1990s, A Distinctly American Internationalism (November 1999)
Context: In the defense of our nation, a president must be a clear-eyed realist. There are limits to the smiles and scowls of diplomacy. Armies and missiles are not stopped by stiff notes of condemnation. They are held in check by strength and purpose and the promise of swift punishment.
1990s, A Period of Consequences (September 1999)
2009, Nobel Prize acceptance speech (December 2009)
Context: We can acknowledge that oppression will always be with us, and still strive for justice. We can admit the intractability of deprivation, and still strive for dignity. Clear-eyed, we can understand that there will be war, and still strive for peace. We can do that — for that is the story of human progress; that's the hope of all the world; and at this moment of challenge, that must be our work here on Earth.
United States v. Robel (1967) - Findlaw file http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=389&invol=258
Context: This concept of "national defense" cannot be deemed an end in itself, justifying any exercise of legislative power designed to promote such a goal. Implicit in the term "national defense" is the notion of defending those values and ideals which set this Nation apart. For almost two centuries, our country has taken singular pride in the democratic ideals enshrined in its Constitution, and the most cherished of those ideals have found expression in the First Amendment. It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties — the freedom of association — which make the defense of our nation worthwhile.
“A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream.”
Source: Into the Wild (1996), Ch. 14.
Context: Early on a difficult climb, especially a difficult solo climb, you constantly feel the abyss pulling at your back. To resist takes a tremendous conscious effort; you don't dare let your guard down for an instant. The siren song of the void puts you on edge; it makes your movements tentative, clumsy, herky-jerky. But as the climb goes on, you grow accustomed to the exposure, you get used to rubbing shoulders with doom, you come to believe in the reliability of your hands and feet and head. You learn to trust your self-control. By and by your attention becomes so intensely focused that you no longer notice the raw knuckles, the cramping thighs, the strain of maintaining nonstop concentration. A trancelike state settles over your efforts; the climb becomes a clear-eyed dream. Hours slide by like minutes. The accumulated clutter of day-to-day existence — the lapses of conscience, the unpaid bills, the bungled opportunities, the dust under the couch, the inescapable prison of your genes — all of it is temporarily forgotten, crowded from your thoughts by an overpowering clarity of purpose and by the seriousness of the task at hand. At such moments something resembling happiness actually stirs in your chest, but it isn't the sort of emotion you want to lean on very hard. In solo climbing the whole enterprise is held together with little more than chutzpah, not the most reliable adhesive.
“The only national emergency is that our President is an incompetent racist.”
14 February 2019 https://twitter.com/CraigGerber_/status/1096177273059737601
Statement made to President George W. Bush — reported in Agence France-Presse staff (May 31, 2007) "Bush sends top aide to Baghdad", Agence France-Presse.
“We will export death and violence to the four corners of the earth in defense of our great nation.”
The quote is from Bush at War by Bob Woodward, but it was not said by Bush. Woodward attributes the quote to one among "about 25 men representing three different Special Forces units and three CIA paramilitary teams" during the dedication of a September 11th memorial in the mountains of Afghanistan on February 5, 2002.
Attributed, Misattributed
Speech at the University of California, Berkeley (22 March 1950)
Context: That is not to say that we can relax our readiness to defend ourselves. Our armament must be adequate to the needs, but our faith is not primarily in these machines of defense but in ourselves.
