#politics

It is inaccurate to say I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for any public office. ↗

— H.L. Mencken

#honesty

I once watched several criminals engage in an organized argument, while an audience of supporters cheered them on, but I was so disgusted that I had to turn off the political debate. 
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— Jarod Kintz

#cheer #criminals #debate #disgust #fans

The only problem with politicians taking two week vacations every year is it’s about 50 weeks too short.
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— Jarod Kintz

#problem #vacation #politicians

The short memories of the American voters is what keeps our politicians in office. ↗

— Will Rogers

#politicians

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

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.
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— Jarod Kintz

#government #lucifer #politics #vote #voting

It was quiet in the cell. Rubashov heard only the creaking of his steps on the tiles. Six and a half steps to the door, whence they must come to fetch him, six and a half steps to the window, behind which night was falling. Soon it would be over. But when he asked himself, For what actually are you dying? he found no answer. It was a mistake in the system; perhaps it lay in the precept which until now he had held to be uncontestable, in whose name he had sacrificed others and was himself being sacrificed: in the precept, that the end justifies the means. It was this sentence which had killed the great fraternity of the Revolution and made them run amuck. What had he once written in his diary? "We have thrown overboard all conventions, our sole guiding principle is that of consequent logic; we are sailing without ethical ballast. ↗

— Arthur Koestler

#politics #revolution #russia #soviet-union #communism