Quote of the Day – Green Edition
Today, there is a name for the political doctrine that rejoices in scarcity of everything except government. The name is environmentalism. – George F. Will, Awash in Fossil Fuels, 11/22/09
Tag: QotD
Quote of the . . . Oh, Hell, Quote of The End
Quote of the . . . Oh, Hell, Quote of The End
What the Senate does this evening, we may not see the end of in our lifetimes.
And while the consequences won’t manifest immediately, this evening may well be the tipping point.
It will be if we can’t kill it.
Quote of the Day
Two imperfect and wildly incompatible world views have been on collision course for decades, and it’s going to stay that way until we, as a society, remember why we intentionally made a government that is powerless in areas in which people will never agree, because at the heart of the matter is using the naked power of government to enforce ones preferences on the other.
Part of that process is realizing that you’re going to have to give up the club your own team would use to enforce its preferences. For the Left, the list of offenses against Liberty is endless. For the Right, amongst other things, that means getting over antipathy towards homosexuality, and it also means recognizing and accepting that the definition of abortion as murder hinges on the ensoulment of the fetus, because until that happens, there is no party whose life is deprived. Since this is a question that cannot be answered without appealing to the unprovable propositions of religion, it is therefore a private matter, and not fit for public policy.
The only other alternative is that those who insist on their right to decide on these things for others wipes out those who disagree, which is the precedent that the bulk of human history offers us.
The Geek is at least a half-magnitude brighter than I am, and I am constantly humbled by his ability to say, and say more precisely, in ten words what it takes me 50 to attempt.
Blog more, Geek.
Quote of the Day – Snark Edition
Wait a second… I can’t believe it’s taken this long to point out that Kevin finally is quoting Rush verbatim.
— “EMP” in the quotes to A Host of Holy Horrors to Direct Our Aimless Dance
That’s some quality snark, right there!
Speaking Truth to Power
Speaking Truth to Power
Where are the “General Betray Us” ads, offered at a reduced rate in the New York Times? Are we going to see an entire subculture—Michael Moore, novels, docu-dramas, comedians, etc.—slamming Obama on the war? Or, in contrast, an entire populist, in the streets, protest over Obama voting “present” while he goes to Copenhagen instead of meeting with Gen. McChrystal? Cannot the media see that the surge in Iraq—little public support, defections in Bush’s own party, a hostile media, demagoguery from the left, campaign distortions by the likes of Obama himself—was the far harder call than granting a troop request in Afghanistan? Why was Bush’s tough call “doomed” in a “lost” war, while Obama’s “present” vote is seen as sober and judicious?
—
These are the most interesting of times: we are witnessing nothing less than an attempt in just 10 months to reinvent the United States at home and abroad into something it never was, led by someone who, the more soothing, comforting, and melodic his speech-making, the more bruising, cut-throat, and ruthless the act that follows.
So it’s like we’re living in the late Roman Republic…
Victor Davis Hanson, Works and Days – Thoughts from the Later Republic>
RTWT. Out loud. Print it out and pass it around.
More like this, please.
Quote of the Day – Thomas Jefferson Edition
Quote of the Day – Thomas Jefferson Edition
Jefferson disregarded his constitutional doubts, signed the proposed treaty [The Louisiana Purchase –mpa], and sent it to the Senate for ratification. In justifying his actions, he later wrote: “[a] strict observance of the written law is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation. To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to the written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the ends to the means.” — Wikipedia
Found in an interesting post at Mark Alger’s Baby TrollBlog.
That’s very much the point I was making in The United Federation of Planets, in far fewer words.
Quote of the Day
Quote of the Day
In the twentieth century…it has been said in a highly acclaimed book that “healthy, rational people will not injure others.” — Thomas Sowell, A Conflict of Visions: Ideological Origins of Political Struggles, 2007 Edition, p. 163
That “highly acclaimed book” is Ramsey Clark’s 1970 Crime in America.
Think about that for a minute. From my perspective that sentiment is missing one word: “Healthy, rational people will not injure others criminally.” There are other ways to say it, but honestly, given Clark’s actions, I wonder if he didn’t mean it precisely as it reads – that anyone who deliberately injures another for any reason cannot be healthy and/or rational.
This is, once again, a statement illustrating the inability to differentiate between violent-and-predatory, and violent-but-protective.
I would very much like to read that quote in full context.
Quote of the Day – Primary Sources Edition
“Geek, I am surprised to find that I think I am really a Republican, and this frightens me. It isn’t that the Republicans are scary…well, some of them are, but not the ones I’ve actually seen. The people who really scare the hell out of me are the Democrats. I used to think I was one of them, until I saw how they really behaved once they have power. I can see that they’re just interested in power, and in instituting as much of a Socialist scheme as they can get away with…”
I probed. “Socialist? Really? A lot of people bandy that word about, and a lot of Democrats will tell you that it really doesn’t apply, and its inaccurate and misguided to suggest that’s what they…” Kurt cut me off, with a chopping motion of his hand and annoyance that is very uncharacteristic for him.
“Yes! Socialist! A little bit more and more, every time I look closer!” Kurt stopped to compose himself. “Geek, trust me, I know socialists when I see them. I came here to get away from all that krap in Germany, and I don’t like seeing it here, not one little bit.”
— Musings of The Geek with a .45, 20 Years Ago Today…
And from TSM:
I am a new NRA member. I have been a citizen for only fourteen years. I believe in the Constitution and the Second Amendment, and when I see Obama, I see Communism, and I am afraid.
— Mrs. Ly Chho, quoted 10/10/08.
Quote of the Day – Berlin Wall Edition
Twenty years ago I breathed a sigh of relief. I honestly thought that with the demise of the USSR and their lackey regimes in East Germany and elsewhere in Eastern Europe, we’d finally secured the world that would be safe and shining bright for my children.
Today I’m not sure at all. It was easier in 1974. There was a fence. One one side was us. On the other side were the enemy. Them. A line. Us. They wore different uniforms to make it easy.
Today, the enemy isn’t on the other side of the line. The shining days I thought I’d secured for my children, those days are being torn away by a socialism administered by elites, as socialism always does. In East Germany, things were pretty darned pleasant if you were at the top, looking down at the people. For the people, though, it was grey, drab and hopeless.
That’s the America that the Left has for us. Oh, you won’t hear them actually SAY that, but that’s because they’re so wrapped up in the layers of sophistry and academic prose that they fail to read history, to see that such is the end of EVERY government that heads down the path our own Leftists are choosing.
I’m sitting here thinking how glad I was that the Warsaw Pact never crossed the line, and I’m doubting that the American Left has that much sense. — Mostly Cajun, Reflections on a wall that isn’t there
[sarcasm] But Dale, this time the RIGHT people will be in charge! [/sarcasm]
Yes, Exactly
Yes, Exactly
I don’t like to say I told you so, but I’ve been saying for months now that the trick is to drag this thing across the finish line with 50.0000000000001 percent of the vote as soon as possible. From my “Happy Warrior” column in NR back in July:
Obama believes in “the fierce urgency of now”, and fierce it is. That’s where all the poor befuddled sober centrists who can’t understand why the Democrats keep passing incoherent 1,200-page bills every week are missing the point. If “health care” were about health care, the devil would be in the details. But it’s not about health or costs or coverage; it’s about getting over the river and burning the bridge. It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone.
Right now, they can trade anything — abortion, death panels, whatever. The trick is to plant the seed and let the ratchet effect of Big Government take care of the rest. I said on Rush’s show on Friday that if Barack Obama had been Bill Clinton he’d have woken up on Wednesday morning and begun triangulating. Instead, Obama woke up and figured that he needed more fierce urgency, and right now. The short-term hit in 2010 is worth it for the long-term benefits: Obscure congressmen will be just as happy as obscure ambassadors or obscure chairmen of obscure agencies. And the prize of permanent irreversible statist annexation merits the risk: Governmentalized “health care” puts us on the fast track to Euro-sclerosis and redefines the relationship between citizen and state in ways that make genuine conservative politics all but impossible. — Mark Steyn, National Review Online, If It Were Done When ‘Tis Done, Then ‘Twere Well It Were Done Quickly
(My emphasis.) It’s not about health care, it’s about POWER. It always has been. That’s all it’s ever been.