Politics in the eyes of western politicians and intellectuals

"Politicians are predisposed not to see spending Other People’s Money as a problem, because spending Other People’s Money is what politicians do for a living.  If politicians thought there were something wrong with it, they would be in a different line of work.       "If, by some epiphany, a politician were to realize that spending Other People’s Money iswrecking our health care sector, he would be loath to point it out.  Doing so would only encourage voters to question whether spending Other People’s Money causes problems everywhere else too."  -- Michael F. Cannon, HERE

"Under every stone lurks a politician." -- AristophanesOBSERVATIONS  ON  POLITICIANS

>>> "To err is human, but it takes a politician to really screw things up." -- Old American Adage <<<

"To err is human, but it takes a politician to really screw things up." -- Schopenhauer .

Ernest Benn:	"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it whether it exists or not, diagnosing it incorrectly, and applying the wrong remedy."
Groucho Marx:	"Those are my principles.  If you don't like them, I have others."
P.J. O'Rourke:	"Giving money and power to the government is like giving car keys and whisky to teenage boys." "When politics are used to allocate resources, the resources all end up being allocated to politics." "Politics is the business of getting power and privilege without possessing merit.  A politician is anyone who asks individuals to surrender part of their liberty -- their power and privilege -- to State, Masses, Mankind, Planet Earth, or whatever.  This state, those masses, that mankind, and the planet will then be run by ... politicians." "God has no role to play in politics except to make sure politicians go where they belong.  To hell.""Politicians are interested in people.  Not that this is always a virtue.  Fleas are interested in dogs."
Judge Gideon J. Tucker, 1866:	"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."
Will Rogers:	"This country has come to feel the same when congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer." "It is awful hard to get people interested in corruption unless they can get some of it." "The more you read and observe about this Politics thing, you got to admit that each party is worse than the other.  The one that's out always looks the best." "A politician is just like a pickpocket; it's almost impossible to get him to reform."
Joseph Sobran:	"The difference between a politician and a pickpocket is that a pickpocket doesn't always get indignant when you tell him to keep his hands to himself."  "Politicians never accuse you of  'greed' for wanting other people's money -- only for wanting to keep your own money."
Davy Crockett:	"There ain't no ticks like poly-ticks.  Bloodsuckers all."
H. L. Mencken:	"If a politician found he had cannibals among his constituents, he would promise them missionaries for dinner." "Looking for an honest politician is like looking for an ethical burglar."
Mark Twain:	"There is no distinctly native American criminal class except Congress." "We have the best congress money can buy." "Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself."
Henry Cate VII:	"The problem with political jokes is they get elected."
Thomas Sowell:	"There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse." "There is nothing that politicians like better than handing out benefits to be paid for by someone else." "In politics, the truth is strictly optional and that also seems to be true in parts of the media." "You have to have a sense of humor if you follow politics. Otherwise, the sheer fraudulence of it all will get you down." "What is history but the story of how politicians have squandered the blood and treasure of the human race?" "If politicians stopped meddling with things they didn’t understand, there would be a more drastic reduction in the size of government than anyone in either party advocates." "Congressman Frank and Senator Dodd wanted the government to push financial institutions to lend to people they would not lend to otherwise, because of the risk of default. ... The idea that politicians can assess risks better than people who have spent their whole careers assessing risks should have been so obviously absurd that no one would take it seriously."
Charles Dudley Warner, My Summer in a Garden, 1870	"Politics makes strange bedfellows."
Charles Peacock:	"I'm a politician, and as a politician I have the prerogative to lie whenever I want."
Charles De Gaulle:	"Since a politician never believes what he says, he is quite surprised to be taken at his word."
Charley Reese 10/20/99:	"Experience to a politician is like experience to a prostitute -- not much to recommend them."
Ronald Reagan:	"Politics is supposed to be the second oldest profession.  I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first."
Steve Chapman 7/14/05:	"Politicians may think prostitution is a grim, degrading life. But prostitutes think the same of politics."
Neal Boortz:	"If there were any people safe to criticize, they'd be politicians and child molesters, doncha think?"
Rick Gaber:	"The politician is a type of creature known for its propensity to lie, exaggerate, embellish, and use all kinds of hysterical or bombastic attention-getting."
William F. Buckley, Jr.:	"No one since the Garden of Eden -- which the serpent forsook in order to run for higher office -- has imputed to politicians great purity of motive."
Drew Carey:	"Isn't it amazing that the Germans call their city halls 'rat houses'?  That's what we should call our city halls!"
Dave Barry:	"A child can go only so far in life without potty training.  It is not mere coincidence that six of the last seven presidents were potty trained, not to mention nearly half of the nation's state legislators."
Gerald Warner:	"We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail."
Milton Friedman:	“If you really want to engage in policy activity, don’t make that your vocation.  Make it your avocation.  Get a job.  Get a secure base of income.  Otherwise, you’re going to get corrupted and destroyed.”
G. K. Chesterton:	"It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged."

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"How do you know when a politician is lying?  His lips are moving." -- Favorite Old Joke"Politicians are, by nature, liars." -- Dale Amon "The politicians should not tell the people to shut up." -- John Stossel "It is truly a triumph of rhetoric over reality when people can believe that going into politics is 'public service,' but that producing food, shelter, transportation, or medical care is not." -- Thomas Sowell "No wonder politicians love government schools.  Where do you think the dumb masses come from that can be so easily led and manipulated?" -- Neal Boortz "In medicine, it has long been recognized that even a quack remedy that is harmless in itself can be fatal when it substitutes for an effective medication or treatment. The time is overdue for that same recognition to apply to politics." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell "Scratch the surface of an endemic problem -- famine, illness, poverty -- and you invariably find a politician at the source." -- Simon Carr, in his review of The Mystery of Capital by Hernando de Soto "You can bet the rent money that whatever politicians do will end up harming consumers. ... Economic ignorance is to politicians what idle hands are to the devil.  Both provide the workshop for the creation of evil." -- Walter E. Williams "One Blue Dog Democratic House Member reminded me earlier this month of the saying that 'insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.' He wondered if his fellow Members weren't more in need of advice from psychiatrists than from economists at this point." -- John Fund "A famous French economist by the name of Frederic Bastiat once suggested that when social policies turn out to be harmful to the citizenry, it is because politicians often react to economic problems that they can see, without any regard for the unforeseen consequences of their solutions to those problems." -- Jack Chambless"Politicians love visible beneficiaries and invisible victims." -- Dr. Walter Williams on WABC-AM 10-31-03 "Politicians, like bombers, seldom see their victims..." -- Donald Boudreaux, in his article, "Losing Touch". located HERE.   In all fairness, Dr. Boudreaux also says, "Friends of liberty do their cause no favors by exaggerating the moral shortcomings of politicians or by portraying them as inherently stupid, fiendish, or sinister."  "Okay then, how about misguided, careless, amoral, desperate or blind?" -- Dan Jergens "Politicians are notoriously economically illiterate*.  And even when they know what would be the right thing, we don't  really expect them to do it." -- Harry Browne "Every time a politician says "a job was created!!!" by government spending, you know damn well at least TWO jobs (if not a lot more) were NOT created in the private sector as a result.  Google "THE BROKEN WINDOW FALLACY." -- Bert Rand "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon it adds up to real money." -- the late Senator Everett M. Dirksen, "TheWizard of Ooze" "Bad policies, stupid policies, gutless policies have real consequences." -- Molly Ivins "People who seek political power are, with exceptions too rare to matter, never to be trusted; at best, such people are vain and officious busybodies.  People who actually achieve political power are to be trusted even less than those who seek it without success; winning elections requires a measure of deceitfulness and Machiavellian immorality that no decent person comes close to possessing." -- Donald Boudreaux "The personal qualities necessary for attaining office are practically the opposite of those demanded by the office itself.  The trouble with the damn system is that it selects for the skills needed to get elected, and nothing else.  A test that you can only pass by cheating can't possibly select honest people." -- James P. Hogan "Our current political system ensures not that the worst will get on top -- though they often do -- but that the best will never even apply." -- Paul Jacob "The high-minded definition of politics is: 'the art or science of government; the art or science concerned with guiding or influencing governmental policy.'  It is only when you keep reading in Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary that you get closer to the truth: 'political activities characterized by artful and often dishonest practices'." -- Cal Thomas "If ... we are dishonest for ratings -- then we become what we hate -- politicians!" -- Sean Hannity to Neal Boortz, 3-28-05 "The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me.  They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office." -- H.L. Mencken "It's always amusing to see how much less the political class knows than the rest of us do. ... it's never occurred to [the likes of Senators Brownback and Obama] that they bear a worse stigma than any AIDS patient, being almost universally regarded as blowhards, crooks, dopes, and fools." -- Stephen Cox, Liberty, February 2007 "Washington has a mysterious power to turn perfectly reasonable, wholesome, well-meaning human beings into equivocating crooked gasbags." -- David Harsanyi "[Political] offices are as acceptable here as elsewhere, and whenever a man casts a longing eye on them, a rottenness begins in his conduct." -- Thomas Jefferson, 1799 "Nothing brings out the lower traits of human nature like office seeking." -- Rutherford B. Hayes, 1878 "You cannot adopt politics as a profession and remain honest." -- Ambrose Bierce "Politics was never meant to be a profession." -- Duane Alan Hahn - Politicians sold 'protection'  Blackmail was the game  Plunder was made legal!  Yet, it's the moral men we blame! - "A Poem by Richard Grant" "Politicians, like diapers, should be changed often (and for the same reasons)." -- Smilemakers"Serving in Congress is like having a second shot at high school." -- Rep. Barney Frank "This Congress is out of control and in desperate need of adult supervision." -- Rep. Jeff Flake "Three groups spend other people's money: children, thieves, politicians. All three need supervision." -- Dick Armey "Politicians are leaches, mostly." -- Prof. Tibor R. Machan "The United States was supposed to have a limited government because the founders knew political power attracts swarms of crooks, demagogues and despots as surely as horse manure attracts swarms of horseflies." -- Rick Gaber "Force always attracts men of low morality." -- Albert Einstein "Demagogue: One who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots." -- H.L. Mencken "Getting a lecture on morality from a politician is like getting a lecture on chastity from a whore." -- Perry de Havilland "‘Politics’ comes from the Greek ‘poly’ meaning ‘many’ and ‘ticks’, which are blood-sucking parasites." -- Andre Marrou and Rep. Davy Crockett "The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power." -- Harry Browne "The problem isn't the abuse of power; it's the power to abuse." -- Michael Cloud "Give politicians power and it certainly will be abused eventually -- if not by today's politicians, then by their successors." -- Harry Browne "In order to become the master, the politician poses as the servant." -- Charles de Gaulle "Politicians are the craftiest and most cunning of all con artists and salesmen.  They can manipulate even the most cherished beliefs and intellectual arguments to convince you to give them immense coercive power over other people and eventually, even over you.  They're so good at it that they can even convince many to become fanatic supporters, and themselves to believe their own bullshit." -- Rick Gaber "Never was a government that was not composed of liars, malefactors and thieves." -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, brilliant philosopher, writer, political scientist, orator, humorist and last Free Consul of Rome, before he was murdered on the orders of that despicable despot Mark Anthony, doing his utmost to demonstrate and underscore Cicero's observation "Who may we look to for a reprieve from these money-grubbers and looters?  We cannot look to our neighbors and fellow citizens, for they are as dumb as posts.  They complain about high taxes and then vote these morons into office anyway." -- Cody "Never believe anything in politics until it has been officially denied." -- Otto von Bismarck "Someone once noted that a 'gaffe' in Washington is when a politician accidentally tells the truth." -- Jonah Goldberg "People often ask me why I left the Senate, and I always tell them after eight years in Washington, I longed for the realism and sincerity of Hollywood." -- TV actor Fred Thompson, Former U.S. Senator "[In politics] no good deed goes unpunished" -- Clare Booth Luce "Practical politics consists in ignoring facts." -- Henry Brooks Adams, The Education of Henry Adams "The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken "No one ever died from smoking marijuana, but millions of people have died by believing politicians." -- Harry Browne "For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise." -- Harry Browne "Most politicians believe in just one thing -- winning elections.  They'll say anything to get in office and stay there." -- Harry Browne "One reason the economy is such a mess is that politicians care far more about keeping their jobs than about helping you keep yours." -- Steve Dasbach "Politicians cannot create jobs or wealth.  Such is axiomatic to straight thinkers." -- Greg Perry "Politicians are politicians all of the time -- whether they're helping themselves to an extra-serving of farm-subsidy bacon, writing new laws about when their opponents can and can't run ads about them or appointing bureaucrats to enforce those laws.  ... There are no angels at the FEC.  There aren't any in Congress or at the White House.  And the sooner arrogant reformers like Sen. McCain and Fred Wertheimer realize that they're no angels either, the better for all of us -- and for the Constitution." -- Ryan Sager "For those who fancy that government's projects are uniquely important, or for those who imagine that holding government office makes someone unusually saintly or trustworthy, entrusting government with power that we would never entrust to our neighbors or other private citizens might seem sensible. To me, it's dangerous, unjustified, and unjustifiable." -- Dr. Donald Boudreaux "We should be long past applauding politicians of any hue: they got us into this mess. The best deserve a probationary opportunity to prove themselves, the worst should be in jail." -- Gerald Warner "All politicians are collectivists. They don't care about privacy." -- Professor Ian Angell, quoted on ZDNet "It is the rare -- maybe even nonexistent -- politician who will admit this, but number one on the politicians to-do list is always to get reelected.  Nothing else comes close.  The economy, the stock market, the war on terrorism … NOTHING comes ahead of getting reelected.  Staying in power is job number one." -- Neal Boortz "The only true allegiance a politician has is to his own re-election." -- Michelle Malkin "Politics is all about getting and keeping power, and in politics, the professionals in the business soon learn that the only way to get and keep power is to force people to talk to them.  A full-time legislature thinks of more and more things to regulate and discuss." -- California Assemblyman Ray Haynes "Is there anything more dangerous to the cause of liberty than a politician fixated on re-election?" -- Neal Boortz "Any legislator up for re-election will vote against a bad law if and only if there are enough other votes to pass it." -- Bert Rand "A politician in power tends to remain in power." -- Neal Boortz's "First Rule of Political Dynamics"  "Cheap medical care is one of the most expensive things there is.  So long as politicians can create the illusion of something for nothing, that gets them votes, which is what it is all about, as far as they are concerned." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell "You can't get something for nothing.  Everybody remembers this except politicians." -- P.J. O'Rourke "Most of the founders of this country had day jobs for years. They were not career politicians. ... We need leaders with experience in the real world, not experience in the phony world of politics." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell "Politicians are forever coming up with 'solutions' to virtually every imaginable imperfection in life. But, if we give them more power and more of our money, we are very unlikely to end up better off on net balance." -- Thomas Sowell "The indignation of politicians is NOT a good measure of the gravity of any situation." -- Paul Harvey, 4-5-07 "There is always an easy solution to every human problem -- neat, plausible and wrong." -- H. L. Mencken  "Congress will always couple one bad idea with another, the better to 'offset' them." -- Jeff Taylor "There is nothing so bad that politics cannot make it worse." -- Thomas Sowell "Auschwitz exists because of politicized science." -- Dr. Michael Crichton, 1-28-05 "The road to hell is paved with politicians' good intentions." -- Chief Jerry Cameron "Legislators aren’t known for being rocket scientists." -- Walter E. Williams "'Solve' and 'problems' are not in the Constitution." -- Doug Newman "A goldfish has a memory span of three seconds.  Apparently, so do many politicians." -- Rick Gaber "One useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three is a Congress." -- John Adams "Whenever the government causes a crisis, Congress and the president of the United States will almost surely give even more power and authority to the agency that is most responsible for the calamity." -- William L. Anderson "A one-hour work-week...would minimize the damage that Congress can do." - Charles Krauthammer, 10-16-09 "It is fascinating to watch politicians come up with 'solutions' to problems that are a direct result of their previous solutions.  In many cases, the most efficient thing to do would be to repeal their previous solution and stop being so gung-ho for creating new solutions in the future.  But, politically, that is the last thing they will do." -- Thomas Sowell "The modus operandi which politicians have loved for so many years is: 'If it doesn't work, do more of it!' " -- Ian Bernard  "Intelligence collection has been given an additional bureaucracy to correct the problems created by too much bureaucracy in intelligence collection." -- P. J. O'Rourke "A politician's guiding philosophy: 'When in doubt, pander.' " -- Doug Newman "Politicians will pander to special-interest groups eager to gain at the public expense." -- Dr. Donald Boudreaux "Giving a politician access to your wallet is like giving a dog access to your refrigerator." -- Tim Barber "A politician is like a drunk who walks into a bar, sees a sign that says “All you can drink for $1", and orders $2 worth." -- Cafrman "To say Congress is spending like drunken sailors is an insult to drunken sailors." -- Ronald Reagan "The difference between congressmen and drunken sailors is that drunken sailors are spending their own money." -- Rep. Tom Feeney "Congress' passing of the omnibus spending bill without reading it shows more than anything why they can't be trusted." -- Neal Boortz "Ninety-eight percent of the adults in this country are decent, hardworking, honest Americans.  It's the other lousy two percent that get all the publicity.  But then, we elected them." -- Lily Tomlin "Politicians detest self-sufficient citizens.  Politicians need to be needed.  When we get socialized medicine, you will be completely dependent upon politicians for your medical care, as Canadians are today.  That's why if you need an MRI in Canada, you have to wait three months -- unless you pay certain kinds of homage to the right politicians." -- Neal Boortz "[Professional politicians] don't mind if price controls cause shortages of health care.  In fact, they welcome the prospect, because then they can impose rationing; they can impose priorities, and tell everyone how much of what kind of medical care they can have.  And besides, ... there's that deeply satisfying rush of power." -- Murray N. Rothbard "The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power." -- Harry Browne "Power is more addictive than heroin." -- savedbygrace "Those who have been once intoxicated with power and have derived any kind of emolument from it can never willingly abandon it." -- Edmund Burke "Robbery, when legalized, is profitable, at least for the middle men. And the middle men in the legal plunder game are the politicians and their clients with government jobs." -- Wirkman Virkkala "As property, honestly obtained, is best secured by an equality of rights, so ill-gotten property depends for protection on a monopoly of rights. He who has robbed another of his property, will next endeavor to disarm him of his rights, to secure that property; for when the robber becomes the legislator he believes himself secure." -- Thomas Paine, Dissertations on First Principles of Government "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way." -- Franklin D. Roosevelt "And now the court has let the most powerful of American interest groups -- incumbent politicians -- have their way with the First Amendment.  Wednesday's message to the mere people was clear: Shut up, the court explained." -- Paul Greenberg. "Pledge allegiance to your principles, your family, your faith, but don't be foolish enough to pledge allegiance to a gang of thieves." --Lew Rockwell "The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me.  They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office.  Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them.  Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B.  In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods." -- H.L. Mencken "Politicians never accuse you of  'greed' for wanting other people's money --- only for wanting to keep your own money." -- Joseph Sobran "'Need' now means wanting someone else's money.  'Greed' means wanting to keep your own.  'Compassion' is when a politician arranges the transfer." -- Joseph Sobran "Lofty talk about 'social justice' or 'fairness' boils down to greatly expanded powers for politicians, since those pretty words have no concrete definition. They are a blank check for creating disparities in power that dwarf disparities in income -- and are far more dangerous." -- Thomas Sowell "Try walking the halls of Congress. It's Abercrombie & Fitch meets the Hair Club for Men. Lots of  really photogenic young people kissing up to lots of insufferable blowhards. Separated by one or two generations, most of these players have only one real thing in common: They have never been weaned from the public teat. The closest they've ever come to meeting a payroll is when they come together to spend everyone else's payroll taxes." -- Michelle Malkin, here.  "The average federal income tax rate for the 437,036 individual returns filed for the year 1916 was .0275 (2.75 percent). And to think that Senator Nelson Aldrich had urged passage of the income tax, vehemently bellowing on the floor of the Senate his impassioned assurances that it would never, never, EVER go above one percent!" -- Rick Gaber "For those looking for security, be forewarned that there's nothing more insecure than a political promise." -- Harry Browne "Anyone who does not understand the utter cynicism of politics does not understand politics." -- Thomas Sowell "If there's a distinct group of Americans who harbor open contempt for constitutional principles and rule of law, it's lawyers, judges and members of Congress." -- Walter Williams in his column, "Attacks on the Rule of Law" "There is more selfishness and less principle among members of Congress ... than I had any conception of, before I became President of the U.S." -- James K. Polk, December 16, 1846 "... both individuals and companies are using the Netherlands as a haven for productive activity. ... This is good news for all taxpayers. The rich directly benefit, since greedy politicians are unable to seize as much of their money. And the rest of us benefit, since this puts downward pressure on tax rates as governments try to keep the geese that lay the golden eggs from flying away." --Daniel J. Mitchell "Idealism is the noble toga that political gentlemen drape over their will to power." -- Aldous Huxley "You may scoff at the Tooth Fairy if you like. But the Tooth Fairy's approach has gotten more politicians elected than any economist's analysis." -- Thomas Sowell "The purpose of the Senate is to keep 100 middle aged knuckleheads out of the private sector where they can do real harm." -- P.J. O'Rourke "Some years ago an excellent professor of economics told his class in his gravelly voice, 'If you pay me $50,000 a year to solve a problem, I damned sure ain't going to solve it.' " -- Charley Reese, Orlando Sentinel 2-24-2000 "If you pay me $150,000 a year to solve all the country's problems, not only will I NOT solve any, I'll make A LOT MORE NEW ONES while appearing to 'solve' the old ones." -- Randy Richards "What this country needs are more unemployed politicians." -- Edward Langley [A demonstration of how politicians deserve to be talked about]: See"The contrast was exquisite. Politicians yakking about a supposed problem while real people in the real world make the yakking moot." HERE. "This country has gotten where it is in spite of  politics, not by aid of it." -- Will Rogers, 1935 "This government never furthered any enterprise but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way." -- Henry David Thoreau in his essay, "Civil Disobedience" "Doing nothing in the public policy world allows much more to be done in the real world." -- Thomas Hazlett "... you know that a plan was dreamed up by politicians and pollsters -- and not by, oh, anyone who knows what they are talking about -- when the numbers are nice and round with a catchy ring to them..." -- Jerry Taylor "People constantly speak of  'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect." -- H.L. Mencken "I was raised with the idea that if you're not smart enough to do science you can do politics." -- Dr. Michael Crichton, 1-28-05 "Government, when it is examined, turns out to be nothing more nor less than a group of fallible men with the political force to act as though they were infallible." -- Robert LeFevre, in his essay, Aggression is Wrong "It is hard to imagine a more stupid or more dangerous way of making decisions than by putting those decisions  in the hands of people who pay no price for being wrong." -- Thomas Sowell  "When looking for a reason why things go wrong, never rule out sheer stupidity." -- Brian M. Wilson "Aren't you being too charitable?  Why assume stupidity when dishonesty will suffice ... ?" -- John T. Kennedy "Politics is the business of tinkering with other people's lives." -- Nolan Neathercutt "Everything the government touches turns to crap." -- Ringo Starr "Turning to politicians is the worst way to solve a problem." -- Jim Babka "'Solve' and 'problems' are not in the Constitution." -- Doug Newman "Government does not solve problems. It subsidizes them." -- Ronald Reagan "Being a politician means never having to say you're sorry.  You don't have to say, 'I never should have voted to subsidize that ridiculous Enron project in India.'  ... After all, they're greedy businessmen and you're a selfless public servant." -- Harry Browne "Politicians are notorious for attaining results contrary to their stated goals." -- Prof. Aeon J. Skoble "Whenever you come across a screw-up this big, you know the government is behind it." -- Ann Coulter "In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable." -- George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language," 1945 "Anything seems more appealing than immersing myself in the sewer of daily politics." -- Allen Forkum “Everybody in politics lies.” -- David Geffen "Politicians are masters of sounding like they agree with you." -- Michael Cloud "In a perfect world, virtually every day's coverage of the state legislature -- or Congress, for that matter -- would begin with the words 'As expected, lawmakers took no action.' ... Both parts of the sentence herald good news. In most cases, the republic is better off and its citizens sleep better when politicans take no action. ... Plus, wouldn't it be great if legislatures were 'expected' not to monkey around with our laws, our liberties, and our livelihoods most of the time?"-- John Hood "Imagine how fast Social Security would be fixed or replaced if Congressmen had to rely on it like they force everyone else to, instead of on their lucrative special pension fund, sometimes paying millions a year.  Heck, imagine how they might even want to learn about real economics instead of all those fallacies once they had such incentives." -- Bert Rand "My grandfather once told me that there are two kinds of people: those who do the work and those who take the credit.  He told me to try to be in the first group; there was less competition there." -- Indira Gandhi "Professional politicians are skilled at taking credit for successes of others and blaming others for mistakes of their own.  Exactly the kind of phony braggart slime you caution your daughter against dating." -- Rick Gaber "Elected leaders tend to believe they are responsible for a lot more than they really are. Like the little boy on his first plane trip 'helping' the plane by flapping his arms as the Boeing 747 begins to ascend, legislators often seem to believe that somehow they run the economy and solve lots of problems." -- Curt Leonard "So far the Sarbanes-Oxley bill has wiped out $1 trillion of market capitalization, has done nothing to improve business performance or investor value, and in fact has provided absolutely no benefits to the overall economy whatsoever, unless you're a large corporation which enjoys seeing the government hamper your smaller upstart competitors.  It has, in fact, turned out to be nothing more than another poor excuse for politicians to claim they've "done something."  Check it out HERE." -- Rick Gaber  "Congress does two things well: nothing and overreacting." -- Rep. Mike Oxley "Overreaction is one of the things that congress specializes in.  I can't think of anything congress does better than overreact." -- Fred Barnes, 3-9-07 "What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people.  It's not good at much else." -- Tom Clancy onKudlow and Cramer 9/2/03 "I have never seen a politician purport to have bad intentions, no matter what the agenda. Hitler thought he was doing the world a favor." -- Doug Newman "I try to ONLY ridicule people who's efforts are sincere. Very little trouble has been caused in the world by insincere efforts. An occasional seduction maybe. There were very few insincere Stalinists or Nazis." -- P.J. O'Rourke "Some politicians actually work their butts off.  But it's usually in just a frantic, futile attempt to justify their neurotic parasitic existence." -- Bert Rand "The idea that money is corrupting innocent politicians would be laughable if it did not lead to such dangerous legislation..." -- Dr. Thomas Sowell. "It doesn't matter whether the coercive individuals or groups identify themselves as bandits, Mafia, Church, party, government, chief, Pharaoh, king, high priest or president. If they initiate force, they are all simply criminals, regardless of their aliases and pretensions." -- Jarret Wollstein "Politicians learned hundreds of years ago that people who had little material wealth were incredibly jealous of those who had more than they did.  This deep-seated envy was ripe for exploitation -- and the exploitation has been running rampant for generations." --Neal Boortz "Given the low level of competence among politicians, every American should become a libertarian. The government that governs least is certainly the best choice when fools, opportunists and grafters run it. When power is for sale, then the government power should be severely limited. When power is abused, then the less power the better." -- Charley Reese "There are enough fools in Washington to destroy the country without any help from Muslim terrorists." -- Paul Craig Roberts "I would like to offer a candidate to be added to the venerable list of English collective nouns: a scum of politicians." -- Dr. Jack Wheeler "Politicians are frightened to death of  people who actually believe in liberty." -- Neal Boortz "The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos." -- H. L. Mencken, 1919 "For all their talk about the virtues of democracy, many incumbent politicians really don't like it when voters have a voice--not if that voice is effective."-- Paul Jacob and David M. Brown "When will the world wake up and realize that most politicians, especially in the poorest countries of the world, are nothing more than glorified gangsters who view government as simply a fiercely-guarded monopoly on every form of compulsion and extortion to be perpetrated in a specific geographical area?  Why do you think the largest amounts of 'foreign aid' extracted from the gullible diplomats of wealthier countries wind up in those politicians' pockets or Swiss bank accounts, despite all the virtuous-sounding rhetoric?"-- Bert Rand "Understanding politicians and what they are likely to do is much easier once you realize that [most people] in politics ... have more in common psychologically and morally with your typical member of a street gang than with most of the people who actually vote for them." -- Perry de Havilland "The one thing government has which we (you or I or any corporation) DON'T have, is the ability to use deadly force to accomplish its goals." -- Neal Boortz "Ultimately, however, as the Austrian economist Joseph Schumpeter pointed out, a powerful bureaucratic class is in the same relation to commerce as was the scorpion in Aesop to the dog on whose back he crossed the river. They will destroy commerce and establish socialism, even if it kills them, because that is their nature." -- John Derbyshire "There is no limit to the hunger politicians have for the money you've worked so hard for. ... You can tell them to take a hike, but then the guns come out." -- Neal Boortz     copied from  www.FreedomKeys.com/politicians2.htm "Predatory politicians (are there any other types?) can now hone in on your property, if they see it desirable as a tax cash cow for their nefarious schemes, invoke the power of eminent domain to seize your property in order to generate more revenue, and you cannot do anything about it." -- Edward J. Williamson "Politics creates hate and anger in people.  It is inherently civil war.  Since the State is based on coercion and the threat of violence, so is politics.  Politics is about nothing more than who gets to apply how much violence to people.  Politics sets people at war with each other.  ... Politics also makes people paranoid, because they always think if the opposing party gets into power, they'll do terrible things to them."-- Bob Wallace "Congress is a Mafia running a protection racket.. ." -- Dr. Jack Wheeler. "The politicians don't just want your money. They want your soul. They want you to be worn down by taxes until you are dependent and helpless." -- James Dale Davidson Founder, National Taxpayers Union "God, how I love destroying people." -- House Speaker Thomas P. ("Tip") O'Neill to his aide Margaret Holian "Our current tax code is one that was designed by and for the benefit of politicians and lobbyists. It punishes achievement and rewards laziness.  It punishes the voting blocks unimportant to politicians, and rewards voting blocks who keep them in office." --Neal Boortz "There are just two things standing in between the American people and their freedom: Democrats and Republicans." -- Joe Seehusen "Politicians don't like empowered individuals." -- Neal Boortz "Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you." -- Pericles (430 B.C.) "Over the years the U.S. has become more and more twisted by a government of the politicians, by the politicians, and for the politicians." -- Rick Gaber "Confronted with economic problems, politicians always blame the private sector first ... [even] blaming the problem on the solution." -- Richard L. Gordon "There is no company -- no corporation on earth that engages in accounting fraud to the extent the Imperial Federal Government of the United Sates does.  Not many congressmen are willing to come forward with the details." -- Neal Boortz "Business people make business decisions.  Politicians make political decisions.  Put politicians in charge of a business, and they still will make political decisions.  It's their nature." -- Garry Reed "Contrary to popular belief, people who buy political influence are vastly outnumbered by people who are sold political influence by creative or desperate politicians." -- Rick Gaber "I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion.  Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily.  What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money."  -- Sen. John McCain "The problem with politics isn't the money; it's the power." -- Harry Browne "I have come to believe that politicians are in the business of 'marketing' their product to the public, by exaggerating threats and over-selling government solutions." -- Arnold Kling "[Certain politicians] don't mind if price controls cause shortages of health care.  In fact, they welcome the prospect, because then they can impose rationing; they can impose priorities, and tell everyone how much of what kind of medical care they can have.  And besides, ... there's that deeply satisfying rush of power.  We should know by now that reasoned arguments by economists or disillusioned ex-controllers are not going to stop them." -- Murray N. Rothbard "A lot of what is called 'public service' consists of making hoops for other people to jump through. It is a great career for those who cannot feel fulfilled unless they are telling other people what to do." -- Thomas Sowell "Contrary to the romantic way in which our history is/has been portrayed, politicians are NOT 'men of good conscience.'  In the real world, it takes a psychopath to want to rule over other human beings. Unless you want to define the word 'service' in the context of what a bull does to a cow, in no way are the efforts of politicians in this regard any kind of  'service'." -- Edward Britton "Politicians and bureaucrats are hopelessly addicted to running other people's lives." -- Geoffrey Neale "There's something psychotic about people who go around asking whether large business concerns should be allowed to operate without first getting government permission for every little thing, but who never ask whether politicians should be allowed to shake down businesses and businessmen any damn time they want to." -- Rick Gaber "Since Congress makes the laws they are under the delusion that anything they do is legal, no matter if it is unwise, unethical, or un-Constitutional." -- Jim Babka "The 'private sector' of the economy is, in fact, the 'voluntary' sector; and...the 'public sector' is, in fact, the 'coercive' sector." --Henry Hazlitt "[Politicians] -- they'll give you everything you want to your face -- and then, as you walk away, they'll shoot you in the back because it's fun to watch you die." -- Bob Crandall, former president, American Airlines "The impulse to control everything pervades those who make up the governmental class. That is, after all, why someone decides to spend their working life in politics and applying the collective means of coercion to others. The extent to which this desire to impose force backed control can be realized is exactly what defines whether or not you are 'free' or a 'slave' of the state." -- Perry de Havilland "Politicians are the same all over.  They promise to build a bridge even when there is no river." -- Nikita Khruschev "By far the most inappropriate and ridiculous name change any major sports team has perpetrated was the Washington Bullets' changing its name to the Washington 'Wizards.'  Give me a break." -- Rick Gaber "In politics, absurdity is not a handicap." -- Napoleon Bonaparte "People constantly speak of  'the government' doing this or that, as they might speak of God doing it. But the government is really nothing but a group of men, and usually they are very inferior men. They may have some better man working for them, but they themselves are seldom worthy of any respect." -- H.L. Mencken "The illegal we do immediately. The unconstitutional takes a bit longer." -- Henry Kissinger "The motto of the nation's capital should be 'Land of the spree and home of the depraved'." -- Rick Gaber "No one talks about the real ethics disaster in Washington. It's that many members of Congress will listen to any argument against a bill except for two: that it's not moral or that it's not Constitutional." -- Rep. Ron Paul "The closer one gets to elections or wars, the further one gets from the truth." -- Tony Blankley "Politicians who tell you they'll raise taxes on businesses 'but not on you' are taking you for a fool.  Almost all business taxes are passed along to employees in the form of lower wages and less hiring, stockholders in the form of lower dividends and stock values, and especially, consumers in the form of higher prices!" -- Rick Gaber "The trouble with this country is that there are too many politicians who believe, with a conviction based on experience, that you can fool all of the people all of the time."  -- Franklin P. Adams "A Diogenesian search for an honest person would rarely lead to the author of a memoir." -- Tony Blankley "You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients -- as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising.  And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law.  Term limits aren't enough. We need jail." -- P.J. O'Rourke (from "a revised Constitution for our times"): "Section 2: The House of Representatives shall be composed of persons who own at least two dark suits and have not been indicted recently." -- Dave Barry "There are people in Congress who aren't very bright.  In fact, some of them are just plain brain-dead." -- Neal Boortz" "Somehow, for some reason, we’ve turned over all the power to insane, irrational, and generally wacked out people. We call them politicians." -- Toby Olvera "I've always found that avoiding insanity is useful in life -- which in American politics sometimes puts one in the minority." -- Tony Blankley "Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Colin Campbell says that every member of the Georgia General Assembly with an IQ above 85 should be required to wear a crash helmet.  That should take about ... oh, say 15 helmets?" -- Neal Boortz "Why do so many busybodies, control freaks, neurotics and even psychotics become politicians?  Because they can have an effect on the world and gain at least temporary respect without doing anything really productive.  If they're really lucky, they can even gain fame and fortune while doing incredible long-term damage!" -- Randy Richards "Remember those kids in school you really hated?  You know the ones, the hall monitors, the classroom snitches, the teacher suck-ups?  Well, those are the kids who grow up to be our politicians and bureaucrats and regulators.  They are the freedom haters." --Garry Reed "A man on his owns knows that he is best advised to leave his dumbbell neighbors alone. But let him join a political party, and he fantasizes that he has the right and the power to tell everyone on the block what to do." -- Bill Bonner "With a few rare exceptions, people in government are pathetic mediocrities who accumulate power over others as their neurotic substitute for their missing sense of self-worth, a sense which becomes ever-more elusive as time erodes any likelihood of their leaving government for the real world and creating new values which never existed before -- instead of stealing and redistributing old ones which did." -- Bert Rand  "Epitaph on the Politician" by Hilaire BellocHere richly, with  ridiculous display,  The Politician's corpse  was laid away.  While all of his acquaintance sneered and slanged  I wept: for I had longed  to see him hanged. "Detractory or defamatory lies should not be quite opposite to the qualities the person is supposed to have. Thus it will not be found according to the sound rules of pseudology to report of a pious and religious prince that he neglects his devotions and would introduce heresy; but you may report of a merciful Prince that he has pardoned a criminal who did not deserve it." -- Dr. John Arbuthnot, Treatise on the Art of Political Lying, 1714 "A pathological need to control other people with the threat of violence (i.e. laws) is more or less the defining mental state of members of the political class everywhere in the western world today." -- Perry de Havilland "I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means -- except by getting off his back." -- Leo Tolstoy "But I want you to LOVE ME!!!!" -- Franz-Josef, Emperor of Austria-Hungary, as he screamed at a subject while having him horsewhipped. "I'm always skeptical of politicians who've never held a real job in the real world, or of would-be presidents who've never proven themselves capable of being successful in business and decisive in critical situations." -- Rick Gaber "In politics, as in fishing, you don't have to be a genius.  You just have to be smarter than the fish." -- Zev Chafets "The single most exciting thing you encounter in government is competence, because it's so rare." -- Daniel Patrick Moynihan, 1976 "The single most frightening thing you encounter is confidence-in-government because it's so common." -- Rick Gaber See: "it is becoming increasingly clear that most politicians don’t have a clue about what causes gas prices to rise" -- Dr. Lynne Kiesling "In reality, because government actions have been a major factor in forcing up the price of health care in America, we now have the perverse situation in which someone who either does not have access to private insurance or qualifies for government payments must face the system out of pocket. While politicians and their allies are fond of decrying the fact that at any given time, millions of Americans lack health insurance, they forget that they themselves have played a major role in creating the conditions that have made going without health insurance a recipe for individual financial calamity." -- William L. Anderson "It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.'  But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."  -- Murray N. Rothbard "There is a small minority of well-educated people with relatively sensible views on economics, and an extremely tiny minority of economists with highly sensible views. Then there's everybody else. ... To win, a politician needs to please the median voter. It makes little difference if a few thousand economists think you a fool." -- Bryan Caplan "The cultivation -- even celebration -- of victimhood by intellectuals, tort lawyers, politicians and the media is both cause and effect of today's culture of complaint." -- George Will "For the average person walking down a dark street late at night, a promise from a politician is worth far less than a .38 Special." --James Bovard "The whole modern world has divided itself into Conservatives and Progressives. The business of Progressives is to go on making mistakes. The business of the Conservatives is to prevent the mistakes from being corrected." -- G. K. Chesterton "For years, liberals have demonstrated a near religious devotion to the cause of  'cleaning up elections' with campaign finance reform, the wondrous panacea that would finally rescue our great country from corruption in politics. ... How anyone could believe that corrupt politicians could or would legislate away their own corruption is completely beyond me." -- Anthony Gregory "Multiculturalism asserts that all cultures are equal and therefore none may criticize another; intellectuals and politicians are therefore reluctant to declare the obvious superiority of Western culture to Islamic culture." -- Edwin A. Locke "If I was to interrupt this article every few sentences, asking you whether or not I was making a good impression on you, I hope and believe that you would think I was a servile jerk. Yet this is what our politicians are doing in every speech." -- Christopher Hitchens "The Senate voted 97-0 for an anti-spam bill to stop those annoying things you get on your computer. The senators made it very clear that when you start misleading the American people and start taking their money over false promises, 'That's our turf, buddy'." -- Jay Leno "Nothing is so admirable in politics as a short memory. I forget who said that." -- John Alejandro King "Politicians generally do the right thing only when all other options are exhausted." -- Dan Mitchell "Where do politicians come from?  Why, they come from Uranus!" -- Neal Boortz "A statesman is a dead politician. Lord knows, we need more statesmen." -- Opus "Can't go wrong drowning politicians, Henry." -- Jamie Waring in The Black Swan "This country has come to feel the same when congress is in session as when a baby gets hold of a hammer." -- Will Rogers "If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail."-- Abraham Maslow "When the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like your thumb." -- Mr. Lizard “If you really want to engage in policy activity, don’t make that your vocation.  Make it your avocation.  Get a job.  Get a secure base of income.  Otherwise, you’re going to get corrupted and destroyed.” -- Dr. Milton Friedman "If you want money from politicians, you ought not to be surprised when those same politicians take an interest in the money they are giving to you. After all, they were the ones who stole it, and they have to justify this thievery and to ensure that its proceeds are distributed in a way that satisfies their supporters and quiets their critics." -- Brian Micklethwait "Hillary does nothing without careful calculation. She knows that politicians – provided they have real power – who bash entire industries tend to raise huge dollars from individuals in those industries. Certain types of politicians are drawn to this marketing technique because they think the 'bashing' also can be held up as proof that they are not being corrupted.  This scheme is called 'putting the squeeze on.' Does that phrase remind you of anything?" -- Don Luskin Once upon a time there were five surgeons... Maybe if there were fewer lawyers in the legislatures...       *Very few American Presidents ever took a course in economics.  Only two ever had a degree in it.  Pathetic.

..

"I distinguish between two kinds of politicians. There are those who view politics as a tactical game, a game in which they do not reveal any individuality, in which they lose their own face. There are, however, leaders for whom politics is a means of defending and furthering values. For them, it is a moral pursuit. They do so because the values they cherish are endangered. They're convinced that there are values worth living for, and even values worth dying for. Otherwise they would consider their life and work pointless. Only such politicians are great politicians, and Ronald Reagan was one of them." -- Lech Walesa

"It is no crime to be ignorant of economics, which is, after all, a specialized discipline and one that most people consider to be a 'dismal science.'  But it is totally irresponsible to have a loud and vociferous opinion on economic subjects while remaining in this state of ignorance."  -- Murray N. Rothbard

"Enron, of course, is exactly the kind of corporation which could not exist in pure capitalism or under the U.S. Constitution applied with only literal meanings of the commerce and welfare clauses.  As a creature, in effect, of politicians and lawyers, the same kinds of politicians and lawyers who sold the bastardized meanings of the commerce and welfare clauses to a gullible public, it was deliberately converted from a small pipeline company into an international conglomerate by conniving scoundrels who designed it from the beginning to use the power of their favor-selling politician friends to give it government contracts, subsidies, monopoly powers, and favorable regulations to force prospective customers to do business with them, essentially at gunpoint.  Obviously, this is  is fascism, not capitalism, and what you get more and more of when you work to transform what was once the rule of clear-cut law into the rule of men (especially corrupt, nuance-inventing judges and lawyers). Remember, fraud was illegal, as it always should have been, long before the first regulation was passed." -- Rick Gaber "Environmental crusaders have spent the past 30 years influencing ignorant, unprincipled or gullible politicians to pass new laws and create new agencies that affect everything from oil, to natural gas, to nuclear power, to electricity. The net result is that manacles have effectively been slapped around the ankles of power suppliers, creating a huge disincentive for them to construct any new (and what certainly would be more energy efficient) power plants." -- Wayne Dunn "As ever more rules and regulations curtail the decisions individuals may make for themselves, as ever greater proportions of people’s income are siphoned off to be used as our leaders decide, as every species of special interest pays tribute to predatory politicos who suck the marrow from the bones of civil society, individuals are reduced to ever more meaningless atoms in the social cosmos. All of life becomes politicized, which means corrupted by power. And as individual liberty and individual rights die, all that is decent in human society dies with them." -- Robert Higgs See how politicians' razzle-dazzle "item-pricing" laws actually hurt consumers HERE.