political

All of us sit here at this conference and feel secure in our belief that we live in an era beyond this kind of_authoritarian regime change; but what sort of political climate do you think could potentially break apart our current stasis and deliver us back in time, so to speak?Thank you, I am gratified there has been so much interest in our little project. Gilead Studies languished for many years, I suppose those who had lived through those times did not want them resurrected for various reasons including what might have been done to them and what they themselves might have done. But at this distance, we can allow ourselves some perspective. It__ fortunate that is the last question as my voice is giving out. As to your question, in times of peace and plenty, it is hard to remember the conditions that have led to authoritarian regime changes in the past. And it is even harder to suppose that we ourselves would ever make such choices or allow them to be made. But when there is a perfect storm and collapse of the established order is in the works precipitated by environmental stresses that lead to food shortages, economic factors such as unrest due to unemployment, a social structure that is top heavy with too much wealth being concentrated among too few, then scapegoats are sought and blamed, fear is rampant, and there is pressure to trade what we think of as liberty for what we think of as safety. And, when the birth rate of any society is low enough to create an aging shrinking population, then commercial and military authorities will become alarmed. Their customer base and their recruitment base will be in jeopardy and there will be extreme pressure on women of childbearing age to make up the population deficit, thus our handmaid and her tale.

The law is too important to be left to the lawyers, to paraphrase Georges Clemenceau about war and generals. We laymen know too little about our Constitution and think too superficially about its influence on the qualities of American life. Civic duty requires more.

When people get used to preferential treatment, equal treatment seems like discrimination.

If women lose the right to say where and how they birth their children, then they will have lost something that's as dear to life as breathing.

And this, this, is their genius. Conservatives are not looking to make education more rigorous and informative, or science more empirical or verifiable, or voting more representative, or the government more efficient or effective. They just want all those things to reinforce their partisan, ideological, conservative viewpoint.

Before the constitution can protect the people it must first protect the person.

Whatever actually happened or was said, McChystal's refusal to defend himself - to give me any ammunition to use on his behalf - made it impossible for me to save his job. But to this day, I believe he was given the bum's rush by Biden, White House staff, and NSS who harbored deep resentment toward his unyielding advocacy the previous fall of counterinsurgency and a huge troop surge in Afghanistan; who interpreted his public comments back than as "boxing in" the president; and who continued to oppose the strategy approved by the president and the way McChrystal was implementing it. I am convinced the "Rolling Stone" article gave the president, egged on by those around him in the White House, and himself distrustful of the senior military, and opportunity he welcomed to demonstrate vividly - to the public and to the Pentagon - that he was commander in chief and fully in control of the military.

England is the most class-ridden country under the sun. It is a land of snobbery and privilege, ruled largely by the old and silly.

...British appeasement of the Palestinian Arabs led directly to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Jews [in the Holocaust] who might otherwise have found refuge in Palestine.

Bernie Saunders is like a fly buzzing around a bowl of rotten fruit. Long hail this fly!

Not because of you. You were perfect. Are perfect. You__e considerate, moral, brave. But you reminded me__e couldn__ finish.I swallowed through a dry throat. __f her.___o._ He blinked. __f me. Who I used to be. Somebody who would stick up for his friends, even if it was risky. Somebody who put other people first. Somebody who_ He let out a helpless laugh. __omebody who screwed up a lot.

While keeping an open mind, beware, politicians will gladly fill it with garbage.

The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected.

Where this lack of passion mattered most for me was Afghanistan. When soldiers put their lives on the line, they need to know that the command in chief who sent them in harm's way believes in their mission. They need him to talk often to them and to the country, not just to express gratitude for their service and sacrifice but also to explain and affirm why that sacrifice is necessary, why their fight is noble, why their cause is just, and why their fight is noble, why their cause is just, and why they must prevail. President Obama never did that. Pg. 298-299

Even on the saddest nightin times of servitudethere is always someone who resiststhere is always someone who says no.

...citizens of the U.S. live under an Empire of __vil doers_ who have set themselves juxtaposed to humanity instilling in us from our youngest days how to slay our human element in exchange for an external existence of malnourished pride.

There are many ways to honor America. This book is mine. I have completed this journey of self-education in the belief that the most terrifying possibility since 9/11 has not been terrorism--as frightening as that is--but the prospect that Americans will give up their rights in pursuing the chimera of security.

The dictatorship is like an aria that never becomes an opera.