“We could never verify that there was any Iraqi authority, direction and control, complicity with al Qaeda for 9/11 or any operational act against America. Period.” AmericaPeriodsAuthorityAlsAl QaedaComplicityVerify Author:George Tenet
“Americans cannot escape a certain responsibility for what is done in our name around the world. In a democracy, even one as corrupted as ours, ultimate authority rests with the people. We empower the government with our votes, finance it with our taxes, bolster it with our silent acquiescence. If we are passive in the face of America's official actions overseas, we in effect endorse them.” PeopleIfsWorldDoneGovernmentActionAmericaFacesCertainNamesResponsibilityDemocracyEffectsTaxesAuthorityVoteUltimateSilentFinanceAround The WorldOfficialsEmpoweringPassiveAcquiescence Book:The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World Source: The Eagle's Shadow: Why America Fascinates and Infuriates the World
“I sometimes think we ought to bring a bill before Congress changing our national symbol from the eagle to the buffalo, because we are more like the buffalo than the eagle. The eagle is a powerful bird. It flies alone. It rises up into the sky with authority. It is master of all it surveys. The eagle is an individualist and was selected from among the rest of the birds to be our symbol. But the buffalo was never alone. It always ran in a herd with other buffaloes. And, friends, I call your attention that the buffaloes are gone from the open range, but the eagles are still soaring.” ThinkingStillsSometimesAmericaPowerfulAttentionGoneSkyMastersOughtAuthorityBirdBillsCongressSymbolsRangeRanSoarEaglesHerdsSurveysSelectedBuffalo Author:Norman Vincent Peale
“I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time - [...] when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.” PeopleFeelsChildrenHandsAmericaLostInterestAbilityDarknessIssuesAuthorityCriticalFeel GoodMy ChildrenAgendasFacultyDeclineSuperstitionsTechnologicalGrandchildrenSlidesCrystalsNoticingRepresentingConsultingPublic InterestForebodingHoroscopes Author:Carl Sagan
“In the United States the sovereign authority is religious, and consequently hypocrisy must be common; but there is no country in the world where the Christian religion retains a greater influence over the souls of men than in America; and there can be no greater proof of its utility and of its conformity to human nature than that its influence is powerfully felt over the most enlightened and free nation of the earth.” MenWorldHumansSoulCountryStatesEarthChristianAmericaNationsFeltReligiousUnitedCommonUnited StatesGreaterInfluenceHuman NatureAuthorityProofHypocrisyEnlightenedConformitySovereignUtility Book:Democracy in America: Book One Source: Democracy in America: Book One
“It was from America that the plain ideas that men ought to mind their business, and that the nation is responsible to Heaven for the acts of the State, - ideas long locked in the breast of solitary thinkers, and hidden among Latin folios, - burst forth like a conqueror upon the world they were destined to transform, under the title of the Rights of Man... and the principle gained ground, that a nation can never abandon its fate to an authority it cannot control.” MenWorldMindLongIdeasStatesAmericaHeavenNationsPrinciplesFateRightsOughtAuthorityResponsibleTitlesBreastsAbandonLatinThinkerLockedSolitaryDestinedConqueror Author:Lord Acton
“For the Second Amendment to do its job, the other side must become much better informed. I watched an action-adventure program last night that asserted that the famous AK-47 - the original peoples' rifle (and Authority's greatest mistake) - is rare in this country, and that the only ones here were originally smuggled in from the Middle East, or possibly from South America. The idiots who wrote this mess seemed unaware that after legal imports - mostly from China - were illegally cut off by executive order, they began to be manufactured here.” CountryActionJobsLastsAmericaNightOrderSidesMistakeCuttingMiddleAdventureAuthorityProgramOriginalsSouthChinaEastMessIdiotExecutivesMiddle EastAmendmentsLast NightSecond AmendmentRiflesImportsSouth AmericaExecutive OrdersAk 47 Author:L. Neil Smith
“Unfortunately, there are people in America, there are people in politics, there are people in positions of authority, who want to forcibly unarm, and force in to helplessness, American citizens.” PeopleWantAmericaForcePositionCitizensAuthorityHelplessnessAmerican Citizens Author:Ted Nugent