astyanax
Since Jun 30, 2008

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War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things.
The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling
which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight,
nothing which is more important than his own personal safety,
is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free
unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill

If all men are created equal, that is final.
If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final.
If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final.
No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.

If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness,
the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward,
but backward toward the time when there was no equality,
no rights of the individual, no rule of the people.

Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary.
Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
President Calvin Coolidge
July 4, 1926

"Dictators aren’t moved by the claims of justice unarmed;
aggressors aren’t intimidated by diplomacy absent the credible threat of force;
fanatics aren’t deterred by the disapproval of men of moderation or refinement."
- William Kristol

God and the Soldier, we adore,
In time of danger, not before.
The danger passed and all things righted,
God is forgotten and the Soldier slighted.
~Rudyard Kipling

U.S.S. Valley Forge (CG 50), '89-'93