www.sixfingeredman.net
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politics

An automobile is a horrible solution to the problem of getting from
point A to point B. There is no need to expend tens of thousands of
joules of energy of a finite resource and put your life at risk just
to move a 8lb container of milk the 1 mile from the store to your
home.
	-- /. AC

"They who have put out the people's eyes, reproach them of their blindness."
	-- John Milton

... in all but the most dedicatedly repressive hegemonies, if in a
sizable population there are one hundred rebels, all of whom are then
rounded up and killed, the number of rebels present at the end of the
day is not zero, and not even one hundred, but two hundred or three
hundred or more; an equation based on human nature which seems often
to baffle the military and political mind.
	-- Iain M. Banks, A Few Notes on the Culture

I was told when I was at MIT back in the late 1970's that Boston's charge of
$0.25 to ride the subway was not enough to pay for the people who collected
those quarters, and that the taxpayers would save money if they didn't charge
the fee.  But that taxpayers like to see money coming from people who use
government services.
	-- Kent M. Pitman, <uis4zf08n.fsf@nhplace.com>

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't
chew it.
	-- Mark Twain

I reject Libertarianism, Liberalism, Socialism, Communism, Conservatism,
Fascism, and every other politicial perspective as a whole and complete view of
the world. But I accept, completely, that each and every single one of those
ideologies must have got something right, or they would have died out.
	-- k5 jd, http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2003/12/27/173837/60/266#266

Legitimacy is something that is conferred not just by a majority of the voters,
however.
	-- Bush administration, on Chavez-Venezuelan scandal

Freedom of speech is undemocratic, if a democratic government is unable to
override it.  Freedom from double jeopardy is undemocratic, if a democratic
government is unable to override it. Not all that glistens is gold.
	-- k5 Apuleius

On "one nation under God":
"As should be obvious ... by 'God' I mean whatever holy creator figure you
believe in, not just God. Just like when I say 'white folk' I mean all kindly,
law-abiding people, not just white folk."
	-- k5 Misery Loves Chachi

On the War on Terrorism:
"It's like declaring a 'war on crime' and then claiming every (accused) thief
is an 'enemy combatant'."
	-- k5 Hizonner, http://www.kuro5hin.org/comments/2002/6/10/123041/646/52

Everybody knows bleeping is a crock. You can't say "Shit, I almost hurt
myself," but you can say, "Your breasts are fantastic and make me want to cut
off my infant daughter's head."
	-- k5 Jman1

When I become dictator I'm going to hire 100,000 clowns to go around slapping
stupid people. No censorship. Just clowns.
	-- k5 opendna

"In Italy for thirty years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder
and bloodshed but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the
Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly love; they had five hundred
years of democracy and peace and what did they produce? The cuckoo clock."            
	-- Orson Welles

People are almost convinced that we have some kind of obligation to ensure that
corporations make money.
	-- k5 CaptainSuperBoy

It seems to me that the attempt to carve out national boundaries based on
ethnic/cultural/religious grounds leads to widespread suffering more often than
not.
	-- k5 lee_malatesta

Now just imagine the mess the Romany would make of India if they decided to
follow the Zionists' example.
	-- k5 ragnarok

"If it is true, as Emery Simon of the Business Software Alliance asserted in
his remarks, that those of us who believe that the DMCA and similar provisions
are unconstitutional, anti-liberty and anti-free speech are 'close-minded,'
well, I can live with that.  Because I don't want to be so open-minded that my
brain falls out."
	-- Mike Godwin

"...Pulling together is the aim of despotism and tyranny. Free men pull in all
kinds of directions. It's the only way to make progress."
	-- Terry Pratchett

"I, the undersigned, do hereby notify the public that I claim all the air and
space above my house. Trespassing airplanes and birds whose owners have not
paid for the right of transit will be shot down by one of two Exocet missiles
that are also on my property."
	-- Herman Daly

"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people
will find a way around the laws."
	- Plato

The standard way of dealing with the tradegy of the commons, is by making laws.
A law, in this sense, is a statement that I will do something beneficial for
the group (or, more often, refrain from doing something harmful), if I am sure
that everyone else will act the same way. 
	-- k5 cyberdruid

"Democracy is based on the assumption that a million men are wiser than one
man. How's that again? I missed something." 
	--Lazarus Long

"Anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no
account be allowed to do the job."
	-- Douglas Adams, _The Restaurant at the End of the Universe_

Government lies, and newspapers lie, but in a democracy they are different lies.

What we have in America is a legal system, not a justice system.

"The national budget must be balanced. The public debt must be reduced; the
arrogance of the authorities must be moderated and controlled. Payments to
foreign governments must be reduced, if the nation doesn't want to go bankrupt.
People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance."
	-- Marcus Tullius Cicero, 55 B.C.

"We have a criminal jury system which is superior to any in the world; and its
efficiency is only marred by the difficulty of finding twelve men every day who
don't know anything and can't read."
	-- Mark Twain 

"I do know I'm ready for the job. And, if not, that's just the way it goes."
	-- G. W. Bush 8/21/2000 

"I owe the government $3400 in taxes.  So I sent them two hammers and a toilet
seat."
	-- Michael McShane

"What is needed, of course, is a return to the 'prudent person' standard in
American law, rather than the 'biggest damned drunken idiot' standard we now
enjoy."
	-- tog

"Look Lois, the two symbols of the Republican Party: an elephant, and a fat
white guy who is threatened by change."

"You can't sit around waiting for the revolution and doing all kinds of
contemptible shit in the meantime."
	-- James Herndon, _How to Survive in Your Native Land_