Browsing Quotes With Tag: government (20)
-
If democracy is to mean anything, it is the ability to all agree to arrange things in a different way.
Speaker: David GraeberSource: Debt: The First 5,000 YearsPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 11:38 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The one thing that’s clear is that new ideas won’t emerge without the jettisoning of much of our accustomed categories of thought— which have become mostly sheer dead weight, if not intrinsic parts of the very apparatus of hopelessness—and formulating new ones. This is why I spent so much of this book talking about the market, but also about the false choice between state and market that so monopolized political ideology for the last centuries that it made it difficult to argue about anything else.
Speaker: David GraeberSource: Debt: The First 5,000 YearsPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 11:36 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Just as the United States had managed to largely get rid of the problem of political corruption by making the bribery of legislators effectively legal (it was redefined as “lobbying”), so the problem of loan-sharking was brushed aside by making real interest rates of 25 percent, 50 percent, or even in some cases (for instance for payday loans) 120 percent annually, once typical only of organized crime, perfectly legal — and therefore, enforceable no longer by just hired goons and the sort of people who place mutilated animals on their victims’ doorsteps, but by judges, lawyers, bailiffs, and police.
Speaker: David GraeberSource: Debt: The First 5,000 YearsPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 11:33 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Christians are rare people on earth. This is why the world needs a strict, harsh temporal government which will compel and constrain the wicked to refrain from theft and robbery, and to return what they borrow (although a Christian ought neither to demand nor expect it). This is necessary in order that the world may not become a desert, peace vanish, and men’s trade and society be utterly destroyed; all of which would happen if we were to rule the world according to the gospel, rather than driving and compelling the wicked by laws and the use of force to do and to allow what is right.
Speaker: Martin LutherSource: Debt: The First 5,000 YearsPosted: 10 Nov 2014 at 11:27 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The mountain of history books under which we all stand leans so heavily in the other direction – so tremblingly respectful of states and statesmen and so disrespectful, by inattention, to people’s movements – that we need some counterforce to avoid being crushed into submission.
...Most histories understand revolt, overemphasize statesmanship, and thus encourage impotency among citizens.
Speaker: Howard ZinnSource: A People's History of the United StatesPosted: 08 Feb 2014 at 7:48 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The body politic, like the human body, begins to die from its birth, and bears in itself the causes of its destruction.
Speaker: RousseauSource: Du Contrat SocialPosted: 01 Mar 2010 at 5:29 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
I would never try to convince someone not to hate the media. As far as I can tell, it’s a completely reasonable thing to hate. Whenever I meet someone who feels a sense of hatred for a large, amorphous body – the media, the government, Ticketmaster, the Illuminati, Anna Nicole Smith, whatever – I fully support their distaste. It’s always better to be mad at something vast and unspecific and theoretical, as these entities cannot sue you for defamation.
Speaker: Chuck KlostermanSource: Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa PuffsPosted: 19 Sep 2009 at 9:18 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It is horrifying that we have to fight our own government to save the environment.
Speaker: Ansel AdamsPosted: 28 Jul 2009 at 11:22 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Democracy is a device that ensures we shall be governed no better than we deserve.
Speaker: George Bernard ShawPosted: 20 Mar 2009 at 9:39 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
When law becomes despotic, morals are relaxed, and vice versa.
Speaker: Honore de BalzacPosted: 18 Mar 2009 at 6:22 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It doesn’t matter which party is elected into office. If it’s Democrats, they will probably tax and spend. If it’s Republicans, they will probably borrow and spend.
Speaker: Robert T. KiyosakiSource: Increasing Your Financial IQPosted: 20 Sep 2008 at 8:25 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
A bureaucrat’s job is to get their hands deeper in your pockets – legally – and your job is to have them take as little as possible – legally.
Speaker: Robert T. KiyosakiSource: Increasing Your Financial IQPosted: 20 Sep 2008 at 8:23 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Speaker: AesopPosted: 23 Aug 2008 at 10:37 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.
Speaker: Douglas AdamsPosted: 23 Aug 2008 at 10:36 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The only tyrant I accept is the ‘still small voice’ within.
Speaker: Mohandas GandhiPosted: 21 Aug 2008 at 3:26 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
“Democracy is a poor system; the only thing that can be said for it is that it is eight times as good as any other method. It’s worst fault is that its leaders reflect their constituents – a low level, but what can you expect? So look at Douglas and ponder that, in his ignorance, stupidity, and self-seeking, he resembles his fellow Americans but is a notch or two above average.”
Speaker: Robert HeinleinPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 10:55 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
Oh, Harshaw conceded that man, a social animal, could not avoid government, any more than an individual could escape bondage to his bowels. But simply because an evil was inescapable was no reason to term it “good.”
Speaker: Robert HeinleinPosted: 20 Aug 2008 at 10:50 AMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
The truth is that if you want a well-governed state to be possible, you must find for your future rulers some way of life they like better than government.
Speaker: PlatoPosted: 19 Aug 2008 at 6:54 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
And so our state and yours will really be awake, and not merely dreaming like most societies today, with their shadow battles and their struggles for political power, which they treat as some great prize.
Speaker: PlatoPosted: 19 Aug 2008 at 6:54 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment! -
It is not Fortune’s business to make a state sound; that is a task for knowledge and deliberate choice.
Speaker: AristotlePosted: 19 Aug 2008 at 6:33 PMComments: None... Be the first to comment!