"Democracy’s great recent successes — in India, Portugal, Spain, Greece — show that our confidence in this system is not misplaced. Being confident of our own future, we are now free of that inordinate fear of communism which once led us to embrace any dictator who joined us in that fear. I’m glad that that’s being changed. For too many years, we’ve been willing to adopt the flawed and erroneous principles and tactics of our adversaries, sometimes abandoning our own values for theirs. We’ve fought fire with fire, never thinking that fire is better quenched with water. This approach failed, with Vietnam the best example of its intellectual and moral poverty. But through failure we have now found our way back to our own principles and values, and we have regained our lost confidence."
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Activists from the United StatesPresidents of the United StatesNovelists from the United StatesDiplomats of the United StatesNobel Peace Prize laureates
Original Language: English
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Commencement Speech Given at Notre Dame University (22 May 1977)
https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jimmy_Carter
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