Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Comment on this quote Share via Email Print this Page [101-120] of 131 Military quotesMilitary QuotesMilitary Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Unfortunately, more and more often we hear that increasing military spending will help solve today’s social and economic problems. The logic here is quite simple. Additional allocations for military needs create new jobs. For reference: The growth of military spending: USA—$529 billion in 2006, $555 billion in 2007, and $583 billion in 2008. Experts expect $606 billion in 2009. Great Britain—£27 billion in 2006, £31 billion in 2007, £34 billion in 2008, and £35.2 billion planned for 2009. Germany—€23 billion in 2006, €24 billion in 2007, and €25 billion in 2008. China—$38 billion in 2006, $44 billion in 2007, $58 billion in 2008, and a 17% increase in 2009 (around $66 billion). Georgia (according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute)—$49 million in 2002, $80 million in 2004, $362 million in 2006, $592 million in 2007, and $1.104 billion in 2008. At a glance, it seems to be merely a method to fight the crisis and unemployment. Perhaps, in the short run, such a measure may yield some results. But in reality, instead of solving the problem, militarisation pushes it to a deeper level. It draws away from the economy immense financial and material resources, which could have been used much more efficiently elsewhere.~ Vladimir Putin A people who mean to continue free must be prepared to meet danger in person; not rely upon the fallacious protection of mercenary armies.~ Edmund Randolph There are some who've forgotten why we have a military. It's not to promote war; it's to be prepared for peace.~ Ronald Reagan Apologists for activist government never tire of telling us that the benevolent state is our protector and that without it we'd be at the mercy of monsters. It is about time that we understood that the U.S. government does more to endanger the American people than any imagined monsters around the world…by pursuing its Grand Foreign Policy of meddling anywhere and everywhere.~ Sheldon Richman Some conservatives are surprised to find people on the Left supporting the war in Afghanistan. It's not surprising at all…It is hard for the government to prosecute a war and not expand…Conservatives may think they can support war and oppose the expansion of the state, but that is like trying to square the circle. What makes them think they can contain the expansion?~ Sheldon Richman During the last dozen years the tales of suppression of free assemblage, free press, and free speech, by local authorities or the State operating under martial law have been so numerous as to have become an old story. They are attacked at the instigation of an economically and socially powerful class, itself enjoying to the full the advantages of free communications, but bent on denying them to the class it holds within its power...~ Edward Alsworth Ross What will follow will not be a repeat of any other conflict. It will be of a force and scope and scale that has been beyond what has been seen before.~ Donald Rumsfeld All military type firearms are to be handed in immediately ... The SS, SA and Stahlhelm give every respectable German man the opportunity of campaigning with them. Therefore anyone who does not belong to one of the above named organizations and who unjustifiably nevertheless keeps his weapon ... must be regarded as an enemy of the national government.~ SA Oberfuhrer of Bad Tolz Americans find it intolerable that one constitutional right should have to be surrendered in order to assert another. America is the land of the free and home of the brave -- we don't need a Patriot Act, because we are already patriots. We know freedom means responsibility, but I am not sure Congress and its domestic enforcement agencies do. More often than not, new security measures enacted by the government have resulted in more violations of the citizenry than terrorists have ever done. The terrorists want us to be afraid -- well, we are not afraid. Stop wasting dollars on this program -- it is not good for America. To give up essential liberty for a little security provides neither. The right to be left alone from government intrusion is the beginning of all freedoms.~ Eric Schaub Can we truly expect those who aim to exploit us to be trusted to educate us?~ Eric Schaub Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge "our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor" not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us.~ Butler D. Shaffer The idea of creating systems designed to threaten, coerce, and kill, and to imbue such agencies with principled legitimacy, and not expect them to lead to wars, genocides, and other tyrannical practices, expresses an innocence we can no longer afford to indulge.~ Butler D. Shaffer In a militia, the character of the laborer, artificer, or tradesman, predominates over that of the soldier: in a standing army, that of the soldier predominates over every other character...~ Adam Smith One death is a tragedy, but a million deaths are a statistic.~ Josef Stalin It was the Law of the Sea, they said. Civilization ends at the waterline. Beyond that, we all enter the food chain, and not always right at the top.~ Hunter S. Thompson If there is one basic element in our Constitution, it is civilian control of the military.~ Harry S. Truman War is the tool through which the remaining Constitutional restraints on government and rights of the people will be destroyed. War will be the gateway through which total statism in any of its forms (fascism, socialism, communism) will be imposed upon the United States. They will rally the people’s patriotism, and give the laws Orwellian sounding names like the “Patriot Acts”, and “Freedom Laws” and cries of “America First,” but these acts will be anti-patriotic, anti-freedom, and anti-American. At the core of all these activities will be one purpose -- to impose ever increasing control over the citizens, marching toward total statism. They will suspend due process and Constitutional restrictions proclaiming “extraordinary times” require extraordinary measures. At first they will only be used against a few select atrocious and most heinous individuals with unfamiliar appearance, customs and beliefs. Initially, it will simply be a matter of degree, but the precedent is now set. Extraordinary measures solely for extraordinary individuals, but slowly and then more rapidly the extraordinary will become the ordinary until such measures can apply to anyone. They will deride anyone who opposes these Orwellian acts as dangerously naïve, as pacifists, as isolationists, as unpatriotic, as sympathizing with “the enemy” whoever “the enemy” may be at the time, and as un-American. They will make war with vague, ever changing goals and objectives. They will make war on elusive, obscure enemies by proclaiming wars against “subversives” or “guerillas” or “militias” or “revolutionaries” or “aggressors” or “terrorists” or whatever ambiguous name they can imagine so that the “enemies” will always be elusive, never eliminated or fully defeated. There will always be more “enemies.” War will be perpetual, lasting years or even decades. War will be the final mechanism that destroys America from within; and the people will proudly cheer and defend and support the dismantling of their rights and destruction of their Constitutional Republic, all out of supposed “necessity” to support “the war.”~ Unknown Terrorism is the war of the poor. War is the terrorism of the rich.~ Leon Uris We [the U.S.] must account sufficiently for the interests of the advanced industrial nations to discourage them from challenging our leadership or seeking to overturn the established political and economic order . . . we must maintain the mechanisms for deterring potential competitors from even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. ~ U.S. Department of Defense Planning Guide for 1994-1999 The United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana.~ U.S. Department of State Previous 20 quotes Next 20 quotes Share on Facebook Tweet Email Print