"Are we at the point now where it's politically incorrect to be successful? At the end of the day, we didn't make any bad mortgage loans, we are not building cars that don't sell, and we didn't lay any people off." – Bob Parsons, "Grinch Is Not Invited To GoDaddy's Shindig"
Recently in Quick Quotes Category
"You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves." – William J.H. Boetcker, The Ten Cannots
You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
You cannot build character and courage by destroying men's initiative and independence.
And you cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves." – William J.H. Boetcker, The Ten Cannots
"All I ask is that you restrict them to 'layout-only' check-ins. In other words, if you want to do some source code reformatting and change some code, please split it up into two check-ins, one that does the reformatting and the other that changes the code." – Raymond Chen, "If you're going to reformat source code, please don't do anything else at the same time"
"Well, it's [Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac] really an incredible case study in regulation because something called OFHEO was set up in 1992 by Congress, and the sole job of OFHEO was to watch over Fannie and Freddie, someone to watch over them. And they were there to evaluate the soundness and the accounting and all of that. Two companies were all they had to regulate. OFHEO has over 200 employees now. They have a budget now that's $65 million a year, and all they have to do is look at two companies. I mean, you know, I look at more than two companies.
"And they sat there, made reports to the Congress, you can get them on the Internet, every year. And, in fact, they reported to Sarbanes and Oxley every year. And they went—wrote 100 page reports, and they said, 'We've looked at these people and their standards are fine and their directors are fine and everything was fine.' And then all of a sudden you had two of the greatest accounting misstatements in history. You had all kinds of management malfeasance, and it all came out. And, of course, the classic thing was that after it all came out, OFHEO wrote a 350–340 page report examining what went wrong, and they blamed the management, they blamed the directors, they blamed the audit committee. They didn't have a word in there about themselves, and they're the ones that 200 people were going to work every day with just two companies to think about. It just shows the problems of regulation." – Warren Buffett, CNBC Interview from 8/22/2008 {via}
"Without a doubt, politicians and others continue to make principled noises on occasion—for the simple reason that the rhetoric of principle still sells. Sounding such themes is thought to be practical. Nine times out of ten, however, words of principle are hollow. These days, when you hear a principle articulated, it is advisable to stay tuned, for a contradiction is almost invariably in the neighborhood, whether explicitly or implicitly." – Tara Smith, "The Menace of Pragmatism"
"In this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem. From time to time we've been tempted to believe that society has become too complex to be managed by self-rule, that government by an elite group is superior to government for, by, and of the people. Well, if no one among us is capable of governing himself, then who among us has the capacity to govern someone else? All of us together, in and out of government, must bear the burden. The solutions we seek must be equitable, with no one group singled out to pay a higher price." – Ronald Reagan, First Inaugural Address
"It's not based on any particular data point. We just wanted to choose a really large number." – Treasury spokeswoman, "Bad News For The Bailout"
"It is at a time like this, in the face of an approaching economic collapse, that the intellectuals are preaching egalitarian notions. When the curtailment of government spending is imperative, they demand more welfare projects. When the need for men of productive ability is desperate, they demand more equality for the incompetents. When the country needs the accumulation of capital, they demand that we soak the rich. When the country needs more savings, they demand a 'redistribution of income.' They demand more jobs and less profits—more jobs and fewer factories—more jobs and no fuel, no oil, no coal, no 'pollution'—but, above all, more goods for free to more consumers, no matter what happens to jobs, to factories, or to producers." – Ayn Rand, "Egalitarianism and Inflation" (listen)
"To have the freedom to succeed, we must preserve the freedom to fail. Any solution to our present crisis must preserve our essential economic freedom. Congress should delay consideration of any legislation until the facts and competing solutions can be fully debated, consider alternatives to massive government spending and figure out how to pay for the solution through budget cuts and reform instead of more debt or taxes." — Mike Pence (R-Indiana), "Pence Opposes Bush Administration Bailout Plan"
"Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules." — Paul Johnson, "The Nonsense of Global Warming"
"He asked why we were not prepared to delay an agreement until after the US elections and the formation of a new administration in Washington." — Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, "Obama tried to stall GIS' Iraq withdrawal" {via}
"The truth is that the Muppet you know as 'Beaker' actually spoke perfect English. The sound you think of as his voice is just the sound that the censors used to cover up his incredibly foul mouth." — Scott Meyer, "How to Reveal a Shocking Truth to a Person Who's Not Ready for the Truth"
“Swiftboating is not going to work this time. And the reason it’s not is, No. 1, I’m going to smack ‘em right square in the chops.” — Joseph Biden, "Biden: Hillary Clinton ‘might have been a better pick’ for VP"
"Swiftboating" is what Ayn Rand called an "anti-concept." Everyone on the left uses it indiscriminately but it's never really defined. People seem to use it to mean "character assassination" or "smear campaign" but it is often trotted out to stifle negative, though truthful, political discussions.
Dismissing an opponent's charges or attacks as "Swiftboating" is a sure way to squelch the attacker as well as plant the seeds of doubt in the listener without refuting or countering the attack. Whenever you hear the term bandied about, it's time to critically examine the attack rather than dismiss it out of hand. Also, be aware that the one invoking it may be trying to pull something over on you as well.
(Side note: is anyone else troubled by a Senator and VP candidate threatening violence on anyone attacking Obama? Maybe he's channeling Preston Brooks.)
[UPDATE: Here's a good examination of the term and its proper usage.]
"In the first 100 days of our administration, we will look at every agency and department and expenditure of the federal government and ask this simple question: Is it serving the needs of the taxpayer? If it is not, we will reform it or shut it down, and we will spend money only on what is truly in the interest of the American people." — John McCain and Sarah Palin, "We'll Protect Taxpayers From More Bailouts"
If only this were true. Something tells me that they'll have an expansive idea of "reform[ing] it." Or they'll take a statist notion of what's "in the interest of the American people."
"I'm not a Republican because I grew up rich, but because I didn't want to spend the rest of my life poor, waiting for the government to rescue me." — Mike Huckabee, "RNC Speech"
"This shit is too pedantic, too convoluted, and violates too many preconceived notions of how authentication works. Instead of trying to figure out your bullshit, a user will just use the same username and password that he uses for everything. Problem solved." — Ted Dziuba, "OpenID is Why I Hate the Internet"
"Because, once you've decided you're 'right,' it only makes sense to employ the tactics you loathe in your adversary. That always works out." — Merlin Mann, in a tweet
"If I catch Senator Obama's drift, then, our failure to 'lead by example' was the liberation of Iraq. And if he really thinks that, by liberating Iraq from a dangerous tyrant, America somehow set a bad example that invited Russia to invade a small, peaceful, and democratic nation, then he should state it outright -- because that is a debate I welcome." — John McCain, "Speech to American Legion"
"Indeed, no one within a light year of humility wants the kind of power and gaudy glory that Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain so desperately seek." — Don Boudreaux, "Humility, Schmulity"
"When we hear about rent control or gun control, we may think about rent or guns but the word that really matters is 'control.' That is what the political left is all about, as you can see by the incessant creation of new restrictions in places where they are strongly entrenched in power, such as San Francisco or New York." — Thomas Sowell, "Random Thoughts"
