Quote from Ike

[thebullet]

I'm off to work. Leaving you with a thought from a former President and general. (I saw him in person several times around town when I was a kid.)

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 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, 1954

 

[rikaaim]

Thanks for the laugh before I head off to work. That's a great way to get the day started.

 

[logophile]

I Like Ike

Some more Eisenhower quotes for those of you who are interested...

I hate war as only a soldier who has lived it can, only as one who has seen its brutality, its futility, its stupidity.

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.

If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution.

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

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.

Politics ought to be the part-time profession of every citizen who would protect the rights and privileges of free people and who would preserve what is good and fruitful in our national heritage.

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

And finally...
War settles nothing.

 

[rgraham666]

There is no glory in battle worth the blood it costs.

Amen, General.

 

[Sassy Grrl]

In most communities it is illegal to cry "fire" in a crowded assembly. Should it not be considered serious international misconduct to manufacture a general war scare in an effort to achieve local political aims?

I especially liked this one, as well.

 

[Seattle Zack]

Anyone who coined the term (president or not) "military-industrial complex" is all right in my book.

You go, bald-headed guy on the dime.

 

[dr_mabeuse]

Some more Eisenhower quotes for those of you who are interested...

Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and cooperation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace.

I like that one.

Ike was not really known as an orator. My other favorite Eisenhower quote is:

Things are more like they are now than they ever have been before.

Hard to argue with rhetoric like that.