, including professionals in our intelligence and security services, have pointed to the connections between wars our government has supported or fought in other countries, such as Libya, and terrorism here at home. Look closely at Corbyn’s words here. On the first day of campaigning after a major atrocity, he chose to strike moral and strategic parallels between British foreign policy and ISIS. In so doing, he demonstrated the worst kind of moral cowardice. He also proved himself a man of deep strategic incontinence.
After all, while individual Islamist terrorists are often partly motivated by the perceived injustices of Western foreign policy, those they serve are not — and that difference is critical. From ISIS to al-Qaeda to Hezbollah, Islamist groups are motivated by Islamic scripture. The majority of scholars from various Islamic schools would attest that these groups adhere to their own warped interpretations of the Koran. But the Koran is nevertheless important, because it motivates an ordained mission that seeks something far more elusive than territory or political power: purity on Earth. The major Islamist terrorist leaders have dedicated themselves to the imposition of Allah’s law on all of humanity, and in this they see themselves as humanity’s liberators.
.. But when withdrawal came, the weight went with it. And suddenly, our ability to influence political developments perished alongside our capability to assist Iraqi security forces in counter-terrorism missions. And so ISIS filled the vacuum.