American - Editor | May 20, 1969 -
I don't think anyone is qualified to answer questions of eternal fate definitively, much less pinpoint it to a given day.
Jon Meacham
DayThinkFateQuestionsAnswer
The more we can do to support and promulgate the intellectual traditions of the Abrahamic faiths - of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam - the better armed we will be to fight fundamentalism.
FightSupportBetterIntellectual
The American system of political spending is so unregulated that it might make Adam Smith rethink free markets.
FreeAmericanPoliticalSystemMake
Whenever there is news of a terrible shooting, I wonder why America has so miserably failed to enact even common-sense gun legislation.
GunAmericaWonderNewsWhyEven
The bringing-about of order is the first and fundamental task of government. We accept limits on our rights for the sake of a larger social compact all the time.
TimeGovernmentLimitsAcceptTask
The attacks of September 11 - and subsequent acts of terror from London to Madrid to Fort Hood, Texas - embody the most repulsive of human instincts, the will to power at the price of the lives of others.
PowerTexasHoodPriceWillLondon
In America, now, let us - Christian, Jew, Muslim, agnostic, atheist, wiccan, whatever - fight nativism with the same strength and conviction that we fight terrorism. My faith calls on its followers to love one's enemies. A tall order, that - perhaps the tallest of all.
LoveStrengthFaithFightChristian
Cynically but accurately put, Americans oppose public intervention or regulation if it helps others, but favor it if it helps them - take social security, disaster relief, public works projects, for example.
SecurityOthersDisasterTakeSocial
It would be wonderful if the public sector were always great, or always terrible; or if the private sector were always great, or always terrible. Alas, reality is more complicated than comforting caricatures. Governments fail, and corporations fail.
GreatRealityComplicatedMoreFail
History tells us that America does best when the private sector is energetic and entrepreneurial and the government is attentive and engaged. Who among us, really, would, looking back, wish to edit out either sphere at the entire expense of the other?
HistoryBestGovernmentLooking Back
Here is a pretty good rule of thumb for Democratic Presidents: if it didn't work for Franklin D. Roosevelt, who won four terms and a World War, it probably won't work for you either.
WorkGoodWarWorldYouPretty
Justified or not, the Supreme Court has a kind of sacred status in American life. For whatever reason, Presidents can safely run against Congress, and vice versa, but I think there is an inherent popular aversion to assaults on the court itself. Perhaps it has to do with an instinctive belief that life needs umpires.
LifeThinkAmericanKindRunBelief
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