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Politics Quotes

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Politics Quotes

“An annual or frequent choice of Magistrates, who in a year, or in a few years, are again left upon a level with their neighbors, is most likely to prevent usurpation and tyranny ... If rulers know that they shall in short period of time, be again out of power, and ... may be liable to be called to account for misconduct, it will guard them against maladministration.”

IfsKnowsYearsMayPoliticalChoicesPoliticsLeftLevelsPeriodsAccountsNeighborTyrannyRulersLiableAnnualsMagistratesUsurpationMisconduct
Author:Clinton Rossiter
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“We have entered an Orwellian era in which entitlement replaces responsibility, coercion is described as compassion, compulsory redistribution is called sharing, race quotas substitute for diversity, and suicide is prescribed as 'death with dignity.' Political discourse has become completely corrupted. The reason is that if you tell people directly that you want to raise their taxes, transfer their wealth, count them by skin color, or let doctors kill them, most will object. Statists know this and therefore are obliged to obfuscate.”

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Author:Theodore J. Forstmann
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“It is not because a part of the government is elective, that makes it less a despotism, if the persons so elected, possess afterwards, as a parliament, unlimited powers. Election, in this case, becomes separated from representation, and the candidates are candidates for despotism.”

IfsPersonsGovernmentPoliticalPoliticsCasesElectionCandidatesRepresentationUnlimitedParliamentDespotismUnlimited Power
Book:The Political Writings of Thomas Paine: Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution : to which is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author's Life
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“Every individual who participated in the redistricting process knew that incumbency protection was a critical factor in producing the bizarre lines. ... Many of the oddest twists and turns of the Texas districts would never have been created if the Legislature had not been so intent on protecting party and incumbents.”

IfsHas BeensPoliticalTurnsPoliticsIndividualProcessLinesPartyCriticalProtectionFactorsTexasBizarreTwistsLegislatureIncumbentsTwists And TurnsRedistrictingIncumbency
Author:John Paul Stevens
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“It is tempting to believe that social evils arise from the activities of evil men and that if only good men (like ourselves, naturally) wielded power, all would be well. That view requires only emotion and self-praise - easy to come by and satisfying as well. To understand why it is that 'good' men in positions of power will produce evil, while the ordinary man without power but able to engage in voluntary cooperation with his neighbors will produce good, requires analysis and thought, subordinating emotions to the rational.”

IfsMenBelieveWellsSelfWould BeAblePoliticalEvilPoliticsSocialEasyTermViewsEmotionPositionProduceActivityOrdinaryPraiseNeighborAriseRationalAnalysisGood ManCooperationSatisfyingTemptingOrdinary ManEvil ManPosition Of PowerTerm LimitsSelf PraiseSocial Evils
Author:Friedrich August von Hayek
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“In the old days, land was important as the giver of all things. That period is gone now. Technology and brainpower are all that matters and yet conflicts over land, specially one like on the India-China border, that yields nothing, continue. This is a burden of ancient history that we continue to carry. If tomorrow there is settlement on planet Mars, we will begin to worry if others are interested.”

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Author:John Kenneth Galbraith
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“If you think of yourselves as helpless and ineffectual, it is certain that you will create a despotic government to be your master. The wise despot, therefore, maintains among his subjects a popular sense that they are helpless and ineffectual.”

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Book:The Dosadi Experiment and The Eyes of Heisenberg: Two Classic Works of Science Fiction
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“If allowed to continue, this process will turn the United States into a declining, unfair society with an impoverished, angry, uneducated population under the control of a small, ultrawealthy elite. Such a society would be not only immoral but also eventually unstable, dangerously ripe for religious and political extremism.”

IfsStatesWould BePoliticalTurnsPoliticsProcessReligiousUnitedUnited StatesAngryPopulationElitesUnfairImmoralExtremismRipeUnstableUneducatedPolitical Extremism
Author:Charles Ferguson
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“The real challenge is figuring out how the United States can regain control of its future from its new oligarchy and restore its position as a prosperous, fair, well-educated nation. For if we don't, the current pattern of great concentration of wealth and power will worsen, and we may face the steady immiseration of most of the American population.”

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Author:Charles Ferguson
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“It would seem that if despotism were to be established among the democratic nations of our days, it might assume a different character; it would be more extensive and more mild; it would degrade men without tormenting them. I do not question that, in an age of instruction and equality like our own, sovereigns might more easily succeed in collecting all political power into their own hands and might interfere more habitually and decidedly with the circle of private interests than any sovereign of antiquity could ever do.”

IfsMenDifferentCharacterHandsSeemsMightWould BeAgePoliticalPoliticsNationsInterestSucceedAssumingDemocraticCirclesInstructionInterfereSovereignCollectingDespotismAntiquityPolitical PowerDegradeDifferent Characters
Book:Democracy in America - Vol. I. and II.
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“But if the 1 percent and the 0.1 percent are respected and allowed to risk their wealth - and new rebels are allowed to rise up and challenge them - America will continue to be the land where the last regularly become the first by serving others.”

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Book:Knowledge and Power: The Information Theory of Capitalism and How it is Revolutionizing our World
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“So I say, if you cannot learn to love real art; at least learn to hate sham art and reject it. It is not because the wretched thing is so ugly and silly and useless that I ask you to cast it from you; it is much more because these are but the outward symbols of the poison that lies within them; look through them and see all that has gone to their fashioning, and you will see how vain labour, and sorrow, and disgrace have been their companions from the first-and all this for trifles that no man really needs!”

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Book:The Collected Works of William Morris: With Introductions by His Daughter May Morris
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“Twenty times, in the course of my late reading, have I been on the point of breaking out, 'this would be the best of all possible worlds, if there were no religion in it!' But in this exclamation, I should have been as fanatical as Bryant or Cleverly. Without religion, this world would be something not fit to be mentioned in public company-I mean hell.”

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Book:John Adams: a biography in his own words
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“Suppose a nation, rich and poor, high and low, ten millions in number, all assembled together; not more than one or two millions will have lands, houses, or any personal property; if we take into the account the women and children, or even if we leave them out of the question, a great majority of every nation is wholly destitute of property, except a small quantity of clothes, and a few trifles of other movables.”

IfsChildrenTwoTogetherHousePoliticsNationsPoorNumbersMillionsEconomyRichLandTenClothesLowsAccountsMajorityPropertyLiberalismQuantityTriflesRich And PoorDestituteHighs And Lows
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“If "Thou shalt not covet," and "Thou shalt not steal," were not commandments of Heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society, before it can be civilized or made free.”

IfsMadePoliticsHeavenEconomyCapitalismEconomicsStealingLiberalismCivilizedCommandmentsFoundingPrivate PropertyOur Founding FathersProperty RightsUs Founding FathersFounding AmericaReligion And GovernmentCapitalism And Socialism
Book:The Political Writings of John Adams
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“Property must be secured or liberty cannot exist. But if unlimited or unbalanced power of disposing property, be put into the hands of those who have no property, France will find, as we have found, the lamb committed to the custody of the world. In such a case, all the pathetic exhortations and addresses of the national assembly to the people, to respect property, will be regarded no more than the warbles of the songsters of the forest.”

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Author:John Adams
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“If the multitude is possessed of the balance of real estate, the multitude will have the balance of power, and in that case the multitude will take care of the liberty, virtue, and interest of the multitude in all acts of government.”

IfsRealGovernmentCarePoliticsInterestLibertyCasesEconomyVirtueBalanceTake CareLiberalismPossessedMultitudesEstatesBalance Of Power
Book:The Works of John Adams, Second President of the United States: With a Life of the Author, Notes and Illustrations
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“If wealth is accumulated in the hands of a few, either by a feudal or a stock monopoly, it carries the power also; and a government becomes as certainly aristocratical, by a monopoly of wealth, as by a monopoly of arms. A minority, obtaining a majority of wealth or arms in any mode, becomes the government.”

IfsHandsGovernmentPoliticsWealthEconomyArmsMajorityLiberalismMinoritiesCarrieMonopolyObtaining
Book:An Inquiry Into the Principles and Policy of the Government of the United States
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“The freest government, if it could exist, would not be long acceptable, if the tendency of the laws were to create a rapid accumulation of property in a few hands, and to render the great mass of the population dependent and penniless.”

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Book:The Great Speeches and Orations of Daniel Webster
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“A man who dreads trials and difficulties cannot become a revolutionary. If he is to become a revolutionary with an indomitable fighting spirit, he must be tempered in the arduous struggle from his youth. As the saying goes, early training means more than late earning.”

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Book:The Present Times and the Tasks Facing Young People: Talk to the Senior Officials of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, October 12, 1988
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“If I was to really get at the burr in my saddle, it's not politics - and this is, I think, probably a horrible analogy - but I look at politicians as they are doing what inherently they need to do to retain power. Their job is to consolidate power. When you go to the zoo and you see a monkey throwing poop, you go, 'That's what monkeys do, what are you gonna do?' But what I wish the media would do more frequently is say, 'Bad monkey.'”

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Author:Jon Stewart
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“The country's 24 hour political pundit perpetual panic conflictinator did not cause our problems but its existence makes solving them that much harder. The press can hold its magnifying up to our problems bringing them into focus, illuminating issues heretofore unseen or they can use that magnifying glass to light ants on fire and then perhaps host a week of shows on the sudden, unexpected dangerous flaming ant epidemic. If we amplify everything we hear nothing.”

IfsCountryUseShowsProblemLightPoliticalPoliticsCausesHoursExistenceIssuesFireFocusWeekDangerousHarderPressesGlassesUnexpectedHostPanicPerpetualUnseenAntsEpidemicsIlluminatingPunditsAmplifyMagnifyingMagnifying Glass
Author:Jon Stewart
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“If someone was to introduce hope and idealism into our political system, I think the tension that would create in other areas would certainly be ripe. You would think that if you bring oxygen to the organism, the organism lives. But there may be other organisms in there that thrive in darkness and in a more anaerobic environment. Watching those creatures writhe will always be interesting.”

IfsThinkingMayPoliticalPoliticsInterestingDarknessEnvironmentCreaturesAreasTensionThriveIntroducingOrganismsIdealismOxygenRipePolitical Systems
Author:Jon Stewart
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“It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.”

IfsWorldWarWisdomPoliticalPoliticsPayHalfPrinciplesGenerationsDebtWar Of The WorldsOne HalfIncumbentsMind Your Own BusinessNational DebtGeneration GapDebt By Founding FathersGovernment DebtIncumbency
Book:The Works of Thomas Jefferson: Correspondence and Papers, 1816-1826
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