In his 1961 farewell address, President Dwight Eisenhower warned Americans to “guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex [MIC].” At the time, Eisenhower was concerned that our arms industry with its ever increasing financial and political power might conquer our Republic from within. He recognized that the rapid growth of the MIC, along with the “domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment,” would drive public policy that would “itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.”
Since Eisenhower’s warning decades ago, the federal government has grown into a taxpayer-funded labyrinth of agencies wielding unyielding power over the people they are sworn to protect.