In other words: A discussion of The Bush Administration
Two Great Republicans, in Their Own Words
This one on the doctrine of preemption, by Representative Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his partner in their Illinois law firm, while serving as a member of the U.S. House, refuting the latter's view that Polk's annexation of Texas from Mexico was necessary to repel invasion:
Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such purpose--and you allow him to make war at pleasure. Study to see if you can fix any limit to his power in this respect, after you have given him so much as you propose. If, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, "I see no probability of the British invading us" but he will say to you, "Be silent; I see it, if you don't."
The provision of the Constitution giving the war-making power to Congress, was dictated, as I understand it, by the following reasons. Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us. But your view destroys the whole matter, and places our President where kings have always stood.
This one, from Dwight D. Eisenhower, from 1953, on the costs of such a doctrine:
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 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 thirty 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 highway. 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 the 8,000 people.
These figures are quaint by today's standards. Here he is again, in his farewell address to the nation on January 17, 1961, bringing Lincoln's point and his earlier quote together in one ominous warning:
A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.... 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.
If Machiavelli wrote 500 years ago that it was best to be feared and loved, he also meant that it is the worst of all possible worlds to be feared and hated.
And so we are.
- Michael 7:41 PM - [PermaLink] -
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