"Every gun that is made, every warship that is launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold, and are 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....This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron."
"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."
"I would rather try to persuade a man to go along, because once I have persuaded him he will stick. If I scare him, he will stay just as long as he is scared, and then he is gone."
"In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable."
"Though force can protect in emergency, only justice, fairness, consideration and co-operation can finally lead men to the dawn of eternal peace."
The quotes above are from President Dwight D. Eisenhower.
He was also the American General who oversaw the WWII invasion of Normandy and the ultimate defeat of Nazi Germany. He knew the cost of war in ways that those who have never served in one can.
He was a republican and a conservative. He did not think that government was the problem. He believed the military-industrial complex was the problem ... corporate alliances with the military in a self perpetuating, never ending cycle of escalation.
There is a big difference between believing there are problems with government and that government IS the problem.
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