‘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: It’s the same thing. The point is you create an opportunity for you to be safe.
reason: You’re against abortion, you’re against certain types of public displays. You had a fairly controversial take on the airing of Schindler’s List when you were a congressman. In the Senate race in 2004, comments of yours made about lesbianism in public schools in Oklahoma caused a controversy.
Yet in the book, one of the things I found genuinely interesting is that you’re not walking away from any of your positions, but it seems like your attitude toward the government’s role in enforcing values is shifting. At one point you write, “Laws are pretty important, but they’re not the most important thing.” And that’s in a section where you’re talking about what the religious right needs to learn. Do you feel on a certain level that government is not the best instrument for pushing particular values throughout the society?
Coburn: It obviously isn’t, because it hasn’t done a very good job. I would answer yes. The problem comes is, what were the values that the country was based on? Whether you read The Federalist Papers or you read about our Founding Fathers, this country won’t last if it’s not seen as a moral country, as a good country. And one of the things that gives us value is that we put value into principles and character. 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?
reason: You talk about how the fiscal crisis is a moral crisis. And in this sense, it’s because people are not holding themselves accountable any more than they’re holding their beliefs accountable.
Coburn: That’s right. What we’ve done is undermined individual responsibility and self-reliance in this country. We didn’t mean to. But we have. And if you look at Rome, if you look at Greece, if you look at every other republic in history, they died the same way. This isn’t rocket science. Go look at what happened to them.
I’m not for undermining any more of our cultural values. I don’t have to be right, but I do have the right to stand for what I believe is right. So, and I’m willing to speak on these issues. You can carry the libertarian thought all the way down to nil, that you have no responsibility to pay any taxes. How do you have a societal form where you don’t participate? It’s great to think about but it doesn’t solve any of our real problems today. And our problems today are real. They’re coming soon. The effects of them are going to be disastrous on a large quantity of Americans. We ought to be solving them now rather than putting them off and waiting for an election to happen.
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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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