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05/22/2004: "Two quotes, Thatcher and Mills"

Just cames across a couple of quotes in Command Post comments.

From Jeff B 5/22 8:12 PM (more complete quote also on Command Post), a Margaret Thatcher Quote from May, 2003, apparently in the wake of initial victory in Iraq.

There are too many people who imagine that there is something sophisticated about always believing the best of those who hate your country, and the worst of those who defend it.

And, via JoeS at 10:14 PM, John Stuart Mill, apparently spoken about the civil war in 1862:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things:
The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feelings which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.

A man who has nothing for which he is willing to fight; nothing he cares about more than his own personal safety; is a miserable creature who has not chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions and blood of better men than himself.”

Further research at a liberal web site ("how can we shoot down conservatives that use this quote?") indicates that the quote is from The Contest In America. The above quote is from Mr. Mill's last paragraph. Also in that paragraph are these sentences:

When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice—is often the means of their regeneration.