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Politics Quotes

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Politics Quotes

“In the United States, where it has become almost impossible to use "liberal" in the sense in which I have used it, the term "libertarian" has been used instead. It may be the answer; but for my part I find it singularly unattractive. For my taste it carries too much the flavor of a manufactured term and of a substitute. What I should want is a word which describes the party of life, the party that favors free growth and spontaneous evolution. But I have racked my brain unsuccessfully to find a descriptive term which commends itself.”

“But would the young do any better under the same circumstances? Will they do any better when their turns come? The answer is that youth would not and cannot, given the financial and economic framework within which the elders are operating. While the moral convictions of individuals are important in the long run, it is institutions that determine the immediate course of events - particularly the institutions of finance.”

“Some years ago a top Ford official was showing the late Walter Reuther through the very automates plant in Cleveland, Ohio and he said to him jokingly, "Walter, you'll have a hard time collecting union dues from these machines." and Walter said, "you are going to have more trouble trying to sell automobiles to them." Both of them let it stop there. There was a logical answer to that ... the owners of the machines could buy automobiles and if you increase the number of owners you increase the number of consumers.”

“The best lesson that any people can learn is that there is no patent cure-all which will make the body politic perfect, and that any man who is able glibly to answer every question as to how to deal with the evils of the body politic is at best a foolish visionary and at worst an evil-minded quack.”

“Today, the mass audience (the successor to the "public") can be used as a creative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive entertainment. Politics offers yesterday's answers to today's questions.”

“Now, here's a good question: should serious people focus on global political instability - terrorism, failing states, nuclear weapons - or should we focus on global climate instability - droughts, floods, extreme weather? Here's the correct answer: yes, both, because climate disruption will make every other national security problem worse.”

“During World War II, Joseph Stalin was once asked by an American writer, according to Professor Dean Russell, how he could justify conscripting all the property of all the people for use by the government to fight the war. Stalin answered by asking why they considered it more immoral and illogical to conscript lifeless property than to conscript life itself, as was being done in the United States and all other capitalistic countries. His American challenger had no answer, because there was no answer.”

“Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the form of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.”

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”