Government & Politics

No man's life, liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.
--- Benjamin Franklin

No nation was ever ruined by trade.
--- Benjamin Franklin

"Sports plays a societal role in engendering jingoist and chauvinist attitudes. They're designed to organize a community to be committed to their gladiators."
B - Noam Chomsky

Because of the oil-and-water relationship governments have cultivated between ethics and political economy, speaking in plain terms - spelling it out as it is - as become foreign to the public. So here goes: When government sports a "surplus," this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when "deficits" are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy. -- Deficit disorders, by Ilana Mercer

We are reduced to the alternative of choosing unconditional submission to the tyranny of irritated ministers, or resistance by force. The latter is our choice. We have counted the cost of this contest, and find nothing so dreadful as voluntary slavery. Honor, justice, and humanity, forbid us tamely to surrender that freedom which we received from our gallant ancestors, and which our innocent posterity have a right to receive from us.
-- Continental Congress on the Causes and Necessity of Taking Up Arms in 1775

After his Ignoble Disgrace, Satan was being expelled from
Heaven. As he passed through the Gates, he paused a moment in thought,
and turned to God and said, "A new creature called Man, I hear, is soon
to be created."
"This is true," He replied.
"He will need laws," said the Demon slyly.
"What! You, his appointed Enemy for all Time! You ask for the
right to make his laws?"
"Oh, no!" Satan replied, "I ask only that he be allowed to make
his own."
It was so granted.
-- Ambrose Bierce, "The Devil's Dictionary"

"I don't care who does the electing as long as I get to do the nominating"
-- Boss Tweed

"Experience should teach us to be most on our guard to protect liberty when the government's purposes are beneficent . . . the greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well meaning but without understanding."
-- Justice Louis D. Brandeis (1856-1941), Olmstead vs. United States, United States Supreme Court, 1928

"Democracy is the theory that the people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

"Any society that values wealth above freedom will lose its freedom, and will ultimately lose its wealth as well"
-- W. Somerset Maugham (1874-1965) (more or less)

"Americans like to talk about (or be told about) Democracy but, when put to the test, usually find it to be an 'inconvenience.' We have opted instead for an authoritarian system *disguised* as a Democracy. We pay through the nose for an enormous joke-of-a-government, let it push us around, and then wonder how all those assholes got in there."
-- Frank Zappa

"A society of sheep must in time beget a government of wolves."
-- Bertrand de Jouvenel

"A billion here, a billion there, sooner or later it adds up to real money"
-- Everett Dirksen

An old woman is riding a crowded bus and has to stand with her heavy packages. Finally, someone in front of her gives up a seat and so she grabs it. "Thank God," she says.
A man in the seat behind her says "Excuse me comrade, but this is an athiest society. You should say 'Thank Stalin,' not 'Thank God.'"
"Of course you are right," the old woman says. "Thank Stalin." She is silent for a moment, then says: "Comrade, I have just had a terrible thought: What shall we say when Stalin dies?"
The man behind her replies "In that case I think we can say 'Thank God.'"

All revolutions have failed? Perhaps. But rebellion for good cause is self- justifying--a good in itself. Rebellion transforms slaves into human beings, if only for an hour.
-- Edward Abbey

All Governments, including the worst on earth and the most tyrannical on earth, are free Governments to that portion of the people who voluntarily support them.
-- Lysander Spooner

... the sole end for which mankind are warranted, individually or collectively, in interfering with the liberty of action of any of their number, is self- protection. That the only purpose for which power can be rightfully excersized over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant. He cannot rightfully be compelled to do or forbear because it will be better for him to do so, because it will make him happier, because,in the opinions of others, to do so would be wise, or even right. These are good reason for remonstrating with him, or reasoning with him, or persuading him, or entreating him, but not for compelling him, or visiting him with evil in case he do otherwise. To justify that, the conduct from which it is desired to deter him must be calculated to produce evil in someone else. The only part of the conduct of any one, for which he is amenable to society, is that which concerns others. In the part which merely concerns himself his independence is, of right, absolute. Over himself, over his own body and mind, the individual is sovereign.
-- John Stuart Mill, "On Liberty"

"Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel"
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

"What George Washington did for us was to throw out the British, so that we wouldn't have a fat, insensitive government running our country. Nice try anyway, George."
-- D.J. on KSFO/KYA

"We're Americans -- with a capital 'A'! And do you know what that means? Do you? It means that our forefathers were kicked out of every decent country in the world."
-- Rousing speech by Bill Murray in STRIPES

"Unlimited campaign spending eats at the heart of the democratic process."
-- Barry Goldwater

"To steal from one person is theft. To steal from many is taxation."
-- Daiell's Law (a take-off on Felson's Law)

A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures.
-- Daniel Webster

A pessimist asked God for relief.
"Ah, you wish me to restore your hope and cheerfulness," said God.
"No," replied the petitioner, "I wish you to create something that would justify them."
"The world is all created," said God, "but you have overlooked something - the mortality of the optimist."
-- Ambrose Bierce (1842-1914), "The Devil's Dictionary", 1911

A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
-- Edward Abbey

A good government is one "which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread that it has earned."
-- Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (inaugural address)

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)

A great empire, like a great cake, is most easily diminished at the edges.
-- Benjamin Franklin (1706-1790)

A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away.
-- Barry Goldwater

A little girl in a school in USSR was asked to use "communist" in a sentence. She said, "My cat just had a litter of kittens and they are all communists".
A month later the same little girl was asked to use the word "capitalist" in a sentence. She said, "My cat had a litter of kittens and now they are capitalists".
The teacher was shocked and ask what had happened to the kittens. The little girl responded, "Well they have opened their eyes now!"

"All I know is that I am not a Marxist"
-- Karl Marx; Attr. in Engels, letter to C. Schmidt, 5 Aug 1890

"I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
--- Professor Bernardo de la Paz, _The Moon is a Harsh Mistress_, by Robert Heinlien

The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.

You can make it illegal, but you can't make it unpopular.

Anarchy - it's not the law, it's just a good idea.

No matter who you vote for, the government gets elected.

Any twelve people who can't get themselves out of jury duty are not my peers.

The Bill of Rights goes too far - it should have stopped at "Congress shall make no law".

I am interested in politics so that someday I will not have to be interested in politics.

If you could print all the money you wanted, and steal all the money you wanted, couldn't you manage to stay out of debt?

Support free trade - Smuggle!

Taxation is theft; Conscription is slavery; War is murder.

When buying and selling are controlled by legistation, the first thing to be bought and sold are legislators.

If Patrick Henry thought that taxation without representation was bad, he should see it with represenation.

Government: A necessary evil, to be expressly limited, constantly patrolled and periodically reviewed.

"If today you can take a thing like evolution and make it a crime to teach in the public schools, tomorrow you can make it a crime to teach it in the private schools and next year you can make it a crime to teach it to the hustings or in the church. At the next session you may ban books and the newspapers... Ignorance and fanaticism are ever busy and need feeding. Always feeding and gloating for more. Today it is the public school teachers; tomorrow the private. The next day the preachers and the lecturers, the magazines, the books, the newspapers. After a while, Your Honor, it is the setting of man against man and creed against creed until with flying banners and beating drums we are marching backward to the glorious ages of the sixteenth century when bigots lighted faggots to burn the men who dared to bring any intelligence and enlightenment and culture to the human mind."
-- Clarence S. Darrow (1857-1938), at the Scopes Monkey Trial

"The net effect of Clarence Darrow's great speech yesterday seemed to be precisely the same as if he had bawled it up a rainspout in the interior of Afghanistan."
-- H. L. Mencken (1880-1956)

When I meet a government which says to me, "Your money or your life," why should I be in haste to give it my money?
--- H.D. Thoreau

Under a government which imprisons injustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.
--- H.D. Thoreau

How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I say that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it.
--- H.D. Thoreau

"I cannot convince myself that there is anyone so wise, so universally comprehensive in his judgment, that he can be trusted with the power to tell others: 'You shall not express yourself thus, you shall not describe your own experiences; or depict the fantasies which your mind has created; or laugh at what others set up as respectable; or question old beliefs; or contradict the dogmas of the church, of our society, our economic systems, and our political orthodoxy.'"
-- Jake Zeitlin

It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as the right
--- H.D. Thoreau

"Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force! It is a dangerous servant and a terrible master."
-- George Washington

Mayor: "At any rate, you have a bad habit of taking your own course. And that, in a well-ordered community is almost as bad. The individual must subordinate himself to society, or more precisely, to the authorities whose business it is to watch over the welfare of society."
Dr. Stockmann: "Maybe. But what the devil has that to do with me?"
--- "An Enemy of the People", a play by Henry Ibsen.

First, the kidporn thing. I am sick and tired of hearing this specious blackwash. Are American citizens really so neurotically uptight about deviant sexual behavior that we will allow our entire information infrastructure to be dictated by the existence of pedophiles? Are pedophiles that precious and important to us? Do the NSA and the FBI really believe that they can hide the structure of a telephone switch under a layer of camouflage called child pornography? Are we supposed to flinch so violently at the specter of child abuse that we somehow miss the fact that you've installed a Sony Walkman jack in our phones?
--- Bruce Sterling, closing speech, CFP '94, on the Clipper Chip.

What does he expect from the computer community? Normality? Sorry pal, we're fresh out! Who is it, exactly, that the NSA considers a level-headed sober sort, someone to sit down with and talk to seriously? Jobs? Wozniak? Gates? Sculley? Perot -- I hope to God it's not Perot. Bob Allen -- okay, maybe Bob Allen, that brownshoe guy from AT&T. Bob Allen seems to think that Clipper is a swell idea, at least he's somehow willing to merchandise it. But Christ, Bob Allen just gave eight zillion dollars to a guy whose idea of a good time is Microsoft Windows for Spaceships!
When is the NSA going to realize that Kapor and his people and Rotenberg and his people and the rest of the people here are as good as people get in this milieu? Yes they are weird people, and yes they have weird friends (and I'm one of them), but there isn't any normality left for anybody in this society, and when it comes to computers, when the going got weird the weird turned pro! The status quo is *over!* Wake up to it! Get used to it!
--- Bruce Sterling, closing speech, CFP '94, on the '90s

But even the Four Horsemen of Kidporn, Dope Dealers, Mafia and Terrorists don't worry me as much as totalitarian governments. It's been a long century, and we've had enough of them.
--- Bruce Sterling, closing speech, CFP '94

"You will find that the State is the kind of organization which, though it does big things badly, does small things badly, too."
--- John Kenneth Galbraith

"Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power."
--- "1984" by George Orwell

"The real power, the power we have to fight for night and day, is not power over things, but over men"
--- "1984" by George Orwell

The character inherent in the American people has done all that has been accomplished; and it would have done somewhat more, if the government had not sometimes got in its way.
--- H.D. Thoreau

Whenever 'A' attempts by law to impose his moral standards upon 'B', 'A' is most likely a scoundrel.
--- H.L. Mencken

Sometimes it is said that man cannot be trusted with the government of himself. Can he, then, be trusted with the government of others? Or have we found angels in the forms of kings to govern him? Let history answer this question.
--- Thomas Jefferson, First Inaugural Address

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Last Modified: 6/2001