Time & Perspective Quote by Howard Finster

A folksy defense turns into a national alibi the moment Finster says it out loud. "Every time" and "we've ever" do the heavy lifting here: the sweeping certainty isn’t evidence, it’s an emotional posture. Finster speaks in the plain, porch-swing vernacular of someone who trusts common sense more than archives. That’s part of the power. The grammar ("bein'") signals authenticity, the kind that reads as moral truth even when the claim is historically contestable. It’s the rhetoric of innocence as identity.

As an artist - and specifically one steeped in visionary, outsider traditions - Finster wasn’t issuing a policy brief. He was channeling a worldview. His work often braided faith, Americana, and warning-sign urgency; this line rhymes with that apocalyptic sensibility. If the world feels perpetually on the edge of ruin, then every conflict becomes preemptive self-defense. The subtext is theological as much as political: survival equals righteousness, and righteousness requires a clear villain.

The intent is protective: to place "us" permanently in the role of reluctant combatant. That "we" matters. It’s not just the state; it’s a collective self, a community that wants to believe its power is reactive, never hungry. The quote functions like a quilted myth: comforting, portable, resistant to scrutiny. In the late-20th-century American backdrop of Cold War paranoia and culture-war patriotism, it’s also a reminder of how easily moral clarity becomes a story we tell to keep anxiety from looking like ambition.