Some say that because the United States was wrong before, it cannot possibly be right now, or has not the right to be right. (The British Empire sent a fleet to Africa and the Caribbean to maintain the slave trade while the very same empire later sent another fleet to enforce abolition. I would not have opposed the second policy because of my objections to the first; rather it seems to me that the second policy was morally necessitated by its predecessor.) . Christopher Hitchens
About This Quote

When it comes to the United States in particular, it is often said by its detractors that the country has never been in the right and that it would be impossible for America to ever be in the right. The truth of this statement is difficult to ascertain. Certainly the United States was wrong in some ways when it supported slavery and segregation. But when Lincoln, during his election campaign in 1864, declared that he opposed slavery and would not send troops to defend the South in the Civil War, which began when Lincoln was president, he made a morally compromised decision.

He did so with the knowledge that there was no way at the time to stop slavery without putting hundreds of thousands of black people on a ship bound for Africa. The same applies to many other of his decisions. He did not have a mandate from the American people for his policies and he did not seek their consent by going to Congress for authorization.

Source: A Long Short War: The Postponed Liberation Of Iraq

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More Quotes By Christopher Hitchens
  1. What do you most value in your friends? Their continued existence.
  2. About once or twice every month I engage in public debates with those whose pressing need it is to woo and to win the approval of supernatural beings. Very often, when I give my view that there is no supernatural dimension, and certainly not one...
  3. I have met some highly intelligent believers, but history has no record to say that [s]he knew or understood the mind of god. Yet this is precisely the qualification which the godly must claim–so modestly and so humbly–to possess. It is time to withdraw our...
  4. For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him will believeth in anything. - Hitchens 3:16
  5. My own opinion is enough for me, and I claim the right to have it defended against any consensus, any majority, anywhere, any place, any time. And anyone who disagrees with this can pick a number, get in line, and kiss my ass.
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