Unless confronted by an immediate, visible, or uncomfortable crisis, our nation's tendency is to take the security of the Western Hemisphere for granted.
Interpretation
The quote suggests that people often overlook security concerns unless a crisis demands immediate attention.
John F. Kelly's quote highlights a common psychological tendency where individuals and nations become complacent about security matters unless they encounter a direct threat or crisis. This reflects a broader human behavior of taking safety for granted during peaceful times, emphasizing the need for vigilance and preparedness in maintaining security, particularly in the context of national defense and policy.
In practice
During a public speech on national security, this quote could be used to emphasize the importance of readiness.
Those with less of a sense of service to the nation never understand it when men and women of character step forward to look danger and adversity straight in the eye, refusing to blink, or give ground, even to their own deaths. The protected can't begin to understand the price paid so they and their families can sleep safe and free at night.
The one thing I was always told is you absolutely have to tell truth to power. Whether you're a second lieutenant working with a captain and a lieutenant colonel, or a four-star general working with the Office Secretary of Defense and the White House, the decision makers have got to have ground truth.
We have a saying in the Marine Corps and that is 'no better friend, no worse enemy, than a U.S. Marine.' We always hope for the first, friendship, but are certainly more than ready for the second.
Whether you're a second lieutenant working with a captain and a lieutenant colonel, or a four-star general working with the Office Secretary of Defense and the White House, the decision makers have got to have ground truth. Otherwise, the decisions they make could be flawed - and that can be dangerous.
Since 1945, no one in the U.S. military has liked the end result of the military conflicts we've been in: Vietnam, Korea, certainly Iraq, and probably Afghanistan. But in a democracy, you salute.
One day, you'll get out of the Marine Corps; you'll put your uniform up, but you'll never not be a Marine.
All military regimes use security as the reason why they should remain in power. It's nothing original.
It's not the hand that signs the laws that holds the destiny of America. It's the hand that casts the ballot.
Having been blacklisted from working in television during the McCarthy era, I know the harm of government using private corporations to intrude into the lives of innocent Americans. When government uses the telephone companies to create massive databases of all our phone calls it has gone too far.
It has been observed that a pure democracy if it were practicable would be the most perfect government. Experience has proved that no position is more false than this. The ancient democracies in which the people themselves deliberated never possessed one good feature of government. Their very character was tyranny; their figure deformity.
People are finding it harder and harder to relate to foreign policy.
May our country be always successful, but whether successful or otherwise, always right.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.