Okay… this doozy from David Sirota is all over the liberal blogosphere already, so many of you may have already seen it, but this is just too good to hide from my many righty readers.
“Should any political party attempt to abolish social security, unemployment insurance, and eliminate labor laws and farm programs, you would not hear of that party again in our political history. There is a tiny splinter group, of course, that believes you can do these things. Among them are [a] few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid.”
– President Dwight D. Eisenhower, 11/8/54
Hmmm… stupid Texas oil millionaires seeking to undermine social security, labor laws and farm programs. We should be on the lookout for dangerous folk like that.
Of course, it’s not like we’ve heeded any of Ike’s other warnings, like this familiar one from his Farewell Address:
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes.
Eisenhower was actually talking about Godless, communist, li-ber-aaaaallls! This is just your typical leftist spin/mantra on that Godfearing conservative warror of free markets and personal responsibility, Dwite Milhouse Eisenhower!
Mr. Cynical
Some Republicans in those days would float tax cuts for the rich in front of Ike and Ike would shoot them down every time. “Nope. We’re fighting a cold war. We need the money.”
He probably held that position out of spite for the out of control Pentagon beauracracy more than anything.
I’d take Ike back in a heartbeat.
Our Ike had a few words for the limp kneed liberals:
“History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid.” — Dwight D. Eisenhower
Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg. — Dwight D. Eisenhower
It is worth noting that Eisenhower was the last Republican to preside over a balanced budget and reduce the public debt. He’d probably be called a RINO today.
@1 whoever you are?
Yes The Texas Oil Millionaires were just busy at bread for bullet meetings all over the lone Star state in the 50’s….Yes they were giving it away to the masses as quick as they could pump it out of the ground.
Do you ever get tired of being so so stupid?
try giving some thought to something versus just playing from the Heritage Foundation Playbook.
1. Scare them
2. make up an enemy
3. Blame Clinton.
Thanks for the warning Ike. But the 8 years after your departure saw the entrenchment of the M-I Complex as well as the Welfare-Democrat Complex.
Which one has cost us more and given us less?
#3 Was Ike referring to the USSR or Germany at the time of the quote? Well regardless, if it was W in Ike’s position, he would have reinvaded Mexico. He was probably referring to both the “liberal” pacifists and the “conservative” isolationists anyways.
surely if Ike were in charge today; the borders would be sealed, the budget ballanced (along with trade), BinLadin captured or dead and our troops home defending the country (where they belong). It’s unfourtate that neither party can produce men of his caliber these days.
@5 You’re nothing but a Christian hater and an undeserving recipient of free goods from socialistic liberal programs! I hope that when the four horsemen of the apocalypse sound Gabriel’s horn that you will be able to see that belief in Jefsus Christ as our one true Lord and Savior is the only way to Support our troops! I used to be a liberal— even voted for Clinton once—but now I see the truth more clearly and I can no longer be fooled by your liberal mantras and anti free-market Godless Rhetoric.
Mr. Cynical
@ #3,
Could you try to link the two quotes somehow? Like how does social security = weakness in international politics?
Pet Libs @ 3
I agree liberals have been weak and timid far too long. Liberals need to get tough and show no mercy to conservatives who put ignorance on a pedestal and are hell-bent to destroy the middle class.
DudeReally @ 6
“Which one has cost us more and given us less?”
The MI complex, and Republican warmongers who profit from it.
@5 Whatever you are?!?! I thought maybe you would see the humour in a tongue-in-cheek, somewhat sardonic ,goof on a right wing rant. But I guess not. I would hate to cross you if I had a job in some humourless PC buraucracy where you were the chief Hoo-Doo of who is on the right side of the PC tracks.
Thanks for the warning Ike. But the 8 years after your departure saw the entrenchment of the M-I Complex as well as the Welfare-Democrat Complex.
Which one has cost us more and given us less?
Comment by DudeReally — 5/12/05 @ 10:10 am
By any measure, the MI complex has cost far more than every US welfare program combined. What have we gotten? How about $2000 hammers and toilet seats, unarmored Humvees, and billions squandered on a missile defense system that will never work – and won’t protect us from far more likely threats even if it does.
We lost a war in Vietnam that should never have been waged, we are losing a war in Iraq that should never have been started, and the good name of the US is now mud in most of the rest of the world – including some of our strongest allies.
Yup, them poor single black mothers are the real scourge here.
I get the feeling we’re about where the Roman Empire was at about 200AD – and shit ain’t getting any better.
The only consistent welfare we’ve had in this country is all the public funds that we GIVE to corporations through the Pentagon. Big business and government have gone hand in hand since the pyramids—you idiot! You want to destroy unions, send our good jobs overseas, make your own class into a third -world class of serf-like wage slaves—- and lecture us all about your nincompoop take on morality. You conservatives are wothless bags of crapola.
Goldy,
It is ironic you bring up the “military industrial complex” boogeyman. You are using a product of the military industrial complex right now. Psst …that is the Internet for all our liberal readers. Contrary to what you have been told, Al Gore did not invent it. It was all those evil corporations and the US Military (google DARPA).
Contrary to what you have been told, Al Gore did not invent it.
Contrary to the lies we’ve been told, Al Gore never claimed to.
http://www.gaycitynews.com/gcn_419/editorial.html
Gay City News endorsement for Kerry nixed. It looks like the presidential hopeful is against gay marriage being on the dems platform. Oh really. What will you liberals do when Hillary runs with Newt Gingrich? How exciting for you. I always loved Newt.
No worries Char. Somewhere in this liberal jungle little donny drunk promised Hillary Robs’em Clinton-Screws’em wasn’t going to be the nominee or some such blather.
John@2: ” I’d take Ike back in a heartbeat”: Me too.
Here’s why:
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. this world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of it laborers, the genius of its scientists, the houses of its children.
This is not a way of life…Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging itself on a across of iron.” (April 16, 1953)
Nobody has ever said it better than that. thanks Ike. Marilyn
well gosh, he ALSO said:
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
We are going to have peace even if we have to fight for it.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
I like to believe that people in the long run are going to do more to promote peace than our governments. Indeed, I think that people want peace so much that one of these days governments had better get out of the way and let them have it.
-Dwight D. Eisenhower
There is nothing wrong with America that the faith, love of freedom, intelligence and energy of her citizens cannot cure. -Dwight D. Eisenhower
Catshit quoted @ 21 A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both, great news, that must mean that the wacko/neocon/theocon GOP (Get OUR Profits) will soon be losing its privileges because it has already lost all of its principles (that is, if it ever had any)
Cat@21: Precisely. And none of those principles are in conflict with the one @20. These should be required reading and contemplation for all who want to be leaders, or just plain good citizens. Glad we’ve found something we can agree on.
Marilyn
Cat @ 21,
I’m hoping you included those last 2 Ike quotes for irony, ’cause they really don’t help your case…