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A government is not legitimate merely because it exists.

Jeane Kirkpatrick

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Jeane Kirkpatrick
Age: 80 †
Born: 1926
Born: November 19
Died: 2006
Died: December 7
Diplomat
Political Scientist
Politician
United States Ambassador To The United Nations
University Teacher
Duncan
Oklahoma
Jeane Jordan Kirkpatrick
Jeane Duane Kirkpatrick
Libertarian
Exists
Merely
Liberty
Political
Government
Legitimate

More quotes by Jeane Kirkpatrick

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No idea holds greater sway in the minds of educated Americans that the belief that it is possible to democratize governments anytime and anywhere under any circumstances.
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The real point is that totalitarian regimes have claimed jurisdiction over the whole person, and the whole society, and they don't at all believe that we should give unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's.
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Mr. President, we've taken off our Kick Me sign.
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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.
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Look, I don't even agree with myself at times.
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I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Cultural constraints condition and limit our choices, shaping our characters with their imperatives.
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Democrats can't get elected unless things get worse-and things won't get worse unless they get elected.
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And I have no doubt that the American people generally believe the world is safer, and that we are safer, when we are stronger
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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.
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That is simply that Marxism has been tremendously fashionable in our time, so it has infected a very large number of major institutions in many countries of the world. So I suppose that we shouldn't be too surprised that it should infect the church as well.
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Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.
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I was a woman in a man's world. I was a Democrat in a Republican administration. I was an intellectual in a world of bureaucrats. I talked differently. This may have made me a bit like an ink blot.
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The speed with which armies collapse, bureaucracies abdicate, and social structures dissolve once the autocrat is removed frequently surprises American Policy makers.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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There is no pure free-market economy.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Neither nature, experience, nor probability informs these lists of 'entitlements', which are subject to no constraints except those of the mind and appetite of their authors.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Words can destroy. What we call each other ultimately becomes what we think of each other, and it matters.
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And I think detente had manifestly failed, and that the pursuit of it was encouraging Soviet expansion and rendering the world more dangerous, and especially rendering the Western world in greater peril.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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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.
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I believe that detente was having almost the opposite effect of what was intended. What was intended was to sort of end the contest for power and to stop Soviet expansion, especially by military means and the military build-up, the military contest
Jeane Kirkpatrick