Verified answer

"Provide" for the common defense

"Promote" the general welfare.

I rarely agree on anything with Shovel Ready, but in this he or she has a valid point...at least up to a point. Our military has a policy of defending all Americans when they are ordered into battle, even if the battle itself is an illegal invasion (as in the case of the 2003 invasion of a sleeping Iraq which was not in any involved in the 9/11 attacks--something the Bush/Cheney administration knew). For the military personnel, they say "Ours is not to reason why; ours is but to do or die." This is one of the reasons why I favored allowing gays to serve in the military as a "put up or shut up" sort of deal--if they want their freedoms defended, then they should be willing to do their part too. In reality, however, there are many ways of serving one's country that have little or nothing to do with military service, so Shovel Ready is correct in saying you cannot separate the citizens as your question would suggest.

But then expand your question to include the entire DEFENSE budget. The United States spends more on defense than all other nations COMBINED, and even though the Clinton/Gore administration did make a valiant effort to eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse from the various civilian defense contractors (Boeing, Halliburton, KBR, the near-evil Blackwater/now Xe, Sverdrup...a crooked company I once investigated, Trijicon, and so many others), the "No Bid" contracts these contractors were granted by the Republicans in control of both House and Senate, approved by the Bush/Cheney administration, were loaded with overbillings and shoddy work from 2001 through to the early months of 2009 when the Obama/Biden administration began to rein the abuses in as part of their budget cutting efforts (see whitehouse.gov for more details). President Obama has urged Congress to make wise cuts in these over-inflated costs, submitting legislation after legislation trying to eliminate the waste, fraud, and abuse---and the right-wing Republicans (who made a pledge on January 20, 2009 to "bring Congress to a standstill" and to "block all Obama legislations" for no reason other than bigotry and fear of his popularity, according to Draper's book "Do Not Ask What Good We Do: Inside the U.S. House of Representatives") are not cooperating. Maybe if we all LOBBY the defense contractors' LOBBYISTS and the in-their-pockets CONGRESSMEN to MAKE THE CUTS, our budget deficit will go down a whole lot faster.

You cannot plausibly defend the national borders and interests abroad on your own.

You can buy your own personal health care.

National defense benefits all and is necessary for every other function of a country to be enabled., your health ,(or mine) does not.

That is why it's an invalid argument.

Defense is not an entitlement. It is a function of the fed govt spelled out in the Constitution

Oddly, you neglected to point out how it is going to be possible to provide national defense only to the people who want it, and remove national defense from those who don't care.

Yes. Welfare to defense companies, weapons manufactures, foreign governments and the MIC is still welfare.

Its not valid for Republicans because they arent fiscal conservatives. They are for wealth redistribution sometimes on a greater scale than liberals.

Totally agree .

Lucy is correct.