I don't think people by nature are extremists. You will never find a population of extremists. Extremists have existed throughout the centuries on all religions. And what happens is, extremists start to have more leverage when the situation is bad.
Will we be extremists for hate, or will we be extremists for love? Will we be extremists for the preservation of injustice, or will we be extremists for the cause of justice?
The First Amendment allows Nazis and white extremists to do what they are going to do, and it allows for black extremists and all other types of extremists to do what they are going to do. I understand that, and I'm not opposed to that.
The question is not whether we will be extremists, but what kind of extremists we will be... The nation and the world are in dire need of creative extremists.
I deeply regret to say that terrorism has become globalized: ' From New York to Mosul, from Damascus to Baghdad, from the Easternmost to the Westernmost parts of the world, from Al-Qaeda to Daesh'. The extremists of the world have found each other and have put out the call: 'extremists of the world unite'. But are we united against the extremists?
Extremists on the left tend to be just as critical of pragmatism as extremists on the right.
Saudi Arabia is a frightened monarchy. It's beset by Sunni extremists from the Islamic State and Shiite extremists backed by Iran.
I am a man who believes with all fervor and intensity in moderate progress. Too often men who believe in moderation believe in it only moderately and tepidly and leave fervor to the extremists of the two sides - the extremists of reaction and the extremists of progress. Washington, Lincoln . . . are men who, to my mind, stand as the types of what wide, progressive leadership should be.
Since 9/11, right-wing extremists (incl anti-abortion, anti-gov) have killed more Americans than Islamic extremists.
In the 1880s and 1890s, extremists in the Republican party also threatened the future of the US. Just when it seemed the extremists' control of the government was complete, their political machinations, propaganda, and demonization of their opposition fueled a dramatic backlash.
[The Republicans] are always asking the Muslims to denounce their extremists. And I agree with them. But they don't take that note and do it among their own. They don't denounce their own extremists.
Just as Lincoln got contradictory advice from the extremists of both sides . . . so now I have to guard myself against the extremists of both sides.
There's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council. The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.
The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over, and people are standing up.
If there's any comparison between the compassion and decency of the American people and the terrorist tactics of extremists, it's flawed logic. It's just I simply can't accept that. It's unacceptable to think that there's any kind of comparison between the behavior of the United States of America and the action of Islamic extremists who kill innocent women and children to achieve an objective.
Always, with any sort of politics, which is why we haven't got any, you get extremists, and once you get extremists, you get people doing great things and terrible things... for every following of some sort, you get followers who distort things.