“I’ve decided to join The Heritage Foundation at a time when the conservative movement needs strong leadership in the battle of ideas,” DeMint said in a statement. “My constituents know that being a Senator was never going to be my career.”
The Heritage Foundation is a very hawkish organization and friend of the military-industrial complex. From one of their position papers:
The Obama Administration is apparently considering further reductions of U.S. nuclear forces based on the misguided notion that the world is safer when America adopts a nuclear deterrence posture based on a minimal level of effectiveness. In contrast, a sound targeting policy consistent with a “protect and defend” strategy for the U.S. and its allies and friends indicates that the U.S. should maintain approximately 2,700 to 3,000 operationally deployed warheads and be flexible enough to permit continuous updates. These numbers also assume that the U.S. will modernize its delivery systems and upgrade its command and control structure to meet counterforce targeting requirements. Increasing and maintaining the U.S. military’s asymmetric advantage will protect the ability of the U.S. to shape events, rather than be controlled by the wills of other nations.Steve Forbes is a member of the Board of Trustees and Margaret Thatcher is listed as a Patron of the foundation.
It gets worse.
Ed Meese holds the Ronald Reagan Chair in Public Policy at the foundation.
"...2,700 to 3,000 operationally deployed warheads..."
ReplyDeletebecause being able to obliterate the world 25 times over will keep us safer than if we could only obliterate it 10 times over.
In his book Rollback, Tom Woods had a discussion of the work of Seymour Melman at Columbia and his use of the term 'overkill,' in light of how the US could deliver the equivalent of something like 6 tons of TNT for every person on the planet even as soon as the 1960s.
ReplyDeleteI don't get it. What's wrong with Margaret Thatcher and Steve Forbes? Oh, I get it. They aren't anarchists, so they suck. Good one.
ReplyDeleteIt's not what they "aren't" that's the problem, it's what they are.
DeleteThanatcher a ruthless advocate of baby killing in the name of empire & central planning, Forbes a closet crony capitalist that likes the status quo are just two problems with each of them.
You could make a list that goes on for some time on both of them.
I am definitely no fan of DeMint, but, as I believes he adheres more to the ideology of the "Tea Party" movement than neoconservatism, DeMint taking the helm at the Heritage Foundation might soften the hawkishness of organization somewhat, or at least change the focus of Heritage more toward fiscal and monetary issues and perhaps even open the organization up toward more libertarian thinking. Though to be clear, any change that could possibly occur would not satisfy anyone here (or myself for that matter) by a long-shot, but it could be significant nonetheless.
ReplyDelete