On the US President

In our system it is hard to overstate the centrality of the president.  Others advise.  The Congress can block.  But he is the initiator and he key decision maker.  I've seen presidents who didn't fully realize this even as they were entering office.  And often when I read commentaries about what is happening in our government, they underplay the responsibility the president has either through his actions or through his decisions not to intervene.

Source:  Colin Powell, Former Secretary of State (USA)
Taken From: Superclass, David Rothkpf, 2008, pg 146

Problems and Innate Man

Nothing in this world can take the place of persistence.  Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful people with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan "press on" has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race

Source:  Attributed to Calvin Coolidge, 1933
Taken from:  InternetIndependence.com - You've Never Thought This Way Before 3/21/2011

Desire for Peace

I think that people want peace so much that one of these days government had better get out of their way and let them have it. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower (August 31st, 1959. TV talk with Prime Minister Macmillan)
Source:  WikiQuote - Link
Taken from:  AntiWar.com - Link

Policing the World

We Americans have no commission from God to police the world.

Benjamin Harrison (23rd President of USA, from an 1888 address to Congress)

Preventive War

Preventive war was an invention of Hitler. Frankly, I would not even listen to anyone seriously that came and talked about such a thing.

Dwight D. Eisenhower (1953, seems to be an accurate paraphrase)

Spending and Spent.

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 not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. 

Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 16th, 1953, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors)
Quote found in Gerald Celente's Trends 2000, published 1998

A chicken in every pot, a wiretap on every phone.

I'm reminded of Herbert Hoover's 1928 winning presidential campaign slogan, "A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage." Perhaps the modern analogy is "a government agent on every corner, a wiretap on every phone." It is, after all, for our security.

Simon Black (1/25/2011, Notes from the Field)
Simon Black is a pseudonym for an unknown entrepreneur and international investor.

Why do Christians hate so much?

I've been in politics long enough to expect criticism and hostility, but I was unprepared for the hatred I get from Christians.  Why do Christians hate so much?

Bill Clinton (as told by Phillip Yancey, 1994)

Financial Rule

The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the United States since the days of Andrew Jackson.

US President Franklin Roosevelt (November 21, 1933, in a letter to Colonel E. Mandell House)

President and the Press

No president should fear public scrutiny of his program, for from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition; and both are necessary. ... Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive.  That is why the Athenian law-maker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment.

John F. Kennedy (April 27, 1961 - "President and the Press" Speech)

Hypocrisy

... we insist that nothing ever justifies the slaughter of innocent men, women and children.

Barack Obama (11/08/2010 On a speech to the Indian Parliament)

Coolidge on Hoover

That man has offered me unsolicited advice for six years, all of it bad.

Calvin Coolidge (Referring to his secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover)

Equality

I am not, nor ever have been in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races. ... and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will ever forbid the two races living together on terms of social and political equality. ... And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I as much as any other man am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race.

Abraham Lincoln - Fourth Lincoln-Douglas Debate (18 September 1858)

Debt

Any government, like any family, can for a year spend a little more than it earns.  But you and I know that a continuance of that habit means the poorhouse.

Franklin D. Roosevelt (1932)

Monopoly on Violence

what essentially sets a nation-state apart, which is a monopoly on violence.

Senator Barak Obama, (July 2nd, 2008 in an interview with the Military Times Editorial Board)

Bank Security

This currency is not fiat currency. It is issued only on adequate security -- and every good bank has an abundance of such security.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt, March 12, 1933 in a radio speech titled "On the Bank Crisis"

Clintonian Terrorism

[Terrorism is] killing and robbery and coercion by people who do not have state authority and go beyond national borders.

Bill Clinton - in the December 09 issue of Foreign Policy

Reagan and Aggression

History teaches that war begins when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap

Ronald Reagan

Obama Doctrine

It’s already being called the “Obama Doctrine” – a notion that foreign policy is a struggle of good and evil, that American exceptionalism has blunted the force of tyranny in the world, and that U.S. military can be a force for good and even harnessed to humanitarian ends.

Politico.com ("Conservative praise for Nobel speech", 12/10/2009)