People From Missouri

"The second violent American revolution is just about — I got my fingers about a fourth of an inch apart — is just about that far away."

"Let me tell you something. They say he lied to Congress. I can think of no better bunch of people to lie to than Congress."

"There are more acres of forest land in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492."

"There are more American Indians alive today than there were when Columbus arrived or at any other time in history. Does this sound like a record of genocide?"

"The way liberals are interpreting the First Amendment today is that it prevents anyone who is religious from being in government. They say that violates the prohibition against church and state."

"Can't take sides? — — —! These were American journalists, and they can't take sides? That attitude illustrates the haughty arrogance of people in the news business."

"I prefer to call the most obnoxious feminists what they really are: feminazis. Tom Hazlett, a good friend who is an esteemed and highly regarded professor of economics at the University of California at Davis, coined the term to describe any female who is intolerant of any point of view that challenges militant feminism. I often use it to describe women who are obsessed with perpetuating a modern-day holocaust: abortion. There are 1.5 million abortions a year, and some feminists almost seem to celebrate that figure. There are not many of them, but they deserve to be called feminazis.A feminazi is a woman to whom the most important thing in life is seeing to it that as many abortions as possible are performed. Their unspoken reasoning is quite simple. Abortion is the single greatest avenue for militant women to exercise their quest for power and advance their belief that men aren't necessary. They don't need men in order to be happy. They certainly don't want males to be able to exercise any control over them. Abortion is the ultimate symbol of women's emancipation from the power and influence of men. With men being precluded from the ultimate decision-making process regarding the future of life in the womb, they are reduced to their proper, inferior role. Nothing matters but me, says the feminazi. My concerns prevail over all else. The fetus doesn't matter, it's an unviable tissue mass."

"The worst of all of this is the lie that condoms really protect against AIDS. The condom failure rate can be as high as 20 percent. Would you get on a plane — or put your children on a plane — if one of five passengers would be killed on the flight? Well, the statistic holds for condoms, folks."

"Militant feminists are pro-choice because it's their ultimate avenue of power over men. And believe me, to them it is a question of power. It is their attempt to impose their will on the rest of society, particularly on men."

"I also believe that the dominant media culture is composed of liberals who seek to push their view on society without admitting they are doing it. I believe conservatives are indeed the silent majority in this country and that they prove that every four years at the polls. Finally, I believe that certain liberals have become painfully aware that they do represent the minority position in society. That they are losing, so to speak. They have read the writing on the wall and have made subtle adjustments in order to reposition themselves for another run at reestablishing control. These subtle adjustments have taken the disguised form of popular, sentimental political causes which are difficult for people to oppose, such as environmentalism, animal rights activism, and feminism. Although each of these programs superficially advocates the specific programs within their particular causes, a common broadsweeping theme underlies all of these "movements." Unmistakably, that theme is anticapitalism, secular humanism, and socialism."

"I believe in specific ideas and I believe that those ideas have consequences. I believe in the individual, in less government so as to allow that individual maximum freedom to create and achieve; that societies which are founded on restraining the government rather than the individual are optimum; that the individual is smart enough to solve his own problems and does not need to depend on big government for resolution of all his problems; that my belief in individuality and limited government does not preclude me from advocating the requisite amount of government authority to ensure law and order in our society; that our ability to enjoy peace vis-á-vis other nations is directly related to our military strength; that the best that we can hope for in an imperfect world will most likely be achieved by maximizing individual economic and political freedoms and, conversely, that social utopia cannot be achieved through governmental largesse and socialistic redistributions of wealth; that compassion is defined not by how many people are on the government dole but by how many people no longer need governmental assistance; that political and economic freedom are inextricably intertwined; that society owes its citizens equality of opportunity but cannot guarantee them equality of outcome; that strong, wholesome family values are at the very core of a productive, prosperous and peaceful society; that those values cannot be instilled by government but can indeed be sucked dry and eliminated by well-intentioned but destructive governmental programs; that human life is sacred and that God placed man in a position of having dominion over nature; that environmental awareness is healthy, but that apocalyptic environmentalism based on disinformation and hysteria is destructive to society and man's best interests; that racial relations will not be enhanced or prejudice eliminated by governmental edict; that there is one God and that this country was established with that foundational belief; that our morality emanates from our Divine Creator; whose laws are not subject to amendment, modification, or recession by man; that certain fundamental differences between men and women exist in nature; that men and women are not at war and that their relationship should not be redefined by by those who believe that we are; that the meaning of the establishment clause of the First Amendment should not be stretched beyond its intended dimensions by precluding voluntary prayer in our public schools; that the United States of America was founded on the beliefs I have just enunciated and that it is the greatest nation in the history of the world; and that the USA is the greatest nation, not because Americans are inherently superior but because its government was founded on principles which seek to allow maximum individual achievement."

"The NAACP should have riot rehearsal. They should get a liquor store and practice robberies."

"Styrofoam and plastic milk jugs are biodegradable! Do you know what isn't biodegradable? Paper!"

"(All equally truthful: number 1 is not more or less important than 35.)"

"I will do all your reading, and I will tell you what to think about it."

"I am on the radio for one reason: to attract the largest audience I can and hold it. I am not in a think tank."

"Greetings, conversationalists across the fruited plain, this is Rush Limbaugh, the most dangerous man in America, with the largest hypothalamus in North America, serving humanity simply by opening my mouth, destined for my own wing in the Museum of Broadcasting, executing everything I do flawlessly with zero mistakes, doing this show with half my brain tied behind my back just to make it fair because I have talent on loan from . . . God. Rush Limbaugh. A man. A legend. A way of life."

"Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?"

"Take that bone out of your nose and call me back."

"Look it, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons. There, I said it."

"If the word of how they're being treated keeps getting out, we're going to have al-Qaeda people surrendering all over the world trying to get in place."

"We need to shut down this Gitmo prison? Well, don't shut it down - we just need to start an advertising campaign. We need to call it, 'Gitmo, the Muslim resort.' Any resort that treated people like this would have ads all over the New York Times trying to get people to come down and visit for some R&R, for some rest and relaxation."

"I got myself into a lovely little—shall we say controversy—with André Breton, by pointing out that the discipline of spontaneity, which he was asking his surrealist neophytes to adopt, was new for language but something that composers had been practicing for centuries."

"We are dealing with [veterans], not procedures; with their problems, not ours."

"Wars can be prevented just as surely as they can be provoked, and we who fail to prevent them must share the guilt for the dead."

"Several days previously I had indicated to Patton that I would feel obligated to ask for relief than submit 12th Army Group to Montgomery's command. George clasped me by the arm. "If you quit, Brad," he said, "then I'll be quitting with you.""

"Dependability, integrity, the characteristic of never knowingly doing anything wrong, that you would never cheat anyone, that you would give everybody a fair deal. Character is a sort of an all-inclusive thing. If a man has character, everyone has confidence in him. Soldiers must have confidence in their leader."

"To those soldiers who must often have wondered WHY they were going where they did. Perhaps this will help answer their questions."

"Conscientiously though we have sought to avoid them, the reader may find errors attributable in part to inaccurate sources and to faulty recollection. To those who may feel themselves wronged, I freely acknowledge that this is in part a book of opinion and that the opinion is my own."

"In this book I have tried to achieve one purpose: to explain how war is waged on the field from the field command post. For it is there, midway between the conference table and the foxhole, that strategy is translated into battlefield tactics; there the field commander must calculated the cost of rivers, roads and hills in terms of guns, tanks, tonnage- and most importantly in terms of the lives and limbs of his soldiers. How, then, did we reach our critical decisions? Why and how did we go where we did? These are the critical questions I have been asked most often. And these are the questions that gave me justification for writing this book."

"To tell the story of how and why we chose to do what we did, no one can ignore the personalities and characteristics of those individuals engaged in making decisions. For military command is as much a practice of human relations as it is a science of tactics and a knowledge of logistics. Where there are people, there is pride and ambition, prejudice and conflict. In generals, as in all other men, capabilities cannot always obscure weaknesses, nor can talents hide faults."

"During the last six years the United States Army has not only matured greatly, but its officers have grown vastly more aware of their world-wide responsibilities as military men. Allied command has become the accepted pattern of military operation, and many of the insular differences that once caused us to question the motives of our allies have now been completely resolved. If we will only remember that from time to time some difficulties do exist, we shall be better prepared to settle them without exaggerating their dangers."

"The American army has also acquired political maturity it sorely lacked at the outbreak of World War II. At times during that war we forgot that wars are fought for the resolution of political conflicts, and in the ground campaign for Europe we sometimes overlooked political considerations of vast importance. Today, after several years of cold war, we are intensely aware that a military effort cannot be separated from its political objectives."

"If a soldier would command an army he must be prepared to withstand those who would criticize the manner in which he leads that army. There is no place in a democratic state for the attitude which would elevate each military hero above public reproach simply because he did the job he has been trained and is paid to do."

"I have attempted to write of my long association with George Patton as fairly and as honestly as I could. General Patton was one of my staunchest friends and the most unhesitatingly loyal of my commanders. He was a magnificent soldier, one whom the American people can admire not only as a great commander but as a unique and remarkable man. In recollecting our experiences together, I may offend those who prefer to remember Patton not as a human being but as a heroic-size statue in a public park. I prefer to remember Patton as a man, as a man with all the frailties and faults of a human being, as a man whose greatness is therefore all the more of a triumph."

"Precisely at 7 Patton boomed in to breakfast. His vigor was always infectious, his wit barbed, his conversation a mixture of obscenity and good humor. He was at once stimulating and overbearing. George was a magnificent soldier."

"Like Eisenhower, Patton ordinarily messed with a group of inmates from his headquarters. Breakfast was spirited and talkative. Patton picked up the GI holster in which I carried my 30-year-old Colt .45. "Hell, Brad," he said, "what you need is a social gun. You can't carry that cannon with you everywhere you go.""

"The Yankee invasion had come to England well heeled with American dollars. American privates earned three times as much as their British companions. A U.S. staff sergeant's take-home pay equaled that of a British captain. Since such a substantial share of this wealth was invested in local courting, it is no wonder that Britain's provincial customs were given a fancy whirl. Indeed, it is a tribute to the civility of the British that they endured us with such good will."

"But we've got passengers aboard," our skipper shouted through the darkness. "Prisoners?" the deck called; with a note of curiosity. "Stand by to bring the prisoners aboard." I climbed a rope ladder up the Augusta's side and crawled over the rail, cold, wet, hungry, and tired. The crew pressed forward to see its "prisoners". "Oh, hell," a sailor grunted, "it's only General Bradley."

"There are those who contend that the best strategist is the commander most distantly removed from his troops. From where units exist merely as symbols on a map the strategist can perform in a vacuum and his judgment cannot be infected by compassion for his troops. If war were fought with push-button devices, one might make a science of command. But because war is as much a conflict of passion as it is of force, no commander can become a strategist until he knows his men. Far from being a handicap to command, compassion is the measure of it. For unless one values the lives of his soldiers and is tormented by their ordeals, he is unfit to command. He is unfit to appraise the cost of an objective in terms of human life. To spend lives, knowingly, deliberately- even cruelly- he has to steel his mind with the knowledge that to do less would only cost more in the end. For if he becomes tormented by the casualties he must endure, he is in danger of losing sight of his strategic objective. Where the objective is lost, he the war is prolonged and the cost becomes infinitely worse."

"It is time that we steered by the stars, not by the lights of each passing ship."

"But if our afflictions were heavy, we could take comfort in the knowledge that the enemy's outweighed our own. So severe were his losses that none of those divisions committed in the Bulge was ever effective again."

"You know what's really ironic? General Omar Bradley was a brilliant tactician, and a great leader. No ego, just did the job. And he always looked out for the morale and safety of his men. And then they go and put his name on this thing. Talk about a kick in the ass."

"The Bradley name gets heavy billing on a picture of [a] comrade that, while not caricature, is the likeness of a victorious, glory-seeking buffoon ... Patton in the flesh was an enigma. He so stays in the film. ... Napoleon once said that the art of the general is not strategy but knowing how to mold human nature ... Maybe that is all producer Frank McCarthy and Gen. Bradley, his chief advisor, are trying to say."

"Omar Bradley, on the other hand, would assume a command position in Overlord whose growing responsibilities would reflect the growing preponderance of American strength on the ground, just as Montgomery's role would shrink in proportion to the relative role of the British Army. A steady, self-effacing Missourian, Bradley was as loyal as a subordinate as Montgomery was an aggravating one. Like his West Point classmate Eisenhower, Bradley had never seen combat until he arrived in North Africa in 1942. But he had by 1944 already acquired a reputation, nourished by the worshipful dispatches of war correspondent Ernie Pyle, as "the GI's general"- a persona reflected in the title of his postwar memoir, A Soldier's Story."

"Military hero, courageous in battle, and gentle in spirit, friend of the common soldier, General of the Army, first Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he embodies the best of the American military tradition with dignity, humanity, and honor."

"Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics."

"We have men of science; too few men of God. We have grasped the mystery of the atom and rejected the Sermon on the Mount. Man is stumbling blindly through a spiritual darkness while toying with the precarious secrets of life and death. The world has achieved brilliance without wisdom, power without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants. We know more about war than we know about peace, more about killing than we know about living."

"A canvas map lay under my helmet with its four silver stars. Only five years before on May 7, as a lieutenant colonel in civilian clothes, I had ridden a bus down Connecticut Avenue to my desk in the old Munitions building. I opened the mapboard and smoothed out the tabs of the 43 divisions now under my command. They stretched across a 640-mile front of the 12th Army Group. With a china-marking pencil, I wrote in the new date: D plus 335. I walked to the window and ripped open the blackout blinds. Outside the sun was climbing into the sky. The war in Europe had ended."

"I am under no illusion that our present strategy of using means short of total war to achieve our ends and oppose communism is a guarantee that a world war will not be thrust upon us. But a policy of patience and determination without provoking a world war, while we improve our military power, is one which we believe we must continue to follow.... Under present circumstances, we have recommended against enlarging the war from Korea to also include Red China. The course of action often described as a limited war with Red China would increase the risk we are taking by engaging too much of our power in an area that is not the critical strategic prize. Red China is not the powerful nation seeking to dominate the world. Frankly, in the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, this strategy would involve us in the wrong war, at the wrong place, at the wrong time, and with the wrong enemy."