#cs

When politicians start talking about large groups of their fellow Americans as 'enemies,' it's time for a quiet stir of alertness. Polarizing people is a good way to win an election, and also a good way to wreck a country. ↗

— Molly Ivins

#polarization #politics #elections

I am a politician which means I am a liar and a crook. When I am not kissing babies I am stealing their lollypops. ↗

— Tom Clancy

#fiction #politics #politicians

Comics are drawings, not photographs, and as such they present a subjective view of reality. ↗

— Frederik L. Schodt

#culture #japan #manga #japan

Once there was a dictator. He drove millions to various kinds of deaths, by war, in prison, or simply in harsh deserts farming their lives away. He destroyed temples, burned books, and ruined the art of calligraphy. He wrote terrible poetry and forced everyone to learn it, so destroying the literary taste of one quarter of humanity. He remained a warrior even as Chairman. He was at his best as a warrior, because as a warrior, he was fighting for his people, dreaming for them. After that, he only ground them down. But I forgive him for saying one beautiful thing: 'Women hold up half the sky.' -- Chairman Mao Tse Tung ↗

— Geoff Ryman

#dictator #politics #art

I agree to this Constitution with all its faults, if they are such: because I think a General Government necessary for us, and there is no Form of Government but what may be a Blessing to the People if well-administred; and I believe farther that this is likely to be well administred for a Course of Years and can only end in Despotism as other Forms have done before it, when the People shall become so corrupted as to need Despotic Government, being incapable of any other. ↗

— Benjamin Franklin

#blessings

Voting for the lesser of two evils is still voting for evil. Next time, go all out and write in Lucifer on the ballot.
 ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#government #lucifer #politics #vote #voting

How many hours are there in a mile? Is yellow square or round? Probably half the questions we ask-half our great theological and metaphysical problems-are like that. ↗

— C.S. Lewis

#metaphysics #nonsense #questioning-mind #questions #theology

It's different today than it was then. In those days we were strictly amateurs. If I had wanted to stay in for the '80 Olympics, my parents couldn't have afforded it. ↗

— Dorothy Hamill

#days #different #had #i #olympics

All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#change

A city's only ever three hot meals away from anarchy. ↗

— Alastair Reynolds

#sf #social-commentary #anarchy