The most fundamental purpose of government is defense, not empire.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
The fundamental purpose of government is to protect its citizens.
The government, which was designed for the people, has got into the hands of the bosses and their employers, the special interests. An invisible empire has been set up above the forms of democracy.
The foundation of empire is art and science. Remove them or degrade them, and the empire is no more. Empire follows art and not vice versa as Englishmen suppose.
We do not need the empire to give us anything.
Powerful indeed is the empire of habit.
For me, I do not wish to build an empire.
If your basic premise about the fundamental purpose of our government is that it must provide for the common defense, then no other position is possible.
The best form of government is that which is most likely to prevent the greatest sum of evil.
Without the Empire we should be tossed like a cork in the cross current of world politics. It is at once our sword and our shield.
America is an empire. I hope you know that now. All empires, by definition, are bumbling, shambolic, bullying, bureaucratic affairs, as certain of the rightness of their cause in infancy, as they are corrupted by power in their dotage.