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The highest patriotism is not a blind acceptance of official policy, but a love of one's country deep enough to call her to a higher plain.

George McGovern

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George McGovern
Age: 90 †
Born: 1922
Born: July 19
Died: 2012
Died: October 21
Autobiographer
Diplomat
Historian
Peace Activist
Politician
University Teacher
Avon
South Dakota
George Stanley McGovern
George S. McGovern
Policy
Nationalism
Higher
Patriotism
Call
Plain
Country
Officials
Enough
Acceptance
Love
Blind
Highest
Deep
Official

More quotes by George McGovern

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For a generation and more, the government has sought to meet our needs by multiplying its bureaucracy. Washington has taken too much in taxes from Main Street, and Main Street has received too little in return. It is not necessary to centralize power in order to solve our problems.
George McGovern
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Well, we ought to be stirred, even to tears, by society's ills.
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To those who charge that liberalism has been tried and found wanting, I answer that the failure is not in the idea, but in the course of recent history. The New Deal was ended by World War II. The New Frontier was closed by Berlin and Cuba almost before it was opened. And the Great Society lost its greatness in the jungles of Indochina.
George McGovern
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Every program that ever helped working people, from rural electrification to Medicare, was enacted by liberals over the opposition of conservatives. When people tell me they don't like liberals, I ask, Do you like Social Security? If so, then shut up!
George McGovern
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One of the sharp parallels is that neither Vietnam nor Iraq was the slightest threat to America's national security.
George McGovern
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We are at a crossroads over how the federal government in Washington and state legislatures and city councils across the land allocate their financial resources. Which fork we take will say a lot about Americans and our values.
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It's a tough thing, to know what to do about a war that deep in your gut you feel is wrong and yet watch your peers going off to fight in that war.
George McGovern
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For 50 years, the Republicans have been accusing the Democrats of being soft on national security.
George McGovern
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It would be a good time to replace the drug war with something more constructive. The cure offered the drug war today has probably been more harmful and done more damage than the disease.
George McGovern
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When I was small, my most serious handicap was a painful bashfulness in the presence of strangers.
George McGovern
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Reaganism is not only at odds with the Judeo-Christian heritage, it will not work.
George McGovern
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I did frequently refer to my war record in World War II, but not in any flamboyant way.
George McGovern
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I've come to realize that protecting freedom of choice in our everyday lives is essential to maintaining a healthy civil society.
George McGovern
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It's nice not to have to worry about constituents, now, I simply do what I want.
George McGovern
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Pay attention to the hungry, both in this country and around the world. Pay attention to the poor. Pay attention to our responsibilities for world peace. We are our brother's keeper.
George McGovern
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Every Senator in this Chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This Chamber reeks of blood.
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I always thought of myself as a good old South Dakota boy who grew up here on the prairie. My dad was a Methodist minister. I went off to war. I have been married to the same woman forever. I'm what a normal, healthy, ideal American should be like.
George McGovern
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It can take greater courage to stand in opposition to the views of your neighbors or nation than to confront an enemy in combat.
George McGovern
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There is a strong tendency in the United States to rally round the flag and their troops, no matter how mistaken the war.
George McGovern
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When you start one of these programs, school lunch programs, in a country that heretofore had nothing of that kind, immediately school enrollment jumps dramatically. Girls and boys get to the classroom with the promise of a good meal once a day.
George McGovern