Quotes

There's a whole lot of people who can't discuss ideas or evidence, so they attack the source. This unattributed quote sums it up. But I prefer my slightly edited variant of it. (That doesn't mean I think sources, especially sketchy ones, shouldn't be looked at for what their biases are. But bad sources can have good fact, and a good source with a bad fact, is still wrong -- so ideas and evidence matter more than sources, every single time).

• "Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." ~ Unknown
• "Great minds question ideas; average minds question events; small minds question sources." ~ Me

People often make mention of my prolific writing and emails (which lean towards comprehensive over brevity). But they do get shorter if I have the time to edit, and distill it down, which bring me to this quote:

• I Had More Time, I Would Have Written a Shorter Letter ~ Blaise Pascal

While there's a lot of quotes about ego and self awareness that I like, this one rings true:

• "Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm — but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves." ~ T.S. Eliot

Quotes

Climate Quotes From the contradictions between cooling vs. warming, the devastation caused by the pollution or warming/cooling that never came, to the ice caps that are still fine, to the glaciers that never went away, or the plants and animals that are still thriving and so on. Malthusian catastrophe's predicted since time immemorial. The point isn't that we shouldn't study this stuff, it's that we should look at it with the skeptical eye of mature adults who have a clue as to how wrong the religion of Science has been in the past, to know to not overreact like gullible emotional children today. Fascist Quotes These are a bunch of quotes from the worlds famous Fascists on what they thought about Socialism, Guns, or Social Justice -- just to remind people that they were left-wing activists, they thought of themselves as Socialists, and they had similar policies and ideologies as the progressive left in America. " Title: Chief editor for Avanti, the most powerful Socialist paper in Italy " ~ Benito Mussolini " The keystone of the Fascist doctrine is its conception of the State, of its essence, its functions, and its aims. For Fascism the State is absolute, individuals and groups relative." ~ Benito Mussolini " Democracy is a kingless regime infested by many kings who are sometimes more exclusive, tyrannical and destructive than one, even if he be a tyrant." ~ Benito Mussolini " It is the State which educates its citizens in civic virtue, gives them a consciousness of their mission and welds them into unity." ~ Benito Mussolini " [fascism is a] merger of state and corporate power " ~ Benito Mussolini " We have buried the putrid corpse of liberty" ~ Benito Mussolini " For if the nineteenth century was a century of individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism and hence the century of the State " ~ Benito Mussolini " We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions." " ~ Adolf Hitler " National Socialism is the determination to create a new man. There will no longer exist any individual arbitrary will, nor realms in which the individual belongs to himself. The time of happiness as a private matter is over " ~ Adolf Hitler " [My task is to] “convert the German volk (people) to socialism" " ~ Adolf Hitler " I have learned a great deal from Marxism … as I do not hesitate to admit " ~ Adolf Hitler " What Marxism, Leninism and Stalinism failed to accomplish we shall be in a position to achieve. " ~ Adolf Hitler " We must “find and travel the road from individualism to socialism without revolution " ~ Adolf Hitler " While not a quote, "Forward" has long been a term used by unions and socialist/left leaning orgs (and now by the President) as their slogan. Again, this is the opposite of conservatism, which they play as "Backward" (towards tradition). " ~ Obama Campaign Slogan " Unity in faith is theocracy; unity in politics is fascism. " ~ Maajid Nawaz " Fascism was a counter-revolution against a revolution that never took place. " ~ Ignazio Silone " A revolution without firing squads is meaningless. " ~ Vladimir Lenin Gun Quotes Here are my favorite gun quotes. This quote sums up the key problem with gun-controllers arguments: they're unintentional hypocrites or fools. You can’t eliminate a tool, or knowledge of it. All that you can do is decide whether there should be a balance of power, or none. Some believe in that balance, others believe that the state is never wrong, especially if you ignore the History of all the times they’ve been wrong in the past. Liberty •  Militia Meaning • Militia Dependent •  Founding Fathers •  Legal • Famous People • Opponents • Obama Hillary Quotes Just some of Hillary's greatest misses. Again, this isn't trying to be "fair" and list all the good things she's said. This is to point out the Pants-suit posse criticizing other politicians for being insensitive racists, or just asshats, might want to consider "lead by example". If it's wrong for the other side, then it's more wrong to ignore your own sides flaws. And pretending "when they go low, we go high" is just gaslighting. Iraq War Quotes The Democrats were complete war Hawks before the Iraq War, trying to break their tainted image of anti-patriotic Vietnam war protestors. There are quotes from Bill Clinton, his cabinet, and most prominent Democrats from this time (Daschle, Kerry, Gore, Gephardt, Pelosi, Kennedy) all demanding immediate action on Saddam's abuses and WMD's. After the war, they changed their tune, and demanded that Bush lie, and ignore that their quotes were from 3 years before he was President. Progressive Quotes I generally prefer quotes about progressives that try to enlighten. There are few insightful progressives because most of them are just not that self-aware of themselves, the world around them, or what their policies would lead to. So they are often pithy, simplistic, and wrong -- but some are worth reading for the jaw-dropping barbarism that they believe, when they're being honest. (Later progressives learned to hide it better).