#govern

[Obamacare] was almost the perfect example of politics in the Bubble Era, where the time horizon for anyone with real power is always close to zero, long-term thinking is an alien concept, and even the most massive and ambitious undertakings are motivated entirely by short-term rewards. A radical reshaping of the entire economy, for two election cycles’ worth of campaign cash – that was what this bill meant. It sounds absurdly reductive to say so, but there’s no other explanation that makes any sense. ↗

— Matt Taibbi

#health-care #obamacare #united-states #motivational

[Y]ou possess all the attributes of a demagogue; a screeching, horrible voice, a perverse, crossgrained nature and the language of the market-place. In you all is united which is needful for governing. ↗

— Aristophanes

#attributes #barter #character #demagoguery #government

I need to say this – you shouldn't trust any government, actually including this one. You should not trust government – full stop. The natural inclination of government is to hoard power and information; to accrue power to itself in the name of the public good. ↗

— Nick Clegg

#liberalism #nature

Our government needs the church, because only those humble enough to admit they're sinners can bring democracy the tolerance it requires to survive ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#church #government #governments #religion #religion

If any foreign minister begins to defend to the death a "peace conference," you can be sure his government has already placed its orders for new battleships and airplanes. ↗

— Joseph Stalin

#any #begins #conference #death #defend

The prestige of government has undoubtedly been lowered considerably by the Prohibition law. For nothing is more destructive of respect for the government and the law of the land than passing laws which cannot be enforced ↗

— Albert Einstein

#respect

Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof," thus building a wall of separation between Church & State. Adhering to this expression of the supreme will of the nation in behalf of the rights of conscience, I shall see with sincere satisfaction the progress of those sentiments which tend to restore to man all his natural rights, convinced he has no natural right in opposition to his social duties. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#faith #government #laws #religion #rights

In my opinion, our health care system has failed when a doctor fails to treat an illness that is treatable. ↗

— Kevin Alan Lee

#government #health-care #health-care-system #humanism #medical

It is the function of science to discover the existence of a general reign of order in nature and to find the causes governing this order. And this refers in equal measure to the relations of man - social and political - and to the entire universe as a whole. ↗

— Dmitri Mendeleev

#discover #entire #entire universe #equal #equal measure

As government expands, liberty contracts. ↗

— Ronald Reagan

#political-philosophy #politics #scope-of-government #liberty