Canada

Okay well hard to have a conversation with someone who says anyone who disagrees is a "fucking idiot," but here I go anyway.

Never said I agreed with buying those submarines, specifically. But we have real, ongoing threats in a big ass watery zone that's about to get more watery where, yes, a few submarines would make a massive difference. One submarine is capable of monitoring hundreds of kilometers of ocean at a time, and an attack submarine is capable of moving quickly to engage — which is exactly what we need in the north.

Currently, we use NORAD and ancient F-18's that have been frankenstein'd with modern technology they were never built for. I could say a whole lot more about Canada's bullshit selling out our aviation industry to the states, but that's another issue.

Point is, Russia has been testing our northern borders for decades, often, and they are demonstrably imperialist. How do I know? I lived on the base where we scrambled our jets to greet them. Where we already spend a fuck ton of money keeping those antiques in the air.

I'm absolutely with you on healthcare spending. There's a lot of shit about the budget I don't like.

At the same time we need to be monitoring and protecting a zone where Russia will have submarines if they don't already, and we don't currently have the technology to engage them.

More Canadians would die if we had American healthcare once we become the 51st state. Funding the military might not stop it but it might delay it.