That is absolutely a fear, and it's something we see happening, in the immediate aftermath of Kelo, you saw a lot of local government officials and developers realize they had been caught with their hand in the cookie jar. They realized that suddenly people were watching. Ten years on you are starting to see in a number of states, local government officials and developers start to look at that cookie jar again.

Robert McNamara

Categorized in : Politics

That's one of the major lessons: no president should ever take this nation to war without full public debate in the Congress and/or in the public.

Robert McNamara

patriotic president war

A computer does not substitute for judgment any more than a pencil substitutes for literacy. But writing without a pencil is no particular advantage.

Robert McNamara

computer-literacy writing inspiring

The greatest contribution Vietnam is making-right or wrong is beside the point-is that it is developing an ability in the United States to fight a limited war, to go to war without the necessity of arousing the public ire.

Robert McNamara

united-states fighting war

The 'realist' conception of continuing old-fashioned 'balance of power' politics may have been well founded in the past, but it is inconsistent with our increasing interdependent world. On moral grounds alone there can be no justification for the 20th century level of killing. To settle disputes without violence must become the primary goal of foreign policy for every nation.

Robert McNamara

balance goal past

All those involved in the firebombing of Tokyo .. were war criminals interviews recorded in the movie The Fog of War.. the firebombing of Tokyo occurred before the atom bombs.. 100,000 civilians died in one night from American bombs.. 500,000 altogether over several days say some.

Robert McNamara

night war country

We see what we want to believe.

Robert McNamara

want believe

Neither conscience nor sanity itself suggests that the United States is, should or could be the global gendarme.

Robert McNamara

sanity united-states should

General, you don't have a war plan! All you have is a kind of horrible spasm!

Robert McNamara

kind war peace

[General Curtis] LeMay recognized that what he was doing would be thought immoral if his side has lost. But what makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Robert McNamara

winning men children

I don't object to its being called "McNamara's war." I think it is a very important war and I am pleased to be identified with it and do whatever I can to win it.

Robert McNamara

winning war thinking

Engagement is the conscious inhabitation of your body and mind. Practice is happening when your open awareness is moving with, in and through your embodied activity. Intrinsic to practice is your conscious participation with your life. Engagement is the conduction of your free and open awareness through your activities, whatever they may be.

Robert McNamara

practice philosophy moving

Elimination of nuclear weapons, so naive, so simplistic, and so idealistic as to be quixotic? Some may think so. But as human beings, citizens of nations with power to influence events in the world, can we be at peace with ourselves if we strive for less? I think not.

Robert McNamara

nuclear events thinking

One cannot fashion a credible deterrent out of an incredible action.

Robert McNamara

incredibles fashion action

One solitary God-centered, God-intoxicated man can do more to keep God's love alive and His presence felt in the world than a thousand half-hearted, talkative busy men living frightened, fragmented lives of quiet desperation.

Robert McNamara

inspiration faith men

They'll be no learning period with nuclear weapons. Make one mistake and you're going to destroy nations.

Robert McNamara

nuclear weapons mistake

I think the human race needs to think about killing. How much evil must we do to do good?

Robert McNamara

race evil thinking

What makes it immoral if you lose and not immoral if you win?

Robert McNamara

vietnam-war tokyo winning

Belief and seeing are both often wrong.

Robert McNamara

seeing belief nihilism

All the evidence of history suggests that man is indeed a rational animal, but with a near infinite capacity for folly. . . . He draws blueprints for Utopia, but never quite gets it built. In the end he plugs away obstinately with the only building material really ever at hand--his own part comic, part tragic, part cussed, but part glorious nature.

Robert McNamara

animal men hands

Action should be founded on contemplation, and those of us who act don't put enough time, don't give enough emphasis, to contemplation.

Robert McNamara

enough-time action giving