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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
Legitimate
Libertarian
Exists
Merely
Liberty
Political
Government

More quotes by Jeane Kirkpatrick

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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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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 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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I always assume that democracy is the only good form of government, quite frankly, and democracy is always to be preferred
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There is an absolutely fundamental hostility on the part of totalitarian regimes toward religion.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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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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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.
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We have war when at least one of the parties to a conflict wants something more than it wants peace.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Mr. President, we've taken off our Kick Me sign.
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When the San Francisco Democrats treat foreign affairs as an afterthought, as they did, they behaved less like a dove or a hawk than like an ostrich - convinced it could shut out the world by hiding its head in the sand.
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I think that there is absolutely no free market in modern industrial states.
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I think that it's always appropriate for Americans and for American foreign policy to make clear why we feel that self-government is most compatible with peace, the well-being of people, and human dignity
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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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In the years just before... during the Carter years, the Soviets regularly violated, if you will, both the spirit and theletter of arms control agreements, I think, that they had negotiated during the period of detente.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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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.
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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.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Look, I don't even agree with myself at times.
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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.
Jeane Kirkpatrick
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Americans need to face the truth about themselves, no matter how pleasant it is.
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Cultural constraints condition and limit our choices, shaping our characters with their imperatives.
Jeane Kirkpatrick