Ronald Reagan Quotes on Security (4 Quotes)

I made a speech by that title A Time for Choosing in 1964. I said, We've been told increasingly that we must choose between left or right. But we're still using those terms -- left or right. And I'll repeat what I said then in '64. There is no left or right. There's only an up or down up to the ultimate in individual freedom, consistent with an orderly society -- or down to the totalitarianism of the ant heap. And those today who, however good their intentions, tell us that we should trade freedom for security are on that downward path.

I oppose registration for the draft . . . because I believe the security of freedom can best be achieved by security through freedom.

Those who would trade our freedom for the soup kitchen of the welfare state have told us that they have a utopian solution of peace without victory. They call their policy accommodation. And they say if we only avoid any direct confrontation with the enemy, he will forget his evil ways and learn to love us. . . . We cannot buy our security, our freedom from the threat of the bomb by committing an immorality so great as saying to a billion human beings now in slavery behind the Iron Curtain, Give up your dreams of freedom because to save our own skin, we are willing to make a deal with your slave-masters.

Our forbearance should never be misunderstood. Our reluctance for conflict should not be misjudged as a failure of will. When action is required to preserve our national security, we will act.