Good points, all, 'cept for the AC who claims I'm talking out of my arse. Then again, on the Internet, no one knows if you're Ace Ventura.
Perhaps Japan was a bad example. There really is no good example of tax dollars being used to benefit the public directly through massive research projects, i.e., like DARPA without the "D." Perhaps "CARPA" - "Consumer Advanced Research Projects Agency." It's a little annoying to realize we can spend billions on getting people to the moon and figuring out a zillion ways to kill someone, yet the smog is giving me asthma, traffic sucks and public transportation is still lame (Japan IS better at this), our food supply is not robust (it's a chain of services only as strong as its weakest link), etc. It'd be great even if the military would spend its research man-hours figuring out better ways to teach and learn material, not just for their agents, but for every student. And then there's the levy system. Don't get me wrong, the indirect benefits of their research are great, but are we really better off benefiting from offshoots of military projects? All I'm asking is why can't we benefit from more directed research. (Note: of course research into defense projects is necessary - I'm not advocating cutting off military funding altogether).
Your #2 point sounds like a rainbow on an oil slick to me. The Japanese have been forbidden from having a military since WW2 and developed many, many consumer achievements. Why not cut out the middleman, i.e., the military when it comes to that?
Verify Me.
You will have many recoverable tape errors.