"As I said a moment ago, there is no higher priority in our budget, or certainly in the budgets of the past few years, than providing for what is needed for the protection and security of our country and support of our troops"
About this Quote
Budget talk rarely sounds like a pep rally, but Jim Ryun - an athlete turned politician - delivers it with the cadence of someone used to framing sacrifice as purpose. The line is built to preempt disagreement. By declaring “no higher priority,” he’s not just ranking expenditures; he’s trying to seal the debate before it starts. In sports terms, he’s calling the play and daring anyone to break formation.
The phrase “as I said a moment ago” is a subtle power move: it implies continuity, reasonableness, and consensus, as if the room already agreed and we’re merely reaffirming the obvious. Then comes the real emotional ballast: “protection and security,” paired with “support of our troops.” That coupling matters. Security is abstract and elastic; troops are concrete and culturally protected. Put them together and you get a rhetorical shield: questioning the size or shape of defense spending starts to look like questioning loyalty to people in uniform.
The context is post-9/11 political language, when “security” became both a policy goal and a moral credential. Ryun’s framing borrows from athletic ethos - discipline, defense, backing the team - and translates it into civic identity: the nation as squad, the budget as scoreboard, the military as the players taking hits on our behalf.
Intent-wise, it’s less about specifying what’s needed than about setting the terms of legitimacy. If defense is the highest priority, other needs are implicitly downgraded before they’re even named.
The phrase “as I said a moment ago” is a subtle power move: it implies continuity, reasonableness, and consensus, as if the room already agreed and we’re merely reaffirming the obvious. Then comes the real emotional ballast: “protection and security,” paired with “support of our troops.” That coupling matters. Security is abstract and elastic; troops are concrete and culturally protected. Put them together and you get a rhetorical shield: questioning the size or shape of defense spending starts to look like questioning loyalty to people in uniform.
The context is post-9/11 political language, when “security” became both a policy goal and a moral credential. Ryun’s framing borrows from athletic ethos - discipline, defense, backing the team - and translates it into civic identity: the nation as squad, the budget as scoreboard, the military as the players taking hits on our behalf.
Intent-wise, it’s less about specifying what’s needed than about setting the terms of legitimacy. If defense is the highest priority, other needs are implicitly downgraded before they’re even named.
Quote Details
| Topic | Military & Soldier |
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