By: PCEC Officers
This is about a different outlook on our Defense Spending for our global topic. Did you know we had 800 bases all over the world? That the US military has close ties to Hollywood? Or that we spend more on defense than the next thirteen countries combined? There’s a lot we don’t know about our country and it’s our job to research and educate ourselves and our peers about these topics. After presenting, we had an in depth discussion about if/how we should re-budget our spending so that we can have more resources for our school, our environment, and to aid our people.
The questions for the topic of the US as Global Military Power were...
“Is nationalism a good thing? Are we stronger as a tribe or weaker as a race?” “What is propaganda? Can it be used for ethical and unethical purposes?” “Do you think we should reform our defense spending?” “Do you think the US provides ethical reasoning behind the ‘police of the world’?” “Are we harboring democracy when we invade these nations or is it for economic interests?” “Do you think if we didn’t ‘police’ everyone, Russia or China would do it in our absence?”.
A good point we got from this discussion was that “money should be spent on different purposes besides the military- because they receive a lot of funding.” The money that is spent on the military could go to another important cause. Another good question we got was “the government is in a lot of debt, so where is our taxpayer money going?” The money that is paid for taxes is supposed to go to the government to help us yet they are still in a huge debt. “Why are we paying money to promote the military in films?” was yet another good question brought up.
Some of the other topics brought up and discussed were the fact that some of the happiest countries (like Norway, Sweden) spend their money differently than we do. They don’t use as much of it for their military like we do, spend it on their education, social services, healthcare, etc.
Our schools need more funding, they are not given enough attention- outdated books and curriculum.
The healthcare community is struggling, this pandemic is affecting people mentally, physically, and socially. We as students and teenagers use school as a way of interacting with others, being online and home most of the time makes everything harder. The lack of mental health outlets is hard, they are needed the most during this time.
The tension there is between the two political parties in America affect many things especially during this pandemic. Some people refuse to wear masks because of their political view which has nothing to do with the world and the virus.
Feel free to contact officers with questions and ideas!
Have a safe winter break!