Contributors

Monday, February 18, 2013


5 comments:

Anonymous said...

That quotation comes from a speech he gave called "The Chance for Peace It really is a remarkable speech. Read the whole thing.

Of course, by reading the whole thing, you will see that once again, the left (and Mark) are misrepresenting what he actually was saying by stripping away the context.

Here's some background on the occasion and thinking behind it.

As I recount in White House Ghosts: Presidents and Their Speechwriters, the circumstance was the March, 1953 death of Joseph Stalin. Eisenhower felt that the Soviet dictator’s demise provided an opportunity to nip the Cold War in the bud. It prompted him to give a speech that would be titled “The Chance for Peace.”

To sum up his speech:

- Military spending is expensive. Given a choices between paying for military equipment or improving their own lives, most people would prefer the latter.

- The United States is willing to cut military spending and disarm if the rest of the world—especially the Soviet Union—is willing to do likewise.

- Therefore:

We are prepared to reaffirm, with the most concrete evidence, our readiness to help build a world in which all peoples can be productive and prosperous.

This Government is ready to ask its people to join with all nations in devoting a substantial percentage of the savings achieved by disarmament to a fund for world aid and reconstruction. The purposes of this great work would be to help other peoples to develop the undeveloped areas of the world, to stimulate profitable and fair world trade, to assist all peoples to know the blessings of productive freedom.

The monuments to this new kind of war would be these: roads and schools, hospitals and homes, food and health.

We are ready, in short, to dedicate our strength to serving the needs, rather than the fears, of the world.

We are ready, by these and all such actions, to make of the United Nations an institution that can effectively guard the peace and security of all peoples.

I know of nothing I can add to make plainer the sincere purpose of the United States.

I know of no course, other than that marked by these and similar actions, that can be called the highway of peace.

I know of only one question upon which progress waits. It is this:

What is the Soviet Union ready to do?

Whatever the answer be, let it be plainly spoken.

Again we say: the hunger for peace is too great, the hour in history too late, for any government to mock men's hopes with mere words and promises and gestures.

The test of truth is simple. There can be no persuasion but by deeds.

Is the new leadership of the Soviet Union prepared to use its decisive influence in the Communist world, including control of the flow of arms, to bring not merely an expedient truce in Korea but genuine peace in Asia?

Is it prepared to allow other nations, including those of Eastern Europe, the free choice of their own forms of government?

Is it prepared to act in concert with others upon serious disarmament proposals to be made firmly effective by stringent U.N. control and inspection?

If not, where then is the concrete evidence of the Soviet Union's concern for peace?

The test is clear.

Anonymous said...

More from Dwight D. Eisenhower:

Why I am a Republican, by Dwight D. Eisenhower

For some years prior to the political conventions of 1952, influential leaders of both the Republicans and Democrats strongly urged me to become a candidate for their party's presidential nomination. The Democrats long had been in power in Washington and enjoyed a decisive majority in number of registered voters. Their nomination, if offered, seemed the surest and easiest route to the presidency.

However, before I could seriously entertain the idea of entering politics after a life devoted largely to military service, I had to make up my own mind as to which party offered the conscientious citizen the best guide for political judgement in these modern times. My decision, formed over a long period of study and contemplation, explains how I apply to the problems of today the same basic principles which led to the decision in 1952.




That is why I am increasingly disturbed by the steady, obvious drift of our nation toward a centralization of power of the Federal Government. And in this fact is found the primary reason why I sincerely urge all voters, no matter their present political affiliations, to take a fresh, thoughtful look at the basic Republican philosophy and Republican performance as compared to that of the Democrats. For the hard fact is that under many years of Democratic Party leadership our country has been lured into the "easy way," a path of federal expediency which, like a narcotic, may give us a false sense of well being, but in the long run is dangerous to our future, our basic rights, our moral fiber and our individual freedom.



We are headed away from sharing responsibility among local, state, and federal governments … toward direct, overpowering federal action in such diverse fields as education, housing, health, health, urban affairs, agriculture, transportation and power.



We are headed away from the fair sharing of the taxing power and tax revenues among local, state and federal governments … toward intense consolidation of the power and revenue in the hands of the relatively few politicians in Washington.

We are headed away from the known sound fiscal policies and balanced budgets … toward experimental and highly dangerous federal overspending which inevitably leads to inflation, deterioration of our currency and loss of world confidence in the dollar.

We are headed away from hardheaded common sense which applies our traditional principles to the solutions of our national problems, whatever they may be … toward flashy public relations publicity which seek to persuade us that mere labels are themselves solutions.




Or let us take the ingrained habit of Democratic Administrations to over-spend, to follow risky financial policies, particularly under the guise of "stimulating the economy." This process already has eroded away a basic right of every citizen: the right to have sound money, a dollar that is worth as much today as it was yesterday.

I know tht anyone who speaks up against deficit spending is accused by the "sophisticated" liberals of being more interested in money than in people. But I ask, what is more inhumane to more people than deliberately taking away the value of the money on which they must live in the future?

Let's be specific. The dollar you earned and saved 24 years ago is now worth just 45 cents. This loss is nothing we can shrug off with "Poppa knows best." It is a cruel injustice to people who worked hard all their lives who were frugal and self reliant in accumulating savings, insurance and pensions for their old age. But now the value of their retirement dollars has been cut to less than half of that when those dollars were earned, by easy-money and inflationary policies of the Government. and more of this shrinkage lies ahead, unless we elect a government with the courage and resolution to follow sound fiscal policies.

Anonymous said...

More from Why I am a Republican, by Dwight D. Eisenhower

Irony Alert:

2. Limited powers of government. To believe that the people themselves should retain all powers and responsibilities not specifically delegated to the Government. As Abraham Lincoln defined it, "The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot so well do, for themselves in their separate and individual capacities. In all the people can individually do as well for themselves, the government ought not to interfere." (I quote Lincoln not only because he has been the patron saint of the Republican Party from its beginning but also because modern Democrats are trying to steal him from us to capitalize on the reverence in which America holds his name.)



It must be emphasized that a tax cut alone is only half of the equation. Without a commensurate curtailment of federal expenditures a tax reduction by itself is a cruel illusion: What is given to the taxpayer in one hand is more than taken away from the other by cheapening his money and increasing his burden of public debt.

I do not for a minute see how the Democrats can balance the budget in the foreseeable future and at the same time proceed with their announced and costly programs. My experience with federal budgets and hard fiscal evidence leads to the inescapable conclusion that this Administration is headed toward more and larger deficits. The Administration's prolific gestures toward economy are at this moment little more than deft public relations and fiscal sleight of hand; only if great action programs are deeply cut or wholly eliminated will real economy be achieved.




Before you read the following, I need to remind you that this was written in 1964, 11 years after his "The Chance for Peace" speech.

We know, too, that this is no time to lessen our efforts to make our foreign policy more effective. The Cold War heats up - although the Soviet Union speaks nicely to us when it wants something from us. The Communists purpose has not changed; they wtill believe they must destroy us or be destroyed. The Berlin Wall still stands. Communists still are killing Americans in Vietnam. Castro still is exporting subversion and terror to his democratic neighbors in Latin America.

All of this means that as a nation we must continue to stand firm in our resolve to turn back Communist aggression and to cooperate with the free world in doing so. We must continue to support the efforts of the United Nations to bring quarrels betwenn nations to the conference table instead of the battlefield.


Obviously, I've only quoted a portion of his article. Be sure to read the whole thing.

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Simple questions Mark refuses to answer:

Is the Constitution law? (40 days and counting)

Is "false" equal to "truth"? (2 days and counting)

Anonymous said...

"With respect to the words "general welfare," I have always regarded them as qualified by the detail of powers connected with them. To take them in a literal and unlimited sense would be a metamorphosis of the Constitution into a character which there is a host of proofs was not contemplated by its creators."
— James Madison

Anonymous said...

So essentially government spending is theft from the people. Ok, I can agree with Ike.