#politics

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

Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#politics #economics

Conservatism is the blind and fear-filled worship of dead radicals. ↗

— Mark Twain

#mark-twain #politics #twain #worship

I am the illegal alien of commentary. I will do the jokes that no one else will do. ↗

— Ann Coulter

#politics #humor

Love, by its very nature, is unworldly, and it is for this reason rather than its rarity that it is not only apolitical but antipolitical, perhaps the most powerful of all antipolitical forces. ↗

— Hannah Arendt

#politics #love

But there is another and greater distinction for which no truly natural or religious reason can be assigned, and that is the distinction of men into kings and subjects. Male and female are the distinctions of nature, good and band, the distinctions of heaven; but how a race of men came into the world so exalted above the rest, and distinguished like some new species, is worth inquiring into, and whether they are the means of happiness or of misery to mankind. ↗

— Thomas Paine

#men

In F1 too many things overshadow the racing. There is too much politics. ↗

— Kimi Raikkonen

#many #much #politics #racing #things