Issues
They Said It – Issue 97
…the original progressive contradiction, which persists today: Affecting to be tribunes of “the people” and advocates for democracy, in practice so-called progressives demonstrate a dismissive impatience with democracy in favor of rule by the diktats of our benevolent betters, namely them. – Mitch Daniels in The Wall Street Journal, July 15, 2015
They Said It – Issue 96
The conceit of democracy is that people will eventually learn from their mistakes—even if they must first make those mistakes—and that experience is the ultimate teacher. But suppose it is not?
– Bret Stephens, Wall Street Journal
They Said It – Issue 95
If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there’d be a shortage of sand.
– Late economist Milton Friedman
They Said It – Issue 94
Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people; commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.
– Alexander Hamilton, Federalist no. 1, Oct. 27, 1787
They Said It – Issue 92
“No institution has contributed so extensively to the deracination and diminishment of our humanity as university faculties.”
– John R. Silber, late president of Boston University
They Said It – Issue 91
In my many years I have come to a conclusion that one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm, and three or more is a congress.
– President John Adams
Dem Senator Says Supreme Court Pro Slavery Decision “Right for the Time”
During a recent town hall meeting Oregon Democrat Senator Chuck Riley was defending his position on the “universal background check” bill by pointing to Supreme Court decisions.
When a constituent asked him if the Supremes’ failure to strike down slavery in the 1800s was OK, Riley responded “They were right for the time.”
They Said It – Issue 89
”Washington crushed the states long ago. Today, most laws passed in Albany, Austin or Augusta are implemented only if the White House or some federal bureaucrats don’t object too strongly.”
– University of Chicago political scientist Charles Lipson for RealClearPolitics
They Said it – Issue 88
“Whenever the government picks winners that get subsidies, there must be losers who pay for them. That is how income redistribution works.”
– Steve Walde in The Wall Street Journal Letters to the Editor
They Said It – Issue 87
…Ronald Reagan and [economist] Milton Friedman often said that the best taxes were those that taxpayers could feel so they would be difficult to raise.
– Wall Street Journal editorial, March 21, 2015