1,186 Policy Quotes

The Assault Weapons Ban deals with a fictional distinction. You have guns that are exactly the same guns as are banned, in function, that were banned because of the way they look. And you know, that's the whole truth of this policy: it's to make politicians look as if they are doing something, when in point of fact, they are doing nothing.

The release of atomic energy has not created a new problem. It has merely made more urgent the necessity of solving an existing one.

The wisdom of man never yet contrived a system of taxation that would operate with perfect equality.

Peace, above all things, is to be desired, but blood must sometimes be spilled to obtain it on equable and lasting terms.

If you suspend the Geneva Conventions, give the green light to anything that will get intelligence, round up thousands all over the globe with reckless disregard for guilt or innocence, you are effectively and knowingly issuing orders to seize innocent people and torture them. Any president who decides to do that and then says it was not his intention to do that is a fraud or a fool.

Six imams removed from a US Airways flight from Minneapolis to Phoenix are calling on Muslims to boycott the airline. If only we could get Muslims to boycott all airlines, we could dispense with airport security altogether.

We should invade their countries, kill their leaders and convert them to Christianity. We weren't punctilious about locating and punishing only Hitler and his top officers. We carpet-bombed German cities; we killed civilians. That's war. And this is war.

This is the way addled liberals really think. Even as they champion sucking the brains out of little babies, they think of themselves as indelibly compassionate because they favor an overweening, behemoth federal government.

It is proper that we acknowledge the overwhelming weight of international opinion against the juvenile death penalty.

We will submit legislation to the United States Senate which will...authorize the Congress to undertake judicial review of those signing statements with the view to having the president's acts declared unconstitutional.

American credibility in the war on terrorism depends on a strong stand against all terrorist acts, whether committed by foe or friend.

As a matter of traditional and sound constitutional doctrine, an amendment to the Constitution should be the last resort when all other measures have proved inadequate.

Heart disease continues to be the number one killer; cancer, the number 2 killer, not far behind. The tragic aspect of these deadly diseases is that they could all be cured, I do believe, if we had sufficient funding.

There is no doubt that our nation's security and defeating terrorism trump all other priorities.

In a democracy, every little wrong idea may grow up to become national policy.

A good compromise, a good piece of legislation, is like a good sentence; or a good piece of music. Everybody can recognize it. They say, 'Huh. It works. It makes sense.'

Laissez Faire was very good sauce for the goose, labor, but was very poor sauce for the gander, capital.

Those who forget good and evil and seek only to know the facts are more likely to achieve good than those who view the world through the distorting medium of their own desires.

They used to be seen as insane or unthinkable acts of madmen. But if they take place they'll be called 'war' too. And there will still be no conventional war.

While the collateral consequences of drugs such as cocaine are indisputably severe, they are not unlike those which flow from the misuse of other, legal, substances.

The extravagant expenditure of public money is an evil not to be measured by the value of that money to the people who are taxed for it.

Experience has shown that the trade of the East is the key to national wealth and influence.

Many of the points made by the antiwar movement have been consciously assimilated by the Pentagon and its lawyers and advisers. Precision weaponry is good in itself, but its ability to discriminate is improving and will continue to improve. Cluster bombs are perhaps not good in themselves, but when they are dropped on identifiable concentrations of Taliban troops, they do have a heartening effect.

I don't think the war in Afghanistan was ruthlessly enough waged.

There is no reason at all why there aren't enough people to guard New Orleans and to help stabilise Baghdad.

I feel it's so easy to condemn this country [the United States]; but they don't understand that this is where the mistakes are being made - and made first, so that we're going to get the answers first.

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.

We are at war, and our security as a nation depends on winning that war.

I think the word of the United States has been as good as gold in its international dealings and its agreements.

I think there are many times when it would be most efficient to use nuclear weapons. However, the public opinion in this country and throughout the world throw up their hands in horror when you mention nuclear weapons, just because of the propaganda that's been fed to them.

See, when the GOVERNMENT spends money, it creates jobs; whereas when the money is left in the hands of TAXPAYERS, God only knows what they do with it. Bake it into pies, probably. Anything to avoid creating jobs.

The choice is not between drugs and no drugs, but between illegal drugs and legal drugs. Until the 1920s drugs were legal, why not now? Lots of people are on drugs anyway - it is called medication.

Legal issues aside, the American people and government should never abide the use of torture by our military or intelligence agencies. A decent society never accepts or justifies torture. It dehumanizes both torturer and victim, yet seldom produces reliable intelligence. Torture by rogue American troops or agents puts all Americans at risk, especially our rank-and-file soldiers stationed in dozens of dangerous places around the globe. God forbid terrorists take American soldiers or travelers hostage and torture them as some kind of sick retaliation for Abu Gharib.

Special interests and the demented philosophy of conquest have driven most wars throughout history. Rarely has the cause of liberty, as it was in our own revolution, been the driving force. In recent decades our policies have been driven by neo-conservative empire radicalism, profiteering in the military industrial complex, misplaced do-good internationalism, mercantilistic notions regarding the need to control natural resources, and blind loyalty to various governments in the Middle East.

The tired assertion that America 'supports democracy' in the Middle East is increasingly transparent. It was false 50 years ago, when we supported and funded the hated Shah of Iran to prevent nationalization of Iranian oil, and it's false today when we back an unelected military dictator in Pakistan - just to name two examples. If honest democratic elections were held throughout the Middle East tomorrow, many countries would elect religious fundamentalist leaders hostile to the United States. Cliche or not, the Arab Street really doesn't like America, so we should stop the charade about democracy and start pursuing a coherent foreign policy that serves America's long-term interests.

It really doesn't matter whether I'm right or wrong: the war is going to end because we're gonna have such a political and financial havoc here with the devaluation of our dollar, because we just can't keep affording it. This is usually how empires end, by spending too much money maintaining their empire. We're in 130 countries, we have 700 bases around the world, and it's going to come to an end. I want it to come to an end more gracefully and peacefully, follow the constitution, and follow a more sensible foreign policy.

We've lost the south, that was one of the biggest fallacies. We went in there and we served the interests of one of our enemies over there, the Iranians. We propped up the Shiites, we overthrew the Sunnis, and the British didn't hold, they left. So there's more peace and less killing in southern Iraq, because all of a sudden we've allowed local control to develop more naturally. Warlords and local people are in charge, and they're more allied with Iran. But this is not a catastrophe, that's why we should deal with the Iranians in a more respectful way: if they had more control of the oil they'd want to sell, what they're gonna do with it, drink it? That's why the balance of power and the idea of self-determination should be worked out by them, not by us. As long as we do it, there'd be resentment and that is the source of the hatred towards us.

Capitalism should not be condemned, since we haven't had capitalism. A system of capitalism presumes sound money, not fiat money manipulated by a central bank. Capitalism cherishes voluntary contracts and interest rates that are determined by savings, not credit creation by a central bank. It's not capitalism when the system is plagued with incomprehensible rules regarding mergers, acquisitions, and stock sales, along with wage controls, price controls, protectionism, corporate subsidies, international management of trade, complex and punishing corporate taxes, privileged government contracts to the military-industrial complex, and a foreign policy controlled by corporate interests and overseas investments. Add to this centralized federal mismanagement of farming, education, medicine, insurance, banking and welfare. This is not capitalism!

When the federal government spends more each year than it collects in tax revenues, it has three choices: It can raise taxes, print money, or borrow money. While these actions may benefit politicians, all three options are bad for average Americans. Deficits mean future tax increases, pure and simple. Deficit spending should be viewed as a tax on future generations, and politicians who create deficits should be exposed as tax hikers.

The theory of the IRS is rather repugnant to me because the assumption is made that I, the government, owns 100% of your income and I permit you to keep 5%, 10% or 20%. You're vulnerable, you've sold out. The government can take 80% if they want, which they did at one time.

The do-good liberal who said we have to take care of everybody -- and they are well intentioned -- the more debt they run up to give to the poor, the poorer the people get because they cannot keep up.

It's time to rethink the whole system of HMOs and managed care. This entire unnecessary level of corporatism rakes off profits and worsens the quality of care. But HMOs did not arise in the free market; they are creatures of government interference in health care dating to the 1970s. These non-market institutions have gained control over medical care through collusion between organized medicine, politicians, and drug companies, in an effort to move America toward 'free' universal health care.

John Stossel: Your party created a prescription drug program, you voted against it. Don't elderly people need these drugs? Ron Paul: Yeah, that's why I voted against it, because these government programs failed to work. A lot of elderly were, and still are furious over that program, because it's so complex and difficult. John Stossel: But a lot of people like it, hey, I'm getting my drugs paid for, they're free. Ron Paul: You know who else likes it? The drug companies. They spent quite a few millions of dollars, they did the highest lobbying, the profiteers were the ones who really pushed that program. But the assumption shouldn't be made that if you didn't have it, people wouldn't get their drugs. The market is designed to lower prices, not raise prices.

Ron Paul is one of the outstanding leaders fighting for a stronger national defence. As a former Air Force officer, he knows well the needs of our armed forces, and he always puts them first. We need to keep him fighting for our country.

The question serious supporters of a real war on terror must now ask is: will continuing the fight in Iraq help reverse this trend or cement it for decades to come? Is the war making us less secure and the world much less safe? Would withdrawal or continued engagement makes things better? At the very least, it seems to me, this question should be on the table in the Iraq debate. And yet the Republicans - with the exception of Ron Paul - don't even want to talk about it. Until they do, they are not a party serious about national security.

We'd love it if we could all just come home and not worry about the rest of the world, as Ron Paul says. But the problem is, they attacked us on 9/11. We were here; they attacked us. We want to help move the world of Islam toward modernity so they can reject the extreme...

Let me tell you Ron, there are a lot of people out there in the Republican primaries, trying to seize the mantle of Ronald Reagan...but when it comes to economic issues, you are the only guy out there that really is delivering the same message that Ronald Reagan delivered for 30 years.

From an environmental standpoint, here is Ron Paul saying that he would end all subsidies to oil, gas, and coal companies. Could you imagine Al Gore saying this? Mr. global warming himself wouldn't even call for such drastic measures... that's what Ron Paul is calling for, an end to supporting corporate welfare. This is Ralph Nader stuff.

The first time I heard Paul talk about monetary policy, I'd felt like a hostage, the only person in the room who didn't buy into the program. Then, slowly, like so many hostages, I started to open my mind and listen. By the time we got to Reno, unfamiliar thoughts were beginning to occur: Why shouldn't we worry about the soundness of the currency? What exactly is the dollar backed by anyway? And, if the gold standard is crazy, is it really any crazier than hedge funds? I'd become Patty Hearst, ready to take up arms for the cause, or at least call my accountant and tell him to buy Krugerrands.

He is against efforts to help poor people by the federal government... Ron Paul's fundamental position is anti-American, let's be honest about it. He does not like any policy the USA has pursued anywhere in the world, or at home, for the last century or so... The Republican party is not going to take seriously, ultimately, someone who thinks we're responsible for 9/11, and who thinks we don't have serious threats around the world, and a serious obligation to help those who stand for liberty and decency around the world.

I've never disliked you. I like you as a person, I think you're very principled in your beliefs. I don't agree with you especially on foreign policy issues right now, that's all. But that doesn't mean we can't like each other... I do agree with you on a lot of economic issues.

If he could, Ron Paul would abolish three-quarters of the government, which works out to meaning that about three-quarters of what Ron Paul says falls into the 'impractical dreamer' category. That leaves one-quarter -- but that fraction of his agenda is, no pun intended, on the money.

At least the Democrats would leave some troops overseas to protect American interests, while Paul would remove all of them and allow Islamic radicals to overrun our interests and allies everywhere. He even advocates shutting down all military bases here at home, essentially leaving the country defenseless.

For undemocratic reasons and for motives not of State, They arrive at their conclusions - largely inarticulate. Being void of self-expression they confide their views to none: But sometimes in a smoking-room, one learns why things were done.

I think that marijuana should not only be legal, I think it should be a cottage industry. It would be wonderful for the state of Maine. There's some pretty good homegrown dope. I'm sure it would be even better if you could grow it with fertilizers and have greenhouses.

If our nation can issue a dollar bond, it can issue a dollar bill. The element that makes the bond good, makes the bill good also. The difference between the bond and the bill is the bond lets money brokers collect twice the amount of the bond and an additional 20%, where as the currency pays nobody but those who contribute directly in some useful way. It is absurd to say our country can issue $30 million in bonds and not $30 million in currency. Both are promises to pay, but one promise fattens the userers and the other helps the people.

Abuse does not rule out use.

[The right] may never bring prayer back to schools, but it has rescued all manner of rightwing economic nostrums from history's dustbins. Having rolled back the landmark economic reforms of the sixties (the war on poverty) and those of the thirties (labor law, agricultural price supports, banking regulation), its leaders now turn their guns on the accomplishments of the earliest years of progressivism (Woodrow Wilson's estate tax; Theodore Roosevelt's anti-trust measures). With a little more effort, the backlash may well repeal the entire twentieth century.

America decided we were going to stand by and let Americans die at the hands of terrorists a long time ago.

We have no plans to increase tax at all.

I want to see a publicly-owned railway, publicly accountable.

Powers that are constitutionally there can be used but the Scottish Labour Party is not planning to raise income tax and once the power is given it is like any parish council: it's got the right to exercise it.

I can stand here today, leader of the Labour Party, Prime Minister, and say to the British people: you have never had it so ... prudent.

For the moment, let me say this: Saddam Hussein's regime is despicable, he is developing weapons of mass destruction, and we cannot leave him doing so unchecked. He is a threat to his own people and to the region and, if allowed to develop these weapons, a threat to us also.

As I have said throughout, I have no doubt that they will find the clearest possible evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.

What you can't do is have a situation where you get a rejection of the treaty and then you just bring it back with a few amendments and say we will have another go. You can't do that and I am not going to get drawn into speculating the way forward because I don't intend to lose the referendum.

Yes, I did have to struggle very hard to get this [the vote on the Iraq war] through, but the reason I did it was because I thought it was the right thing to do. I didn't take this on myself... just because I thought, 'Let's give myself a really hard time for a couple of years!'

To state a timetable now would simply paralyze the proper working of government, put at risk the changes we are making for Britain and damage the country.

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.

I believe that during the intervention of NATO in Kosovo exists one consideration no one doubts: the reason for the air attacks, the bombing is not a material interest. The reason is purely humanitarian.

The idea of human rights and freedoms must be an integral part of any meaningful world order. Yet, I think it must be anchored in a different place, and in a different way, than has been the case so far. If it is to be more than just a slogan mocked by half the world, it cannot be expressed in the language of a departing era, and it must not be mere froth floating on the subsiding waters of faith in a purely scientific relationship to the world.

The number is arrived at through a calculation on the basis of a ratio of 1000 to 10 to 5 to 1. That means, out of 1000 people 10 require psychiatric treatment, of these 5 in residential form, and of these 1 patient will come out of the programme. If one applies this to the population of the Great German Reich, then one must reckon with 65 to 75,000 cases. With this statement the question of who can be regarded as settled.

Only by abolishing private property in land and building cheap and hygienic dwellings can the housing problem be solved.

We have spoken on many occasions of the need to achieve high economic growth as an absolute priority for our country. The annual address for 2003 set for the first time the goal of doubling gross domestic product within a decade.

If there is no possibility or, to put it in plain terms, if there is no money... What can you do? You can't go to a store, you can't buy anything, either a cannon, or a missile, or a medicine. For this reason the economy is at the basis of everything. In the beginning it was Karl Marx and then Freud and others...

We still have a great amount of work to do in social development, including resolving one of the biggest challenges we face in this area, namely, reducing the gap between high-income earners and people, citizens of our country, who are still living on very modest means indeed. But we cannot, of course, adopt the solution used 80 years ago and simply confiscate the riches of some to redistribute among others. We will use completely different means to resolve this problem, namely, we will ensure good economic growth.

Russia doesn't negotiate with terrorists. It destroys them. [16]

Yes, Mexico must be thoroughly chastised! Let our arms now be carried with a spirit which shall teach the world that, while we are not forward for a quarrel, American knows how to crush, as well as expand!

Diejenige Regierung ist die beste, die sich uberflussing macht.

The inquiry into the proper aims and limits of State agency must be of the highest importance-nay, that it is perhaps more vitally momentous than any other political question.

All political arrangements, in that they have to bring a variety of widely-discordant interests into unity and harmony, necessarily occasion manifold collisions. From these collisions spring misproportions between men's desires and their powers; and from these, transgressions. The more active the State is, the greater is the number of these.

Every development of truths which relate to human nature, and more especially its active manifestations, is attended with a wish to see worked out in practice what theory has shown us to be just and good. To man, whose mind is seldom satisfied with the calmly beneficent influence of abstract ideas, this desire is perfectly natural, and it increases in liveliness with the spirit of benevolent sympathy in social happiness and well-being. But, however natural in itself, and however noble in its origin, this desire has not unfrequently led to hurtful consequences,-nay, often to greater evils than the colder indifference, or (as from the very opposite cause the same effect may follow) the glowing enthusiasm, which, comparatively heedless of reality, delights only in the pure beauty of ideas.

In order to bring about the transition from the condition of the present to another newly resolved on, every reform should be allowed to proceed as much as possible from men's minds and thoughts.

The legislator should keep two things constantly before his eyes:-1. The pure theory developed to its minutest details; 2. The particular condition of actual things which he designs to reform.

Our differences are policies; our agreements, principles.

We believe that peace is not just signed papers, but rather a contract between generations for the building of a more promising and less threatening future

Trust, but Verify.

A tolerable expertness in military movements is a business that requires time and practice. It is not a day, or even a week, that will suffice for the attainment of it. To oblige the great body of the yeomanry, and of the other classes of the citizens, to be under arms for the purpose of going through military exercises and evolutions, as often as might be necessary to acquire the degree of perfection which would entitle them to the character of a well-regulated militia, would be a real grievance to the people, and a serious public inconvenience and loss. It would form an annual deduction from the productive labor of the country, to an amount which, calculating upon the present numbers of the people, would not fall far short of the whole expense of the civil establishments of all the States. To attempt a thing which would abridge the mass of labor and industry to so considerable an extent, would be unwise: and the experiment, if made, could not succeed, because it would not long be endured. Little more can reasonably be aimed at, with respect to the people at large, than to have them properly armed and equipped; and in order to see that this be not neglected, it will be necessary to assemble them once or twice in the course of a year.

It was pretended at the time and it has since been asserted by historians and publicists that Mr. Johnson's Reconstruction policy was only a continuation of that of Mr. Lincoln. This is true only in a superficial sense, but not in reality. Mr. Lincoln had indeed put forth reconstruction plans which contemplated an early restoration of some of the rebel states. But he had done this while the Civil War was still going on, and for the evident purpose of encouraging loyal movements in those States and of weakening the Confederate State government there. Had he lived, he would have as ardently wished to stop bloodshed and to reunite as he ever did. But is it to be supposed for a moment that, seeing the late master class in the South intent upon subjecting the freedmen again to a system very much akin to slavery, Lincoln would have consented to abandon those freemen to the mercies of that master class?

Most Americans have no real understanding of the operations of the international moneylenders... the accounts of the Federal Reserve have never been audited. It operates outside the control of Congress and ... manipulates the credit of the United States

We seek the support of all political groups and protection of the government, which is also our government, in our struggle. For too many years we have been treated like the lowest of the low. Our wages and working conditions have been determined from above, because irresponsible legislators who could have helped us, have supported the rancher's argument that the plight of the Farm Worker was a 'special case.' They saw the obvious effects of an unjust system, starvation wages, contractors, day hauls, forced migration, sickness, illiteracy, camps and sub-human living conditions, and acted as if they were irremediable causes. The farm worker has been abandoned to his own fate - without representation, without power - subject to mercy and caprice of the rancher. We are tired of words, of betrayals, of indifference. To the politicians we say that the years are gone when the farm worker said nothing and did nothing to help himself. From this movement shall spring leaders who shall understand us, lead us, be faithful to us, and we shall elect them to represent us. We shall be heard.

...man must accept responsibilities in proportion to his power and, if we are to exercise these responsibilities so that all life can continue on earth, they must have a moral and philosophical basis. Simple self-interest, economic profit and absolute materialism are no longer enough... It has been made perfectly clear that a concern for any part of life on this planet - human, plant or animal, wild or tame - is a concern for all life. A threat to any part of the environment is a threat to the whole environment, but we must have a basis of assessment of these threats, not so that we can establish a priority of fears, but so that we can make a positive contribution to improvement and ultimate survival.