War is an Alien Threat

More than a century ago a young Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, visited America. After that visit he predicted that the two great powers of the future world would be, on one hand, the United States, which would be built, as he said, ``by the plowshare,'' and, on the other, Russia, which would go forward, again, as he said, ``by the sword.'' Yet need it be so? Cannot swords be turned to plowshares? Can we and all nations not live in peace? In our obsession with antagonisms of the moment, we often forget how much unites all the members of humanity. Perhaps we need some outside, universal threat to make us recognize this common bond. I occasionally think how quickly our differences worldwide would vanish if we were facing an alien threat from outside this world. And yet, I ask you, is not an alien force already among us? What could be more alien to the universal aspirations of our peoples than war and the threat of war?

Notes:

Ronald Reagan suggests we would put aside our differences if threatened by extraterrestrials, but then notes that war is an alien threat--alien to how we desire to live.

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United Nations General Assembly

Proceedings of Meetings and Symposia>Speech: Reagan, Ronald (21 September 1987), United Nations General Assembly, Retrieved on 2013-08-09

Source Material [www.reagan.utexas.edu]

Folksonomies: peace speech united nations