In the slogans and propaganda that have been hurled back and forth during these months of war, there has been much discussion of those qualities of American life call Democracy and Freedom. Committees have been found to defend and to befriend democracy, and to fight for freedom. Our President says ... that it is our mission to spread, by force if necessary, various forms of freedom throughout the world.
I believe it is time to define exactly what we mean by democracy and freedom. These are qualities too sacred to our country, to our traditions, and to our hopes, to be left to the irresponsible use of slogans and propaganda.
It is meaningless to talk about fighting for freedom or defending Democracy unless we have first established, deep in our minds and hearts, what freedom and democracy really mean.
I believe in freedom and I believe in democracy, but I do not believe in the form of freedom and democracy toward which our President is leading us today. I say that democracy is gone from a nation when its people are no longer informed of the fundamental policies and intentions of its government. I say that the word freedom is a travesty among men who have been forced into war by a President they elected because he promised peace.
If democracy means anything at all, it means that the citizens of a democratic state have the right to be informed about, and to vote upon, the major policies of their government. If freedom means anything at all, it means that free citizens have the right to decide whether or not they send their men to die in foreign wars.
A democratic people must be an informed people, a trusted people. If we do not know what our government is doing or what it intends to do; if we have no right to vote upon the issue of foreign war; if our news is to be censored and
mixed with propaganda, as in the totalitarian states; if our citizens are to be drafted, and our national economy upset, by a President who ran for his first term on promises of economy... then ours is no longer a free and democratic nation.
Men and women of Massachusetts: Freedom and Democracy cannot long exist without a third quality, a quality called Integrity. It is a quality whose absence is alarming in our government today. Without integrity, freedom and democracy will become only politicians’ nicknames for an American totalitarian state.
[...]
Our nation has been led to war with promises of peace. It is now being led toward dictatorship with promises of democracy. The battle cry of freedom is being used to regiment our people.
It is time to strip the masque from the leadership we have been following. It is time to find out what ideas and what beliefs march behind the words waving on its banners. Many of us are tired of listening to promises that are made
“again, and again, and again”, and then turn out to be nothing more that the “oratory” of a political campaign.
Have you ever stopped to think how ridiculous it is that this democratic nation has twice, within a generation, been carried to war by Presidents who were elected because they promised peace? Have you ever realized how absurd it is
for us in America to have committees who claim, in one breath, to stand for freedom and democracy, when in the next breath they demand that the Government of this country declare war while the majority of our citizens are opposed to it?
Our President has spoken of four freedoms that should be spread all over the world. I believe it is time to ask him about other freedoms that he left unmentioned, freedoms that apply to us right here at home. For instance, let us
address this question to our President:
Do you or do you not... believe in the freedom of the American people to decide their own destiny by means of the vote? If you do believe in this freedom, how do you explain your thrice stated election promises of peace, in the light of your leadership to war? If you say that conditions have changed since the election, and if you still say you believe in democracy and freedom, why are you
unwilling to submit the question of foreign war to a referendum of the people? [...]
Mr. President: Is this your idea of democracy and freedom? Is this your standard of integrity, after promising us again, and again, and again, that our boys would not be sent to fight in foreign wars?
The American people have a right to answers to those questions, Mr. President, and if they are not forthcoming, do not be surprised when you find among us a new movement, a movement for democracy and freedom of a different sort; a
movement which has integrity as the ideal at its peak.
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And what is our objective? Are we to die by the millions to make the world
safe for ideals of freedom and democracy that are denied to us in our own country? Are we to spend unlimited American lives, throw American business into bankruptcy, and harness our children and our grandchildren with debt, in a crusade to make democracy safe among foreign nations who don’t desire it?
Before we crusade for freedom and democracy in foreign nations and on foreign continents, let us decide how we intend to apply these terms at home, how they are to be applied to use, here, in what we have called the foremost
democracy on earth. How are we to apply freedom and democracy to our right to vote on vital issues, to our right to determine our own destiny either in peace or in war, to our right to be accurately informed about the policies and the actions of our own government.
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Before we spend unlimited billions for foreign war, before we crusade so blithely for four freedoms across the seas, before we send the spirit of America “to stand on foreign ground”, let us make sure that the roots of freedom and
democracy are firmly planted in our own country, and that these words, dear to the heart of every American, stand for more than the campaign slogans of politicians and the propaganda of foreign agents.
Men and women of Massachusetts: It is time for a new movement in this country, a movement with its roots in American traditions, and with its branches in American ideals, a movement which is not tied to political parties, and which says what it means, and which means what it says, a movement which carries on its banners the words – Freedom, Democracy, Integrity.

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.

I was one of the snobs who hated the design of the World War II memorial. As a native Washingtonian, I felt sad to see L'Enfant's empty, perfect stretch of mall, elegantly anchored by the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument, broken up.

And while heaven knows we could use a triumphalist moment about now, the architecture seemed so ugly for such a beautiful victory, and so 19th-century German for such a 20th-century American ode to heroism.

But when I went Friday and saw all the adorable World War II veterans rolling in wheelchairs, walking slowly with canes or on their own, sitting on the benches that encircle the fountains, taking pictures with children and grandchildren, meeting up with their old buddies, the memorial was suddenly a lovely place to be.

It may not be perfect as a piece of architecture, but it's perfect as a showcase for the ordinary guys who achieved the extraordinary.

Thrilled with their moment in the sun in their usual humble way, inspecting the memorial they earned 60 years after D-Day, they looked in that setting as shining and valuable as jewels in a Tiffany's window.
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World War II had such stark moral clarity in history that it's almost irrelevant in providing lessons about conflict in a grayer time.
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Although conservatives compared Saddam to Hitler, America did not have to be persuaded with "actionable" intelligence before confronting Hitler. That dictator was an individual weapon of mass destruction.
Maureen Dowd, New York Times, 30th May 2004

As the ANSWER-esque speech (and by a truly great American Hero) shows, Dowd's 'Stark Moral Clarity' was far less so at the time. There's a reason why the comparisons between Saddam and Hitler, and between 2004 Iraq and 1946 Germany are often made, it's because the parallels are so striking to anyone who's bothered to study the issue. But some will always prefer to keep their ignorance intact. No doubt in 2062 the Maureen Dowds of the era will be talking about the 'Stark Moral Clarity' of the Liberation of Iraq holding no lessons for conflict in a 'grayer time' too. But hopefully without quite so much condescension to the 'adorable little people' currently serving in the Sandbox.