#fare

Taxes are what we pay for civilized society, for modernity, and for prosperity. The wealthy pay more because they have benefitted more. Taxes, well laid and well spent, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, and promote the general welfare. Taxes protect property and the environment; taxes make business possible. Taxes pay for roads and schools and bridges and police and teachers. Taxes pay for doctors and nursing homes and medicine. During an emergency, like an earthquake or a hurricane, taxes pay for rescue workers, shelters, and services. For people whose lives are devastated by other kinds of disaster, like the disaster of poverty, taxes pay, even, for food. ↗

— Jill Lepore

#business #common-defense #disasters #domestic-tranquility #emergencies

Once you go on welfare it changes you. Even if you get off welfare, you never escape the stigma that you were a charity case. You're scarred for life. ↗

— Jeannette Walls

#life #state-benefits #welfare #change

The problem is that you cannot prove yourself against someone who is much weaker than yourself. They are in a lose/lose situation. If you are strong and fighting the weak, then if you kill your opponent then you are a scoundrel... if you let him kill you, then you are an idiot. So here is a dilemma which others have suffered before us, and for which as far as I can see there is simply no escape. ↗

— Martin Van Creveld

#fourth-generation-warfare #change

Fill my mouth with the accuracy and potency of Your word and Spirit that I may make war through prayer with swift precision (Psalm 144:1). ↗

— Shawntel Jefferson

#kids-books #prayer #warfare-prayers #change

...the world was trying to change its old face and show its underbelly of earth and roots. ↗

— Italo Calvino

#warfare #change

What passing bells for these who die as cattle? Only the monstrous anger of the guns. Only the stuttering rifle's rapid rattle Can patter out their hasty orisons. No mockeries now for them; no prayers, nor bells, Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs, The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells, And bugles calling for them from sad shires. What candles may be held to speed them all? Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes, Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes. The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall, Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds, And each, slow dusk a drawing down of blinds. ↗

— Wilfred Owen

#war #warfare #anger

Why all this death? You might as easily ask ‘Why all this life?’. ↗

— Daniel McHugh

#fantasy #magic #warfare #wizards #death

Horror would not annoy a soldier any more than the sight of a hammer annoys a carpenter. It is sentimental to pretend that horror is not the tool of the soldier, just as the hammer is the tool of the carpenter. We live off death and the threat of death and we must take it calmly and use it well.... Eventually I came to enjoy killing, as a pianist enjoys the Czerny which keeps his fingers limber for the Beethoven. ↗

— Irwin Shaw

#warfare #death

As clear as it is important, the death of Detroit is nonetheless a topic avoided. Generally the gradual disintegration of a major metropolis would garner a fair amount of attention, but the scant coverage is hardly surprising. After all, the culprits are not the popular ones. In most circles, condemning taxation, regulation, unionization, welfarism and protectionism is unfashionable. It is necessary to cast aside prevailing notions of political correctness and appreciate that the case of Detroit isn’t an isolated tragedy. ↗

— Dan Greenup

#political-correctness #protectionism #regulations #taxation #unions

Someday I'll be a weather-beaten skull resting on a grass pillow, Serenaded by a stray bird or two. Kings and commoners end up the same, No more enduring than last night's dream. ↗

— Ryokan

#dreams