How to understand politics

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm and three or more is a congress.
-John Adams

‘If you don’t read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.’
-Mark Twain

Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.
-Mark Twain

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-Winston Churchill

A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
– George Bernard Shaw

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-G Gordon Liddy

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it’s free!
-P.J. O’Rourke

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-Voltaire (1764)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you!
-Pericles (430 B.C.)

No man’s life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-Mark Twain (1866)

Talk is cheap…except when Congress does it.
-Unknown

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-Winston Churchill

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-Mark Twain

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

There is no distinctly American criminal class … save Congress.
-Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-Edward Langley, Artist (1928 – 1995)

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson 

Thanks Gene

8 thoughts on “How to understand politics”

  1. That Gene Dude comes up with some funny stuff. I feel as though I need to pay you for these. Put it on my bill. This being layed off thing ain’t bad, I might do it for a living.

  2. As one fellow put it, “If I had known I was going to be laid off, I would not have bothered working”.

  3. I’m not sure G. Gordon Liddy is someone who deserves any sort of prop for this. I mean when he was with Nixon and plotted that whole Watergate thing, I’m sure he loved the government. But now that he and his ilk are out of power and disgraced, he’d obviously hate them and want to overthrow it and abolish it (so long as he was named warlord when the political vacuum is filled.) He also said he got really inspired by Adolf Hitler as a child.

    That’s one messed up dude.

  4. I’d still vote for Winston Churchill in a heartbeat, even though he’s British and he’s been dead for 45 years.

  5. Funny, but sobering. Soooooooooo, set me up, barkeep!

    Klaw,

    Seriously, can ya say who’s gotcha laid off? Spent lotsa MY life that way.

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