Will Kirkpatrick
Will Kirkpatrick
war wings faults
For all their faults, right-wing authoritarian regimes more easily accept democratic reforms than left-wing totalitarian states.
civilization body limits
All of us confront limits of body, talent, temperament. But that is not all. We are, all of us, also constrained by our time, our place, our civilization.
political president unemployment
I'm a political scientist and I study these things, and I know that economic problems, with the rising unemployment and inflation and low productivity and so forth, were a factor in that election, in that defeat of President Carter.
program democrat government-programs
Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.
power instruments used
Power ... is not an end in itself, but is an instrument that must be used toward an end.
pain thinking views
I think that Ronald Reagan wanted to hear other people's views, and he always listened carefully, and from time to time he changed his own mind about a position. And especially he took pains to listen carefully to foreign leaders with whom he was dealing.
democracy conviction unshakable
Democracy not only requires equality but also an unshakable conviction in the value of each person, who is then equal
law two perfect
The absence of utopianism in the Constitution, law, and traditional political culture has been ... important in limiting expectations concerning what can be achieved by politics. The history of the last two centuries confirms what the framers of the Constitution understood: that the perfect is the enemy of the good, and the search for unalloyed virtue in public life leads to unalloyed terror.
helping-others opportunity people
Tyranny and anarchy are alike incompatible with freedom, security, and the enjoyment of opportunity.
history good-intentions intention
History is a better guide than good intentions.
war years america
When Marxist dictators shoot their way into power in Central America, the Democrats don't blame the guerrillas and their Soviet allies, they blame United States' policies of one hundred years ago, but then they always blame America first.
military war taught-us
Vietnam presumably taught us that the United States could not serve as the world's policeman; it should also have taught us the dangers of trying to be the world's midwife to democracy when the birth is scheduled to take place under conditions of guerrilla war.
baby important bottles
Truth, which is important to a scholar, has to be concrete. And there is nothing more concrete than dealing with babies, burps and bottles, frogs and mud.
healing thinking matter
Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.