killing

I hate it when they say, 'He gave his life for his country.' Nobody gives their life for anything. We steal the lives of these kids. We take it away from them. They don't die for the honor and glory of their country. We kill them."
~Admiral Gene LaRocque

courage

The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundnce of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.
~Franklin Delano Roosevelt

Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.
~Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them. There is almost no kind of outrage-----torture, imprisonment without trial, assassination, the bombing of civilians .. . which does not change its moral color when it is committed by 'our' side. The nationalist not only does not disapprove of atrocities committed by his own side, he has a remarkable capacity for not even hearing about them.
~George Orwell

war & patriotism

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.
~ Ernest Hemingway

How many does it take to metamorphose wickedness into righteousness? One man must not kill. If he does, it is murder.... But a state or nation may kill as many as they please, and it is not murder. It is just, necessary, commendable, and right. Only get people enough to agree to it, and the butchery of myriads of human beings is perfectly innocent. But how many does it take?
~ Adin Ballou, The Non-Resistant, 5 February 1845

There have been periods of history in which episodes of terrible violence occurred but for which the word violence was never used.... Violence is shrouded in justifying myths that lend it moral legitimacy, and these myths for the most part kept people from recognizing the violence for what it was. The people who burned witches at the stake never for one moment thought of their act as violence; rather they thought of it as an act of divinely mandated righteousness. The same can be said of most of the violence we humans have ever committed.
~ Gil Bailie

Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace.
~ Charles Sumner

Our country is the world, our countrymen are all mankind. We love the land of our nativity, only as we love all other lands. The interests, rights, and liberties of American citizens are no more dear to us than are those of the whole human race. Hence we can allow no appeal to patriotism, to revenge any national insult or injury.
~ William Lloyd Garrison, Declaration of Sentiments, Boston Peace Conference, 1838

government

When shall it be said in any country of the world, my poor are happy, neither ignorance or distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes not oppressive; the rational world is my friend because I am a friend of its happiness. When these things can be said, then may that country boast of its constitution and government .
~ Thomas Paine

protest

There is no flag large enough to cover the shame of killing innocent people for a purpose which is unattainable.
~ Howard Zinn, U.S. historian

It is never right to do wrong or to requite wrong with wrong, or when we suffer evil to defend ourselves by doing evil in return.
~ Socrates, 469 - 399 BC

The voice of protest, of warning, of appeal is never more needed than when the clamor of fife and drum, echoed by the press and too often by the pulpit, is bidding all men fall in and keep step and obey in silence the tyrannous word of command. Then, more than ever, it is the duty of the good citizen not to be silent.
~ Charles Eliot Norton

He who dares not offend cannot be honest.
~ Thomas Paine

To change masters is not to be free.
~ Jose Marti y Perez

enough & patriotism

Nothing is enough for the person to whom enough is too little.
~ Max Lucado in Grace for the Moment

Patriotism: The last refuge of a scoundrel.
~ Samuel Johnson; definition in his dictionary published in the 18th century

patriotism

American preachers have a task more difficult, perhaps, than those faced by us under South Africa’s apartheid, or Christians under Communism.

We had obvious evils to engage; you have to unwrap your culture from years of red, white and blue myth. You have to expose, and confront, the great disconnect between the kindness, compassion and caring of most American people, and the ruthless way American power is experienced, directly and indirectly, by the poor of the earth.

You have to help good people see how they have let their institutions do their sinning for them. This is not easy among people who really believe that their country does nothing but good, but it is necessary, not only for their future, but for us all.

~Peter Storey, former president of the Methodist Church of South Africa