Oliver Stone Quotes

It has been lately urged in a very respectable quarter that it is the mission of this country to spread civil and religious liberty all over the globe, and especially over this continent - even by force, if necessary. It is a sad delusion.

The United States is pursuing a series of goals (spreading democracy, asserting its hegemony, securing oil supplies) that are ultimately incompatible.

America's support for human rights and democracy is our noblest export to the world.

America had the message of freedom and democracy, but we haven't actually shown that to be what we do in the world. So I think that's a terrifying thing.

Since President Bush took office in 2001, this Congress has supported an agenda of democracy, freedom and expansion of rights for all peoples throughout the world.

After installing friendly leaders in Iran and Guatemala, the United States lost interest in promoting democracy in either country.

The wisest use of American strength is to advance freedom.

As our commerce spreads, the flag of liberty will circle the globe and the highway of the ocean–carrying trade to all mankind–will be guided by the guns of the republic. And as their thunders salute the flag, benighted people will know the voice of liberty is speaking, at last, for them ... that civilization is dawning at last, for them.

The United States should be devoting a larger percentage of its vast resources to making the world safe for capitalism and democracy ... the proper role of an imperial America is to establish these institutions where they are lacking, if necessary ... by military force. Imposing democracy on all the world's "rogue states" would not push the U. S. Defense budget much above 5 percent of GDP... establishing the rule of law in such countries would pay a long run dividend as their trade revised and expanded.

We cannot avoid facing the fact that we occupied a new place among the people of the world… Our flag is a proud flag, and it stands for liberty and civilization. Where it has once floated, there must be no return to tyranny.

Practically all we know is that thousands of native Haitians have been killed by American Marines, and that many of our own gallant men have sacrificed their lives at the behest of an Executive department in order to establish laws drafted by the Assistant Secretary of the Navy...I will not empower an Assistant Secretary of the Navy to draft a constitution for helpless neighbors in the West Indies and jam it down their throats at the point of bayonets borne by US Marines

America is too democratic at home to be autocratic abroad …. But the pursuit of power is not a goal that commands popular passion, except in conditions of a sudden threat or challenge to the public's sense of domestic well-being…. Democracy is inimical to imperial mobilization.

I think that there is a limit on how far you can export democracy.

Only idiots would believe that the U.S. is a democratic country seeking democracy in other countries

I don't think it's the job of the United States to build democracies from whole cloth. That's Wilsonianism to me of the most crazy kind.

The government should not present the anomaly which it now presents—a government the freest, perhaps the most democratic in the world with reference to local and domestic matters in which you rule yourselves as fully as any people in the world, while in your foreign affairs, your relations with other countries, whether peaceful or warlike, commercial, financial, or otherwise, you may have no more voice than the people of Japan.

What a commentary on the real nature of capitalism in its decadent phase is this, that the scientific conquest of the marvelous secret of atomic energy, which might rationally be used to lighten the burdens of all mankind, is employed first for the wholesale destruction of half a million people…. This is how American imperialism is bringing civilisation to the Orient.

Whereas the British were generally quite open about the fact that they were running an empire, few Americans politicians today would use the “e” word as anything other than a term of abuse.

We cannot impose democracy where it has no constituency.

The best American internationalists reject the idea that their nation holds a global copyright that gives it a mandate to churn out replicas dotting the world.

Neoconservatives habitually overstate America’s ability to export democracy.

We fought by the side of your generals. We were told that we were fighting for democracy, for the rights of little peoples! Yes, the blood of our warriors was shed on the battlefields of France, Germany and Japan for what you then told us was our common cause, democracy! Why then, should you wish to break the sacred agreements between your country and the six nations?

For any imperial policy to work effectively...it needs moral and intellectual guidance...It is much to be doubted that the United States can continue to play an imperial role without the endorsement of its intellectual class...

American interests dictate that we teach other peoples to govern themselves.

Our Nation can be strong abroad only if it is strong at home. And we know that the best way to enhance freedom in other lands is to demonstrate here that our democratic system is worthy of emulation.