Let's go to war!

I’ve just realized that basically half of the US budget is somehow devoted to defense. As for citizens, we own about 200,000,000 guns. We are ready for war, unfortunately, the wrong war(s).

Maybe we should take a cue from one of the most famous recent wars: the War on Terror. It is an armed conflict but a war on something wrong, and that’s kind of right. So why not launch other kind of right wars? I can think of several:

• The War on Poverty
• The War on Obesity
• The War on Disparity
• The War on Hunger
• The War on Illiteracy
• The War on Domestic Violence
• The War on Pandemics
• The War on Discrimination
• The War on Cancer, AIDS, Diabetes…

Shall I go on?

What are we waiting for? Why are we so obsessed with defending ourselves against violent attacks but not against violent ills? Most distressing to those of us who dabble in fact is that the data is overwhelming. We die thousands of times more from accidents or illness than we do from war or terror. Granted, as soon as you put funds into the mix, the numbers change a little which, to this writer, seems like a good reason to get rid of them rather than argue that we need more good guys with guns to fight the bad guys with guns.

In short, I’m all for war(s), I just have different enemies than the nation state. Yes, we are under attack. Yes, we must somehow defend ourselves. But believe you me, in the long run, in generation heretofore, if we are to reduce our dependence on defense, we must increase our efforts to heal and prevent illness, disease, illiteracy and the like.