• Dear Guest, Please note that adult content is not permitted on this forum. We have had our Google ads disabled at times due to some posts that were found from some time ago. Please do not post adult content and if you see any already on the forum, please report the post so that we can deal with it. Adult content is allowed in the glory hole - you will have to request permission to access it. Thanks, scara

Politics: some historic quotations that still apply today

inkpenspur

inkpenspur

Allan Nielsen
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a government.
John Adams

If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of government. But then I repeat myself.
Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
George Bernard Shaw

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Giving money & power to government is like giving whiskey & car keys to teenage boys.
P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
Frederic Bastiat, French economist (1801-1850)

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
Will Rogers

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
P.J. O'Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one part of the citizens to give to the other.
Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap...except when government does it.
Anonymous

The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
Ronald Reagan

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
Mark Twain

There is no distinctly Native American criminal class...save government.
Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want is strong enough to take everything you have.
Thomas Jefferson

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office.
Aesop
 
That apply to extreme right wing Neo-liberal nut jobs. We don't really need government, why not just let the 'free market' decide everything?


:ross:
 
Gilzeantoscore said:
That apply to extreme right wing Neo-liberal nut jobs. We don't really need government, why not just let the 'free market' decide everything?


:ross:
Click to expand...

I wasn't giving any of them either a neo-liberal right wing slant or a socialist/left wing dreamer angle. I think some of them apply equally to both extremities of the political landscape. Obviously Churchill's quote is a dig at the labour/socialist wing of politics, but the others apply across the spectrum. Just thought they were all apposite as we are all going to be bombarded with political flannel over next four months!
 
Gilzeantoscore said:
That apply to extreme right wing Neo-liberal nut jobs. We don't really need government, why not just let the 'free market' decide everything?


:ross:
Click to expand...

You usually find people who are right wing in their politics (not racist) think Neo Liberals are nut jobs...... they also know those who vote Labour are either on benefits, doing it "cos mi familis as always dun it", a student or more likely a champagne socialist "do as i say not as i do" ..... :-"
 
RomanzoCriminale said:
You usually find people who are right wing in their politics (not racist) think Neo Liberals are nut jobs...... they also know those who vote Labour are either on benefits, doing it "cos mi familis as always dun it", a student or more likely a champagne socialist "do as i say not as i do" ..... :-"
Click to expand...

“You show me a capitalist, and I'll show you a bloodsucker”
― Malcolm X


“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.”
― Hélder Câmara, Dom Helder Camara: Essential Writings

“There is nobody in this country who got rich on their own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you. But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory... Now look. You built a factory and it turned into something terrific or a great idea - GHod bless! Keep a hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along.”
― Elizabeth Warren

“A socialist is just someone who is unable to get over his or her astonishment that most people who have lived and died have spent lives of wretched, fruitless, unremitting toil.”
― Terry Eagleton, Ideology: An Introduction

No amount of cajolery, and no attempts at ethical or social seduction, can eradicate from my heart a deep burning hatred for the Tory Party. So far as I am concerned they are lower than vermin.
Aneurin Bevan
 
“The difference between Socrates and Jesus is that no one had ever been put to death in Socrates' name. And that is because Socrates' ideas were never made law. Law, in whatever name, protects privilege.”
― E.L. Doctorow

There is a contradiction between market liberalism and political liberalism. The market liberals (e.g., social conservatives) of today want family values, less government, and maintain the traditions of society (at least in America's case). However, we must face the cultural contradiction of capitalism: the progress of capitalism, which necessitates a consumer culture, undermines the values which render capitalism possible”
― Slavoj Žižek

Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.
John Stuart Mill
 
Last edited:
Today...

“The only security of all is in a free press.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.”
― Noam Chomsky
 
If a man hasn't voted Labour by his 20s he has no heart. If he isn't voting Conservative by his 30s he has no brain.

I'm sure I've completely mangled that quite and I can't remember who it's by, but it's true.
 
scaramanga said:
If a man hasn't voted Labour by his 20s he has no heart. If he isn't voting Conservative by his 30s he has no brain.

I'm sure I've completely mangled that quite and I can't remember who it's by, but it's true.
Click to expand...

Well its not true,but if it keeps you warm at night.
 
inkpenspur said:
I wasn't giving any of them either a neo-liberal right wing slant or a socialist/left wing dreamer angle. I think some of them apply equally to both extremities of the political landscape. Obviously Churchill's quote is a dig at the labour/socialist wing of politics, but the others apply across the spectrum. Just thought they were all apposite as we are all going to be bombarded with political flannel over next four months!
Click to expand...

I know you weren't, just saying...
 
Last edited:
Yeah, I do believe that all neo liberals are nut jobs. Just look at the Tea Party. Sarah Palin anyone? These are the right wing loons who believe that climate change is an international socialist-green conspiracy. They believe that NASA is part of this conspiracy, because of their data that supports climate change. Right wing nut jobs for sure.
 
Last edited:
This site is going to be awful between March and May. I am off to America for a month in June, so might not be around here to much till the latter part of the year.
 
“In politics, stupidity is not a handicap.”


“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
― Dwight D. Eisenhower

“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
― Edward R. Murrow


“Patriotism is, fundamentally, a conviction that a particular country is the best in the world because you were born in it....”
― George Bernard Shaw
 
“A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves.”
― Edward R. Murrow

Hell of a quote
 
Set a tramp a fire, and he will be warm for the rest of the night.

Set a tramp afire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

..... correct English usage demonstration.


The nine most frightening words in the English language are "I'm from the government, and I'm here to help"

...... Ronald Reagan
 
I haven't found it since studying Politics at uni but for me Marx's views on Human nature in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

He basically says that Communism will never work because you will never be able to stop human nature, you will always have greed, will always have a ruling elite and will always have abuse of power, regardless as to what system you have for state, government (local or central), taxes, legislation and representation (democracy, Totalitarianism, absolute monachy).

It's especially applies today when look at China. From a purely political perspective, if China is Communist then I'm a pineapple.
 
Last edited:
spurs' magna carter said:
I haven't found it since studying Politics at uni but for me Marx's views on Human nature in the Economic and Philosophic Manuscripts of 1844.

He basically says that Communism will never work because you will never be able to stop human nature, you will always have greed, will always have a ruling elite and will always have abuse of power, regardless as to what system you have for state, government (local or central), taxes, legislation and representation (democracy, Totalitarianism, absolute monachy).

It's especially applies today when look at China. From a purely political perspective, if China is Communist then I'm a pineapple.
Click to expand...


You're Jason Lee?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back