(It could be that for the US taxpayer the empire is a good deal. eg could you print all those dollars and get the entire world to hold them without the empire? You get a nice windfall from this. But again it's between you and your government. Maybe if you called yourself an empire, it would enable more open and productive discussions wrt cost/benefit analysis per vassal state.)

What a shitty cycle.

To do that, it seems like the defense industry needs "stuff to do". Like a muscle, that sector atrophies if left unused. It's counterintuitive, though -- why spend so much money on a glorified Skunk Works project like the F35? Why double down and start producing hundreds of them despite their issues? Because it generates/maintains experience and lessons and keeps the metabolic pathways that turn material into materiel active. If you skipped the extra steps and had the government just sustain the defense industry on welfare while it does nothing right up until we have a massive conflict, things are going to go much more poorly for you.

The military industrial complex will always have a bogeyman ready.

There's no need to funnel it through Israel, which gains more of the benefit than we do.

Israel is also a gem of technological innovation. We probably get the public spending back in NYSE listing fees and trading profits alone.

What a completely depressing world

American problems at home are bad though. https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Not_as_bad_as

Besides, Israel's support for gay rights and feminism is hardly universal. Spend some time in an orthodox neighborhood if you don't believe me.

I think you are kicking in open doors here.

But unlike a few kilometers away it won't get you kicked from a rooftop, it will only get you angry looks.

So what does Israel do in return?

The Patriot anti-missile systems were shit before Israeli technology was used to improve them.

If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and sticking to the rules when posting in the future, we'd be grateful. That means thoughtful, substantive comments that engage with curiosity rather than enemies.

Edit: it looks like we've had to warn you about this multiple times before. Please fix this.

Also, for being such a regime.

You don’t even have to scratch the surface. Is Saudi Arabia a freedom loving democracy?

2. "Oh but, what about <X>"... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whataboutism

And by the way I am not anti-semitic, if that is what you were trying to imply with "absurdly selective".

Israel has many high value products to export besides weapons. Israel can enjoy prosperity without having to resort to trading weapons with such regimes.

What do you suggest I do instead?

We should talk about problems when we encounter them. The more specific the better.

Judaism imposes duties on each Jew. Religious duties in the form of commandments.

How about following those commandments? If you say the commandments do not matter then you are saying that as a Jew, Judaism doesn't matter. In that case, you don't need a state don't you?

If you want to be free to practice your religion, do it. But do it properly, not only the parts you like.