Political Quote of The Day

[Father Time]

"We can call our government guys clowns, sure. But as runaways and circus animals will tell you:
Clowns will fuck you. And they don't care if it hurts."- Penn Jillette

 

[Father Time]

One more, my favorite
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."-C.S. Lewis

 

[Mr.Fitnah]

The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the U.S. Government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies.

Over the past 5 years, our federal debt has increased by $3.5 trillion to $8.6 trillion. That is “trillion” with a “T.” That is money that we have borrowed from the Social Security trust fund, borrowed from China and Japan, borrowed from American taxpayers. And over the next 5 years, between now and 2011, the President’s budget will increase the debt by almost another $3.5 trillion.

Numbers that large are sometimes hard to understand. Some people may wonder why they matter. Here is why: This year, the Federal Government will spend $220 billion on interest. That is more money to pay interest on our national debt than we’ll spend on Medicaid and the State Children’s Health Insurance Program. That is more money to pay interest on our debt this year than we will spend on education, homeland security, transportation, and veterans benefits combined. It is more money in one year than we are likely to spend to rebuild the devastated gulf coast in a way that honors the best of America.

And the cost of our debt is one of the fastest growing expenses in the Federal budget. This rising debt is a hidden domestic enemy, robbing our cities and States of critical investments in infrastructure like bridges, ports, and levees; robbing our families and our children of critical investments in education and health care reform; robbing our seniors of the retirement and health security they have counted on.

Every dollar we pay in interest is a dollar that is not going to investment in America’s priorities.
Senator Barack Obama
Senate Floor Speech on Public Debt
March 16, 2006
________________

 

[Father Time]

I must say this is one of my favorite threads.

 

[Borat]

The problem is that you can't drop a modern brick school on enemies you are in a war with who are seeking to destroy you.

why not ? we can send our school kids to to kill and torture Iraqi kids.

after all, killing Iraqi children is what those $2 Billion stealth bombers are for.

 

[Borat]

"And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation - they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them."

Scott Brown during his acceptance speech
1.19.2010

We need more true intellectuals like Scott Brown To explain the meaning of the Constitution to us.

 

[JW Frogen]

America's debt problem is the reason they need a faithful and practicing alcoholic for President. He or she would then have the diminished neo-cortex-capacity to say to China, "do what we want or we will not pay!"

There is an inherent power in being a titanic debtor if there is no one who can really collect.

 

[Borat]

Orwell:

Each generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it

Political language... is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind

The very concept of objective truth is fading out of the world. Lies will pass into history

There are some ideas so wrong that only a very intelligent person could believe in them

War against a foreign country only happens when the moneyed classes think they are going to profit from it

Whoever is winning at the moment will always seem to be invincible

 

[Borat]

Voltaire:

It is forbidden to kill; therefore all murderers are punished unless they kill in large numbers and to the sound of trumpets

Men who believe absurdities will commit atrocities

In all the disputes, which have excited Christians against each other, Rome has invariably decided in favor of that opinion which tended most towards the suppression of the human intellect and the annihilation of the reasoning powers

 

[Borat]

Nietzsche:

Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule

It is not so much the suffering as the senselessness of it that is unendurable

Gandhi:

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?

Mark Twain:

Each nation knowing it has the only true religion and the only sane system of government, each despising all the others, each an ass and not suspecting it

Bill Hicks:

I love talking about the Kennedy assassination. The reason I do is because I'm fascinated by it. I'm fascinated that our government could lie to us so blatantly, so obviously for so long, and we do absolutely nothing about it

Howard Zinn:

Civil disobedience, that’s not our problem. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running the country. That's our problem.

 

[Borat]

Einstein:

Problems cannot be solved at the same level of awareness that created them

Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former

The world is too dangerous to live in, not because of the people who do evil, but because of the people who sit and let it happen

 

[QUENTIN]

Nietzsche:

Insanity in individuals is something rare; but in groups, parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule

It is not so much the suffering as the senselessness of it that is unendurable

Good lot of quotes.

Another Nietzsche:

"The individual has always had to struggle to keep from being overwhelmed by the tribe. If you try it, you will be lonely often, and sometimes frightened. But no price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself."

 

[P F Tinmore]

Thought this might be a good idea for a long-running thread.

Basically you can quote a policitician (including world leaders) or simply somebody speaking of politics in general. Quotes you agree or disagree with, just anything you find interesting and think others would benefit from reading.

Keep it to one per day for each individual. Make sure to credit the person who said it as well.

I'll start things off:

"The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people...This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense."
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower

Oh, I thought you meant quotes that are current and worth reading.

Timeless, and still worth reading.

 

[jigusjaan]

America's debt problem is the reason they need a faithful and practicing alcoholic for President. He or she would then have the diminished neo-cortex-capacity to say to China, "do what we want or we will not pay!"

There is an inherent power in being a titanic debtor if there is no one who can really collect.

 

[slackjawed]

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop

 

[MIPS]

"It is interesting to observe that in the year 1935 the average individual's incurious attitude towards the phenomenon of the State is precisely what his attitude was toward the phenomenon of the Church in the year, say, 1500. ... it does not appear to have occurred to the Church-citizen of that day, any more than it occurs to the State-citizen of the present, to ask what sort of institution it was that claimed his allegiance." -- Albert Jay Nock, Our Enemy, the State

 

[Father Time]

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov 21, 1864. Reference: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY). (3)

I am almost loathe to post this since I abhor Lincoln for the state-ordered genocide of my ancestors, but it is strangely prophetic, don't you think?

I hope you're not referring to the civil war as a genocide because that's just irresponsible.

 

[Kevin_Kennedy]

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country ... corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. I feel at this moment more anxiety for the safety of my country than ever before, even in the midst of war."
-- Abraham Lincoln, letter to Col. William F. Elkins, Nov 21, 1864. Reference: The Lincoln Encyclopedia, Archer H. Shaw (Macmillan, 1950, NY). (3)

I am almost loathe to post this since I abhor Lincoln for the state-ordered genocide of my ancestors, but it is strangely prophetic, don't you think?

I hope you're not referring to the civil war as a genocide because that's just irresponsible.

Actually it's pretty accurate. Southerners were targeted by northern troops, regardless of whether they were Confederate soldiers, citizens, or slaves.

 

[PoliticalChic]

“The men the American people admire most extravagantly are the most daring liars; the men they detest most violently are those who try to tell them the truth.” H. L. Menken

 

[mascale]

Hello Father Time, (as crazy as the magazine?):

Lincoln's God was War, announced in 1852. The particular lunacy of Lincoln would oughtright kill--not just wound, maim, disable, injure, or slap in the face in a field medical tent--but kill: 750,000 mostly white people.

So in fact a lot of other white people started riots, over the prospect of being to die for some phony concept of "liberation." Blacks were not well-understood by most people, and even Obama of Punahou School had to explain that in fact he was not a cannibal. His own grandmother would famously cross-the-street, instead of being eaten alive.

And now as President, The current very White House is presiding over the same black teenage unemployment rates that were a part of the "Reagan Trajectory," he was for.

Calling the Holocaust a genocide: Makes better sense than the use of other terms. See how many victims there were, and for how long there were.

"Crow, James Crow: Shaken, Not Stirred!"
(Killing of Yellow-Hair, Even set to attacking women and children: Not called genocide, by contrast!)