#pol

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.
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— Jarod Kintz

#government #lucifer #politics #vote #voting

To learn which questions are unanswerable, and not to answer them: this skill is most needful in times of stress and darkness. ↗

— Ursula K. Le Guin

#certainty #humility #knowledge #policy #humility

It drains the bars and cafes after hours, concentrates the wicked and the guilty along its chipped Formica counter, and thrums with the gossip of criminals, policemen, shtarkers,and schlemiels, whores and night owls ... three or four floaters, solitaries, and drunks between benders lean against the sparkly resin counter, sucking the tea from their shtekelehs and working the calulations of their next big mistake. ↗

— Michael Chabon

#drunks #gossip #mistakes #night #police

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

TO the States or any one of them, or any city of the States, Resist much, obey little, Once unquestioning obedience, once fully enslaved, Once fully enslaved, no nation, state, city of this earth, ever after-ward resumes its liberty. ↗

— Walt Whitman

#politics #wisdom #obedience

I am at liberty to vote as my conscience and judgment dictates to be right, without the yoke of any party on me... Look at my arms, you will find no party hand-cuff on them. ↗

— David Crockett

#loyalty #politics #judgment

Extremes to the right and to the left of any political dispute are always wrong. ↗

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

#conservatives #democrats #extremism #liberalism #liberals

The Guards in front of the dais turned and froze. Then they scattered like roaches. Apollo moved up the aisle. “Yeah, that’s what I thought.” “I will find you! We’re connected. We are one!” Seth was still screaming. His gaze fell to the god. He sneered. “You want to fight me now, in your true form?” “I will fight you in any form, you little punk-ass brat.” Seth laughed. “You can’t kill me.” “But I can beat the living snot out of you. ↗

— Jennifer L. Armentrout

#seth #connection