Ronald Reagan Rights Quotations

Protecting the rights of even the least individual among us is basically the only excuse the government has for even existing.

I favor the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and it must be enforced at gunpoint if necessary.

My belief has always been . . . that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government -- at point of bayonet if necessary -- to restore that individual's constitutional rights.

We ought to take a serious look and see if we haven't interfered with the democratic rights of the people.

And make no mistake about it, this attack was not just against ourselves or the Republic of Korea. This was the Soviet Union against the world and the moral precepts which guide human relations among people everywhere. It was an act of barbarism born of a society which wantonly disregards individual rights and the value of human life and seeks constantly to expand and dominate other nations.

We can't build a safer world with honorable intentions and good will alone. Achieving the fundamental goals our nation seeks in world affairs - peace, human rights, economics progress national independence and international stability - means supporting our friends and defending our interests.

They don't worship at the altar of forced busing and mandatory quotas. They don't believe you can remedy past discrimination by mandating new discrimination. (Defending his nominees for Civil Rights Commission)

Our goals are the same as those of the U.N.'s founders, who sought to replace a world at war with one where the rule of law would prevail, where human rights were honored, where development would blossom, where conflict would give way to freedom from violence.

No longer must government be allowed to ride roughshod, absorbing the people's wealth, usurping their rights, and crushing their spirit.

Because Vietnam was not a declared war, the veterans are not even eligible for the G. I. Bill of Rights with respect to education or anything.

I would have voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964.

By outlawing Solidarity, a free trade organization to which an overwhelming majority of Polish workers and farmers belong, they have made it clear that they never had any intention of restoring one of the most elemental human rights the right to belong to a free trade union.

The American people cannot close their eyes to abuses of human rights and injustice, whether they occur among friend or adversary or even on our own shores.

Our natural, inalienable rights are now considered to be a dispensation from government, and freedom has never been so fragile, so close to slipping from our grasp as it is at this moment.

Respect for human rights is not social work; it is not merely an act of compassion. It is the first obligation of government and the source of its legitimacy.

We cannot survive as a free nation when some men decide that others are not fit to live and should be abandoned to abortion or infanticide...t here is no cause more important for preserving that freedom than affirming the transcendent right to life of all human beings, the right without which no other rights have any meaning.

Let the Fourth of July always be a reminder that here in this land, for the first time, it was decided that man is born with certain God-given rights; that government is only a convenience created and managed by the people, with no powers of its own except those voluntarily granted to it by the people. We sometimes forget that great truth, and we never should. Happy Fourth of July.

Families cannot prosper and keep America strong if government becomes a Goliath that preys upon their wealth, usurps their rights, and crushes their spirit.

My belief has always been... that wherever in this land any individual's constitutional rights are being unjustly denied, it is the obligation of the federal government-at point of bayonet if necessary-to restore that individual's constitutional rights

Peace is more than just an absence of war. True peace is justice, true peace is freedom, and true peace dictates the recognition of human rights.