political_talk

Charles de Gaulle: In order to become the master....

Charles de Gaulle, born November 22, 1890, and died on November 9 1970, was  a French general and statesman. He was the founder of the French Fifth Republic [1958] and became its first President in 1959.

In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant.

John Adams on His Election to the House of Representatives

In a letter to Benjamin Rush,  Adams wrote of having been chosen to become a member of the House of Representatives.

When I went home to my family in May, 1770, from the town meeting in Boston, which was the first I had ever attended, and where I had been chosen in my absence, without any solicitation, one of their representatives, I said to my wife, "I have accepted a seat in the House of Representatives, and thereby have consented to my own ruin, to your ruin, and to the ruin of our children. I give you this warning, that you may prepare your mind for your fate." She burst into tears, but instantly cried out in a transport of magnanimity, "Well, I am willing in this cause to run all risks with you, and be ruined with you, if you are ruined." These were times, my friend, in Boston, which tried women's souls as well as men's.

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Source

John Adams on the Jewish Religion

In a letter to François Adriaan van der Kemp, a Dutch minister, in 1809, Adams wrote of his admiration for the tenets of the Jewish religion. His opinion of Christianity is here.

I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation. If I were an atheist, and believed in blind eternal fate, I should still believe that fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations. If I were an atheist of the other sect, who believe or pretend to believe that all is ordered by chance, I should believe that chance had ordered the Jews to preserve and propagate to all mankind the doctrine of a supreme, intelligent, wise, almighty sovereign of the universe, which I believe to be the great essential principle of all morality, and consequently of all civilization.

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Source: WikiQuote

John Adams on Christianity

In an 1814 letter to his friend, John Taylor, Adams denigrated Christianity as incapable of real "inquiry".

And ever since the Reformation, when or where has existed a Protestant or dissenting sect who would tolerate A FREE INQUIRY? The blackest billingsgate, the most ungentlemanly insolence, the most yahooish brutality, is patiently endured, countenanced, propagated, and applauded. But touch a solemn truth in collision with a dogma of a sect, though capable of the clearest proof, and you will find you have disturbed a nest, and the hornets will swarm about your eyes and hand, and fly into your face and eyes

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Source:  Letter to John Taylor

Thomas Jefferson on the Role of the Judiciary

From a letter to Monsieur A. Coray, Oct 31, 1823, by Thomas Jefferson:

At the establishment of our constitutions, the judiciary bodies were supposed to be the most helpless and harmless members of the government. Experience, however, soon showed in what way they were to become the most dangerous; that the insufficiency of the means provided for their removal gave them a freehold and irresponsibility in office; that their decisions, seeming to concern individual suitors only, pass silent and unheeded by the public at large; that these decisions, nevertheless, become law by precedent, sapping, by little and little, the foundations of the constitution, and working its change by construction, before any one has perceived that that invisible and helpless worm has been busily employed in consuming its substance. In truth, man is not made to be trusted for life, if secured against all liability to account.

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Image Source: Wikimedia Commons - Painting of Thomas Jefferson in 1805 by Rembrandt Peale

TED KENNEDY on Guns

Remark by Sen. Ted Kennedy during a Senate debate with Mitt Romney in 1994:

I won’t yield to anyone about guns in our society. I know enough about it.

Senator Edward M. "Ted"  Kennedy, Democrat, 1932-2009

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Source: From 'Edward M. Kennedy: A Biography' by Adam Clymer

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: Now is the time to lift our nation...

From Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, to a crowd of 200,000 civil rights supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Democrat, 1929-1968

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Source: Wikipedia

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR: They will not be judged by the color.....

From Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, to a crowd of 200,000 civil rights supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

The quote featured here was not a part of Dr. King's prepared remarks. It was extemporaneous, delivered by Dr. King after the African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to Dr. King from the crowd, shouting "Tell them about the dream, Martin!".

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Democrat, 1929-1968

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Source: Wikipedia

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR.: I have a dream.........

From Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I have a dream" speech, delivered on August 28, 1963, to a crowd of 200,000 civil rights supporters on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington.

The quote featured here was not a part of Dr. King's prepared remarks. It was extemporaneous, delivered by Dr. King after the African-American gospel singer Mahalia Jackson called out to Dr. King from the crowd, shouting "Tell them about the dream, Martin!".

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Democrat, 1929-1968

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Source: Wikipedia

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: SPEECH TO CONGRESS INTRODUCING THE VOTING RIGHTS ACT OF 1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson's Message to the Congress The American Promise

March 15, 1965

Mr. Speaker, Mr. President, Members of the Congress:

I speak tonight for the dignity of man and the destiny of democracy.

I urge every member of both parties, Americans of all religions and of all colors, from every section of this country, to join me in that cause.

There, long-suffering men and women peacefully protested the denial of their rights as Americans. Many were brutally assaulted. One good man, a man of God, was killed.

There is no cause for pride in what has happened in Selma. There is no cause for self-satisfaction in the long denial of equal rights of millions of Americans. But there is cause for hope and for faith in our democracy in what is happening here tonight.

For the cries of pain and the hymns and protests of oppressed people have summoned into convocation all the majesty of this great Government--the Government of the greatest Nation on earth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Commencement Address at Howard University on Affirmative Action, 1965

President Lyndon B. Johnson's Commencement Address at Howard University on June 4, 1965

Dr. Nabrit¹, my fellow Americans:

I am delighted at the chance to speak at this important and this historic institution. Howard has long been an outstanding center for the education of Negro Americans. Its students are of every race and color and they come from many countries of the world. It is truly a working example of democratic excellence.

Our earth is the home of revolution. In every corner of every continent men charged with hope contend with ancient ways in the pursuit of justice. They reach for the newest of weapons to realize the oldest of dreams, that each may walk in freedom and pride, stretching his talents, enjoying the fruits of the earth.

I am proud to be a liberal.

If by a "Liberal" they mean someone who looks ahead and not behind, someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions, someone who cares about the welfare of the people — their health, their housing, their schools, their jobs, their civil rights, and their civil liberties — someone who believes we can break through the stalemate and suspicions that grip us in our policies abroad, if that is what they mean by a "Liberal," then I'm proud to say I'm a "Liberal."¹

President John F. Kennedy, Democrat, 35th President, 1917-1963

¹ This quotation is frequently misattributed to Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy.

Source: taken from JFK's acceptance of the New York Liberal Party nomination in Sept. 1960.

Robert F. Kennedy Quotation: The problem of power....

Robert F. Kennedy | Democrat 1925-1968

The conundrum of those who are public servants. 

The problem of power is how to achieve its responsible use rather than its irresponsible and indulgent use — of how to get men of power to live for the public rather than off the public.

Image Source: WikiMedia Commons
Tags: Robert Kennedy, power, public, men,
democrat,

Ted Kennedy Quotation: My brother need not be idealized....

Senator Edward Moore "Ted" Kennedy | Democrat 1932-2009

Taken from his eulogy to his brother Bobby, it can now be said of him.

My brother need not be idealized or enlarged in death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered as a good and decent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal it, saw war and tried to stop it.

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that what he was to us, and what he wished for others, will someday come to pass for all the world.

Quotation: American Rhetoric - Eulogy for Robert F. Kennedy, June 1968
Tags: Ted Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, Edward Kennedy, eulogy, brother

Lyndon B. Johnson: At times history and fate meet....

 
President Lyndon B. Johnson | Democrat
The quotation is taken from a speech Johnson made to Congress on March 15, 1965, introducing the Voting Rights Act.

 At times history and fate meet at a single time in a single place to shape a turning point in man's unending search for freedom. So it was at Lexington and Concord. So it was a century ago at Appomattox. So it was last week in Selma, Alabama. There is no Negro problem. There is no southern problem. There is no northern problem. There is only an American problem. Many of the issues of civil rights are very complex and most difficult. But about this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have the right to vote...Yet the harsh fact is that in many places in this country men and women are kept from voting simply because they are Negroes... No law that we now have on the books...can insure the right to vote when local officials are determined to deny it... There is no Constitutional issue here. The command of the Constitution is plain. There is no moral issue. It is wrong—deadly wrong—to deny any of your fellow Americans the right to vote in this country. There is no issue of States' rights or National rights. There is only the struggle for human rights.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons [Martin Luther King, Jr., and Lyndon Johnson
Quotation Source: President Johnson's introduction of the Voting Rights Act to Congress, March 15, 1965

Being president is like being a jackass....

President Lyndon B. Johnson | Democrat

 Being president is like being a jackass in a hailstorm. There's nothing to do but to stand there and take it.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons

Lyndon B. Johnson on Affirmative Action

President Lyndon B. Johnson | Democrat

In his commencement address to students at Howard University on June 4, 1965, Johnson explained why affirmative action policies were necessary to achieve real equality.

You do not wipe away the scars of centuries by saying: 'now, you are free to go where you want, do as you desire, and choose the leaders you please.' You do not take a man who for years has been hobbled by chains, liberate him, bring him to the starting line of a race, saying, "you are free to compete with all the others," and still justly believe you have been completely fair... This is the next and more profound stage of the battle for civil rights. We seek not just freedom but opportunity—not just legal equity but human ability—not just equality as a right and a theory, but equality as a fact and as a result.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Quotation: Commencement Address at Howard University on June 4, 1965

When and if fascism comes to America.....

Professor Halford E. Luccock¹ | Democrat

When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled 'made in Germany'; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, 'Americanism'.

Quote Source: WikiQuote
Quotation: ¹Professor Halford E. Luccock of the Divinity School of Yale University made this comment in a sermon at the Riverside Church, Riverside Drive and 122d Street, during the 1930's.

Whenever the people are well informed.....

Thomas Jefferson | Democratic-Republican Party¹

Whenever the people are well informed, they can be trusted with their own government; that whenever things get so far wrong as to attract their notice, they may be relied on to set them to rights.

¹The Democratic-Republican Party was the dominant political party in the United States from 1800-1824; it then split in to two factions, one of which became the modern day Democratic Party.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons
Quotation: Letter to Richard Price (8 January 1789)

Thomas Jefferson Quotation on a Free Press

Thomas Jefferson | Democratic-Republican Party¹

The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter.

¹The Democratic-Republican Party was the dominant political party in the United States from 1800-1824; it then split in to two factions, one of which became the modern day Democratic Party.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons,
Quotation: Letter to Colonel Edward Carrington (16 January 1787) Lipscomb & Bergh ed. 6:57