75) The War Incarnate

The following is my speech in favor of a bill that would reduce military spending in the U.S. budget for my school's mock congress. One minute is not alot of time to preach.

Speech Text – Pro H.R. 278 (Reduce Military Spending)

Dwight D. Eisenhower was a general who helped the United States win World War 2. He was not only renowned for his ability to work with famous leaders such as de Gaulle and Churchill, but also for his ability to see the United States for what it is in relation to the world.

When he left office as the 34^th president of the United States, he warned us of the growing U.S. military and the looming threat of the Cold War. He believed that the United States, composed of competent and intelligent individuals, would eventually put a stop to both. We won the Cold War, but we did not stop growing the military.

If we are to be sure of anything, it’s that brute force will not win us wars. It won’t defend us. Having the best funded military in the world did not help America win Vietnam, and it is not helping us win the war in the Middle East now. H.R. 278 not only works to correct wasteful spending, but also helps us understand an important concept: that having the most expensive military is not the best thing in the world. We are wasting taxpayer dollars to buy new planes to replace ones that haven’t even lived for five years. We spend more money on the military than China, France, Russia, the UK, and the next ten countries down combined.

I started with Eisenhower, so I’ll end with a quote from him: “Every gun that is made, every warship 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. War solves nothing.”