Eisenhower, when he was leaving the Presidental office, back in '69 mention this, in his farewell address: (and I think its just as important now, as it was then)

"We face a hostile ideology global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose and insidious in method..." He was refering to the growth of communistic threads, as the Cold War was raging at the time.

In addition, he warned against unjustified goverment spending on proposals with the military in mind:

"we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex... Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military-industrial_complex

Mr. Obama and his team, are going up against one of the most entrenched lobbying groups in America. It holds a virtual strangle hold on America, because, as they argue, without them, the USA, wouldn't exist. As such, we must put hundreds of billions towards the defense and military. The USA, spends $560 billion on its defense & military, far larger then the next largest military spending country in the world, which is Russia & Europe with $320 billion. (source: http://www.globalissues.org/article/75/world-military-spending).

Which is kind of amusing, if you think about it. Republicans are/were all angry at the amount of money being spent for Health Care (costing just under $1 trillion over 10 years), but neglect to mention, the first six years of the Iraq war costing the USA Taxpayer $3 trillion dollars.

If Americans want out of the Iraq war, they merely have to contact their elected represenatives, and senators, and say so. Its much easier to complain and do nothing, then to do something about the very reason for the complaining. Until that happens, the USA, will stay in Iraq and Afghanistan. I would imagine, it makes the Iranian military uneased when its leaders talk about blowing up countries and making nuclear technology that is suspected to be for a WMD. Why? The USA has 200,000+ troops on Iran's west and east sides, with deep logistical trains of support, that could unleash HEll, in the event of a military conflict.

QM, as a conservative, wouldn't you agree that too much is being spent on foreign wars?

Even with all the inevitable Dept. of Defense waste? No. The first priority of any nation is to defend itself from invaders. If you took all the money we spend on defense, redirected it for "social services" and scrap the military, China would quickly move in. I think liberals have a tendency to forget that it's our nuke-carrying submarines circling the globe that keep monsters like China in check and everyone honest.

Unfortunately, America has no choice but to be the world's policeman, we've been cast in that role, and a Ron Paul-style return of all our Armed Forces around the world would mean absolute chaos. Think of how many rogue nations there are now, still acting like dicks WITH our military everywhere.

You won't believe this, but "spending (on national security) as a share of the national economy has actually decreased sharply in recent decades and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan brought only relatively minor increases. In 1951, with overall government spending less than half what it is today, the defense budget was nearly twice its 2009 level. (9% to 4.7%). In other words, military spending as a percentage of all governmental spending is today only one-fourth what it was sixty years ago.

"In 1968, due to Vietnam, military spending rose to 9.8%. That number (of defense spending as a percentage of GDP) came down after the conclusion of the war in Southeast Asia, and sank to a modern low of 3% under Bill Clinton, a level criticized by many military planners as irresponsibly low. Defense spending has increased steadily since then (to an estimated 4.7% this year) under the pressures of the War on Terror. The defense budget nevertheless remains historically low far below its levels under Eisenhower, say, or Kennedy, or Reagan (6%). In explaining the outrageous increase in federal, state and local spending, its obvious that defense and international entanglements had nothing to do with it."

Wood Chipper and Friends are complaining that "no one is doing anything" to help "the poor."

"A book "The Complete Idiots Guide to Economics" written in 2003 cites the U.S. Government budget as reporting that entitlements make up approximately 65 percent of our budget, distributed as follows:
Social Security: 23%
Medicare: 12%
Medicaid: 7%
Other Means-tested entitlements: 6%
Mandatory payments (pensions, etc.): 6%
Net interest on debt: 11%

In 2005, Senator Judd Gregg, then Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee stated that "Mandatory entitlement spending now represents a whopping 55 percent of all federal spending. If left on its current path, that could jump to more than 60 percent in 10 years. That will force us to cut out other necessary expenditures or raise taxes and weaken our economy." Source: The Hill newspaper, Washington DC."

Believe what you like, but there are the facts. Defense spending is a drop in the bucket compared to entitlements aka health, education, welfare. And while military tech has much improved, you don't see a doubling of quality in our govt. schools and you SURE as hell aren't going to see quantum leaps of innovation and efficiency in health care by letting the government run it.

For Kucinich & Friends we could spend 99% of the annual budget on entitlements and they would, and STILL never be happy. It's straight up fking bullsht that so many people have to have their hard-earned sht stolen by a thugverment and handed to people that don't give a sht, don't try and don't care. Yes, some of them need help, but what about the guy that can do the same as you, only he chooses to fk off? Why should you have to pay for his indolence? Do you really think it's just "the rich' getting soaked? Take a look at your paystub. The feds take a nice chuck out of your ass every week or two weeks, even if you're flipping burgers.

mootie writes At least some of that goes towards HELPING people instead of KILLING them.

We spent massive treasure and blood removing a tyrant from Iraq and giving 30 million Iraqis a chance to govern themselves. Doesn't that HELP them?

Liberalism starts with a negative premise, then gets even angrier that the impossible can't be solved with huge sums of money. It's like jumping down a hole and hanging from the bar of weights you're trying to lift while dangling.

Congratulate these guys on recognizing that every politician uses public funds on pet programs to buy votes. However they seem completely blind to issues of scale. GHW bush raised taxes, but he didn't balance the budget because of unemployment benefits, therefore tax increases don't balance the budget? That's pretty messed up right there considering what a tiny percentage of federal spending finds it's way into unemployment. They go after Eisenhower's programs which a) weren't that expensive and b) took place during a balanced budget. And the interstate highway system is the best investment this country ever made. The fact is, everyone knows how to balance the budget: you make significant cuts to items that actually have a significant share of the budget (defense or entitlements) and you raise taxes. They are all just too cowardly to tell the voters that.

Here are my fiscal heroes:
Eisenhower: 8 years of balanced budgets and the ONLY president since WW2 to oversee a growth in the wealth of the middle class. Was written into history as a lightweight figurehead of a president. In reality, he was a man who had no significant electoral opposition and used that security to offer education, home ownership and good jobs to the men who had sacrificed under his command.

Clinton: Came into office and decided that taking real steps to balance the budget would increase economic confidence. Took advantage of the end of the cold war to slash defense spending. Raised taxes. Suffered a humiliating voter rejection in 1994 which was hilarious because within 2 years the deficit was disappearing and the economy was in overdrive.

If anything the lesson should be that democracy doesn't create middle class wealth or balance budgets. Only those politicians willing to buck the natural incentives of the system will ever make any headway on the debt. The others will just spend and spend and spend.

Did you see this reply to your comment? Why is this idiot holding you accountable for Nuremberg?

You ask the question "Why are we shouting about it now? And why are we only shouting about this particular torture?"

He answers "But we found the nazis guilty of torture!"

>> ^Stormsinger:
No one had a problem with prisoner treatment under Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, et al.
And yet, we prosecuted Germans for torture, and waterboarding was a prime example. They also had plenty of documented legal opinions explaining why it was legal to do so, but we clearly judged the acts indefensible. Remember the Nuremberg trials, and the famous statement that "following orders is no excuse"?
Selective outrage makes me suspicious. When a person really believe in something then they believe it at all times for ALL people - not just when they have a political axe to grind. I don't see 'thinking' when it comes to this issue. I see people reactionism, groupspeak, talking points, and a LOT of people who are rather too willing to let someone else do thier thinking for them.
Taking you at your word, unless you're also going to object to the Nuremberg trials, I suggest you should be pushing -for- investigation and prosecution.

>> ^Stormsinger:
No one had a problem with prisoner treatment under Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, et al.
And yet, we prosecuted Germans for torture, and waterboarding was a prime example. They also had plenty of documented legal opinions explaining why it was legal to do so, but we clearly judged the acts indefensible. Remember the Nuremberg trials, and the famous statement that "following orders is no excuse"?
Selective outrage makes me suspicious. When a person really believe in something then they believe it at all times for ALL people - not just when they have a political axe to grind. I don't see 'thinking' when it comes to this issue. I see people reactionism, groupspeak, talking points, and a LOT of people who are rather too willing to let someone else do thier thinking for them.
Taking you at your word, unless you're also going to object to the Nuremberg trials, I suggest you should be pushing -for- investigation and prosecution.


Why has Nuremberg got anything to do with the person you are quoting? I'm sure he was disgusted by the torture in nazi germany too. I don't necessarily agree with everything he said, but a lot of it was pretty much pinpointing a bit of an inconvenient question.

The question he's asking is why are we suddenly shouting about it now? And why aren't we shouting about all forms of torture? Unfortunately, he goes on to hint that confinement and restraint is torture and therefore also should be a target of outrage, and this i completely disagree on. In that case, prisons would have to shut down. But other than that it's a pretty good point.

And the answer you're giving him is "But we found the nazi's guilty of torture!"

The answer does not seem to relate to the question.

No one had a problem with prisoner treatment under Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, et al.

And yet, we prosecuted Germans for torture, and waterboarding was a prime example. They also had plenty of documented legal opinions explaining why it was legal to do so, but we clearly judged the acts indefensible. Remember the Nuremberg trials, and the famous statement that "following orders is no excuse"?

Selective outrage makes me suspicious. When a person really believe in something then they believe it at all times for ALL people - not just when they have a political axe to grind. I don't see 'thinking' when it comes to this issue. I see people reactionism, groupspeak, talking points, and a LOT of people who are rather too willing to let someone else do thier thinking for them.

Taking you at your word, unless you're also going to object to the Nuremberg trials, I suggest you should be pushing -for- investigation and prosecution.

Of course waterboarding is torture. Any act that is deliberately performed on an unwilling participant is torture. Anyone who says otherwise is wrong. The real question is, "What level of torture is appropriate?"

When prisoners are captured, it is unrealistic to expect that NO pressure of any kind will ever be applied to get information out of them. Involuntary confinement, lousy food, no talking, 'mean face' interrogations, bright lights, handcuffs, shackles, shouting, loud music, irregular sleep times... All these things are forms of pressure... TORTURE. No one seems to be upset about it. Why is that?

It is my observation that Waterboarding as a topic is almost entirely political. A bunch of radicals on 'one side' want to prosecute political opponents on the 'other side' for something - anything. Detainee abuses became a political vehicle to that end. This despite the factual reality that this kind of torture (and far worse) has gone on for decades. No one had a problem with prisoner treatment under Clinton, Bush 1, Reagan, Carter, Ford, Nixon, Johnson, Kennedy, Eisenhower, Truman, FDR, et al.

Selective outrage makes me suspicious. When a person really believe in something then they believe it at all times for ALL people - not just when they have a political axe to grind. I don't see 'thinking' when it comes to this issue. I see people reactionism, groupspeak, talking points, and a LOT of people who are rather too willing to let someone else do thier thinking for them.

I fully expect a lot of snap-reaction to this comment. That's fine. But ask yourself... "Why do I object to waterboarding, but not to interrogations, imprisonment, and all other forms of torture?"

QM, you realize that quote from Eisenhower that you mentioned was specifically AGAINST the military-industrial-congressional complex from which so many of your talking points are created and passed out to the conservative talking heads?

You are no longer allowed to quote that speech unless you agree that the U.S. spends entirely too much money and effort keeping up a military that is inefficient and used to protect industrial (as compared to national) interests.

Then you are allowed to quote that speech.

Right-wing prejudice against greenies? Get real. A full THIRD of all federal regulations are environmental regs. We're not talking about a few recycling bins here but the systematic destruction of the free market, which has protected resources through private property ownership way better than some bureaucrat deciding you can't cut down a tree on your own property.

When green fanatics announce that "all GW debate is over", compare their opponents to "Holocaust deniers" and rush to pass still more wealth and freedom-destroying legislation before it can be debated, what else can "man-made" GW be but a hoax?...a hoax perpetrated by government force. TIME IS RUNNING OUT is the mantra of the used car salesman.

It's embarrassing that so many otherwise 'rational' people would suddenly link millions of years of natural global warming and cooling cycles to a few centuries of industry, as if THE SUN plays no role in earth not being a ball of ice. (measuring by the cycles we're LONG overdue for another ice age).

Now greenvangelicals are trying to declare water vapor and carbon dioxide TOXIC and in need of regulation. There's no end to these power grabs and no limits to the human lust for power and other emotional defects from which the atheist naively declares immunity.

"The prospect of domination of the nation's scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific technological elite."

-- Dwight Eisenhower speech, 1961

http://www.globalwarminghoax.com/news.php

NetRunner,

There is little doubt in my mind you will not read what I have posted, as it is a 598 page intellectual monster; but I have looked at the 11 page FAQ you linked, and not even past the first section I have had to stomach conjecture.

I do not know what reading is like for you, but when an author makes a lot of unsubstantiated claims, it is really hard for me to get through it. This is the same reason it is hard for me to ever finish reading the bible. Every time I sit down and try, I am left with more questions than I began with because bold claims are constantly made, yet never explained. How can you stand to read Kangas with a critical mind when he raises more questions than he answers?

The opening section of Kangas' FAQ is "What is liberalism?" Yet after only 4 short paragraphs I was left with more than five times as many questions as the section attempted to answer.

1. "...commercial crimes like fraud, copyright infringement, insider trading, breach of contract, price gouging, etc. Without these laws, the market would function either poorly or not at all."
2. "if we did not have copyright laws discouraging people from pirating all their software, computer programmers could not even make a profit, and would have no incentive to produce."
3. "Yet another function of government is to defend the free market -- for example, with police and military forces."
4. "A dramatic example is Eisenhower's Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956, which authorized the creation of over 40,000 miles of interstate highway. These highways interconnected, accelerated and expanded the U.S. economy, with profound results."
5. "Much of this infrastructure was too huge and expensive to be funded by private companies, and languished undeveloped until the public sector stepped in."

These statements only raise questions, they do not explain anything. I'm not saying I agree or disagree with them, but if a uneducated reader came across it they would either have to take them on faith, or be riddled with questions: Why does the market perform poorly without those laws? Why can't programmers make a profit without copyright? Why does the government defend the free market? How did the highways accelerate the economy? Why couldn't private companies fund this infrastructure?

Moreso, they have nothing to do with answering the question "what is liberalism?" If you listed those five claims and asked a person to guess what the author was trying to support, would anyone guess "the definition of liberalism?" Why did he even include these assertions when they do not support the heading; and how is that not intellectually frustrating to you? Its not just conjecture, its bad writing.

I do not enjoy nonfiction which requires faith, because the claims are so intellectually impotent they do not arouse in me any desire to see what the author has to say next. I can force myself through the 11 pages of 10th-grade-level writing from an online pundit such as Kangas, but why should I when the question has already been forcefully answered almost 82 years ago in 224 pages of masterful prose by a genius in the field?

I mean, here are both authors answering the same question:
http://mises.org/liberal/isec1.asp
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/ShortFAQ.htm#liberalism

Just compare the force of writing for yourself.

>> ^mattsy:
I like it when he gets riled up.
I'd be interested to know how much of that budget went to scientific projects for the military...(what Eisenhower called the scientific-technological elite)


I'll bet you it was most of it, easily.

Greater than two-thirds.

I like it when he gets riled up.

I'd be interested to know how much of that budget went to scientific projects for the military...(what Eisenhower called the scientific-technological elite)

honestly, thanks for the grain of salt

it really just looks like a couple of nervy nitwits' "theories" ... with a cultured british accent thrown over that and stock video taken out of context and rather coincidentally rearranged

shouldn't be too hard for me to provide another "grain" for all of us to consider rubbing together with the former...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda#History_of_the_name

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2108588&postcount=9

there you go...

something else just occurred to me from the video's mention of the "military-industrial complex" -- this being that we often don't consider much of the context of that particularly insightful eisenhower speech:

here's a gem that just precedes the now-iconic reference...

"Throughout America's adventure in free government, our basic purposes have been to keep the peace; to foster progress in human achievement, and to enhance liberty, dignity and integrity among people and among nations. To strive for less would be unworthy of a free and religious people. Any failure traceable to arrogance, or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us grievous hurt both at home and abroad.

Progress toward these noble goals is persistently threatened by the conflict now engulfing the world. It commands our whole attention, absorbs our very beings. We face a hostile ideology -- global in scope, atheistic in character, ruthless in purpose, and insidious in method. Unhappily the danger it poses promises to be of indefinite duration. To meet it successfully, there is called for, not so much the emotional and transitory sacrifices of crisis, but rather those which enable us to carry forward steadily, surely, and without complaint the burdens of a prolonged and complex struggle -- with liberty the stake. Only thus shall we remain, despite every provocation, on our charted course toward permanent peace and human betterment."

http://coursesa.matrix.msu.edu/~hst306/documents/indust.html

now *that's* thought-provoking =)

expounding on that in a much-later newspaper editorial is ike's close friend and former naval aide to the president:

"The science community is paralyzed by a phony, egotistical self-
guilt, and the technophobes in academia have had a field day for a
generation, teaching our young people to scorn the sciences and feel
guilty for being Americans. Aided by a couple of administration in
which "social engineering" was more fashionable than science, techno-
logical leadership is passing from the United States to nations who
have struck a more rational balance."

http://www.fortfreedom.org/n09.htm

heh heh, i think something really "got his goat"

anyway, i've always felt that the surest way of losing an argument is to overstate it... i guess i feel that that's exactly what the first video does

here's what we can take from it, at least overwhelmingly so (in the court of public opinion)

- america's "reaction" to the attacks of september 11th made al-qaeda both a household name *and* target #1 of the us government (durr)

- this most likely helped consolidate bin laden's organization, and surely polarized islamic radicalism ever further, thus increasing al-qaeda's magenetism to ends both in funding and recruiting

- prolonged military action in the "war on terror" is CONTINUING to make our "military-industrial complex" lots of money (do you really think that strong ties between "death merchantry" and government didn't exist before 2001... or even long before ike's speech??)

- america's (and the world's) "military-industrial complex" will continue to thrive until (ha) there is peace... and then probably a bit longer

- the "war on terror" probably won't end even if we get every member of al-qaeda into the same denny's restaurant and then nuke it (in a similar fashion as to arresting al capone not ending the fbi's war on organized crime)

- this will continue to make both you and me sad, and the "desth merchants" happy

...

but maybe, just maybe, we should take note of what ike first said we *should* be... STRONG ... and *then* consider our thinking on maintaining the BALANCE he warned us all should be sought in his now-pop-culture reference

>> ^yonderboy:

I agree with you to a point, however JFK, Eisenhower, president Jackson, and Lincoln could not all have been loons.

No upvote for the needless addition of music.

Nah, you know what? Fuck that. Downvote. I can't stand this need of so many people today to layer inappropriate music over everything.

WHY DOES THIS NEED MUSIC. I CAN'T HEAR EISENHOWER.