Science, ethics, faith and "killing technology"

[Frumious B]

For most of us a significant portion of every single dollar we pay in taxes goes directly towards murder. This goes far deeper than just the war in Iraq. I'm talking about the entire military industrial complex that devotes the full resources of modern science and technology, including some of our most gifted minds, towards the sole end of creating more effective and efficient ways of killing.

I think that this goes far beyond the rationale of justifiable self defense. George W. Bush's 2005 budget calls for over $400 billion in military spending. Imagine the good that could be accomplished if the total resources that the human race spends on killing itself were redirected towards constructive and humanitarian ends.

Here's a quote I heard recently on Randi Rhodes' show from a Republican President, Dwight D. Eisenhower: "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."-April 16, 1953

Anyway, what I'd like to talk about in this thread is responsibility. What responsibility do scientists who work in this field have for the way in which their work is used? If you invent something the only possible use of which is the destruction of human life are you to blame for the deaths attributable to that device? What is our responsibility as human beings? Do we endorse murder just through the act of paying our taxes without raising a fuss? What about people of faith? We might have some big differences with, say, The Pope on certain issues, but you have to give the guy credit for being consistently "pro life" in all stages of life. He's anti-abortion, anti-death penalty and anti-war. Morally and spiritually, how far should we go with this? Realistically speaking, how far can we go with it?

[Warpy]

1. The reality of being a nation in the world today

is that a strong defensive military is needed.

Beyond that, Eisenhower is right. Every overengineered, overpriced piece of unneeded junk the military buys to fatten the arms dealers is the reason why our schools are falling apart, why we don't have national health care, why higher education is nearly out of reach for everyone but the rich, and why a helluva lot of working people are living in substandard housing and listening to their kids cry themselves to sleep at the end of the month because there's no more food to eat.

Make no mistake. Starving the peasants to fatten the rich and maintain an imperial military has been a dead end for more than one aristocracy, and it will eventually be the end for ours, too. Let's hope we can reclaim the voting process so that we can overthrow them legally and peacefully.

[A HERETIC I AM]

2. The only weapon ever officially condemned by the Vatican?

The crossbow. Seems everything else is OK but not a crossbow.

[peacetalksforall]

3. Great thread. I don't know if I have a suggestion; I only have a

position.

The blame is shared - everyone who participates in war fever and war profit is responsible. Not just the manufacturers - it's the bankers, stock holders, politicians, media, think tankers, and to some extent the reverends who pump up their followers and swallowers.

I agonize about my past - from a family of father and grandfather who designed and built ordinance for the military and all the other male relatives who entered the same branch of service - to my former, total belief in the terror of communism to the belief that we need 'everything proposed by our protective government' for defense.

No more. Now I know. War is a business. Propaganda is a business. Reverends are drum beaters. And it's always been that way - from the kings who convinced their serfs to die for them to our new imperialistic madmen who have convinced our nation to die for them.

How to pinpoint the responsibility and do something? I am convinced that pressure of the other nations of the world on our imperialistic rulers is the only way to stop the madness because we can't seem to vote them out since they are thieves.

We are in dire straits. Within our country, our only out is the education of those of us who are sleeping. Otherwise, we will be slaves of the military-corporate-banking-media-evangelical fundamentalist rulers and live out the rest of our lives under military rule and in poverty.

[punpirate]

4. Very broad subject...

... so this thread is likely to go in many, many directions.

I always find this quote from Eisenhower slightly amusing, since if one looks at Eisenhower's military budgets over the course of his term, there was only a moderate dip in them after the conclusion of the Korean war and only small efforts afterwards to reduce them. As well, he used the CIA as a covert force that, in effect, became his real, but hidden, army while the more public one was postured as a "defensive" force in the Cold War.

That, if anything, says something about the politics of defense spending. Over time, the DoD has become a thing unto itself because of that spending, and with the latest bunch running it, seeks even more of the same. Over time, too, politicians have become generally fearful of even mentioning defense cuts, fearing they will fall prey to the "soft on defense" charge from the right, and of costing their district jobs (the first response of contractors to any cut). That's a further indication of the accumulated strength of the defense department, its contractors and their investors.

As for responsibility, that's a difficult question, because of overlapping institutional and individual ethics questions. I've known people who've dropped out of M-I R&D for ethical reasons and never looked back, and I've read of some of the newest weapons designers at Los Alamos who believe their work is an absolutely necessary contribution to the national defense, and have no ethical qualms at all. Even the most brazenly corrupt of contractors inevitably describe their motives as "patriotic," so separating the just from the unjust, the right from the wrong, is not easy.

After plenty of research on the subject, my own conclusion is that defense spending in this country is way out of proportion to that of the rest of the world because of the desires of two or three notable branches of the conservative right and the ability of the powerful in this country to instill fear in the population. It's a major conundrum that the citizens of the most heavily-armed country in the world still fear every shadow, and 9/11 doesn't explain that, because it's been that way long before that event.

But, until you have a government which will stand up to the monster that previous generations have created, it will go on as it has. One of the stated purposes of the Constitution and creation of the government is to provide for the common defense. At this point in time, the immensity of defense is overwhelming the other stated purposes of establishing justice, insuring domestic tranquility, promoting the general welfare, and securing the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. For many, many intertwined reasons, previous governments have put defense over the other purposes. Why that's so is a legal ethical question.

Monetarily, there's no question that a significant portion of the money spent on defense has created a disproportionate transfer of public wealth which has helped create an underclass in this country and has worked to the detriment of other good purposes, such as education and social welfare.

To my mind, then, the ethical question is mostly a Constitutional one--to what extent should one stated purpose of government overwhelm all others? One can speak in an abstract sense that all defense spending is wasted, but that ignores both the language of the Constitution and common sense. Therefore, the central questions are of degree, and kind. How much money should be spent on defense, and is the spending now made effectively for offensive purposes or for truly defensive purposes.

I would submit, after looking at defense issues for a long time, that the defense budget could be reduced to about 40% of its current costs (excluding those extras being spent in deficit for wars), and that reducing spending to that level would require that a more defensive posture be adopted, which would also disincline future presidents from using the country's military strength for blatantly offensive or mercenary purposes, something which is happening more and more frequently.

How to accomplish that is a much thornier problem, and one which cannot be solved with our current crop of politicians, in the current political climate. For me, the most ethical position now is to educate everyone I can in how a culture of fear has been created, and how that culture has encouraged a monolithic defense establishment, which, paradoxically, has progressively diminished the other intentions for government. That starts the process toward political change, which then enables the other necessary changes.

The first step is in challenging the prevalent folklore in the culture--that more defense spending directly equates to more security. In that, 9/11 serves as an example. After spending trillions of dollars on the most sophisticated and dangerous weapons imaginable, our security was breached by Stone Age tools--knives. That serves as a starting point for changing people's attitudes about defense and how their money is being spent.

Cheers.

[peacetalksforall]

5. Kick - for reasons that responsibility is our responsibility.

Great post, Punpirate.

Sidenote: Not only does this consortium profit monetarily and personally, they profit politically. One example that keeps bugging me...is the 1992/3 news columns that I remember reading about the closing of military bases in this country and costs reductions, plus plans to review fancy weapons plans. I remember reading that military brass agreed. I believe there was follow through. There must have been because Republicans are now using that as another way to blame Clinton for everything that is inferior in man and weapon powers in the Middle East. And if I remember right, some of this talk was under way under Poppy.