No one starts a war -- or rather no one in his senses ought to do so -- without first being clear in his mind what he intends to achieve in that war and how he intends to conduct it.more Karl von Clausewitz quotes | War is not merely a political act but a real political instrument, a continuation of political intercourse, a carrying out of the same by other means.more Karl von Clausewitz quotes | But I know now that there is not a chance in hell of America becoming humane and reasonable. Because power corrupts us, and absolute power corrupts us absolutely. Human beings are chimpanzees who get crazy drunk on power. By saying that our leaders are power-drunk chimpanzees, am I in danger of wrecking the morale of our soldiers fighting and dying in the Middle East? Their morale, like so many lifeless bodies, is already shot to pieces. They are being treated, as I never was, like toys a rich kid got for Christmas.more Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. quotes | | We shall have World Government, whether or not we like it. The only question is whether World Government will be achieved by conquest or consent.more James Paul Warburg quotes | If the major opportunities for future growth of government lie in the area of conventional taxation, are there any defenses available to the citizenry? ... Perhaps the most fruitful advice comes in two parts. The first piece of advice is to avoid war and the rumor of war: this is history's greatest boon to the tax man. ... The second piece of advice is to seek ways of inhibiting government's ability conveniently to increase its collections. Possibly the very increase in that ability that is in prospect can be turned to account by a constitutional provision which forbade the income tax, and perhaps even the storage of information regarding individual incomes by third parties, including government.more Benjamin Ward quotes | Life and liberty can be as much endangered from illegal methods used to convict those thought to be criminals as from the actual criminals themselves.more Earl Warren quotes | | Mere unorthodoxy or dissent from the prevailing mores is not to be condemned. The absence of such voices would be a symptom of grave illness to our society.more Earl Warren quotes | The mere summoning of a witness and compelling him to testify against his will, about his beliefs, expressions or associations, is a measure of governmental interference. And when those forced revelations concern maters that are unorthodox, unpopular, or even hateful to the general public, the reactions in the life of the witness may be disastrous.more Earl Warren quotes | My policy has been, and will continue to be, while I have the honor to remain in the administration of the government, to be upon friendly terms with, but independent of, all the nations of the earth. To share in the broils of none. To fulfil our own engagements. To supply the wants, and be carriers for them all: Being thoroughly convinced that it is our policy and interest to do so.more George Washington quotes | | | Too often when we talk about racial healing, we make the old assumption that government can heal the racial divide. … Republicans and Democrats – red, yellow, black and white – have to understand that we must individually, all of us, accept our share of responsibility. … It does not happen by dividing us into racial groups. It does not happen by trying to turn rich against poor or by using the politics of fear. It does not happen by reducing our values to the lowest common denominator. And friends, it does not happen by asking Americans to accept what’s immoral and wrong in the name of tolerance. more J. C. Watts, Jr. quotes | | No power but Congress can declare war, but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war?more Daniel Webster quotes | No power but Congress can declare war; but what is the value of this constitutional provision, if the President of his own authority may make such military movements as must bring on war? ... [T]hese remarks originate purely in a desire to maintain the powers of government as they are established by the Constitution between the different departments, and hope that, whether we have conquests or no conquests, war or no war, peace or no peace, we shall yet preserve, in its integrity and strength, the Constitution of the United States.more Daniel Webster quotes | Where is it written in the Constitution, in what article or section is it contained, that you may take children from their parents and parents from their children, and compel them to fight the battles of any war in which the folly and wickedness of the government may engage itself? Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous and baleful aspect, to trample down and destroy the dearest right of personal liberty? Who will show me any Constitutional injunction which makes it the duty of the American people to surrender everything valuable in life, and even life, itself, whenever the purposes of an ambitious and mischievous government may require it? ... A free government with an uncontrolled power of military conscription is the most ridiculous and abominable contradiction and nonsense that ever entered into the heads of men.more Daniel Webster quotes | Another source of power in government is a military force. But this, to be efficient, must be superior to any force that exists among the people, or which they can command; for otherwise this force would be annihilated, on the first exercise of acts of oppression. Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom in Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States. A military force, at the command of Congress, can execute no laws, but such as the people perceive to be just and constitutional; for they will possess the power, and jealousy will instantly inspire the inclination, to resist the execution of a law which appears to them unjust and oppressive.more Noah Webster quotes | | The business of America is not business. Neither is it war. The business of America is justice and securing the blessings of liberty.more George Will quotes | The War between the States... produced the foundation for the kind of government we have today: consolidated and absolute, based on the unrestrained will of the majority, with force, threats, and intimidation being the order of the day. Today's federal government is considerably at odds with that envisioned by the framers of the Constitution. ... [The War] also laid to rest the great principle enunciated in the Declaration of Independence that 'Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed'.more Walter E. Williams quotes | The revulsion against war ... will be an almost insuperable obstacle for us to overcome. For that reason, I am convinced that we must begin now to set the machinery in motion for a permanent wartime economy.more Charles E. Wilson quotes | There is such a thing as a nation being so right it does not need to convince others by force that it is right.more Woodrow Wilson quotes | Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of government. The history of liberty is the history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of the limitation of governmental power, not the increase of it.more Woodrow Wilson quotes | | Is there any man, is there any woman, let me say any child here
that does not know that the seed of war in the modern world is industrial and commercial rivalry?more Woodrow Wilson quotes | We must contemplate some extremely unpleasant possibilities, just because we want to avoid them and achieve something better. Nobody, however, likes to think about anything unpleasant, even to avoid it. And so the crucial problem of thermonuclear war is frequently dispatched with the label 'War is unthinkable' -- which, translated freely, means we don't want to think about it.more Albert Wohlstetter quotes | To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily deprives others of the right to listen to those views.more C. Van Woodward quotes | Above all, every member of the university has an obligation to permit free expression in the university. No member has a right to prevent such expression. Every official of the university, moreover, has a special obligation to foster free expression and to ensure that it is not obstructed.more C. Van Woodward quotes | The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable.more C. Van Woodward quotes | The Council on Foreign Relations, another member of the international complex, financed by the Rockefeller and Carnegie Foundations, overwhelmingly propagandizes the globalist concept. This organization became virtually an agency of the government when World War II broke out. The Rockefeller Foundation had started and financed certain studies known as the War and Peace Studies, manned largely by associates of the Council; the State Department, in due course, took these studies over, retaining the major personnel which the Council on Foreign Relations had supplied.more Rene A. Wormser quotes | A military man can scarcely pride himself on having 'smitten a sleeping enemy'; it is more a matter of shame, simply, for the one smitten. I would rather you made your appraisal after seeing what the enemy does, since it is certain that, angered and outraged, he will soon launch a determined counterattack.more Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto quotes | |
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