Bang for the Buck

Today, the New York Times reports that America is the world leader in arms sales. I suppose it's good to be the tops at something, since in the past few weeks every statistic that's come to light has proven our health care to be inadequate by world standards. We sure can sell hard machinery to kill people, just not fix the political machinery that prevents saving them.

$37 Billion dollars is the magic number for US arms sales, accounting for almost 70% of sales, worldwide. World. Wide.

There's an obvious irony here. Where are the huge public debates about the ethics of selling arms? Billions of dollars made on selling weapons to kill people in emerging nations doesn't really send the right international message, does it? Should we replace the stars on our flag with bullets?

Fixing healthcare should be a no-brainer. Helping people, especially those less fortunate, to meet basic human needs, is never a bad thing. Yet that message has gotten lost in the scuffle of verbal assaults. We're losing a battle of American Identity and we're morphing into a petty nation that focuses and touts our differences rather than celebrating our common humanity.