Wisdom from the last Republican worth half a crap.

annabanana

(1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore

Sun Jul-15-07 06:24 AM
Original message

Wisdom from the last Republican worth half a crap.

(dragged up from the Archives. . .truer and truer. For all people who remember what the GOP used to be

General Dwight David Eisenhower
U.S. President 1953-1961

"I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its stupidity."
o Speech in Ottawa, Canada (10 January 1946)

"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
o Inaugural address (20 January 1953)

"All of us have heard this term 'preventative war' since the earliest days of Hitler. I recall that is about the first time I heard it. In this day and time... I don't believe there is such a thing; and, frankly, I wouldn't even listen to anyone seriously that came in and talked about such a thing."
o Press conference (1953)

"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 its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is, I repeat, the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron. <...> Is there no other way the world may live?"
o "The Chance for Peace" - A speech given to the American Society of Newspaper Editors (16 April 1953)

"...if a political party does not have its foundation in the determination to advance a cause that is right and that is moral, then it is not a political party; it is merely a conspiracy to seize power."
o Remarks at Fourth Annual Republican Women's National Conference (6 March 1956)

"I tell this story to illustrate the truth of the statement I heard long ago in the Army: Plans are worthless, but planning is everything. There is a very great distinction because when you are planning for an emergency you must start with this one thing: the very definition of 'emergency' is that it is unexpected, therefore it is not going to happen the way you are planning."
o Source: A speech to the National Defense Executive Reserve Conference in Washington, DC (14 November 1957)

"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 H. L. Hunt (you possibly know his background), a few other Texas oil millionaires, and an occasional politician or business man from other areas. Their number is negligible and they are stupid."
o Letter to Edgar Newton Eisenhower, his brother (8 November 1954)

"This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience…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."
o Farewell speech as President (17 January 1961)

"Un-American activity cannot be prevented or routed out by employing un-American methods; to preserve freedom we must use the tools that freedom provides."
o The White House Years: Mandate for Change, 1953-1956 (1963) p331

"I was against on two counts. First, the Japanese were ready to surrender, and it wasn't necessary to hit them with that awful thing. Second, I hated to see our country be the first to use such a weapon."
o Newsweek (11 November 1963) On his stated opposition to the use of the atomic bomb against the Japanese.

"An intellectual is a man who takes more words than necessary to tell more than he knows."

"Humility must always be the portion of any man who recieves acclaim earned in the blood of his followers and the sacrifices of his friends."

"I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it."

"If you want total security, go to prison. There you're fed, clothed, given medical care and so on. The only thing lacking... is freedom."

"May we never confuse honest dissent with disloyal subversion."

"Only strength can cooperate. Weakness can only beg."