Guest op-ed in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (December 22, 2008): Bring on the Reagan Counterrevolution (a defense of Big Government against libertarian attacks)
Quotation from President Dwight D. Eisenhower's Farewell Address
In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.
We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.
Quotation from President Abraham Lincoln, from a letter dated Nov 21, 1864
I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me, and causes me to tremble for the safety of our country. Corporations have been enthroned, an era of corruption will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people, until wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the republic is destroyed.
Quotation from Robert Thoms
When conservatives accuse liberals of advocating an unjust wealth redistribution, what they really mean by those words is, "We don't want you to interfere with OUR wealth redistribution program - the one we installed late in Nixon's and Ford's reign, but which we actualized, mainly, during the Reagan years.....the one that has been enriching America's privileged-elites every year since."