Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
There are a lot of well meaning white liberals. And a lot of well meaning black liberals. But you know what? When all they do is sit around and preach to the choir it does absolutely no good. If you're not a racist it doesn't do any good for me to meet with you and sit around and talk about how bad racism is.
When it comes to explaining the phenomenon of right-wing populism, liberals are likely to argue both that the populist era has exposed a darkness always present at the heart of conservative politics and that a toxic, post-truth new-media ecosystem has greased the skids for President Trump, Brexit and the rest.
'Democratic socialism' is awful as a slogan and catastrophic as a policy. And 'social democracy' - a term that better fits the belief of more ordinary liberals who want, say, Medicare for all - is a politically dying force. Democrats who aren't yet sick of all their losing should feel free to embrace them both.
It really is a fact that liberals are much higher than conservatives on a major personality trait called 'openness to experience.' People who are high on openness to experience just crave novelty, variety, diversity, new ideas, travel. People low on it like things that are familiar, that are safe and dependable.
In the early 1970s in Washington, a small group of young conservative activists came together to try and change American politics. They called themselves the New Right, and they were convinced that unless they did something drastic, the liberals and the left-wingers in America were going to take over the country.
After four tours of duty as a Navy SEAL officer, I came home from Iraq and watched the VA - the second-biggest bureaucracy in the country - fail my friends. The VA was broken and my friends were suffering. And yet, time and again, the only 'solution' I heard from liberals was to spend more money. It made me angry.
There is no tax policy that better describes how out of touch America's liberals are with the rest of the country than the estate tax. According to the Left, government seizure of a large share of the wealth of an American taxpayer is a moral imperative that serves social justice. Most Americans disagree, big time.
The only threat is a growing pushback from militant liberals who seek to destroy free expression as they look to limit the speech of anyone who has feelings they find objectionable. It makes comics tentative to push boundaries and freely talk about the thoughts in their heads. That part is terrible for development.
Monty Python never directly said, 'We're liberals' - they just did their sketches, and you had to figure it out. Generally, they were anti-establishment, of course, making fun of the people in power. I think, comedians, that's their job - pointing out what other people might not notice and going, 'Yoo-hoo, over here.'
We are concerned with that curious bunch of nonconformists who explain their participation in negative terms: that bunch of do-gooders that goes under all sorts of names - liberals, leftists, etc. These are the people who argue that they are not responsible for white racism and the country's 'inhumanity to the black man.'
Most blacks want school vouchers, but most liberals vehemently oppose them. Why? Because what is good for teachers' unions is of more importance to the Left than what is good for blacks. Who, then, is racist? By their own admission, and by the policies they pursue, the answer is the people who call themselves progressive.
Religious-liberty protections are one way of achieving civil peace even amid disagreement. The United States is a pluralistic society. To protect that pluralism and the rights of all Americans, of whatever faith they may practice, religious-liberty laws are good policy. Liberals committed to tolerance should embrace them.
Liberals tend to be much more concerned about business and corporations as the oppressors. They look to government as the solution. On the Right it's the opposite. They see business as good, as what generates wealth in society, and they see government as the oppressor, which makes it hard for especially small businesspeople.
I remember being in the Ontario Legislature and the Liberals yelling over at me about the fact that the dollar was rising, and that was bad for business, and didn't I realize that. And I thought, 'What are you talking about?' The value of the currency in part, large part, reflects the world's view of the state of our economy.
You know, out-of-touch liberals like Barack Obama say they want a strong economy, but in everything they do, they show they don't like business very much. But the economy, of course, is simply the product of all the businesses of the nation added together. So it's a bit like saying you like an omelet, but you don't like eggs.
I was elected by people voting Labour! The idea that you come to Parliament and the first thing you do is that you're hand in hand with Tories and Liberals - I can't understand it! I came here and I made my mind up that I wasn't going to collaborate with the people I'd fought against in the election. It wasn't a difficult thing.
I expected a lot of flak over my new book, '50 Things Liberals Love to Hate' from, well, liberals. It's not a big shock that the kind of liberals I skewer in the book - the radical, Che Guevara-loving type - have posted scathing reviews at Amazon and written nasty e-mails and voiced opposition to a book they haven't actually read.
Tabloid discussion of bad children always blames baby-boomer liberals, careerist mothers and fashion-crazed Nathan Barley types who think it's all enormously funny. But the centre-leftish psycho-thinker Oliver James says it's all down to the Thatcher-and-after culture of turbo-capitalism, making people acquisitive and unsatisfied.
It would be a very good thing for all involved - the country, an independent judiciary, and the Left itself - if liberals take a page from David von Drehle and their own judges of the New Deal era, kick their addiction to constitutional litigation, and return to their New Deal roots of trying to win elections rather than lawsuits.
Everyone on the Left has a favorite story that allows them to kind of excuse Reagan, explain away Reagan, say he was dumb, but unless we reckon with that kind of emotional intelligence and his ability to kind of speak to the aspirations of the American people, the less liberals are going to be able to understand the soul of his appeal.
I'm going to guess Republicans and Democrats, liberals and conservatives, all want clean air to breathe and clean water to drink. I'm sure most people think women should be paid the same as men if they're doing the same job. I think we all want good schools for our kids. If we made that list, we actually are in agreement on more things.
There is no such thing as a 'right to buy.' Proper conservatives don't believe in invented, taxpayer-subsidised rights, a creation of liberals. They believe in freedom. And the break-up of council estates was one of the most unconservative things that ever happened, making life harder for young families and destroying settled communities.
Many liberals argue that big U.S. companies don't really pay the top corporate rate. While this is sometimes true, it's mainly because, during recessions, companies lose money, and get a tax loss carryforward that temporarily reduces their effective rate. But during economic expansions, when profits rise, companies then do pay the top rate.
Standing athwart ineffective, feel-good legislation shouting, 'Stop!' is seen as a betrayal of those struggling to get their footing on the lowest rung of the economic ladder. Yet raising the minimum wage hacks the lowest rungs off the ladder altogether. But economic logic doesn't wash with liberals who are intent on inflaming class warfare.
Every time the conservatives get in trouble, they start pounding on this ridiculous idea that the liberals want to take their microphones. They want to get Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity off the air. That is a straw man argument throw out by the conservative broadcasters who are so out of material they are going to fear-monger their listeners.
