"Most wars are started by well-fed people with time on their hands to dream up half-baked 
ideologies or grandiose ambitions, and to nurse real or imagined grievances."

"If you have ever seen a four-year-old trying to lord it over a two-year-old, then you know what 
the basic problem of human nature is and why government keeps growing larger and ever more 
intrusive."

"We are... living in a free society without the faith that built that society - and without the 
conviction and dedication needed to sustain it... We still have the cathedral of freedom but how
long will it last without the faith?"

"Freedom... refer[s] to a social relationship among people -- namely,the absence of force as a 
prospective instrument of decision making. Freedom is reduced whenever a decision is made under 
threat of force, whether or not force actually materializes or is evident in retrospect."

"Any judicial nominee who has said that the Constitution means what it says, not what judges 
would like it to mean, is going to be called an 'extremist.' That person will be said to be 'out 
of the mainstream.' But the mainstream is itself the problem."

"Someone once said that the most important knowledge is knowledge of our own ignorance. Our 
schools are depriving millions of students of that kind of knowledge by promoting "self-esteem" 
and encouraging them to have opinions on things of which they are grossly ignorant, if not 
misinformed."

"I have long suspected that there is a part of the male brain -- perhaps most of it -- which 
automatically shuts off at the sight of a good-looking woman."

"What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the 
human race."

"Compassion is the use of public funds to buy votes." 

"We enjoy freedom and the rule of law on which it depends, not because we deserve it, but because 
others before us put their lives on the line to defend it." 

"Those who wrote the Constitution clearly understood that power is dangerous and needs to be 
limited by being separated -- separated not only into the three branches of the national 
government but also separated as between the whole national government, on the one hand, and the 
states and the people on the other."

"To include freedom in the very definition of democracy is to define a process not by its actual 
characteristics as a process but by its hoped for results. This is not only intellectually invalid,
it is, in practical terms, blinding oneself in advance to some of the unwanted consequences of the 
process."

"Anything that is 'bipartisan' is almost certain to have mushy reasoning, if it has any reasoning at all."

"Socialism in general has a record of failure so blatant that only an intellectual could ignore or evade it."

"The first rule of economics is that there is an infinite number of desires chasing a finite number of goods, services and resources. The first rule of politics is to ignore the first rule of economics."

"Politicians are seldom willing to solve any problem by simply stopping what they have been doing to create the problem. Instead, they come up with new programs that ignore the real cause."

"In their various guises, courses on ethics at all educational levels have tended to promote moral relativism, undermining the very concept of right and wrong.  In other words, many ethics courses are themselves frauds.  Right and wrong are not rocket science."

 "When politicians promise to give you something, just remember that the only money they have is what they take from the people. If you want someone to pick your pockets and then give you a handout, there are plenty of politicians around who will do that for you.  In fact, a lot of politicians have been around a long time just by using such tactics.  Above all, never assume that political phrases actually mean what they say or imply. Rent control does not control rents, gun control does not control guns, and the Indian Child Welfare Act disregards the welfare of Indian children with unbelievable callousness."
 
"Jimmy Carter has long been a favorite of those abroad who are anti-American, and a case could even be made that he was the first anti-American president."

"What "multiculturalism" boils down to is that you can praise any culture in the world except Western culture -- and you cannot blame any culture in the world except Western culture."

"Lunches don't get free just because you don't see the prices on the menu. And economists don't get popular by reminding people of that."

"The dominant orthodoxy in development economics was that Third World countries were trapped in a vicious cycle of poverty that could be broken only by massive foreign aid from the more prosperous industrial nations of the world.  This was in keeping with a more general vision on the Left that people were essentially divided into three categories -- the heartless, the helpless, and wonderful people like themselves, who would rescue the helpless by playing Lady Bountiful with the taxpayers' money."

"Some full professors could more accurately be described as empty professors."

"Liberals seem to assume that, if you don't believe in their particular political solutions, then you don't really care about the people that they claim to want to help."

"If you talk to yourself, at least carry a cell phone, so that people won't think you are crazy."

"Facts do not "speak for themselves." They speak for or against competing theories. Facts divorced from theories or visions are mere isolated curiosities."

"When you lose your national memory, you risk losing what you need for understanding your own time -- and you risk losing the future as well as the past."

"The first lesson of economics is scarcity: There is never enough of anything to satisfy all those who want it. The first lesson of politics is to disregard the first lesson of economics."

"One of the sad signs of our times is that we have demonized those who produce, subsidized those who refuse to produce, and canonized those who complain."

"The welfare state is the oldest con game in the world. First you take the people's money quietly and then you give some of it back to them flamboyantly." 5/11/98

"Nor do Americans need to go to the brink of civil war before repealing a policy (affirmative action) that has produced polarization and intergroup violence in other countries, including even civil war in Sri Lanka."

Forbes Magazine, April 10, 1995

"Those who say that all cultures are equal never explain why the results of those cultures are so grossly unequal. When some cultures have achieved much greater prosperity, better health, longer life, more advanced technology, more stable government, and greater personal safety than others, has all this been just coincidence? Moreover, people from other cultures are constantly migrating to these cultures, which fashionable dogmas say are no better than any other."

"Policies are judged by their consequences, but crusades are judged by how good they make the crusaders feel."

"The anointed don't like to talk about painful trade-offs. They like to talk about happy "solutions" that get rid of the whole problem - at least in their imagination."

"Too much of what is called "education" is little more than an expensive isolation from reality."

"People who have time on their hands will inevitably waste the time of people who have work to do."

"Envy plus rhetoric equals "social justice.""

"Private property, not democracy, is the great guarantor of prosperity and liberty. And because it decentralizes power, it safeguards us from madmen with utopian hallucinations."

"The question is not what anybody deserves. The question is who is to take on the God-like role of deciding what everybody else deserves. You can talk about 'social justice' all you want. But what death taxes boil down to is letting politicians take money from widows and orphans to pay for goodies that they will hand out to others, in order to buy votes to get re-elected. That is not social justice or any other kind of justice."

"When 'the brightest and the best' take over making decisions for other people, usually through the power of government, those decisions are likely to be based on less knowledge, experience and understanding than when ordinary people make their own individual decisions for themselves. The anointed may know more than the average person, but far less than all the ordinary people put together. ...Where the desire for equality turns from a quixotic hope to a dangerous gamble is in politics. To create even the semblance of equality requires a concentration of power in the hands of political leaders. And, as the history of the 20th century has shown repeatedly and tragically, in countries around the world, once concentrated power is put into the hands of political leaders, they can use it for whatever purpose they have in mind -- regardless of what others had in mind when they granted them that power. Becoming the pawns of politicians is a high price to pay for letting demagogues stir up our envy and beguile us with promises to equalize."

"One of the peculiarities of the American Revolution was that its leaders pinned their hopes on the organization of decision-making units, the structuring of their incentives, and the counterbalancing of the units against one another, rather than on the more usual(and more exciting) principle of substituting "the good guys" for "the bad guys.""

"Largely unknown to the public, the whole notion of education has been radically transformed over the years, so that it no longer means conveying the accumulated knowledge and understanding of a civilization, but shaping children's psyches and indoctrinating their minds with politically correct ideologies. Not only are there individual education gurus and ideological movements which promote the intrusion of such activities into the schools, the educators themselves are apostles of this new mission and the nationwide teachers' union -- the National Education Association -- is pushing the same agenda."

"Because of the neglect of history in our educational system, most people have no idea how many of the great American fortunes were created by people who were born and raised in worse poverty than the average welfare-recipient today."

"It is fascinating to watch glib "consumer advocates" on television trying to spin the California electricity crisis as a conspiracy to "profiteer" by the public utilities -- which have gone billions of dollars into debt. You don't need a conspiracy to go broke but you also don't need to know what you are talking about to be a "consumer advocate."

"The most basic question is not what is best but who shall decide what is best."

"Whenever someone suggests cutting taxes, liberals like Al Gore call it 'a risky scheme.' In other words, it is risky to let people keep more of the money they worked for, but it is not risky to turn it over to politicians in Washington."

"Sound bites are usually very unsound."

"How are we better off if more people who don't even care enough to become informed about the serious issues show up at the polls to make choices by guess and by golly? That is putting form over substance. It is also putting enormous power in the hands of political demagogues who exploit the voters' ignorance to gain power for themselves."

"Some people in the media judge a Congress by how much legislation it passes. But we already have too many laws. Some future Congress can make a major contribution to this country by spending its time repealing legislation and impeaching federal judges who legislate from the bench."

"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive."

"'Fair' is one of the most dangerous concepts in politics. Since no two people are likely to agree on what is 'fair,' this means that there must be some third party with power -- the government -- to impose its will. The road to despotism is paved with 'fairness'."

"If the government of the United States is going to be run like the mafia or a Third World despotism, what does our freedom amount to?"

"Our national problems usually do not cause nearly as much harm as the solutions."

"The idea that there is no such thing as truth has gotten very fashionable in some quarters. It is now called 'my truth' or 'your truth' or somebody else's truth. But truth loses its meaning if it becomes private property. The whole point of truth is that it enables one person to rely on what someone else says. Behind all this evasion of reality is the simple fact that some people have constructed a vision of the world in their mind which differs greatly from the real world. And they cannot bring themselves to give up that vision. Nor will they allow others to shatter their vision with facts. The real question is: Why do we take them seriously? Are we so easily impressed or intimidated by their airs of superiority?"

"If you are not prepared to use force to defend civilization, then be prepared to accept barbarism."

"The strongest argument for socialism is that it sounds good. The strongest argument against socialism is that it doesn't work. But those who live by words will always have a soft spot in their hearts for socialism because it sounds so good."

"Whatever you may think about the death penalty, it has the lowest recidivism rate of any of the ways of fighting crime."

"We are privileged to live in a time when we could see the greatest tennis player of all time, the greatest golfer of all time and the greatest basketball player of all time. On the other hand, we could also see the worst president of all time, so perhaps it all evens out."

"An item in the Chronicle of Higher Education shows how far academia has strayed from reality as a result of radical feminist dogma. It says: "Long silenced by our culture, female adolescents are now letting readers in on their inner lives in a number of recent books." Have you ever known teenage girls to be silenced? The radical feminist movement is a monument to what can be achieved by sheer brass, ruthless intimidation and shameless lies."

Every field has its own special words and expressions, which others find hard to understand. Politics is no exception. For those who have difficulty understanding the strange way words are used by politicians and the media, here is a glossary translating political rhetoric into plain English:

"crisis": any situation you want to change

"bilingual": unable to speak English

"equal opportunity": preferential treatment

"non-judgmental": blaming society

"compassion": the use of tax money to buy votes

"insensitivity": objections to the use of tax money to buy votes

"simplistic": an argument you disagree with but can't answer

"rehabilitation": magic word said before releasing criminals

"demonstration": a riot by people you agree with

"mob violence": a riot by people you disagree with

"a matter of principle": a political controversy involving the convictions of liberals

"an emotional issue": a political controversy involving the convictions of conservatives

"funding": money from the government

"commitment": more money from the government

"docu-drama": a work of fiction about famous people

"autobiography": a work of fiction about yourself

"federal budget": a work of fiction about government spending

"people's republic": a place where you do what you are told or get shot

"national liberation movements": organizations trying to create people's republics

"policy research": looking for statistics to support the position you have already taken

"stereotypes": behavior patterns you don't want to think about

"Reaganomics": media explanation of downturns in the economy

"robust economy": media explanation of upturns in the economy

"constitutional interpretation": judges reading their own political views into the Constitution

"politicizing the courts": criticizing judges for reading their own political views into the Constitution

"a proud people": chauvinists you like

"bigots": chauvinists you don't like

"private greed": making money selling people what they want

"public service": gaining power to make people do what you want them to

"innovation": something new

"new innovation": something new by someone who doesn't understand English

"competency": competence, as described by the incompetent

"moderate Arabs": mythical beings to whom State Department officials make sacrificial offerings

"special interest lobby": politically organized conservatives

"public interest group": politically organized liberals

"accountability": holding teachers, public officials, and private businesses responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds

"chilling effect": holding journalists responsible for the consequences of their misdeeds