"An America that is militarily and economically strong is not enough. The world must see an America that is morally strong with a creed and a vision. This is what has led us to dare and achieve. For us, values counts."

—Ronald Reagan

Many thanks to the Federalist Patriot for such a great selection of quotes from some of America's greatest conservative (and sometimes not so conservative) minds - ll

The CIA is completely useless - an ineffective holdover from the Cold War. $40B a year and they can't land one operative inside Al-Qaeda, while a teenage hippy loser spends a couple of grand on an Arabic course in Yemen and winds up as a Taliban soldier who got within yards of bin Laden in Afghanistan.

“The true remedy does not lie in rounding the rough angles of the war, but in removing the necessity of war.”

-A. Lincoln

"A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear."

-Marcus Tullius Cicero,
Roman Statesman
Speech in the Roman Senate - 42 BC
Thanks to Freeper Enduring Freedom for this quote.

"Social Security is a scheme that would make Al Capone green with envy. First they tax you and your employer 14%. It is considered part of your gross so you then pay income tax on it. They spend the money and give you a worthless IOU. When they do give you some of the money back that comes from your children's taxes it is considered income and taxed again."

Hat-tip to Freeper cpdiii for this astute observation.

"A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight- nothing he cares more about than his own personal safety- is a miserable creature, who has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by better men than himself."

John Stuart Mill