Five-star general and two-term President, Dwight Eisenhower, stated the above quote in 1953, which signified fundamentally the problem with spending hundreds of billions upon hundreds of billions of dollars on becoming far and away the military power of the world. Unfortunately, these prescient words have been effectively ignored and set aside, as the United States, has spent and continues to spend inordinate amounts of dollars year after year, feeding its insatiable technology-military-industrial complex.
Those monies spent specifically for the technology-military-industrial complex are monies that could have and should have been spent to help alleviate and to ameliorate the suffering that millions upon millions of Americans have had to unnecessarily endure each and every day in order to survive. In point of fact, the great wealth of this nation should not be disproportionally spent on munitions which are fundamentally designed to kill and to destroy; but should quite obviously be spent instead on creating the infrastructure that would provide each American with good healthcare, good nutrition, good schools, and is conducive towards the support of families, neighborhoods, and communities.
America, is a very fortunate nation, for it is on very good terms with its contiguous neighbors and is in no danger from any country within close proximity of America; and while pundits can point out that intercontinental missiles can be launched against America, and call to mind all sorts of hobgoblins and dire scenarios, the fact of the matter is, that America is under no imminent or even contemplated attack from any nation or series of nations.
What needs to be fully recognized is that all the monies that are misallocated by the government of this country and in particular monies specifically utilized and designated for the Defense budget of this nation, above what this nation actually needs to defend itself, are contrary to the purpose of this great nation, and the liberty that it so represents. Further to the point, money is a limited resource, so that those nations that do not budget their monies appropriately have done a grand disservice to their people.
The first obligation of any good nation is to take care of its own people in a manner in which each person within that country has adequate resource to healthcare, food, clothing, housing, childcare, and employment. Further, each person of that country should be provided with a good education, fair opportunity, and the liberty to be about their business. All of these are the mark of a truly great nation, especially in consideration that this is the richest nation that the world has ever known, of which, done correctly, America and its principles, would thereby be true to its Declaration of Independence, that all are created equal and all are entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
All those within America, that are hungry, cold, incapacitated, unemployed, and devoid of good education as well as fair opportunity, reflect the reality of a country that wishes instead to devote its abundant resources on the wages of death, destruction and war; as opposed to sowing the seeds of creating the last best hope of mankind and becoming that illuminating beacon of bright light for all.