Gray Watson's Politics Quote List

Newest to the collection come first.

• The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack. -- Keith Olbermann commenting on Donald Rumsfeld 8/30/2006
• A new poll showed that 66% of Americans think President Bush is doing a poor job handling the war in Iraq and the remaining 34% think that Adam and Eve rode dinosaurs to church. -- Tina Fey on SNL 10/29/2005
• A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government -- Edward Abbey
• Of course the people don't want war.... But, after all, it's the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it's always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it's a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a parliament or a communist dictatorship.... Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to greater danger. It works the same way in any country. -- Hermann Goering, Hilter's 2nd in command, during his trial at Nuremberg.
• Great collection of freedom quotes by Jim Poserina.
• Every normal man must be tempted at times, to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats. -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956)
• The White House says that the vacation in Texas will give President Bush the chance to unwind. My question is, when does the guy wind? -- David Letterman
• "The biggest threat [to privacy] is public complacency" -- John Gilmore fighting regulations about having to show ID when flying.

• In protest to France's opposition to the US war on Iraq, the US Congress cafeteria has changed french fries and french toast, to freedom fries and freedom toast. Afterwards, the Congressmen were so pleased with themselves, they all started freedom kissing each other. In a related story, in France, American cheese is now referred to as idiot cheese. ...

  And don't think that by eating freedom fries you are being patriotic and helping the war effort. Use less gasoline, read a newspaper. You know what, how about we cool it with the freedom fries anyway you fat asses. We're the fattest country in the world. Have you ever walked around an American mall? It's nothing but chick fillets and Lane Bryant track suits busting at the seams. -- Tina Fey and Jimmy Fallon on Saturday Night Live 3/15/2003.

• It occurs to us that so-called "freedom fries" kill many more Americans than terrorists ever do. -- in a cartoon by Terry Mosher (Aislin), Montreal, Canada about the Congressional cafeteria changing french fries to freedom fries 3/2003.
• To announce that there must be no criticism of the President, or that we are to stand by the President, right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but is morally treasonable to the American public. Theodore Roosevelt, May 7, 1918
• Congress shall make no law abridging the freedom of sXXXch, or the right of the people peaceably to XXXemble, and to peXXXion the government for a redress of grievances. -- Net filtering software attacking the 1st Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Attributed to EPIC's Marc Rotenberg.
• We will have peace with the Arabs when they love their children more than hate us. -- Golda Meir on peace between Israel and the Arabs.
• Future historians will be able to study at the Jimmy Carter Library, the Gerald Ford Library, the Ronald Reagan Library, and the Bill Clinton Adult Bookstore. -- George Carlin
• "Your vote certainly counts. On the other hand, your vote may not be counted." -- Robert Richie, Center for Voting and Democracy, commenting on the 2000 Presidential election.
• Companionate Conservatism -- Making the streets safer before people are kicked out onto them. -- Dennis Miller
• I believe that Ronald Reagan can make this country what it once was... an arctic region covered with ice. -- Steve Martin
• The most valuable function performed by the federal government is entertainment. -- Dave Berry
• If "con" is the opposite of "pro", does that mean Congress is the opposite of progress. -- unknown
• POLITICS definition: "poly" = many, "tics" = blood sucking parasites. -- L. K. Foltz
• We're the party that wants to see an America in which people can still get rich -- Ronald Reagan
• You need only reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. -- C.A. Beard
• He called for military supremacy, no welfare and cultural rebirth. It was a nice speech, but it sounded a lot better in its original German. -- Comic Argus Hamilton on Newt Gingrich addressing GOP governors
• The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep's throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as his liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act.... Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of liberty. -- Abraham Lincoln
• A nation that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood of ideas in an open market is a nation that is afraid of its people. -- John F. Kennedy
• The Constitution is a 200-year-old parchment, simply because we digitize the words should not suggest their meanings change. -- MA Congressman Edward Markey (May 1993)
• As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. -- Justice William O. Douglas
• Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the Government's purposes are beneficent. Men born to freedom are naturally alert to repel invasion of their liberty by evil-minded rulers. The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding. -- Olmstead v U.S., 277 U.S. 348 (1928), Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting
• Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means...would bring terrible retribution...[and] against that pernicious doctrine, this court should resolutely set its face. -- Olmstead v U.S., 277 U.S. 348 (1928), Justice Louis D. Brandeis, dissenting
• ...when all government... in little as in the great thing, shall be drawn to Washington as the centre of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided of one government on another and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated. -- Thomas Jefferson (1821)

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