I talked about this in some detail above, but I'll try and get to your main questions. Why not all humanitarian efforts? I don't know. We have certainly gone in to some situations and dealt with some horrible dictators at the same time as helping ourselves economically (Gulf War, Iraqi Freedom), but we've also managed to get ourselves into some actions for no reason other than people needed us (Kosovo, Somalia). Look, I'm not suggesting we bend over and form some World Government like those EU loving idiots in Brussels. But there are a lot of benefits to using military power to ensure stability in the world. The guy who killed those people due to PTSD and stress is regrettable. However, that's war. Sometimes this crap happens. It happens in Just and unjust wars alike by the "bad guys" and "good guys".
People do expect us to take the lead. We are the largest contributor to NATO's budget and more often than not the largest contributor of manpower in operations. We are the largest contributor to the United Nations as well. We contribute the most to Foreign Aid. People expect a lot out of the most powerful nation on the planet.
Here's the deal though, 100,000 troops in the middle east where we're essentially taking sides in a civil war. It's justified to the American people by making the statement that there's "weapons of mass destruction" when we've now found that there never was a WMD anywhere. Now we're being told Iran is developing a nuclear power. They have no space program. They have no navy. Unless they're capable of developing a missile to make the 14 hour flight with a yet to be developed nuclear device - I wouldn't consider them any kind of threat to the US. Yet we're still being fed the same line we were 10 years ago. "We have to act now, they have weapons of mass destruction!!!" Aren't you starting to get a little leery of the people trying to control everyone with fear? Take this into account; a couple of years ago, a satellite was to re-enter the atmosphere and impact somewhere over the US. The media made a huge hoopla about the U.S. military breaking up the satellite during re-entry with a laser. With all of the top secret military weapons we're likely to have, wouldn't you think if we can disintegrate space junk traveling at the speed of an asteroid, we would have a way to intercept a nuclear missile coming from over 6,000 miles away? I don't buy this fear mongering being spread by the left & the right one bit. So where's the gain? Why is there such an effort to stay in the middle east? Oil? I don't pretend to be an economist, but I'm sure there's some rich land owners that wouldn't mind pumping $$ into legislators pockets to keep oil prices at a premium.
Look, every four years we all listen to these promises and we always complain about what a bunch of liars politicians are. All I know is there is a guy running for president that is saying we've got tons of wasteful spending within our military. This line of thinking scares the crap out of the average American. But right now, the average American isn't aware that we have over 50,000 troops in Germany & over 30,000 troops in China and we're occupying over 170 other countries. Why? Don't you think this has some sort of impact? Have you ever lived in Manhattan? Fort Riley soldiers have a pretty bad rap with the locals. You don't get the name Riley Rat for nothing. Granted, It's likely 1% of the guys out there giving the rest a bad name, but this 1% is representing Americans world wide. I don't know if you've noticed this but right now, we're not at war with a government, we're at war with civilians. We're at war with terrorist. You talk about all of these countries that love us because of our occupation within their country, but I question who really loves us. Their local government? Terrorism isn't born within international governments. They're created within the ranks of the people sick & tired of their sisters aunts & mothers being raped by the 1% of military men. The bombing of their neighborhoods. The anti-missile guns testing at 3:00 am terrifying your children. You call it the cost of war. I call it the birth of a new terrorist every day. And for what? What possible reason could we have to occupy two countries with over 80,000 troops... two countries we haven't been at war with for nearly 70 years? It's irresponsible. It's wasteful spending. It's foreign policy that causes more harm than good. Isolationism is a funny word coming from politics that still impose a trade embargo on Cuba. Keeping your military home to protect America seems more patriotic than anything else. Bottom line though, If our financial issues aren't resolved, we won't be able to help anyone in any humanitarian efforts... even though I think you're full of crap and we've never got involved in anything strictly humanitarian.
Changing topics now to Drugs. Do you think the people that want to do heroine & cocaine are currently not doing them out of fear of being arrested? People that want these drugs can get them at a low cost & whenever they want. There's nothing stopping them. It's like gun control - It only affects people who obey the law or as I'm sure you've heard before: "Only criminals are allowed to use guns." Law abiding citizens don't need laws to make them live healthy lives & make good choices. You're also tying drugs along with violent crimes like it's an inevitable outcome - making it sound as if cocaine & acid were to be made legal, people would also be allowed to commit violent crimes. Would we not be able to prosecute violent crimes with or without drug use? You've been told your entire life that bad people "do hard core drugs and commit violent crimes". You're making the assumption that if you remove hard core drugs & stop violent crimes that bad people would cease to exist, when in reality, you just don't know people. There are kids that are told their entire life what they can't do. They're intimidated with fear to believe that if they do these things bad things will happen to them - when yes that may be true - It's not stopping them from wanting to do these bad things. People cannot be controlled with fear. Take the redneck dad that shot his daughters laptop and posted the video on youtube & facebook. If your parent did that to you, would you stop being an ungrateful crap head? Or would you become better at hiding being an ungrateful crap head? Or better yet, do something even crazier than shooting a computer, just to piss off your parents and show them you are in control of your life. Just continue this cycle until you end up so far overboard that you end up killing your parents & steal their truck to drive to Mexico. Look, I had the option to smoke pot & drop acid in college. You know what I did? I passed the bong right on by and didn't take the pills. I don't know why I didn't try it; but I know my parents instilled in me that no matter what mistake I made, they would stand by me & love me. They didn't tell me "No". They didn't put fear in me - they allowed me to think critically about outcomes of my actions. They educated me on the mistakes people make with drugs and showed examples of people ruining their lives with drug use. I made the choice for myself to not partake. It's all based off the simple principle that people don't like being told "No, You can't have this. It's not good for you." And if they are in a position where they don't have any love in their life - or they don't care about the outcome - or they just want to be obstinate to show everyone they are in control of their life. They'll do it anyway. That's our drug policy right now. I guarantee you our approach with drug control is creating more druggies than it's stopping. Education would be a far more effective tool in fighting drug problems than prohibiting them.
Cigarettes are a great example of educating people into taking better care of themselves. When I was under the legal age, everyone I knew smoked. It was rebellious. It was relatively safe when compared to doing drugs. And it was illegal. It didn't stop them. You know when they stopped smoking? When they were of the legal age and it wasn't rebellious anymore. They were able to look at it logically and through past education, they knew it was bad for them. They stopped because it was their choice. Will more people do drugs if it were legal? Maybe at first - but I don't see being the Hollywood dramatization of the likes of "hangover" where seemingly responsible people become maniacal violent criminals because they tried a little crank.
But whatever dude. Believe whatever you want. I'm done saying the same crap over & over and arguing with people terrified of what the government has told you to be terrified of. You post pictures of Ron Paul with tin foil on his head - yet you're the one living in fear. Good luck with that.