In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not in its taste, but in its effects.
The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership.... a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition. The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and common sense, of intellect and creative imagination, and of empathy and understanding between cultures.
It is not our affluence, or our plumbing, or our clogged freeways that grip the imagination of others. Rather, it is the values upon which our system is built. These values imply our adherence not only to liberty and individual freedom, but also to international peace, law and order, and constructive social purpose. When we depart from these values, we do so at our peril.
One simply cannot engage in barbarous action without becoming a barbarian, because one cannot defend human values by calculated and unprovoked violence without doing mortal damage to the values one is trying to defend.
A nation's budget is full of moral implications; it tells what a society cares about and what it does not care about; it tells what its values are.
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