The “elephant in the room,” a major problem everyone chooses to ignore, is not the GOP. The far- far-right elements of the GOP have been raucous (and made the far-right elements of the party look sane). The military is the pachyderm in our parlor.

Members of Congress, “D” or “R,” lack the guts to question the “defense budget.” In years past, Congress has dumped more cash on the Pentagon than the bottom-line number on its wish list. A common line of “conservatives” is that money doesn’t solve problems. Except...

“[V]iolent destruction ... incident to war the ... state of continual danger, will compel nations the most attached to liberty to resort for repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights.” Hamilton (not a pacifist), The Federalist, No. 8.

Congress had the power to “raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Year.” (Const., Art. I sec. 8) The Framers did not like standing armies, but the USA soon took a different course. Fast-forward to now.

U.S. invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan have allowed local police to grab “left over” military hardware. I attended a seminar, “No Justice, No Police: Finding Justice in American Policing,” sponsored by IU’s McKinney School of Law Review.

One panelist, Keith "Wildstyle" Paschall, Indianapolis historian and activist, described new Indy Metro PD officers, eager to go to “the swamp,” a nickname for Indy’s near-East side, like soldiers eager to fight an enemy, but we are the enemy.

Our society, infused with violence at nearly every level, frames goals as “wars” (against dugs, on poverty, against crime). The next step, to justify violence in those wars, is easy. A natural step beyond that is: violence is seen as a solution to any problem.

In Asimov’s Foundation trilogy, a character says “violence is the last resort of the incompetent.” For too long our country has glorified this last resort of incompetence. One of the biggest things we can do is cut the damn military budget. We can afford peace and it’s not just money.