Niccolo Machiavelli concluded: "…there is nothing more difficult to carry out, nor more doubtful of success, nor more dangerous to handle, than to initiate a new order of things.  For the reformer has enemies in all those who profit by the old order, and only lukewarm defenders in all those who would profit by the new order"

Its not that I mind your dishonesty so much, its that you think I'm stupid - It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

Suppose you were an idiot.  And suppose you were a member of Congress.  But I repeat myself.  Mark Twain

No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session. Mark Twain (1866)

The only difference between a taxman and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. Mark Twain

There is no distinctly native American criminal class save Congress. Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. Edward Langley, Artist 1928-1995

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.  (And, when I watch the changing demographics, it is clear I am the sheep in this equation.) James Bovard, Civil Libertarian

Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.  Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown U.

I don't make jokes.  I just watch the government and report the facts.  Will Rogers

If you want government to intervene domestically, you're a liberal.  If you want government to intervene overseas, you're a conservative.  If you want government to intervene everywhere, you're a moderate.  If you don't want government to intervene anywhere, you're an extremist.  Joseph Sobran, Former Editor of the National Review

There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please.  And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences. P.J. O'Rourke (1993)

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you. Pericles (430 B.C.)

Talk is cheap-except when Congress does it. (Unknown)

Capitalism's inherent vice is the unequal sharing of the blessings.  Socialism's inherent blessing is the equal sharing of misery. Winston Churchill

The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

Harry G. Frankfurt, On Bullshit
"One of the most salient features of our culture is that there is so much bullshit," Harry G. Frankfurt writes, in what must surely be the most eyebrow-raising opener in modern philosophical prose. "Everyone knows this. Each of us contributes his share. But we tend to take the situation for granted." This compact little book, as pungent as the phenomenon it explores, attempts to articulate a theory of this contemporary scourge--what it is, what it does, and why there's so much of it. The result is entertaining and enlightening in almost equal measure. It can't be denied; part of the book's charm is the puerile pleasure of reading classic academic discourse punctuated at regular intervals by the word "bullshit." More pertinent is Frankfurt's focus on intentions--the practice of bullshit, rather than its end result.

"Bullshitting, as he notes, is not exactly lying, and bullshit remains bullshit whether it's true or false. The difference lies in the bullshitter's complete disregard for whether what he's saying corresponds to facts in the physical world: he "does not reject the authority of the truth, as the liar does, and oppose himself to it. He pays no attention to it at all. By virtue of this, bullshit is a greater enemy of the truth than lies are."

This may sound all too familiar to those of use who still live in the "reality-based community" and must deal with a world convulsed by those who do not. But Frankfurt leaves such political implications to his readers. Instead, he points to one source of bullshit's unprecedented expansion in recent years, the postmodern skepticism of objective truth in favor of sincerity, or as he defines it, staying true to subjective experience. But what makes us think that anything in our nature is more stable or inherent than what lies outside it? Thus, Frankfurt concludes, with an observation as tiny and perfect as the rest of this exquisite book, "sincerity itself is bullshit." --Mary Park

Propaganda

What occurs to me in reading their book is that the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name.  It isn't just propaganda any more, it's 'prop-agenda'.  It's not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about.  When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it's the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone's talking about.  And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false 'intelligence' and selected 'leaks'. 
Brian Eno on Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber's "Weapons of Mass Deception"

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