Quotes

"Fascism and communism both promise "social welfare," "social justice," and "fairness" to justify authoritarian means and extensive arbitrary and discretionary governmental powers." - F. A. Hayek"

"Life is a Bungling process and in no way educational." in James M. Cain

Jean Giraudoux who first said, “Only the mediocre are always at their best.”

If you have ten thousand regulations, you destroy all respect for the law. Sir Winston Churchill

"summum ius summa iniuria" ("More laws, more injustice.") Cicero

As Christopher Hitchens once put it, “The essence of tyranny is not iron law; it is capricious law.”

"Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it." Ronald Reagan

"Law is where you buy it." Raymond Chandler

"Why did God make so many damn fools and Democrats?" Clarence Day

"If I feel like feeding squirrels to the nuts, this is the place for it." - Cluny Brown

"Oh, pshaw! When yu' can't have what you choose, yu' just choose what you have." Owen Wister "The Virginian"

Oscar Wilde said about the death scene in Little Nell, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

Thomas More's definition of government as "a conspiracy of rich men procuring their own commodities under the name and title of a commonwealth.” ~ Winston S. Churchill, A History of the English Speaking Peoples

“Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” ~ Jonathon Swift

Saturday, January 8, 2011

Mr. Speaker, this is the Congress of the United States of America, not a twelve-step program for compulsive tanners.

Not said better:

Radio Derb Transcript 1/7/11
John Derbyshire

And since no-one else has said the following thing, I'll say it. Boehner's repeated displays of public blubbing are unsightly, undignified, and unmanly. What on earth must the world think, seeing a grown man sniveling and dabbing his eyes on becoming Speaker — third in the chain of command under the President and Vice-President? For crying out loud, Mr. Speaker … no, as you were: for goodness' sake, Mr. Speaker, this is the Congress of the United States of America, not a twelve-step program for compulsive tanners. Show a little Republican gravitas, dammit.

The sheer embarrassing unsightliness of the thing aside, all this weeping betrays a poorly developed sense of proportion. If you burst into tears when Nancy Pelosi hands you the Speaker's gavel, what do you have left when our enemies nuke Indianapolis, or the dollar is trading at par with the Laotian kip, or your wife leaves you or the doctor tells you you have terminal cancer?

That is the essence of sentimentality — lavishing more emotion on a thing than it deserves; and sentimentality has been acknowledged by all serious thinkers to be a species of folly. Dostoyevsky went further, identifying sentimentality with evil.

Folly will do for now, though. Watching John Boehner working his hanky, I found it hard to avoid the thought that we have a fool for House Speaker. Well, it wouldn't be the first time. By any means.

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