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Politics Quotes
"My own concern is primarily the terror and violence carried out by my own state, for two reasons. For one thing, because it happens to be the larger component of international violence. But also for a much more important reason than that; namely, I can do something about it. So even if the U.S. was responsible for 2 percent of the violence in the world instead of the majority of it, it would be that 2 percent I would be primarily responsible for. And that is a simple ethical judgment. That is, the ethical value of one's actions depends on their anticipated and predictable consequences. It is very easy to denounce the atrocities of someone else. That has about as much ethical value as denouncing atrocities that took place in the 18th century."
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"Change in leadership brands must be influenced and proactively effected at a personal level, it can never be forced from outside with sustainable effectiveness. Saddam Hussein, Muammar al Gaddafi and Hosni Mubarak are all political trophies, yet the effects of the military or "civil initiatives that toppled them, are nothing to be proud of considering what continues to happen in countries like Iraq, Libya, Egypt and Syria, after the use of force to bring political change."
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"Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness. Society promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, government negatively by restraining our vices. Society encourages intercourse. Government creates distinctions."
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"That which now calls itself democracy differs from older forms of government solely in that it drives with new horses: the streets are still the same old streets, and the wheels are likewise the same old wheels."
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"Sympathy is a characteristic trait of politicians and empathy an emotion of the masses."
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"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
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"The whole infrastructure of air travel was, and is, part of government policy. It is not a natural development of a free economic system - at least not in the way that is claimed. The same is true of the roads, of course."
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"If freedom, democracy, and the rights of man are to be preserved through the ages, free men and women must accept the responsibilities that go with their freedoms."
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"I believe the very heart and soul of conservatism is libertarianism."
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"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness; only power, pure power. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?"
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"Brent had a love-hate relationship with the Government. He hated what it had become over the years and loved to make an issue about it."
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"I have not the smarts or patience for political office."
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"Common sense will tell us, thatthe power which hath endeavoured to subdue us, is of all others, themost improper to defend us."
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"Our democracy should aspire to be more democratic."
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"Despite all their faults, campaigns are based on the fact that every vote counts, and therefore every person counts. As freestanding societies, they are more open than academia, more idealistic than corporations, more unifying than religions, and more accessible than government itself."
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"In politics it is necessary to take nothing tragically and everything seriously."
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"Oh, that's just Thud! That's easy!" yapped a voice.Both men turned to look at Horsefry, who had been made perky by sheer relief."I used to play it when I was a kid," he burbled. It's boring. The dwarfs always win!"Gilt and Vetinari shared a look. It said: While I loathe you and every aspect of your personal philosophy to a depth unplummable by any line, I'll credit you at least with not being Crispin Horsefry."
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"It's not just absolute power that the Founders sought to prevent. Implicit in its structure, in the very idea of ordered liberty, was a rejection of absolute truth, the infallibility of any idea or ideology or theology or "ism, any tyrannical consistency that might lock future generations into a single, unalterable course, or drive both majorities and minorities into the cruelties of the Inquisition, the pogrom, the gulag, or the jihad. The Founders may have trusted in God, but true to the Enlightenment spirit, they also trusted in the minds and senses that God had given them. They were suspicious of abstraction and liked asking questions, which is why at every turn in our early history theory yielded to fact and necessity."
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"The legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done but cannot do at all or cannot so well do for themselves in their separate and individual capacities."
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"Be frank and explicit. That is the right line to take when you wish to conceal your own mind and to confuse the minds of others."
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"Patriotism and its results--wars--give an enormous revenue to the newspaper trade, and profits to many other trades. Every writer, teacher, and professor is more secure in his place the more he preaches patriotism. Every Emperor and King obtains the more fame the more he is addicted to patriotism."
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"Many criminologists believe that the source of the state's pacifying effect isn't just its brute coercive power but the trust it commands among the populace. After all, no state can post an informant in every pub and farmhouse to monitor breaches of the law, and those that try are totalitarian dictatorships that rule by fear, not civilized societies where people coexist through self-control and empathy. A Leviathan can civilize a society only when the citizens feel that its laws, law enforcement, and other social arrangements are legitimate, so that they don't fall back on their worst impulses as soon as Leviathan's back is turned."
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"A society that chooses between capitalism and socialism does not choose between two social systems, it chooses between social cooperation and the disintegration of society."
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"Both political parties have moved to the right during the neoliberal period. Today's New Democrats are pretty much what used to be called "moderate Republicans. The "political revolution that Bernie Sanders called for, rightly, would not have greatly surprised Dwight Eisenhower.The fate of the minimum wage illustrates what has been happening. Through the periods of high and egalitarian growth in the '50s and '60s, the minimum wage-which sets a floor for other wages-tracked productivity. That ended with the onset of neoliberal doctrine. Since then, the minimum wage has stagnated (in real value). Had it continued as before, it would probably be close to $20 per hour. Today, it is considered a political revolution to raise it to $15."
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"There's no such thing as a vote that doesn't matter."
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"When our government is spoken of as some menacing, threatening foreign entity, it ignores the fact that, in our democracy, government is us."
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"Since Aureliano at that time had very confused notions about the difference between Conservatives and Liberals, his father in law gave him some schematic lessons. The Liberals, he said, were Freemasons, bad people, wanting to hang priests, to institute civil marriage and divorce, to recognize the rights of illegitimate children as equal to those of legitimate ones, and to cut the country up into a federal system that would take power away from the supereme authority. The Conservatives, on the other hand, who had received their power directly from God, proposed the establishment of public order and family morality. They were the defenders of the faith of Christ, of the principle of authority, and were not prepared to permit the country to be broken down into autonomous entities."
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"The legal right of the Southern people to reclaim their fugitives I have constantly admitted. The legal right of Congress to interfere with their institution in the states, I have constantly denied."
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"Feminist efforts to grant women social equality with men of their class neatly coincided with white supremacist capitalist patriarchal fears that white power would diminish if nonwhite people gained equal access to economic power and privilege. Supporting what in effect became white power reformist feminism enabled the mainstream white supremacist patriarchy to bolster its power while simultaneously undermining the radical politics of feminism."
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"A baby changes your dinner party conversation from politics to poops."
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"Justices are not politicians. They don't run on a political platform, and senators should not ask them to do so."
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"Strong prejudices in an ill-formed mind are hazardous to government."
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"But do I think that our actions in anyway violate the War Powers Resolution, the answer is no."
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"Do you realize the responsibility I carry? I'm the only person standing between Richard Nixon and the White House."
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"We'll have to marshal our forces in Washington. It won't be easy. That doesn't mean it can't be done."
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