This may not be very coherent, but I need to spew some midnight musings while I try to grapple with current events, crunch some numbers, and try to come to terms with the narrative versus principles. Disagree? Comment!
Data points
US population: approaching 335,900,000.
Ukraine population: about 43,100,000
Numbers are rounded to nearest 100,000 as estimated by worldometers.info as I am writing this post at the very end of 2022.
Number Crunching
The U.S. has already transferred military and non-military aid worth $54.43 billion to the government of Ukraine. Feel free to check my math, but that seems to come to $1260 per Ukrainian, and $160 per American. Current budget proposals include another $44 billion, or over $1000 per Ukrainian, and about $130 per American. Combined, it would all total more than the entire Russian military annual budget.
These funds are backed only by promises of future taxation, not existing wealth in Fort Knox. Foreign aid always means rich people stealing money from poor people in rich countries, and giving it away to the rich people in poor countries while the poor people in poor countries get shafted. It does not benefit the average Russian or Ukrainian when this war gets dragged on. Debt is being accrued, and the people profiting financially or politically will not pay back that price any more than they bleed and die for their causes now.
Rant
Correct me if I am wrong, but Ukraine is not the 51st state in the US, and the US government has no authority to involve itself in foreign wars even if we don our Minarchist dunce caps and pretend the Constitution has granted some mystical authority.
Russia is bad, but Putin is not Hitler Mk. II. Zelenskiy's government is riddled with corruption, including remaining allegations of ties to Hunter Biden seeking political favors. We have no business becoming entangled in European belligerence on either side.
The war needs to end, not grind people into corpses while self-aggrandizing politicians play games. It's probably less destructive to watch Russia win fast instead of pushing Ukraine to escalate. We all love an underdog story, but that is exactly why I am skeptical of the narrative. The victims are not the ones with fancy titles making speeches on TV, but rather the people who get trampled by the war machine, and then those who survive are also extorted in perpetuity to pay the political class. They lose most when wars drag on.
All this blood, death, debt, and destruction. What do we get out of it afterward? Not just Americans, but also Ukrainians and Russians. Where is the benefit to any of us in these wars? Why are we waving flags and taking sides?
