‘What Eisenhower Said About the Military-Industrial Complex Is True’
Sen. Tom Coburn on the fiscal time bomb, the military, and morals in America
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Coburn: I don’t think I can judge that. I think we’re going to judge that after we’ve left. And you’re going across two administrations with different policies and different viewpoints. I think ultimately what you’re going to see is that the power of ideas is more powerful than the power of weapons. And what our America led the world in and can lead again in is the power of ideas. People are aspirational toward our values, our rule of law, our freedom, our liberty, our limited government. And we’re clouding that picture sometimes by what we do. My foreign policy is limited in its expertise, but I actually believe the Constitution. I actually don’t believe we ought to get involved in things unless we have a direct national security issue.
reason: So what about Syria right now. Should we stand on the sidelines?
Coburn: Well, if we want to help arm people so they can fight for themselves, I have no problem with that. We should not be directly involved in Syria.
reason: Do you feel that this is something that conservatives are coming around to?
Coburn: I really don’t know the answer to it. People have all sorts of views. What we do is learn from mistakes and we ought to not close our eyes and ears to that. And I think there’s lots to be learned over the last 10 years.
We’re spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year on homeland security. Can anyone guarantee us that we’re not going to be attacked again? No. Can we lessen that to a significant degree? Yes. For each additional dollar we put in, what do we get in return? You’ve never heard a president having that conversation with the American people. There are risks out there. We can do so much. But if we spend additional dollars here, we made the de minimus reduction in risk versus if we spent the same amount of money trying to cure breast cancer, we’d get a whole lot more.
reason: You were one of the authors of the partial birth abortion ban act. And you cited the Commerce Clause as the justification for that. So how does the Commerce Clause apply in that case?
Coburn: The same way it might apply to an Equal Rights Amendment or a civil rights amendment. Go back to our Founding documents: “We’re endowed by our Creator,” “pursuit of life,” “pursuit of happiness.” You cannot pursue life if we’ve said we can take your life at our whim. It really is more a fundamental issue than the Commerce Clause.
reason: You talked with Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan about this during her confirmation hearings. But you come from a natural rights tradition. You would be against abortion in all circumstances?
Coburn: Except to save the life of a mother.
reason: Over your political career, you’ve been a staunch social conservative as well as a fiscal conservative. When you were a congressman, you supported “V-chip” legislation, which was mandatory hardware in TV so that parents could block certain shows.
Coburn: But there’s a difference there. Parents didn’t have to block, it gave them the opportunity to block.
reason: OK. But it’s still a mandate on TV producers.
Coburn: That’s right. Just like we have a mandate that you have safety cord on a coffee pot. So that you’re not electrocuted when the coffee spills over.
reason: OK, that seems a lot different than saying that Bugs Bunny.…
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Isn't this a repeat?
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and whether he’s losing faith in the government’s ability to enforce values.
Que?
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"And the character of the country, as you rationalize away standards of decency and standards of behavior, regardless of your libertarian viewpoint or not, the fact is those have consequences. And those consequences will impact the country. And the questions is, will it impact it positively or negative? The main answer to your question is, do you live a life that models the behavior that you think best represents what our Founders believed in?"
What Coburn and too many of the other SoCons out there seem to believe that any deviation from what the Bible does and doesn't allow is going to negatively impact the country. Never mind the fact that same-sex marriages, and the children they raise, are just as stable and well-adjusted as the mom-dad families. Never mind the fact that while drug use increases a bit if that drug is legalized, it doesn't spike to gargantuan proportions and we have tons of pothead zombies roaming the streets.
John Stuart Mill once said that if an individual is less encumbered by repressive societal dictates, he/she will be happier and more motivated to be a productive member of society. If only more politicians followed his lead, America would be a much better place, and "pursuit of happiness" would be more than just lip service these days.
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It's hardly surprising. Scratch the surface of any flag-waving freedom fighter and you find that the freedom they're fighting for is the freedom to oppress others.
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The problem with SoCons is that, despite their (supposedly-cherished) views about the inefficiencies of government when it comes to the economy and spending, they think the government is an effective agent to uphold these morals and values that they hold dear. I don't think I need to explain to anywhere here why it's idiotic to look up to the government to enforce morality
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It's pretty clear from the interview that Senator Coburn does not think the way you insist that "SoCons" think. So either Senator Coburn is not a "SoCon" or you have dived in to a collectivist fallacy. I don't think this conversation benefits from collectivist nonsense, such as painting people as "SoCons" or any other label and then attacking the label.
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Never mind the fact that same-sex marriages, and the children they raise, are just as stable and well-adjusted as the mom-dad families.
Lol, believing this in 2012.
What Coburn and too many of the other SoCons out there seem to believe that any deviation from what the Bible does and doesn't allow is going to negatively impact the country.
Implying it doesn't. 50% of children born to couples under 30 are out of wedlock. How will millions of new single moms impact the nation? I dunno lol.
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I can sense the complete insecurity of his "position" in how he lashes out at cultural libertarianism. I can imagine him having the same trouble explaining to cultural conservatives who have collected Social Security for 20 years why there's a debt crisis. He is straddling two camps, and there's an uncomfortable barbed wire fence heated by a bon fire a couple inches below his crotch.
@Jacket: You don't have incarceration dollars for non-violent drug offenders on the tip of your tongue? There's one obvious cost.
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Fucking hare-brained morons get far too much attention.
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And the same people are good people but they’re politicians.
Oxymoron.
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those consequences will impact the country. And the questions is, will it impact it positively or negative?
Freedom.
HORRIBLE, HORRIBLE FREEDOM!
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Dimwit doesn't realize he's part of the fucking problem.
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http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/ike.htm
The speech is actually quite good, but it always pisses me off that everyone focuses on the Military-Industrial Complex and completely ignores what he said about the Scientific-Technological Elite.
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.
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How can someone claim to want limited federal government, and then support a ban on same sex marriage?
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Its a government marrage licence, so limiting marrage would limit government.
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Banning gay marriage is not nearly the same as, say, No Child Left Behind or the war in Iraq.
Of course, I've argued with someone who claimed that throwing people in jail for smoking pot is more like limited government than legalizing and taxing it because you'd have to create a department to handle that sort of thing. (All those police officers' pensions and the costs of keeping people in prison might disagree with that statement, but, hey, what do Republicans know?)
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It’s a tie game, folks: With the first of three presidential debates down and the vice presidential sideshow over, the two men at the top of the major party tickets will face off once again in yet another 90 minute debate, but putting on a carefully scripted show. cheap nfl jerseys positions. If either candidate started talking a good libertarian talk, even if only on a few subjects, they wouldn't ever be trusted this late in the game. And the game here is not just this general election but the whole of their political careers.
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Let us hope the preceding paragraphs rouse the nation’s guardians from their torpid slumber, and alert them to the peril that threatens the very fabric of our nation. Let us hope. This insouciance seems ill-advised, when you reflect that Virginia’s Eastern Shore, where the chicken attack took place, is home to the Wallops Island Spaceport – a crucial piece of the nation’s transportation infrastructurecheap nfl jerseys positions. I can't tell if this article was Hinkle trying, poorly, to make a point about regulatory waste or Hinkle doing a rambling Andy Rooney schtick, poorly.
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An Alternative to Capitalism (since we cannot legislate morality)
Several decades ago, Margaret Thatcher claimed: "There is no alternative". She was referring to capitalism. Today, this negative attitude still persists.
I would like to offer an alternative to capitalism for the American people to consider. Please click on the following link. It will take you to an essay titled: "Home of the Brave?" which was published by the Athenaeum Library of Philosophy:
http://evans-experientialism.f.....nsvold.htm
John Steinsvold
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result."
~ Albert Einstein -
thank u
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