“Prior art is as effective as US soldiers in Iraq: They control the ground they stand on, and nothing more. I used to say Vietnam, but, well, you know…”

In a talk on Software Patents; Frankfurt am Main, Germany, (26 September 2004)
2000s

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Richard Stallman 130
American software freedom activist, short story writer and … 1953

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“They told me if I voted for Goldwater, he would get us into a war in Vietnam. Well, I voted for Goldwater and that's what happened.”

William F. Buckley Jr. (1925–2008) American conservative author and commentator

This appears to be a variant of a widely disseminated Republican joke with no published attribution of its authorship to Buckley.
Mark Hatfield, as quoted in The Condition of Republicanism (1968) by Nick Thimmesch, p. 65
They told me if I voted for Goldwater we'd be at war in Vietnam in six months — and I did and we were.
Anonymous voter, as quoted in It All Comes Back to Me Now : Character Portraits from the "Golden Apple" (2001) by William O'Shaughnessy, p. 85
Buckley did say this on the Firing Line episode "Vietnam: Pull Out? Stay In? Escalate?" According to the transcript here http://hoohila.stanford.edu/firingline/programView2.php?programID=22, he says "...if someone told me that if I voted for Goldwater, we would escalate the war, I did and we have."
Misattributed
Variant: They told me if I voted for Goldwater in 1964, that we'd have more war and higher prices. Well, I did, and we do.

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