New Threat Quotes

The Scientific Project that developed the Atomic Bomb. After the development of the atomic bomb there were great pressures on the involved scientists to downplay the dangers of nuclear weapons development. The weapons developer arm of the government was anxious not to frighten the public which might call for more oversight or even limitation of development and testing. Equally important was the scientists themselves who understood the forces that they had unleashed and were worried that if the public realized the worst of the possibilities, science and scientific research itself might be in jeopardy from a new Luddite reaction. Oppenheimer urged candor with the public. Most scientists took his advice but the Atomic Energy Commission had become politicized and when Oppenheimer went public with his and others scientific concerns they punished him by calling him a security risk and withdrawing his clearance thus cutting him off from new developments and discrediting him and his views at the same time.

Historically, this is not exactly true. Sometimes the same threat--like international Russian-dominatd communism--spans several generations, and there are a few where there was no new threat and arguably no threat at all. The period from 1880-1910 for exaple had no threat to freedom other than the American monopolists and Industrialists, but they had been a threat even before that. Trump's basic point, however, that there are often new threats to freedom emerging and we must confront that threat.