Us Government Quotes

“The lobby is the army of the plutocracy.”
― William Graham Sumner, What Social Classes Owe to Each Other

“Dotcom believes one of the reasons he was targeted was his support for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. He says he was compelled to reach out to the site after US soldier Bradley Manning leaked documents to it. The infamous video recording of the Apache gunship gunning down a group of Iraqis (some of whom, despite widespread belief to the contrary, were later revealed to have been armed), including two Reuters journalists, was the trigger.

“Wow, this is really crazy,” Dotcom recalls thinking, watching the black-and-white footage and hearing the operators of the helicopter chat about firing on the group. He made a €20,000 donation to Wikileaks through Megaupload’s UK account. “That was one of the largest donations they got,” he says. According to Dotcom, the US, at the time, was monitoring Wikileaks and trying better to understand its support base. “My name must have popped right up.”

The combination of a leaking culture and a website dedicated to producing leaked material would horrify the US government, he says. A willing leaker and a platform on which to do it was “their biggest enemy and their biggest fear . . . If you are in a corrupt government and you know how much fishy stuff is going on in the background, to you, that is the biggest threat — to have a site where people can anonymously submit documents.”

Neil MacBride was appointed to the Wikileaks case, meaning Dotcom shares prosecutors with Assange. “I think the Wikileaks connection got me on the radar.”

Dotcom believes the US was most scared of the threat of inspiration Wikileaks posed. He also believes it shows just how many secrets the US has hidden from the public and the rest of the world. “That’s why they are going after that so hard. Only a full transparent government will have no corruption and no back door deals or secret organisations or secret agreements. The US is the complete opposite of that. It is really difficult to get any information in the US, so whistleblowing is the one way you can get to information and provide information to the public.”
― David Fisher, The Secret Life of Kim Dotcom: Spies, Lies and the War for the Internet

“In Reagan's world, we have to be geared up to fight a foe that could barely feed its own people. And meanwhile, our real troubles have to be mocked. Global warming. Nuclear proliferation. Corrupt governments supported by my tax dollars and everyone's complacency.”
― Robert Reed, Clarkesworld Magazine, Issue 108, September 2015

“Inefficiency is to be our safeguard against despotism.”
― Garry Wills, A Necessary Evil: A History of American Distrust of Government

“Edward Snowden isn't a traitor. He reported the crime of conspiracy to deny citizens of their constitutional rights. NetworkEtiquette.net”
― David Chiles

“When government works, it is usually because the chief understands the fabric of power, threading the needle where policy and politics converge.”
― Chris Whipple, The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staff Define Every Presidency

“However, before that I owned a gun store. We were a Title 7 SOT (Special Occupational Taxpayer), which means we worked with legal machine guns, suppressors, and pretty much everything except for explosives. We did law enforcement sales and worked with equipment that’s unavailable from most dealers, which meant lots of government inspections and compliance paperwork. I had to be exceedingly familiar with federal gun laws, and there are a multitude of those. I worked with many companies in the gun industry and still have friends and contacts at various manufacturers. When I hear people tell me the gun industry is unregulated, I have to resist the urge to laugh in their faces.”
― Larry Correia, In Defense of the Second Amendment

“The Americans are like shadows . . . frightening until you finally touch them and realize that their image was their power all along.”
― Mark E. Henshaw, Cold Shot

“In any event, one must consider the broader implications of a frontal assault on the separation of powers as outdated, ineffective, and unaccountable. The assault calls into question core aspects of the Constitution, and it offers in their place a vision of firm and unified governmental management. What does this approach sacrifice?

Ultimately, a number of fundamental values are threatened. At the most basic level, the argument overlooks the importance of deliberation, dialogue, and debate involving the institutions of U.S. government and the public.”
― Thomas O. Sargentich, The Limits of the Parliamentary Critique of the Separation of Powers

“The medical-industrial complex and the industrial food complex are controlled in the same policymaking department of the government!”
― Donna Maltz, Conscious Cures: Soulutions to 21st Century Pandemics

“America isn’t the picture of barbecues, guns, freedom, and hot girls eating hamburgers you probably saw on TV. That’s the old America and one I’m not even sure ever existed. The glowies parade that picture around every time they want to put people at ease and push them back into place. DC is especially made of glowies. You can’t talk to anyone because maybe they’re gonna send you to the dungeon or maybe they know someone who can.”
― Ian Kirkpatrick, Boom, Boom, Boom

“Later, the US government went against the treaty and tried to have our tribe sent to one of the reservations they had set up in Washington, including one that was along the Elwha River. The other was in what is now called Kitsap, farther south. They offered plots of land and $80 to anyone who would move to these locations. Members who moved to Kitsap became the Port Gamble S'Klallam Tribe, and those who moved to the Elwha River became the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe. Some tribal members stayed, insisting that Jamestown Beach was where they belonged. They pooled together $500 worth of gold coin and purchased 210 acres along the water. There is where we staked our independence and became the Jamestown S'Klallam Tribe.”
― Leah Myers, Thinning Blood: A Memoir of Family, Myth, and Identity

“The United States never really broke off with the British Empire, it simply became the new age British Empire - it became the new face of tyranny.”
― Abhijit Naskar, Bulletproof Backbone: Injustice Not Allowed on My Watch

“I think one of the things that people misunderstand is that they see the disagreements that we have, sometimes, as if it's dysfunction. And the disagreement is not dysfunction. The disagreement is the result of the design of this form of government. The whole idea was to find as many different points of view as we can identify in the country and put them under one dome and ask them to commit themselves to a process to reconcile their differences and put the country on a path forward. So that disagreement is not dysfunction. That disagreement is how it was intended to work. Where I think we fail sometimes is when we have members who won't commit themselves to the process. They're committed to their own ideology, less to a collaborative process of governing. The dome of the Capitol was intended to sit atop disagreement, but to provide us a venue to reconcile those disagreements, knowing that we're not gonna win every fight, and that we live to fight another day. Not enough people understand that.”
― Dan Kildee