Wise Words on Politics

"You Cannot"
You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong
You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot build character and courage by taking away man's initiative and independence.
You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.
William J. H. Boetcker

“The Secret of America’s Genius and Power”
“I sought for the greatness and genius of America in her commodious harbors and her ample rivers – and it was not there . . . in her fertile fields and boundless forests and it was not there . . . in her rich mines and her vast world commerce – and it was not there . . . in her democratic Congress and her matchless Constitution – and it was not there. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits aflame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because she is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, she will cease to be great.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

"How Could God Let X Happen To Our Country?"
I say God is also angry when he sees something like this. I would say also for several years now Americans in a sense have shaken their fist at God and said, God, we want you out of our schools, our government, our business, we want you out of our marketplace. And God, who is a gentleman, has just quietly backed out of our national and political life, our public life. Removing His hand of blessing and protection. We need to turn to God first of all and say, God, we’re sorry we have treated You this way and we invite You now to come into our national life. We put our trust in You. We have our trust in God on our coins, we need to practice it.
Anne Graham Lotz

"Religious Principle = National Morality"
Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
George Washington

"Mankind: My Brother"
We are living at a time when humankind can face whatever threatens it only if we, by which I mean each of us, manage to revive, with new energy and a new ethos, a sense of responsibility for the rest of the world.
Vaclav Havel

" Forging One's Own Fetters"
Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters.
Edmund Burke

"Fight If You Must"
Pacifism means letting the nonpacifists have control.
Oswald Spengler

"Principles Trump Privileges"
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"A Frame of Reference for the Thinking Man"
Principles and rules are intended to provide a thinking man with a frame of reference.
Karl von Clausewitz

"Discover Unalterable Principles"
Every science has for its basis a system of principles as fixed and unalterable as those by which the universe is regulated and governed. Man cannot make principles; he can only discover them.
Thomas Paine

"The Root of Social Problems"
At the bottom of every social problem we will find a social wrong.
Henry George

"First Things First"
The older I get, the more wisdom I find in the ancient rule of taking first things first - a process which often reduces the most complex human problems to manageable proportions.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Crossed Wires"
Our intentions tend to be much more real to us than our actions, and this can lead to a great deal of misunderstanding with other people, to whom our actions tend to be much more real than our intentions.
E.F. Schumacher

"Borrow Wisdom"
No Nation has a monopoly on good things. Each one has something that the others could well afford to adopt.
Will Rogers

"Freedom"
Freedom is not the right to do as you please, but the liberty to do as you ought.
Author Unknown

"The Power of Love Overcomes"
When The
Power of Love
Overcomes The
Love of Power
The World Will
Know Peace.
Anonymous

"Vote Or Go To The Hospital"
We go by the major vote, and if the majority are insane, the sane must go to the hospital.
Horace Mann

"Fiscally Conservative?"
Traditional conservation has not been, and proper conservatism cannot be, merely a defense of industrialism and individualist "free-market" economics. Conservatism is about the cultivation and conservation of certain values, or it is nothing.
George F. Will

"Because Every Word And Action Is A Seed, And Seeds Multiply"
Think Globally, But Act Locally.
Rene Dubos

"Moved By Empathy"
Anonymous: How can justice be secured in Athens?
Solon: If those who are not injured feel as indignant as those who are.
Solon

"43"
Have a set of principles that are inviolate. Defend those principles to matter what it might cost you...One of my proudest accomplishments was that I didn't sell my soul for the sake of popularity...if you are chasing popularity...it's just a fleeting moment, but principles last forever.
George W. Bush

"Liberty And Justice For All"
...I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free...bind up the nation's wounds; ...care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan - ...do all which may achieve and cherish a just, and a lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.
Abraham Lincoln

"Inalienable"
There are inalienable obligations as well as inalienable rights.
Abraham Joshua Heschel

"World Peace: A Byproduct"
It is impossible... not to inquire what our own civilization has been putting first for the last thirty years. And the answer is plain. It has been putting itself first. To preserve civilization has been the great aim; the collapse of civilization, the great bugbear. Peace, a high standard of life, hygiene, transport, science and amusement - all these, which are what we usually mean by civilization, have been our ends. It will be replied that our concern for civilization is very natural and very necessary at a time when civilization is so imperiled. But how if the shoe is on the other foot? - how if civilization has been imperiled precisely by the fact that we have all made civilization our summum bonum? Perhaps it can't be preserved in that way. Perhaps civilization will never be safe until we care for something else more than we care for it... But while they cared for other things more than for civilization - and they cared at different times for all sorts of things, for the will of God, for glory, for personal honour, for doctrinal purity, for justice - was civilization often in serious danger of disappearing?
C.S. Lewis

"Slanted News & Herd Mentality"
...The "societal purpose" of the media is to inculcate and defend the economic, social, and political agenda of privileged groups that dominate the domestic society and the state. The media serve this purpose in many ways: through selection of topics, distribution of concerns, framing of issues, filtering of information, emphasis and tone, and by keeping debate within the bounds of acceptable premises…
Noam Chomsky

“How To Shape Opinion”
How a report is framed, which facts it contains and emphasizes and which it ignores, and in what context, are as important to shaping opinion as the bare facts themselves.
Mark Hertsgaard

“Controlling The Herd”
It is this gregarious herd-sense and herd-smell which keeps people from thinking and so reconciles them to the destruction of their private lives.
Cyril Connolly

"Robbing Peter To Pay Paul"
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw

"God Bless The USA"
Our fathers' God to Thee,
Author of liberty,
To Thee we sing.
Long may our land be bright,
With freedom's holy light,
Protect us by Thy might,
Great God our King.
Samuel F. Smith

"Bluster And Boasting"
A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It's a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity.
Jimmy Carter

"Expensive Lessons"
Every time history repeats itself the price goes up.
Anonymous

"National Security"
The best foreign policy is to live our daily lives in honesty, decency and integrity.
Dwight D. Eisenhower

"Earned Privileges"
I go for all sharing the privileges of the government, who assist in bearing its burdens.
Abraham Lincoln

"A fool shows his annoyance at once, but a prudent man overlooks an insult" Proverbs 12:16

There is often more bravery in containing oneself and passing by: in order to spare oneself for a worthier enemy.
Fredrich Nietzsche

"Passive Alliance"
To accept passively an unjust system is to cooperate with that system...Noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

"Spin Doctors: America's Hypnotists"
The media celebrities who modestly claim only to report the news are clearly its arbiters now. Corporate conglomerates have taken over the news business. Television has taken over the role that party bosses once played in selecting political candidates and issues. Producers and their telegenic news superstars define the issues for the public and decide who does and does not get to speak to them. The commentators tell us what reasonable people should think about the issues, and then they take another poll to see what we think about what they have told us. Right on cue, the eager politicians, along with their own pollsters and "spin doctors," take the results and announce their positions on the major questions of our public life. This closed system of media-oriented political entertainment continually preempts genuine public dialogue and debate about the issues that most affect people's lives and the character of the nation.
Jim Wallis

"Ain't Hurtin' No One Else?"
I believe in individualism...up to the point where the individual starts to operate at the expense of society.
Franklin D. Roosevelt

"Tremble, For God Is Just"
Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just
Thomas Jefferson

"One Approach For Preventing Crime"
Men are not hanged for stealing horses, but that horses may not be stolen."

“So Help Me God”
WASHINGTON’S INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF 1789
April 30, 1789
(Abridged)
Fellow Citizens of the Senate and the House of Representatives...Such being the impressions under which I have, in obedience to the public summons, repaired to the present station; it would be peculiarly improper to omit in this first official Act, my fervent supplications to that Almighty Being Who rules over the Universe, Who presides in the Councils of Nations, and Whose providential aids can supply every human defect, that His benediction may consecrate to the liberties and happiness of the People of the United States, a Government instituted by themselves for these essential purposes: and may enable every instrument employed in its administration to execute with success, the functions allotted to His charge. In tendering this homage to the Great Author of every public and private good I assure myself that it expresses your sentiments not less than my own; nor those of my fellow-citizens at large, less than either. No People can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand, which conducts the Affairs of men more than the People of the United States. Every step, by which they have advanced to the character of an independent nation, seems to have been distinguished by some token of providential agency. And in the important revolution just accomplished in the system of their United Government, the tranquil deliberations and voluntary consent of so many distinct communities, from which the event has resulted, cannot be compared with the means by which most Governments have been established, without some return of pious gratitude along with an humble anticipation of the future blessings which the past seem to presage. These reflections, arising out of the present crisis, have forced themselves too strongly on my mind to be suppressed. You will join with me I trust in thinking, that there are none under the influence of which, the proceedings of a new and free Government can more auspiciously commence...In these honorable qualifications, I behold the surest pledges... that the foundations of our National policy will be laid in the pure and immutable principles of private morality; and the pre-eminence of a free Government, be exemplified by all the attributes which can win the affections of its Citizens, and command the respect of the world.

I dwell on this prospect with every satisfaction which an ardent love for my Country can inspire: since there is no truth more thoroughly established, than that there exists in the economy and course of nature, an indissoluble union between virtue and happiness, between duty and advantage, between the genuine maxims of an honest and magnanimous policy, and the solid rewards of public prosperity and felicity: Since we ought to be no less persuaded that the propitious smiles of Heaven, can never be expected on a nation that disregards the eternal rules of order and right, which Heaven itself has ordained: And since the preservation of the sacred fire of liberty, and the destiny of the Republican model of Government, are justly considered as deeply, perhaps as finally staked, on the experiment entrusted to the hands of the American people...Having thus imported to you my sentiments, as they have been awakened by the occasion which brings us together, I shall take my present leave; but not without resorting once more to the benign Parent of the human race, in humble supplication that since He has been pleased to favour the American people, with opportunities for deliberating in perfect tranquility, and dispositions for deciding with unparalleled unanimity on a form of Government, for the security of their Union, and the advancement of their happiness; so His divine blessing may be equally conspicuous in the enlarged views, the temperate consultations, and the wise measures on which the success of this Government must depend.

"Think Howard Stern"
There is an important difference ... between the public interest and what interests the public.
Cass R. Sunstein

"Restitution Trumps Incarceration"
Where does this idea of incarceration come from?

In the Bible, there are two basic punishments for two basic types of crimes:
Property crimes are punished by restitution, slavery (until both compensation and punitive damages are paid — the thief pays back what he stole to restore his victim, plus 3 or 5 more as punishment), etc.
Violent crimes are punished like-for-like. E.g., death penalty for murderers, physical punishment for assaults, etc.

This idea of the criminal owing “a debt to society” is thinly-veiled statism....have you ever stopped to consider just how odd it is that, in the false “debt-to-society” paradigm, the debtor is provided for by the entity to whom he ostensibly owes the debt!

The car thief didn’t steal from “society” (i.e., everybody), and “society” (everybody) shouldn’t be taxed to feed, clothe and house him in an environment where he may very well learn nothing more than more skills about the “craft” that put him there in the first place.

No, he stole from the car’s owner. He must work — two or three jobs, if necessary — to a) pay his own rent, groceries and bills, and b) restore the car’s owner (restoration) and c) perhaps to put gas in his car for the next six months (punishment).
Frank A. Golubski

"Lift An Eyebrow"
The most delusional fantasies can be made to masquerade as sanity if you've got the political power to reinforce them.
Penny Skillman

"Two Kinds Of Fools"
There are two kinds of fools: one says, 'This is old, therefore it is good'; the other says, 'This is new, therefore it is better'.
Dean William Ralph Ing

"Stop The Machine"
If [the government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong I condemn.
Henry David Thoreau

“Lucky, Hungry People”
America was populated by so many lucky people restless in the midst of their abundance --- a spiritual hunger in the age of plenty. Since 1960 the divorce rate has doubled The teen suicide rate tripled the violent crime rate quadrupled and the prison population Quintupled. David Brooks

“Before You Tear Down A Nation’s Foundations”
Horror and terror lurk behind the walls provided so wisely by our ancestors. We tear them down at our peril. We skate, unconsciously, on thin ice, with deep, cold waters below, where unimaginable monsters lurk...Set your house in perfect order before you criticize the world.
Jordan Peterson

“Will Teach Unsupported Ideology For A Seat Atop”
I do not understand why our society is providing public funding to institutions and educators whose stated, conscious and explicit aim is the demolition of the culture that supports them. Such people have a perfect right to their opinions and actions, if they remain lawful. But they have no reasonable claim to public funding. If radical right-wingers were receiving state funding for political operations disguised as university courses, as the radical left-wingers clearly are, the uproar from progressives across North America would be deafening.

There isn’t a shred of hard evidence to support any of their central claims: that Western society is pathologically patriarchal; that the prime lesson of history is that men, rather than nature, were the primary source of the oppression of women... That all hierarchies are based on power and aimed at exclusion...competence, not power, is the prime determiner of status. Competence. Ability. Skill. Not power...The most valid personality trait predictors of long-term success in Western countries are intelligence and conscientiousness...

Not only is the state supporting one-sided radicalism, it is also supporting indoctrination. We do not teach our children that the world is flat. Neither should we teach them unsupported ideologically-predicated theories about the nature of men and women—or the nature of hierarchy. It is not unreasonable to note (if the deconstructionists would leave it at that) that science can be biased by the interests of power, and to warn against that—or to point out that evidence is too often what powerful people, including scientists, decide it is. After all, scientists are people too, and people like power, just like lobsters like power—just like deconstructionists like to be known for their ideas, and strive rightly to sit atop their academic hierarchies.