James Pinkerton wrote a column yesterday about the long term costs of Iraq. Which got me thinking.
America was at its greatest when we had social programs. Unemployment stipends, social security, government workfare programs were not born in a vacuum. They were forged in the mills of war and the Great Depression. They ensured that anyone who wanted to work, could and if they were temporarily out of work, or too old, or sick or injured to work, they would be taken care of.
Yes. The Mommy State was born in World War II, hardly a time for mothering, if you listen to the punjabs of "personal (but not corporate) responsibility".
Too, Eisenhower assessed post-World War II America, and said we need a highway system the likes that Germany has. We need an education system to make sure we don't fall further behind the Russians. And he warned us against the military-industrial complex, a warning which rings quite true now in the age of Halliburton.
History will not judge us on how we waged war, but on how we pursued peace, domestically as well as internationally. We remember the Romans not so much for their vast conquests but for their mysterious decline.
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