#state

The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount…If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State. ↗

— Harry S. Truman

#moral-law #political-philosophy #politics #separation-of-church-and-state #freedom

No Statue of Liberty ever greeted our arrival in this country...we did not, in fact, come to the United States at all. The United States came to us. ↗

— Luis Valdez

#freedom #history #liberty #native-american #society

The American system is the most ingenious system of control in world history. With a country so rich in natural resources, talent, and labor power the system can afford to distribute just enough wealth to just enough people to limit discontent to a troublesome minority. It is a country so powerful, so big, so pleasing to so many of its citizens that it can afford to give freedom of dissent to the small number who are not pleased. There is no system of control with more openings, apertures, leeways, flexibilities, rewards for the chosen, winning tickets in lotteries. There is none that disperses its controls more complexly through the voting system, the work situation, the church, the family, the school, the mass media--none more successful in mollifying opposition with reforms, isolating people from one another, creating patriotic loyalty. ↗

— Howard Zinn

#family

I do what I do, and write what I write, without calculating what is worth what and so on. Fortunately, I am not a banker or an accountant. I feel that there is a time when a political statement needs to be made and I make it. ↗

— Arundhati Roy

#am #banker #calculating #feel #fortunately

It's traditionally not federal policy to fund state and local salaries. It's done sometimes on a temporary basis or a grant basis. But it's not often done. And the reason is clear, because the federal government can't continue in perpetuity these programs. ↗

— Jim Talent

#because #clear #continue #done #federal

The issue is whether the ultimate civil authority of the United States can tolerate actions in contempt of constitutional lines of authority. Any lessening of civil power over military power must inevitably lead away from democracy. ↗

— Harold Russell

#any #authority #away #civil #constitutional

White House and State Department foreign-policy experts are overwhelmingly directed towards military and diplomatic issues, not development issues. ↗

— Jeffrey Sachs

#development #diplomatic #directed #experts #house

The transition state of manners and language cannot be too often insisted upon: for this affected the process at both ends, giving the artist in fictitious life an uncertain model to copy and unstable materials to work in. ↗

— George Saintsbury

#artist #both #cannot #copy #ends

The blood and sweat shed by United States and United Nations troops proved to be the prime mover behind the realisation of freedom throughout the post-war period. ↗

— Kim Y. Sam

#blood #freedom #nations #period #post-war

I think we need one recognized, respected public figure to make a tough, blunt statement on just what Reagan's record is and what he might do to the country, let alone the Republican Party before Christmas. ↗

— Robert Teeter

#before #blunt #christmas #country #figure