I'm a Slovak. And when I was growing up, I believed that I was Czechoslovakian because of what Russia did. They came in and took two separate countries - Slovakia and the Czech Republic - put them together as one.

I'm against the draft. I believe we should have a professional military; it might be smaller, but it would be more effective.

Our military doesn't defend our American people. Our military is the strong-arm muscle of corporations.

I think they should let gays in the military because we are the United States of America. And if a gay person wants to serve his or her country, why should they not be allowed to?

It's logical and fair to allow only registered or self-identified Democrats to choose their party's nominee (although numerous states do have open primaries). Letting more non-Democrats choose the nominee doesn't guarantee success in a November general election. And it does nothing to encourage people to join and work for the party.

When you start to look at completing the development of a modern professional army, when you talk about maturing a democracy, when you talk about development and the economic conditions that have to be addressed, a decade is not too short a period of time to talk about.

We have built a government so large and so expensive here in Washington that not even the richest economy in the history of mankind can afford it. That's how big it's gotten.

Many of Reagan's listeners thought he was dreaming. But Reagan had faith in freedom. He knew that communism, although militarily powerful, was ideologically dead. He knew what our Founders knew: that, in a truly legitimate government, power does not come out of the barrel of a gun, but only from the consent of the people.