No serious historian of politics would imagine that he had accounted for the protective tariff of the system of bounties or subsidies, for the monetary and banking laws, for the state of law in regard to corporate privileges and immunities, for the actual status of property rights, for agricultural or for labor policies, until he had gone behind the general claims and the abstract justifications and had identified the specifically interested groups which promoted the specific law.
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If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not read more
If a politician murders his mother, the first response of the press or of his opponents will likely be not that it was a terrible thing to do, but rather that in a statement made six years before he had gone on record as being opposed to matricide.
Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects.
Governments need armies to protect them against their enslaved and oppressed subjects.
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is read more
Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that read more
Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.
At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and read more
At least one way of measuring the freedom of any society is the amount of comedy that is permitted, and clearly a healthy society permits more satirical comment than a repressive, so that if comedy is to function in some way as a safety release then it must obviously deal with these taboo areas. This is part of the responsibility we accord our licensed jesters, that nothing be excused the searching light of comedy. If anything can survive the probe of humour it is clearly of value, and conversely all groups who claim immunity from laughter are claiming special privileges which should not be granted.
Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you're told.
Democracy: In which you say what you like and do what you're told.
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks.
The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy, that nobody knows whether to genuflect or read more
The office of president is a bastardized thing, half royalty and half democracy, that nobody knows whether to genuflect or spit.
El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in read more
El Salvador is a democracy so it's not surprising that there are many voices to be heard here. Yet in my conversations with Salvadorans... I have heard a single voice.
