Labels: George Will, Hillary Clinton, Joshua Roman, quotes, Vice Presidential Candidates

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man’s oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness."

-John Kenneth Galbraith

Labels: conservatives, philosophy, quotes

This evening I'm flipping through pages of former Majority Leader Bob Dole's book "Great Political Wit: Laughing (Almost) All the Way to the White House." I'm a big fan of quotation books, particularly those with a healthy share of Churchill wit. Dole's book is a light read, and an amusing collection. Each chapter begins with a story or reflection from Leader Dole and continues with a well thought out list of political quotes. Most of these will already be known to a serious fan of political history, but all in all, this is a solid little collection.

One quote that struck me in particular, probably due in part to Brenda Kay's great column on teaching the Bible still going through my head, was a quote by a former U.S. Senate chaplain:

When Edward Everett Hale served as chaplain of the Senate, he was asked, "Do you pray for the Senators, Dr. Hale?"

"No," he said. "I look at the Senators and pray for the country."

Labels: Augur, books, politics, quotes, religion

Constitutions of civil government are not to be framed upon a calculation of existing exigencies, but upon a combination of these with the probable exigencies of ages, according to the natural and tried course of human affairs. Nothing, therefore, can be more fallacious than to infer the extent of any power, proper to be lodged in the national government, from an estimate of its immediate necessities.

~Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 34, 4 January 1788)

Labels: quotes

LBJ is becoming my favorite President a little more every day. Kennedy may have sold us on progressive reform, but Johnson did the heavy lifting. I also miss White House wit. LBJ was hillarious, whether or not he meant to be. I'd like to urge the wikischolars among you to give President Johnson's memory at least a few minutes worth of research. I was reading a collection of Johnson quotes this morning, and I wanted to share a few with the rest of you:

On Women:
I have learned that only two things are necessary to keep one's wife happy. First, let her think she's having her own way. And second, let her have it.

I want to make a policy statement. I am unabashedly in favor of women.

On Loyalty:
I don’t want loyalty. I want loyalty. I want him to kiss my ass in Macy’s window at high noon and tell me it smell like roses. I want his pecker in my pocket. (on hiring a potential assistant)

LBJ's Political Wisdom:
While you're saving your face, you're losing your ass.

You do not examine legislation in the light of the benefits it will convey if properly administered, but in the light of the wrongs it would do and the harms it would cause if improperly administered.

If one morning I walked on top of the water across the Potomac River, the headline that afternoon would read: "President Can't Swim."

Jack was out kissing babies while I was out passing bills. Someone had to tend the store.

Jerry Ford is so dumb that he can't fart and chew gum at the same time.

Why Brenda should love LBJ:
The men who have guided the destiny of the United States have found the strength for their tasks by going to their knees. This private unity of public men and their God is an enduring source of reassurance for the people of America.

LBJ says Tet is doubly worth a damn:
No member of our generation who wasn't a Communist or a dropout in the thirties is worth a damn.

On the American Spirit:
For this is what America is all about. It is the uncrossed desert and the unclimbed ridge. It is the star that is not reached and the harvest that is sleeping in the unplowed ground.

Labels: Augur, God, greatness, history, politics, quotes

Jefferson was against any needless official apparel, but if the gown was to carry, he said:

For Heaven's sake discard the monstrous wig which makes the English judges look like rats peeping through bunches of oakum.

~Thomas Jefferson (commenting on judges' apparel)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, quotes

Let the American youth never forget, that they possess a noble inheritance, bought by the toils, and sufferings, and blood of their ancestors; and capacity, if wisely improved, and faithfully guarded, of transmitting to their latest posterity all the substantial blessings of life, the peaceful enjoyment of liberty, property, religion, and independence.

-- Joseph Story (Commentaries on the Constitution, 1833)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes

Dependence begets subservience and venality, suffocates the germ
of virtue, and prepares fit tools for the designs of ambition.

~Thomas Jefferson (Notes on the State of Virginia, Query XIX,,
1787)


Oh...and...Obama has said maybe.

Labels: 2008, Billy Joe Mills, history, politics, quotes

Just wanted to say Happy Thanksgiving to everyone. I especially want to give Thanks to the loyal visitors and contributors to this blog. I apologize for the recent lack of content, preparation for finals has been killer...but I can assure everyone that Brian and I are committed to keeping this blog going and growing...

Happy Thanksgiving,
Billy Joe Mills

And from old George:

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of
Almighty God, to obey his will, to be grateful for his benefits,
and humbly to implore his protection and favors.

~George Washington (Thanksgiving Proclamation, 3 October 1789)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes

It is the duty of every man to render to the Creator such homage, and such only, as he believes to be acceptable to him. This duty is precedent both in order of time and degree of obligation, to the claims of Civil Society. Before any man can be considered as a member of Civil Society, he must be considered as a subject of the Governor of the Universe.

~James Madison (A Memorial and Remonstrance, 1785)


Madison still your favorite Tom?

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes, religion

As the cool and deliberate sense of the community ought in all governments, and actually will in all free governments ultimately prevail over the views of its rulers; so there are particular moments in public affairs, when the people stimulated by some irregular passion, or some illicit advantage, or misled by the artful misrepresentations of interested men, may call for measures which they themselves will afterwards be the most ready to lament and condemn. In these critical moments, how salutary will be the interference of some temperate and respectable body of citizens, in order to check the misguided career, and to suspend the blow mediated by the people against themselves, until reason, justice and truth, can regain their authority over the public mind?

~James Madison (likely) (Federalist No. 63, 1788)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes, role of government

The bosom of America is open to receive not only the Opulent
and respectable Stranger, but the oppressed and persecuted of all
Nations and Religions; whom we shall welcome to a participation
of all our rights and privileges, if by decency and propriety of
conduct they appear to merit the enjoyment.

~George Washington (Address to the Members of the Volunteer
Association of Ireland, 2 December 1783)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes, race

Honesty will be found on every experiment, to be the best and
only true policy; let us then as a Nation be just.

~George Washington (Circular letter to the States, 14 June 1783)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes

Gentlemen, you will permit me to put on my spectacles, for, I have grown not only gray, but almost blind in the service of my country.

~George Washington (upon fumbling for his glasses before
delivering the Newburgh Address, 15 March 1783)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes

"Laws for the liberal education of the youth, especially of the lower class of the people, are so extremely wise and useful, that, to a humane and generous mind, no expense for this purpose would be thought extravagant."

~John Adams (Thoughts on Government, 1776)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, education, history, quotes

"Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice without constraint."

~Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 15)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes, role of government

It has ever been my hobby-horse to see rising in America an empire of liberty, and a prospect of two or three hundred millions of freemen, without one noble or one king among them. You say it is impossible. If I should agree with you in this, I would still say, let us try the experiment, and preserve our equality as long as we can. A better system of education for the common people might preserve them long from such artificial inequalities as are prejudicial to society, by confounding the natural distinctions of right and wrong, virtue and vice."

~John Adams (letter to Count Sarsfield, 3 February 1786)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, foreign policy, history, quotes

The idea of restraining the legislative authority in the means of providing for the national defense is one of those refinements which owe their origin to a zeal for liberty more ardent than enlightened.

~Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 26)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, foreign policy, history, quotes, role of government

The great desideratum in Government is, so to modify the sovereignty as that it may be sufficiently neutral between different parts of the Society to controul one part from invading the rights of another, and at the same time sufficiently controuled itself, from setting up an interest adverse to that of the entire Society.

~James Madison (letter to Thomas Jefferson, 24 October 1787)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, history, quotes, role of government

"The invasion of private rights is chiefly to be apprehended, not from acts of Government contrary to the sense of its constituents, but from acts in which the Government is the mere instrument of the major number of the Constituents."

~James Madison (letter to Thomas Jefferson, 17 October 1788)

Labels: Billy Joe Mills, foreign policy, history, quotes, role of government