49% of the American Public: Dangerously Misguided

Someone please explain this country's weird militarism fetish:

49% - Say Military Strength Ensures Peace

Only about half of Americans (49%) now say they think that maintaining military strength is the best way to ensure peace - the lowest percentage in the 20-year history of Pew values surveys and down sharply from the 62% who said so in the summer of 2002, less than a year after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. [READ THE REST]

Orwell would be appalled (though hardly surprised). Nearly half of Americans actually believe War is Peace. Incredible.

And what would the Founders think? Thomas Jefferson -- the principal author of the Declaration of Independence -- was vehemently opposed to standing armies:

• "I do not like [in the new Federal Constitution] the omission of a Bill of Rights providing clearly and without the aid of sophisms for... protection against standing armies." --Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, 1787. ME 6:387
  
  
• "Standing armies [are] inconsistent with [a people's] freedom and subversive of their quiet." --Thomas Jefferson: Reply to Lord North's Proposition, 1775. Papers 1:231
  
  
• "The spirit of this country is totally adverse to a large military force." --Thomas Jefferson to Chandler Price, 1807. ME 11:160

[h/t to FARK]

UPDATE: Don't miss Justin Raimondo's amazing new piece on militarism as neocon religion (h/t to LRC).