On his thirteenth birthday he had seen a film in which the central character was a painter who, unable to sell his work, grew cold and hungry as he went from one unsuccessful interview to the next; eventually he had become a vagrant, sleeping in the ...
As Tim followed me up the narrow stairwell, he playfully pinched my butt with every step, a pleasant (and painful--in a black-and-blue sort of way) reminder that all I had yearned for as a student twenty-five years before had come true, even if I had...
war is not inevitable. Nor has it always been with us. War is a human invention—an organized, deliberate action of an anti-social kind—and in the long span of human life on Earth, a fairly recent one. For more than 99 percent of the time that hum...
Now I have very little respect for the electoral system in the United States. I could have respected it in the early days, when the country was small and we had small population. The system that we have in the United States was set up at a time when ...
Ask him about the cemeteries, Dean!" In 1966 upon being told that President Charles DeGaulle had taken France out of NATO and that all U.S. troops must be evacuated off of French soil President Lyndon Johnson mentioned to Secretary of State Dean Rusk...
Billy Tessio: [about to get in Ace's car to find Ray Brower's body] Hey, Ace, uh... maybe me and Charlie shouldn't go. Charlie Hogan: Yeah, maybe you guys could go without us. Ace: [sighs] You guys are like my grandmother having a conniption fit. I d...
Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel... that Coca-Cola machine. I want you to shoot the lock off it. There may be some change in there. Colonel "Bat" Guano: That's private property. Group Capt. Lionel Mandrake: Colonel! Can you possibly imagine what ...
But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of governmen...
You know what show I thought was a riot? Live coverage of Egyptians overthrowing their government.
He took a long drink, then grimaced. “I do not have a drinking problem,” he announced, his voice needlessly loud. “I have a Churchillian relationship with alcohol: I can crack jokes and govern England and do anything I want to do. Except not dr...
Hence, likewise, they will avoid the necessity of those overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty. In this sense it ...
Damned Beaver/Jeremy the War, he is every assertion the fucking War has ever made--that we are meant for work and government, for austerity: and these shall take priority over love, dreams, the spirit, the senses and the other second-class trivia tha...
It was May 2009, and I didn’t like where the economy was headed. (I wished the Federal Reserve had a GPS or a map or some clue as to where they were driving the economy). Actually, the private sector drives the economy, while the Fed and the govern...
One can see [...] that the so-called governing powers are cardboard characters that mask the true ruling factors of our culture. Of course, those who manipulate the nation are not stupid. Rulers throughout history are only as powerful as the people w...
The aftermath of bearing shackles is an exquisite devastation, fraught with the ravages of survival. Even though one is no longer held captive—be that from a person, a government, or one’s inner self—the scars are deeply engraved into one’s p...
That is why it could happen anywhere, given the right ingredients: particular people in government, competing with others- or with each other- over natural and wealth-creating resources.
Public and civic value require commitment and hard work among the core group of participants. It also requires that these groups be self-governing and submit to constraints that help them ignore distracting and entertaining material and stay focused ...
I had a dream about you. We were in the midst of WWIII and we both got drafted. I told the government the only thing I shoot is water guns, because I’m a farmer. I grow peace, and the whole world wants my crop.
This desire to govern a woman -- it lies very deep, and men and women must fight it together.... But I do love you surely in a better way then he does." He thought. "Yes -- really in a better way. I want you to have your own thoughts even when I hold...
I would say that since the war, our methods-out and those of the opposition-have become much the same. I mean you can't be less ruthless than the opposition simply because your government's 'policy' is benevolent, can you now?
I grant men the land, the government, the wealth, all the chances. I accept that you have to hold all the cards, since that's the only way you know how to play; but I refuse to swallow your disrespect.