Alexis de Tocqueville on the American work ethic

In the United States, as soon as a man has acquired some education and pecuniary resources, he either endeavors to get rich by commerce or industry, or he buys land in the bush and turns pioneer. All that he asks of the state is, not to be disturbed in his toil, and to be secure of his earnings.

~ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America (1835)

Hardships of Emigration
1898

 

Daniel McCarthy on mixing beauty and politics and the McCain-Palin ticket

Well, if you must vote, other things being equal, cast your ballot for the most repellent politician available. Let’s have more stumpy, squinty, sausage-fingered Denny Hasterts and Bella Abzugs. Inner beauty and outer beauty don’t always accord, but let’s do our best to see to it that they do in politics. There shouldn’t be anything glamorous about the class that inflates away our currency and stirs up hornets’ nests around the world. It probably is no coincidence that the more presentable our blow-dried pols have become the more complacent the public has grown.

Which is why Sarah Palin may actually be worse than her superannuated running-mate. No one has shown any substantial policy differences between the two of them. But whereas McCain is cranky, stale, and cadaverous, Palin puts a sweet seductive smile on executive aggrandizement and perpetual war. She’s a spoonful of sugar to mask the bitter taste of strychnine. But, make no mistake, that’s what a John McCain presidency will be – lethal poison for what’s left of our republic.

~ Daniel McCarthy, "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice? ," LewRockwell.com, September 3, 2008

Daniel McCarthy on politics

[P]olitics is never new – it is always organized expropriation justified with a nimbus of sanctimony. Save the children! The poor! Africans! Poor African Children! In practice, of course, it always means taking money out of your pocket to bomb somebody in a faraway country that has never posed a threat to you.

~ Daniel McCarthy, "Sugar and Spice and Everything Nice? ," LewRockwell.com, September 3, 2008

Sara Palin on the Iraq War

Pray for our military men and women who are striving to do what is right. Also, for this country, that our leaders, our national leaders, are sending [U.S. soldiers] out on a task that is from God. That's what we have to make sure that we're praying for, that there is a plan and that that plan is God's plan.

~ Sarah Palin , Governor of Alaska, June 8, 2008, speech before her congregation at Wasilla Assembly of God

(Source: "Palin's Church May Have Shaped Worldview," The Huffington Post, September 2, 2008)

James Buchanan on special interest group politics

We have learned to understand interest-group politics; we no longer have a romantic vision as to how the state operates.

~ James Buchanan, The Annual John Bonython Lecture (March 27, 1990)

Stan Evans on conservatives

Conservatives come to Washington knowing it's a sewer. Trouble is, most of them wind up treating it like a hot tub.

~ Stan Evans, American journalist, writing about Reagan Republicans who came to Washington in the 1980s

Anonymous: Is Ron Paul an isolationist?

To call Ron Paul an isolationist is like saying I’m isolating myself if I don’t go and heave a brick through my neighbor’s window.

~ Anonymous comment, "Ron Paul says GOP is making it hard for me to attend," Statesman.com, September 2, 2008