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"The Christian church is currently surrounded by her enemies, and it is quite striking that the music we sing doesn’t have any references to enemies. The psalms, on the other hand, find enemies everywhere, along with imprecatory psalms to help us to understand how God would have us deal with them. Even traditional hymnody does not contain a lot of enemies—I can think of two, those being St. Patrick’s Breastplate, which is very psalm-like and A Mighty Fortress, which is based on a psalm. Because we are so unused to this kind of thing, we tend to assume that those who sing imprecations are trying to Christianize the practice of sticking pins in a voodoo doll, where we are exacting the wrong kind of payback on our personal enemies. Not a bit of it—these are God’s enemies, and we oppose them on that account."
-- Doug Wilson
"In the discussions to which this interest has given rise and in the arrangements by which they may terminate the occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers. "
-- James Monroe, speech to the US Congress on December 2, 1823
