#gov

There could be nothing, he reflected, to equal a government which was simply the honest enforcement, by means of the sword, of the laws of Islam. ↗

— Paul Bowles

#equality

All agree that, the first responsibility for the alleviation of poverty and distress and for the care of the victims of the depression rests upon the locality — its individuals, organizations and Government. It rests, first of all, perhaps, upon the private agencies of philanthropy, secondly, other social organizations, and last, but not least, the Church. Yet all agree that to leave to the locality the entire responsibility would result in placing the heaviest burden in most cases upon those who are the least able to bear it. In other words, the communities that have the most difficult problem, like Detroit, would be the communities that would have to bear the heaviest of the burdens. And so the State should step in to equalize the burden by providing for a large portion of the care of the victims of poverty and by providing assistance and guidance for local communities. Above and beyond that duty of the States the national Government has a responsibility. ↗

— Franklin D. Roosevelt

#communities #depression #distress #government #philanthropy

The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. ↗

— Henry David Thoreau

#equality

At times there's something so precise and mathematically chilling about nationalism. Build a dam to take away water AWAY from 40 million people. Build a dam to pretend to BRING water to 40 million people. Who are these gods that govern us? Is there no limit to their powers? ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#capitalism #corporations #dam #economics #environmental-degradation

Experience has shown, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny. ↗

— Thomas Jefferson

#complacency #corruption #decline #misgovernment #political-philosophy

I find out of long experience that I admire all nations and hate all governments ↗

— John Steinbeck

#government #experience

Fools say that they learn by experience. I prefer to profit by others experience. ↗

— Otto von Bismarck

#learning-from-mistakes #experience

Newt Gingrich, buddy, the people of the United States don’t like you. And the only reason the rest of the world doesn’t despise you is because they don’t know you. Thankfully you won’t have to experience that global derision, as you have reached the pinnacle of your career as a crook—I mean politician. ↗

— Jarod Kintz

#corruption #creep #crook #crooked #despise

My friends... ↗

— John McCain

#funny #government #presidents #speech #funny

Many, if not most, of the difficulties we experience in dealing with government agencies arise from the agencies being part of a fragmented and open political system…The central feature of the American constitutional system—the separation of powers—exacerbates many of these problems. The governments of the US were not designed to be efficient or powerful, but to be tolerable and malleable. Those who designed these arrangements always assumed that the federal government would exercise few and limited powers. ↗

— James Q. Wilson

#separation-of-powers #design