Politics & Power Quote by David O. McKay

McKay’s line does a quiet but forceful two-step: it flatters our optimism about peace while warning that optimism is cheap without discipline. As a clergyman speaking in a century defined by world wars, nuclear brinkmanship, and ideological crusades, he’s pushing back on a modern temptation: treat peace as a treaty, a pause, a PR win. He insists it’s a desire first, an interior posture before it becomes a policy. That’s not sentimentality; it’s a claim about causality. If people don’t actively want “peace and brotherhood,” institutions can only manage conflict, not transform it.

The subtext is moral realism in religious clothing. “Temporarily obtained” reads like an indictment of ceasefires, political bargains, even personal truces that paper over grievance. McKay’s target isn’t diplomacy itself, but diplomacy detached from character. When he says peace won’t last “whether to individuals or nations,” he collapses the private and the geopolitical: the same habits that corrode a family (pride, revenge, contempt) scale up into statesmanship.

The phrase “solid foundation of eternal principles” does the heavy lifting. It’s both a promise and a boundary. Peace is possible, he argues, but only on terms that outlast fashion, partisanship, and expediency. In Cold War context, that’s also a critique of “peace” purchased through fear, coercion, or appeasement. McKay isn’t offering a policy memo; he’s setting a theological test for any peace that claims legitimacy: does it rest on justice, dignity, and accountability, or merely on exhaustion?