Trump's idea of Iron Dome for the USA is a horrendously stupid idea

I tend to agree with a lot of what Trump says but a statement he made the other day is just outrageously stupid. In case you don't know what Iron Dome is, it is an extremely expensive missile system that was developed by the Israelis and Americans that conveniently the United States foots the bill for most of it. It can intercept almost any rocket or missile that has been fired at an area with a range of nearly 40 miles.

It is certainly a wonderful defense system but to suggest that it would be implemented all across the United States is just flat out absurd and I can't imagine what prompted the man to say this.

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“We’re giving billions of dollars to other countries so they can build a dome. But we don’t have a dome ourselves. We’re going to have the greatest dome ever.”

The above is quite typical of the off the cuff things that Trump says in speeches and since it doesn't appear as though this is some sort of teleprompter speech, I think we can say that this is just his own thoughts. Now I am all about isolationism - which is something that others think is stupid but honestly, maintaining a global police force or the new Empire is something that is unsustainable by anyone. I remember hearing that our military spends in excess of $30 billion every 10 hours in its current operating capacity. Even if that figure is slightly off that is a scary number indeed.

Now I know there are a lot of people out there that enjoy the overwhelming power of the US military but here in North Carolina, we have some of the largest bases in the world and I know a lot of active, part-time, and retired military servicemen - almost all of them agree that we should scale back our presence around the world not just to cut costs, but because it doesn't really accomplish anything.

If we actually did have an imminent threat on our doorstep the likes of which Israel faces on a daily basis, I would be completely for building a very high-tech missile defense system the likes of Iron Dome but from what I have read, this system has ben specifically designed for a situation like Israel where their enemies that would harm them are literally just outside the walls. Here in the United States, the likes of Canada and Mexico aren't exactly lobbing SCUD missiles at us on a regular basis... have they ever? The idea that we need a missile defense system to protect our borders with a range of 43 miles is beyond retarded.

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Iron Dome is impressive... I'll give it that and there are some wonderful YouTube rabbitholes you can go down as far as investigating how it functions that are really damn interesting... but this doesn't change the fact that this system is extremely expensive even where it is needed so the promise that if elected we are going to have one of those systems in the United States and people applaud this statement says to me that they don't really understand what it is they are cheering for.

I am for cutting spending and reeling in the USA's out of control budget and I am certainly not going to support the addition of military items that wouldn't really even have a purpose anyway.

I realize that this is just preaching to the choir on Trump's part, or at least I hope it is because if he seriously thinks that this is a good idea his advisors need to have a little sit down with him. Politicians make all sorts of promised while campaigning that they already know can't be done but as far as this one goes, I don't think a single person in Congress would support it.

Just from a simple search of dubious authenticity the cost of a single Iron Dome unit is $50 million for one and each interception costs on average around $100,000 to $150,000. Now we could eliminate the second expenditure because these things, positioned near our borders, would never be fired outside of training. They would just sit there and rust and eventually get scrapped.

Now because I am not a TDS addled liberal, I realize that he was likely speaking in generalities and doesn't mean that we would install EXACTLY the same thing as Israel has but even if he was talking about some sort of not yet existent long-range missile defense system, what are we defending against exactly? Is there any nation that could realistically fire at the United States in more than a one-off type situation especially when they realize that by doing so they will be bringing a retribution the likes of which the world has never seen upon their land? I don't think even the craziest world leaders would attempt such a thing.

While I value the importance of national security and personal safety, I think it is also important that we live within our means and this notion that if we just keep throwing money at a problem that it will go away, is a truly silly notion.

On that note I do like the fact that Trump has recently come out in full support of cryptocurrency, and I'll talk about my feelings on that in a later episode.