My friend Ken Stanford, who happens to be Treasurer of the Tarrant County Libertarian Party, let loose this gem on Facebook the other day:
I was listening to a radio show earlier that posed the question whether or not people are naturally good or not. His premise is that people on the left believe people are naturally good and people on the right believe people are naturally not good. Those on the left believe people are naturally good, therefore a large government is there for the benefit of all. People on the right don't believe people are naturally good, therefore are suspicious of large government.
My position is that people are naturally good, therefore we don't need the government in our life telling us what to do with every part of our life. As it has been said, Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Those with to much power become corrupt. However, in their own lives they are still good to those they are good to those around them.
(This is dealing with generalities so please do not bring up those such as mass murderers, molestors, or rapists. They are the exception not the rule.)
Yeah. What Ken said. If you believe in the natural goodness of humanity, you don't want 50% of your income going to being "governed".
I've been thinking a lot about which presidential quotations will be widely known a hundred years from now.
For instance, George Washington may or may not have said the following: "Government is not reason; it is not eloquence—it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master; never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action." I have no idea if he ever made this statement. Attributions of these lines to Washington didn't show up until around 1910.
By now, if Washington didn't say it, he should have. It's an awesome line. So... did he say it sometime around 1780, and only a few people jotted it down someplace? Or did some 1910 blogger ancestor invent a fake tagline for an editorial?
We'll never know.
Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address wasn't well received at the time. Hell, he wrote it on an envelope. He didn't know I'd be forced to memorize it in 1978.
Who knows what lines, quotes and speeches our recent Oval Office Executives will be known for in a hundred years?
Well hell, I do.
These are the entries that I believe will lead off the year 2113 edition of "Bartlett's Quotations" for each of our last 13 presidents.
I suspect that many of these were off-the-cuff throwaway lines.
Franklin Roosevelt: "The only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Well, that, and the godawful social programs of Franklin Roosevelt that we're still going bankrupt trying to salvage.
Harry Truman: "The buck stops here."
Dwight Eisenhower: "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military/industrial complex."
John F. Kennedy: "My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." (He shoulda stopped after the second comma.)
Lyndon Johnson: "I'd rather have him inside the tent pissing out, than outside the tent pissing in." - remark about FBI director J. Edgar Hoover.
Richard Nixon: "I am not a crook." He was.
Gerald Ford: "Our long, national nightmare is over." He was talking about Nixon.
Jimmy Carter: "America did not invent human rights. In a very real sense.... human rights invented America." I love that one.
Ronald Reagan: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" I love that one.
George H.W. Bush: "Read my lips. No new taxes." Although I'm tempted to submit the following: "I do not like broccoli and I haven’t liked it since I was a little kid and my mother made me eat it. And I’m President of the United States and I’m not going to eat any more broccoli."
Bill Clinton: "I did not have sex with that woman, Miss Lewinski." I really do have some admiration for Clinton. But as for as quotes go, he's going to be remembered for his lies. Here's another one: "When I was in England I experimented with marijuana a time or two -- and didn't like it -- and didn't inhale and never tried inhaling again."
George W. Bush: "I hear you. The whole world hears you." Said after 15 guys from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and one dude from Lebanon flew planes into the Twin Towers, and we retaliated by attacking freakin' Afghanistan.
Barack Obama: "If you like your health insurance plan, you can keep it."
Those are my picks for the 2123 edition of Bartlett's. May God save us all from interesting, colorful, and "transformative" presidents.
I posted this John Quincy Adams quote on Facebook the other day, and it got the usual number of "likes" and "reposts". (For those who have mobile devices that aren't good with pics, it's a marble slab with the following quotation: "You will never know how much it has cost my generation to preserve your freedom. I hope you will make good use of it.")
What Adams said is now bugging the crap out of me.
I think if Adams' generation of rebels could get inside the heads of my generation of passive sheep, they would be depressed.
Some of us don't want to have our freedom preserved. We want Barack to give us 40 acres and a mule.
We want to live on a plantation where the owner gives us 3 hots and a cot. We want him to pay for our healthcare, and we want him to "invest" in our retirement, and we want him to withhold our taxes so he can pay our tribute to our superiors without the money entering our grubby little hands.
We want the plantation owner to withhold our child support. If we can't afford to live on our own, we bitch about him not paying us enough to do so, rather than gaining some skills that would increase our worth to someone wanting to trade money for them.
Some of us don't want our freedom preserved. We learn about government munchkins eavesdropping on our correspondence, and we assume that it's the cost of remaining a free society.
We don't want our freedom preserved. We see a civilian with a gun, and we break out in tumors and rashes.
We don't want our freedom preserved. We let Washington and Austin and Downtown rack up huge bills that will be paid by our great-grandchildren, and we just assume that things will continue to be as they always have been. (Herb Stein's Law: If something can't last forever, it won't.)
We don't want our government to merely act as a referee, groundskeeper, cheerleader and security guard. We want leaders ! Quarterbacks ! Linebackers ! Coaches !
If there's ever been a generation that was ungrateful for freedom and liberty, it is this one. Sorry J.Q. Maybe you and your dad shoulda stuck to law.
Sorry for the bad mood tonight. I'll try to be funny tomorrow morning.
Note to everyone in England: When we think of The Obamessiah, some of us get downright nostalgic for George III. I think we coulda learned to live with him.
About the Declaration there is a finality that is exceedingly restful. It is often asserted that the world has made a great deal of progress since 1776, that we have had new thoughts and new experiences which have given us a great advance over the people of that day, and that we may therefore very well discard their conclusions for something more modern. But that reasoning can not be applied to this great charter. If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions. If anyone wishes to deny their truth or their soundness, the only direction in which he can proceed historically is not forward, but backward toward the time when there was no equality, no rights of the individual, no rule of the people. Those who wish to proceed in that direction can not lay claim to progress. They are reactionary. Their ideas are not more modern, but more ancient, than those of the Revolutionary fathers.
Yeah. Go Calvin. Here's something else from Silent Cal on a different tangent.
The Libertarian Party of Texas recently sponsored a tax debate. "Low Taxes vs. No Taxes"
Former LP Chair Wes Benedict, defending the "No Taxes" side, let loose with this gem:
"I'd rather see my dollars burned then see them go to the government."
Wow.
But think about it. How do you feel about sponsoring the following:
The NSA
The Department of Energy
Lois Lerner
George W. Bush
The war in Afghanistan
Barack Obama
The war in Libya (yeah, there is one)
Aid To Families With Dependent Children (only pays if one parent leaves)
Social Security (totally mismanaged, and as broke as the 10 Commandments)
The war in Iraq
Jimmy Carter
The war in Yemen
Waste and inefficiency
Elaborate parties and conferences for the IRS and GAO
The Federal Reserve banking system
The place on Blue Mound Road in Fort Worth where the Fed prints is increasingly worthless paper money
Wiretaps
The 2nd highest corporate tax rate in the world, exceptions to which are sold like Big Macs
The Drug War
Providing 46% of the world's military spending, therefore encouraging terrorism
John Kerry
Hillary Clinton
Condi Rice
Support of Teachers' Unions
The Texas Department of Transportation
FEMA
Insane tariff and quota regulations which do nothing but add overhead
I'm typing as quickly as I can, and have to start work soon. I bet I could go all day. I repeat.... Here is the quote of the decade, from Wes Benedict of the Libertarian Party. If you disagree, I've got some farmland in the Everglades I'd like to sell you.....
"I'd rather see my dollars burned then see them go to the government."
For everyone who wants to put liberty-oriented conversation starters on Facebook every day of their lives, here are a few resources:
All American Blogger has a selection of 99 Great Libertarian Quotes. Here's a sampling.
A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw
America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. – James Bovard
War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran
Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin
One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)
If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)
Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O’Rourke
The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus
Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington
The other 89 are just as good.
Artist Dan McCall creates some of the greatest posters, prints, t-shirts, and blog illustrations on the Net.
"All men dream: but not equally. Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find that it was vanity: but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men, for they may act their dreams with open eyes, to make it possible." - T.E. Lawrence
If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea. —Antoine de Saint-Exupery
"Anything that works is better than everything that doesn't." - Geoff Neale
Geoff Neale is now the National Chair of the Libertarian Party
“So much for Objective Journalism. Don't bother to look for it here--not under any byline of mine; or anyone else I can think of. With the possible exception of things like box scores, race results, and stock market tabulations, there is no such thing as Objective Journalism. The phrase itself is a pompous contradiction in terms.” - Hunter S. Thompson
Please stand for this month's reading from The Gospel According To Saint Thomas.
Economist Thomas Sowell, the smartest man in the world now that Milton Friedman is dead, is now of an age where his quotations are being compiled into "best of" lists. Just as the collection of books loosely known as "Bible" now come in the "Stock Car Racing Bible" and the "Mossy Oak Camouflage Bible", I suspect that we'll soon see the quotations of Saint Thomas in specialty editions like "Thomas Sowell For Voters Who Just Don't Understand Why The Economy Isn't Better", or "The Complete Quotations of Saint Thomas on Why Cash For Clunkers Was Totally F'ed Up" or even "Thomas Sowell: What The Hell Were You Expecting When You Elected That Chicago Machine Dumbass?" with the really good parts in red letters.
But Saint Thomas grows old. His words come more slowly these days. There was one embarrassing two week period (probably because of problems with his blood pressure medication) where he supported the horrific Newt Gingrich.
We speak of Saint Thomas with reverence, all the same. Those of you in the back, stop fidgeting and remain standing. After the scripture reading, you can sit through the sermon.
(Ahem...)
Thomas Sowell, the smartest man in the world now that Milton Friedman is dead, has had his life and work examined by John Hawkins of Townhall.com, and these are reported to be his best quotes. Please read along from your Order Of Worship:
25) "Since this is an era when many people are concerned about 'fairness' and 'social justice,' what is your 'fair share' of what someone else has worked for?"
24) "Imagine a political system so radical as to promise to move more of the poorest 20% of the population into the richest 20% than remain in the poorest bracket within the decade? You don't need to imagine it. It's called the United States of America."
23) "Four things have almost invariably followed the imposition of controls to keep prices below the level they would reach under supply and demand in a free market: (1) increased use of the product or service whose price is controlled, (2) Reduced supply of the same product or service, (3) quality deterioration, (4) black markets."
22) "What sense would it make to classify a man as handicapped because he is in a wheelchair today, if he is expected to be walking again in a month and competing in track meets before the year is out? Yet Americans are given ‘class’ labels on the basis of their transient location in the income stream. If most Americans do not stay in the same broad income bracket for even a decade, their repeatedly changing 'class' makes class itself a nebulous concept."
21) "There are few talents more richly rewarded with both wealth and power, in countries around the world, than the ability to convince backward people that their problems are caused by other people who are more advanced."
20) "The poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits ever since 1994. You would never learn that from most of the media. Similarly you look at those blacks that have gone on to college or finished college, the incarceration rate is some tiny fraction of what it is among those blacks who have dropped out of high school. So it’s not being black; it’s a way of life. Unfortunately, the way of life is being celebrated not only in rap music, but among the intelligentsia, is a way of life that leads to a lot of very big problems for most people."
19) "The first lesson of economics is scarcity: there is never enough of anything to fully satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics."
17) "The vision of the anointed is one in which ills as poverty, irresponsible sex, and crime derive primarily from 'society,' rather than from individual choices and behavior. To believe in personal responsibility would be to destroy the whole special role of the anointed, whose vision casts them in the role of rescuers of people treated unfairly by 'society'."
16) "No one will really understand politics until they understand that politicians are not trying to solve our problems. They are trying to solve their own problems — of which getting elected and re-elected are number one and number two. Whatever is number three is far behind."
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."
14) "There is usually only a limited amount of damage that can be done by dull or stupid people. For creating a truly monumental disaster, you need people with high IQs."
13) "Civilization has been aptly called a 'thin crust over a volcano.' The anointed are constantly picking at that crust."
12) "We seem to be moving steadily in the direction of a society where no one is responsible for what he himself did, but we are all responsible for what somebody else did, either in the present or in the past."
11)” For the anointed, traditions are likely to be seen as the dead hand of the past, relics of a less enlightened age, and not as the distilled experience of millions who faced similar human vicissitudes before.”
8)” The charge is often made against the intelligentsia and other members of the anointed that their theories and the policies based on them lack common sense. But the very commonness of common sense makes it unlikely to have any appeal to the anointed. How can they be wiser and nobler than everyone else while agreeing with everyone else?"
5) "The problem isn't that Johnny can't read. The problem isn't even that Johnny can't think. The problem is that Johnny doesn't know what thinking is; he confuses it with feeling."
4) "One of the consequences of such notions as ‘entitlements’ is that people who have contributed nothing to society feel that society owes them something, apparently just for being nice enough to grace us with their presence."
3) "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."
2) "In short, killing the goose that lays the golden egg is a viable political strategy, so long as the goose does not die before the next election and no one traces the politicians’ fingerprints on the murder weapon."
1) "There are no solutions; there are only trade-offs."
Thus endeth the reading from the Gospel According to Saint Thomas. The Man hath spoken. You may be seated while the Sepulchre's Cathedral Choir performs "Song Of Wisdom".
Hey, Libertarians ! Getting tired of being called "outside the mainstream"? Or too radical?
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. - George Bernard Shaw
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.
Harry Browne on Free Trade - "We have only two choices. Either you are free to buy whaterever you want from whomever you want, wherever that seller is in the U.S. or the world - or we turn over to the politicians the power to decide what you can buy. If we do the latter, you know from all experience that what you can buy will then be decided by those who have the most political influence."
This reminds me of P.J. O'Rourke's quip that "If politicians can determine what can be bought and sold, the first thing to be bought and sold will be politicians."
