A good portion of the voters are okay with government spending on military versus “bad” guys, with almost no limit, but the same voters balk at other government spending, decrying it for waste or corruption or inefficiency, etc.
The tribe opens up their wallet anytime they feel threatened, but not to help each other, to make sure no other sub-tribe is getting a disproportionate portion of the help (and/or to maintain their own sub-tribe continuing to get a disproportionate portion of the help).
I don't know, what you say about the voters may be true, but I'm not convinced. We see a lot of politicians and media personalities making these kind of statements but how often do we hear an average voter expressing such opinions ?
It can be pretty harmful (politically) to express such opinions on the record, but I infer based on actions. I most easily see it in the efforts which people will go through to make sure their kids get "ahead".
I would characterize it as a general trait of people being happy with growth for everyone, as long as their piece of the growth remains consistent and stays ahead of the growth of those at or below them in society. Once the ordering starts getting disturbed, then people get tribal very quickly.
I'm assuming this is a general trait present in many species that live in groups.
Government is always inefficient, even in the rare cases where it's not utterly corrupt. As Bill Buckley famously put it, "What would happen if the Communists occupied the Sahara? Answer: Nothing—for 50 years. Then there would be a shortage of sand."
Are you aware that Dubai imports sand? It's not communism they've got there, though. More a sort of feudalism, I think.
Anyway, government is only inefficient if you want it to be. If you keep voting for corrupt grifters that waste money, that's what you get. There are plenty of examples of government being fairly efficient.
In the US, the Republican Party has been preaching the evils of government for decades, and when in power, they've made sure that they were correct about it. They made it a self-fulfilling prophesy.
Unfortunately the military is the most trusted institution in the US. Why I don't understand? People will scream about reducing military spending but scream about increase in other things.
Its funny however since most people in the US are against the wars now also.
The numbers on this are pretty paradoxical. The majority of people want the wars to end but also keep up military spending.
Military spending is a jobs/makework program that's politically acceptable to conservatives. They wouldn't support spending that same amount of many on other things, even far more useful things.
Politicians want steady employment within their own district. Having a contractor or supplier for the F-35 serves this purpose well, while infrastructure work is much more temporary and spread out.
