Thursday, December 22, 2011

Best Political Quotes of 2011

Right Wing News has compiled The Best Political Quotes of 2011
I've read them all so that you won't have to.  Here are the best (i.e. the Libertarian-ish) ones:

49) NPR is a very elitist and in this case white institution that I think is struggling with the changing demographics of American society. And it struggles with the idea that there are capable thinkers and journalist and people who don’t fit into some box. — Juan Williams on NPR

48) Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he’s lecturing us about how America’s gone “soft”? Really? — Jonah Goldberg   Well, some of us haven't been working very hard for Dear Leader like we did back in 2008, have we? 

47) Why does the left hate free speech? Because they don’t know how to talk about the substantive merits when they are challenged. Having submerged themselves in disciplining each other by denouncing any heretics in their midst, they find themselves overwhelmed and outnumbered in America, where there is vibrant debate about all sorts of things they don’t know how to begin to talk about. They resort to stomping their feet and shouting “shut up”… when they aren’t prissily imploring everyone to be “civil.” — Ann Althouse

45) There used to be no income inequality in China because everyone was poor. This is a tradeoff you accept for growth and freedom. — Michele Caruso-Cabrera

43) Poverty in Egypt, or anywhere else, is not very difficult to explain. There are three basic causes: People are poor because they cannot produce anything highly valued by others. They can produce things highly valued by others but are hampered or prevented from doing so. Or, they volunteer to be poor. — Walter Williams

42) Weighing benefits against costs is the way most people make decisions — and the way most businesses make decisions, if they want to stay in business. Only in government is any benefit, however small, considered to be worth any cost, however large. — Thomas Sowell

40) If you’ve ever known anyone with a serious addiction, the easiest thing for friends and family to do is pretend it’s not a big deal. Who wants to have a confrontation? Far easier to let things slide and have a good time. “Let’s have a nice Thanksgiving without any arguments, OK?”
The tea party is like the cousin who’s been through AA and refuses to pretend anymore. As a result, he spoils everyone’s good time. For the enablers, and others in denial, he’s the guy ruining everything, not the drunk.
Uncle Sam is the drunk and the tea partiers are the annoyingly sober — and a bit self-righteous — cousin. Measured by spending, and adjusted for inflation, the federal government has increased by more than 50 percent in 10 years. Some have enabled the drunken spending, others continue to deny it’s even a problem.
The tea party is sounding the wake-up call. If America didn’t have a problem, then there really would be good cause to be furious with the forces of sobriety. Nobody likes a party-pooper, especially the people hooked on partying. — Jonah Goldberg

39) Alternatively, suppose Qaddafi winds up hanging from a lamppost in his favorite party dress. If you’re a Third World dictator, what lessons would you draw? Qaddafi was the thug who came in from the cold, the one who (in the wake of Saddam’s fall) renounced his nuclear program and was supposedly rehabilitated in the chancelleries of the West. He was a strong partner in the war on terrorism, according to U.S. diplomats. And what did Washington do? They overthrew him anyway. — Mark Steyn

38) [The Tea Party] has to be the first “Totalitarian” movement in the history of mankind that, if it gets everything it wants…will leave you the hell alone. — Ed Driscoll   This is my candidate for quote of the year. 

37) (He) doesn’t go into why Obama managed to get to the top of politics without being all that good at it. The answer is distressingly obvious: Obama’s the biggest affirmative action baby in history. When other pols are trying, failing, learning, while climbing up the middle rungs of the ladder, he got a pass. — Mickey Kaus

36) The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians. — Thomas Sowell

34) (Obama) keeps making speeches about redistribution and maybe we ought to do something to businesses that don’t invest, their holding too much money. We haven’t heard that kind of talk except from pure socialists. Everybody’s afraid of the government and there’s no need soft peddling it, it’s the truth. It is the truth. And that’s true of Democratic businessman and Republican businessman, and I am a Democratic businessman and I support Harry Reid. I support Democrats and Republicans. And I’m telling you that the business community in this country is frightened to death of the weird political philosophy of the President of the United States. And until he’s gone, everybody’s going to be sitting on their thumbs. — Steve Wynn, who probably won't change his ways. 

33) It’s no coincidence that trust in government is at an all-time low now that the size of government is at an all-time high. — Paul Ryan

31) I give the president credit for at least one thing. He’s proven that someone can deserve a Nobel prize less than Al Gore. — Tim Pawlenty

27) In his early activist days, Barack Obama the community organizer sued banks to ease their lending practices. Now his administration is suing banks for issuing risky mortgages. — Jim Hoft

26) Well, “The Washington post” three weeks ago had this investigation and they said that President Obama has now raised more money from Wall Street and the banks for this election cycle than all — than all eight Republicans combined. I don’t want to say that, because if that’s the truth, that Wall Street already has their man and his name is Barack Obama, then we’ve got a much bigger problem. — Michael Moore, finally going to Clues R Us and getting one. 

25) It’s the usual Socialist fiscal math of 1 + 1 = You’re paying, so who cares. — Rachel Marsden

23) Question: How much do you have to invest in the future before you’ve spent it and no longer have one? — Mark Steyn

22) All of which raises another question: If Obamacare is so great, why do so many people want to get out from under it? — Michael Barone, in reference to the people and organizations who supported the passage of Obamacare getting in line for Obamacare waivers. 

21) My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator…. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water] discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to the comments being made by the people…. [pause] Nearly every day without fail — I have a different perspective — men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just … you know … what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I don’t know. I mean, I see these guys — I see them with tears in their eyes — looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you. — Ronnie Bryant as he goes Galt. 

18) My next door neighbor’s two dogs have created more shovel ready jobs than this administration. — Gary Johnson  And guess what, boys and girls, friends and neighbors?  Gary Johnson has declared his intention to run for President as a Libertarian.  This is gonna be GREAT !!

16) Let’s pass a bill to cover the moon with yogurt that will cost $5 trillion today. And then let’s pass a bill the next day to cancel that bill. We could save $5 trillion. — Paul Ryan   That's a reference to the Dems proposal that we pay for some bullshit think with savings from the ending of the Iraq war.  One problem....the Iraq war was never paid for either

15) Life has many good things. The problem is that most of these good things can be gotten only by sacrificing other good things. We all recognize this in our daily lives. It is only in politics that this simple, common sense fact is routinely ignored. — Thomas Sowell

13) With a few exceptions, foremost among them the New York Post, the coverage of OWS protests compared to the coverage of tea-party protests is the worst media double standard in recent history. Nothing compares, because nothing else involves this much distortion on both ends of the coverage. It’s not just that most press outlets (like the protesters themselves) look the other way at depravity happening inside Obamaville, it’s that for years they treated the tea-party movement as some sort of feral mob that was forever on the brink of rampaging through the streets — like, say, Occupy Oakland just did. If you missed it when I posted it last week, go watch the ad the DNC ran in August 2009 when tea partiers first started showing up to town halls on ObamaCare. That set the tone. We began the year with tea-party pols being smeared as killers over a shooting they had nothing to do with and we end it with actual rapes being shrugged off by the press because they’re bad PR for a movement they support. Disgrace. — Allahpundit

9) We are living in a bizarre moment in history. Our establishment–the press, the academy, all unions, most politicians, many in business who have skin in the Ponzi game–assure us that borrowing trillions of dollars to finance wasteful spending, while sticking our children with the tab plus interest, is perfectly sensible. On the other hand, believing that we should live within our means is? Crazy! — John Hinderaker

8) Those who can do. Those who can’t form a supercommittee. — Mark Steyn

7) Medicare in particular will run out of money, and we will not be able to sustain that program no matter how much taxes go up. — Barack Obama

This next one isn't relative to any Free Minds/Free Markets position at all, but I like the way Mayor Nutter expresses himself here.  I know that if I have to interview one more kid with a visible ass crack, I'm going to give my HR lady some suspenders to issue to every gangsta who enters my office.
 
6) Take those God-darn hoodies down, especially in the summer. Pull your pants up and buy a belt ‘cause no one wants to see your underwear or the crack of your butt. If you walk into somebody’s office with your hair uncombed and a pick in the back, and your shoes untied, and your pants half down, tattoos up and down your arms and on your neck, and you wonder why somebody won’t hire you? They don’t hire you ‘cause you look like you’re crazy. You have damaged your own race. — Mayor Michael A. Nutter

5) With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It’s not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery. It means that you’re going to enslave not only me, but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants who work in my office, the nurses. — Rand Paul

4) This deal is a sugar-coated Satan sandwich. If you lift the bun, you will not like what you see. — Rep. Emanuel Cleaver on the debt ceiling increase deal

3) This one, #3, was pretty good, but it was uttered by Newt Gingrich.  I try not to quote Newt in a positive context.  You'll have to hit the link at the top to read it.   

2) The total present value of payments expected under Social Security and Medicare beyond what is expected to be collected under current tax laws is about $100 trillion. One way to put that amount of money in context is to note that it is about twice the amount of all the net private assets that exist in America today. To answer cw’s question directly, the best back-of-envelope estimate is that meeting this unfunded portion of our Social Security and Medicare commitments would require roughly an immediate 80 percent increase in federal income taxes, sustained forever. — Jim Manzi

1) #1 was some macho Alpha Geronimo Tango Foxtrot radio transmissions from the Navy Seal who shot Bin Laden. 

I like this one, from Joe Biden, much better.  Please, please, please watch the whole thing, and revel in the boundless glory of Biden giving the (now-disgraced) Jon Corzine full credit for helping write the Porkulus Act.  If you're wondering why the woman in the back is wearing a hard hat, it's to protect her from the bullshit falling from the heavens. 



Here's Corzine a few years later, admitting that he has no idea what happened to 1.2 billion dollars of other people's money entrusted to his investment firm.  Hell, if you can legally blow 3/4 of a trillion in Porkulus on turtle tunnels, union giveaways, African Genital-Washing programs and other junk, what's 1.2 billion? 



These aren't necessarily the quotes I would've nominated, but I didn't think to save them all year.  Many thanks to John Hawkins for pulling this list together. 

4 comments:

CenTexTim said...

Allen, I'm afraid I can't accept these quotes as valid because you got them from a blog. You should have verified them from primary sources.

(Sorry, I just couldn't resist...)

#38 is pretty good, but my nomination for quote of the year is #33.

re: Jon Corzine and the missing $1.2B - Michael Ramirez is a political cartoonist. He's captured the essence of the problem in this cartoon, in which Corzine is asked "Give us one good reason we should believe that someone could simply misplace $1.2 billion of sopmeone else's money.

Corzine's response: "I was a United States Senator."

Hot Sam said...

None of these quotes came from NASA, so I don't believe them.

Dave Killion said...

"By the way, you should be reading The Whited Sepulchre regularly, so even if you go to the first link, make sure you go to the second, too. Tell him the Libertarian Book Club sent you."

http://www.libertarianbookclub.com/2011/12/23/great-quotes/

Dr Ralph said...

I operate under the assumption that most of what my good friend says here is utter poppycock so I no longer worry about sources. HE is the primary source.

BTW - Merry Christmas / Happy Solstice to you, WS, Nick, and all my other occasional debating partners!