Don Nickles Quotes

The No. 1 purpose of the federal government is national defense.

Left to me, the whole purpose of government is for the security of the citizens, like the security of lives and property.

The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.

A fundamental duty of government is to protect its people.

We have no more fundamental obligation in government than to ensure the safety of our citizens.

Government's first responsibility is the safety of its citizens.

Safety has been my top legislative priority. I'm driven by the idea that safety is really a core function of government.

As one of the principal responsibilities of the government is to safeguard its citizens, it is entirely reasonable that it should look at what more might be done to improve security.

Safety and security are the most basic job of government. I understand that - both as a mayor who works every day to secure public safety and reduce crime, and also as someone who deployed in uniform to Afghanistan because I believed joining the military was part of my duty to help keep my country safe.

But the federal government, our collective government, has responsibilities that none of these other levels of government can fulfill; and chief among these is national defense.

If the Pentagon truly confined itself to providing defense, then presumably we wouldn't need a whole separate government agency to provide 'Homeland Security.'

National sovereignty is an obligation as well as an entitlement. A government that will not perform the role of a government forfeits the rights of a government.

Well the first order of government is to preserve the public order and safety.

The notion of a defense that will protect American cities is one that will not be achieved, but it is that goal that supplies the political magic, as it were, in the president's vision.

It's the role of a government to defend its soldiers and its citizens.

I have long believed that the first duty of government is to protect the safety of our citizens.

I believe deeply that the first duty of government is providing for the personal security of its citizens. Therefore I would naturally place the highest priority on strengthening law enforcement.

It is the purpose of the government to see that not only the legitimate interests of the few are protected but that the welfare and rights of the many are conserved.

I think anybody that is concerned with national security, and if you look at our Constitution - the Constitution states very clearly that the number one task of our government is to provide for the common defense and protection of this country.

Well, first let's say that the fundamental responsibility of any government is national security - in the preamble to the Constitution, provide for the common defense and insure domestic tranquility.

This is government's primary function - to keep us safe - and when large percentages in America don't feel safe, they start asking: What am I paying my taxes for? What is government all about?

I believe that the Government's first duty is to defend its citizens, to defend them against the harms that come out of hate.

It is the duty of the government to guarantee maximum security, and this is not an easy task.

I think it's critical that we return national security issues to the center of the overall political debate in America.

We have to find ways in which, collectively, we agree there's some things that government needs to do to help protect us, that in this age of non-state actors who can amass great power, I want my government - and I think the German people should want their government - to be able to find out if a terrorist organization has access to a weapon of mass destruction that might go off in the middle of Berlin.