Favorite political quotes...?
Jul 6, 2012 20:16:10 #
This is mine, from the John Adams administration:
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
Jul 6, 2012 21:23:10 #
Nothing tops that brilliant ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it".
To me that is an impeachable offense.
To me that is an impeachable offense.
Jul 6, 2012 21:41:43 #
Stef C wrote:
This is mine, from the John Adams administration:
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
Yet God was embedded into our founding documents and to most of the writings and speeches of the founders, most people do not realize that many of our founders were deist and although they believed in superior being it was not necessarily the god of the christian bible but the god that created man and nature.... Thomas Jefferson was obsessed with the study of Jesus Christ as he could not bring himself fully to Christianity, hence we have the Jefferson bible where he pieced together what he considered to be the most instructive parts of the bible, but he was never convinced as to who or what Jesus Christ was, he did not feel that he was the son of God. I once vehemently argued the opposite against a well educated opponent and his argument was so strong and well made that afterwards I did some research only to find that I was wrong, that indeed many of the founders were not Christians.
Jul 6, 2012 21:44:45 #
Jul 6, 2012 21:53:02 #
"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."
-- Thomas Sowell
Here is a link to a page by Walter E Williams at George Mason University with pages of quotes by the founders and others.. There is a lot of wisdom scattered across these pages...
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes.html
-- Thomas Sowell
Here is a link to a page by Walter E Williams at George Mason University with pages of quotes by the founders and others.. There is a lot of wisdom scattered across these pages...
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/quotes.html
Jul 6, 2012 21:55:53 #
I liked this one: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. "
-- Winston Churchill
I think somewhere in between would be just fine with me.
-- Winston Churchill
I think somewhere in between would be just fine with me.
Jul 6, 2012 21:57:47 #
Here is a fantastic political quote;
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~ Richard Armour
Politics, it seems to me, for years, or all too long, has been concerned with right or left instead of right or wrong. ~ Richard Armour
Jul 6, 2012 22:13:55 #
Stef C wrote:
I liked this one: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. "
-- Winston Churchill
I think somewhere in between would be just fine with me.
-- Winston Churchill
I think somewhere in between would be just fine with me.
Which is where we are now.
Jul 6, 2012 22:28:53 #
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy
Jul 6, 2012 22:34:47 #
Mac wrote:
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy
We need another JFK. If only people thought this way today.
Jul 6, 2012 22:39:25 #
RTR wrote:
We need another JFK. If only people thought this way today.
Mac wrote:
"Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." John F. Kennedy
We need another JFK. If only people thought this way today.
In today's US of A the Libs would hate JFK much more so than they hated GW... JFK would be a republican and probably would have the ability to energize the conservative base, that is how much things have changed over the last 50 years.
Jul 7, 2012 05:34:42 #
Stef C wrote:
This is mine, from the John Adams administration:
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
The government of the United States is not in any sense founded upon the Christian religion - John Adams.
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush: "You go to war with the army you've got, not the army you want."
George W. Bush: "If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator."
Jul 7, 2012 06:12:26 #
I do not like political jokes as sometimes they get elected. The best way for the Australian Prime Minister ,Juila Gillard, to make herself more popular would be resign
Jul 7, 2012 09:28:14 #
ole sarg
Loc: south florida
Yes the country does need a JFK here is his philosophy it mirrors President OBamas'
JFK explains what kind of liberal he is, and presents his vision as a candidate.
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination
September 14, 1960
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.
In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.
I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.
Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.
Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.
Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.
Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads.
In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."
And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend.
This is an important election -- in many ways as important as any this century -- and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort. The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.
I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.
Some pundits are saying it's 1928 all over again. I say it's 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.
JFK explains what kind of liberal he is, and presents his vision as a candidate.
Acceptance of the New York Liberal Party Nomination
September 14, 1960
What do our opponents mean when they apply to us the label "Liberal?" If by "Liberal" they mean, as they want people to believe, someone who is soft in his policies abroad, who is against local government, and who is unconcerned with the taxpayer's dollar, then the record of this party and its members demonstrate that we are not that kind of "Liberal." But if by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people -- their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties -- someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."
But first, I would like to say what I understand the word "Liberal" to mean and explain in the process why I consider myself to be a "Liberal," and what it means in the presidential election of 1960.
In short, having set forth my view -- I hope for all time -- two nights ago in Houston, on the proper relationship between church and state, I want to take the opportunity to set forth my views on the proper relationship between the state and the citizen. This is my political credo:
I believe in human dignity as the source of national purpose, in human liberty as the source of national action, in the human heart as the source of national compassion, and in the human mind as the source of our invention and our ideas. It is, I believe, the faith in our fellow citizens as individuals and as people that lies at the heart of the liberal faith. For liberalism is not so much a party creed or set of fixed platform promises as it is an attitude of mind and heart, a faith in man's ability through the experiences of his reason and judgment to increase for himself and his fellow men the amount of justice and freedom and brotherhood which all human life deserves.
I believe also in the United States of America, in the promise that it contains and has contained throughout our history of producing a society so abundant and creative and so free and responsible that it cannot only fulfill the aspirations of its citizens, but serve equally well as a beacon for all mankind. I do not believe in a superstate. I see no magic in tax dollars which are sent to Washington and then returned. I abhor the waste and incompetence of large-scale federal bureaucracies in this administration as well as in others. I do not favor state compulsion when voluntary individual effort can do the job and do it well. But I believe in a government which acts, which exercises its full powers and full responsibilities. Government is an art and a precious obligation; and when it has a job to do, I believe it should do it. And this requires not only great ends but that we propose concrete means of achieving them.
Our responsibility is not discharged by announcement of virtuous ends. Our responsibility is to achieve these objectives with social invention, with political skill, and executive vigor. I believe for these reasons that liberalism is our best and only hope in the world today. For the liberal society is a free society, and it is at the same time and for that reason a strong society. Its strength is drawn from the will of free people committed to great ends and peacefully striving to meet them. Only liberalism, in short, can repair our national power, restore our national purpose, and liberate our national energies. And the only basic issue in the 1960 campaign is whether our government will fall in a conservative rut and die there, or whether we will move ahead in the liberal spirit of daring, of breaking new ground, of doing in our generation what Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson did in their time of influence and responsibility.
Our liberalism has its roots in our diverse origins. Most of us are descended from that segment of the American population which was once called an immigrant minority. Today, along with our children and grandchildren, we do not feel minor. We feel proud of our origins and we are not second to any group in our sense of national purpose. For many years New York represented the new frontier to all those who came from the ends of the earth to find new opportunity and new freedom, generations of men and women who fled from the despotism of the czars, the horrors of the Nazis, the tyranny of hunger, who came here to the new frontier in the State of New York. These men and women, a living cross section of American history, indeed, a cross section of the entire world's history of pain and hope, made of this city not only a new world of opportunity, but a new world of the spirit as well.
Tonight we salute Governor and Senator Herbert Lehman as a symbol of that spirit, and as a reminder that the fight for full constitutional rights for all Americans is a fight that must be carried on in 1961.
Many of these same immigrant families produced the pioneers and builders of the American labor movement. They are the men who sweated in our shops, who struggled to create a union, and who were driven by longing for education for their children and for the children's development. They went to night schools; they built their own future, their union's future, and their country's future, brick by brick, block by block, neighborhood by neighborhood, and now in their children's time, suburb by suburb.
Tonight we salute George Meany as a symbol of that struggle and as a reminder that the fight to eliminate poverty and human exploitation is a fight that goes on in our day. But in 1960 the cause of liberalism cannot content itself with carrying on the fight for human justice and economic liberalism here at home. For here and around the world the fear of war hangs over us every morning and every night. It lies, expressed or silent, in the minds of every American. We cannot banish it by repeating that we are economically first or that we are militarily first, for saying so doesn't make it so. More will be needed than goodwill missions or talking back to Soviet politicians or increasing the tempo of the arms race. More will be needed than good intentions, for we know where that paving leads.
In Winston Churchill's words, "We cannot escape our dangers by recoiling from them. We dare not pretend such dangers do not exist."
And tonight we salute Adlai Stevenson as an eloquent spokesman for the effort to achieve an intelligent foreign policy. Our opponents would like the people to believe that in a time of danger it would be hazardous to change the administration that has brought us to this time of danger. I think it would be hazardous not to change. I think it would be hazardous to continue four more years of stagnation and indifference here at home and abroad, of starving the underpinnings of our national power, including not only our defense but our image abroad as a friend.
This is an important election -- in many ways as important as any this century -- and I think that the Democratic Party and the Liberal Party here in New York, and those who believe in progress all over the United States, should be associated with us in this great effort. The reason that Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman and Adlai Stevenson had influence abroad, and the United States in their time had it, was because they moved this country here at home, because they stood for something here in the United States, for expanding the benefits of our society to our own people, and the people around the world looked to us as a symbol of hope.
I think it is our task to re-create the same atmosphere in our own time. Our national elections have often proved to be the turning point in the course of our country. I am proposing that 1960 be another turning point in the history of the great Republic.
Some pundits are saying it's 1928 all over again. I say it's 1932 all over again. I say this is the great opportunity that we will have in our time to move our people and this country and the people of the free world beyond the new frontiers of the 1960s.
Jul 7, 2012 10:06:12 #
RTR wrote:
Nothing tops that brilliant ex-Speaker Nancy Pelosi "We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it".
To me that is an impeachable offense.
To me that is an impeachable offense.
Mitt at his best, and you want to elect him
1. "Corporations are people, my friend of course they are. Everything corporations earn ultimately goes to the people. Where do you think it goes? Whose pockets? Whose pockets? People's pockets. Human beings, my friend." Mitt Romney to a heckler at the Iowa State Fair who suggested that taxes should be raised on corporations as part of balancing the budget (August 2011)
2. "I like being able to fire people who provide services to me." Mitt Romney, using an unfortunate choice of words while advocating for consumer choice in health insurance plans (January 2012)
3. "I'm not concerned about the very poor. We have a safety net there." Mitt Romney (January 2012)
4. "I'll tell you what, ten-thousand bucks? $10,000 bet?" Mitt Romney, attempting to make a wager with Rick Perry during a Republican presidential debate to settle a disagreement about health care (December 2011)
5. "I should tell my story. I'm also unemployed." Mitt Romney, speaking in 2011 to unemployed people in Florida. Romney's net worth is over $200 million.
6. "There were a couple of times I wondered whether I was going to get a pink slip" Mitt Romney, attempting to identify with the problems of average folk (January 2012)
7. "[My wife] drives a couple of Cadillacs." Mitt Romney, campaigning for president in Michigan (February 2012)
8. "I get speaker's fees from time to time, but not very much." Mitt Romney, who earned $374,000 in speaking fees in one year according to according to his personal financial disclosure (January 2012)
9. "PETA is not happy that my dog likes fresh air." Mitt Romney in 2007, responding to criticism from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals following revelations that he had once put the family dog in a carrier and strapped it to the roof of his car during a 12-hour road trip
10. "I believe in an America where millions of Americans believe in an America that's the America millions of Americans believe in. That's the America I love." Mitt Romney (January 2012)
Bonus Quotes:
"I have some friends who are NASCAR team owners." Mitt Romney, after being asked whether he follows NASCAR racing (February 2012)
"I like those fancy raincoats you bought. Really sprung for the big bucks." Mitt Romney to a group of NASCAR fans wearing plastic ponchos at the Daytona 500 (February 2012)
"I love this state. The trees are the right height." Mitt Romney, campaigning in Michigan (February 2012)
"I'm running for office for Pete's sake, we can't have illegals" Mitt Romney, recalling his reaction when he learned that there were illegal aliens working the ground on his property, employed by a firm that he subsequently fired (October 2011)
"Who let the dogs out? Who, who." Mitt Romney, during an awkward photo op with a group of African american kids in a playground
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