On your principles, you should never yield; you should be prepared to be defeated. Nobody likes to be defeated, but you should let everybody know in the most articulate and thoughtful and civil way you can (you don't go out and pick fights with people) that in certain matters that you define as matters of principle you will not budge, you cannot yield, you will not compromise. If you don't have the votes or the winning argument, then you stand to be defeated and rolled over, and you'll just have to come back another day.
If we would leave parties to the politicians, and would vote not for the party, not even for men, but for the city, and the State, and the nation, we should rule parties, and cities, and States, and nation.
Spending should be transparent. All spending by the Pentagon should be online. Every check. Exceptions should be made for legitimate national security issues. But military and civilian pay and retirement benefits are not state secrets. This has already been done in many state governments.
Most of us aren't defeated in one decisive battle. We are defeated one tiny, seemingly insignificant surrender at a time that chips away at who we should really be.
Get yourself in that intense state of being next to madness. Keep yourself in, not necessarily a frenzied state, but in a state of great intensity. The kind of state you would be in before going to bed with your partner. That heightened state when you're in a carnal embrace: time stops and nothing else matters. You should always write with an erection. Even if you're a woman.
I have been in dialogue with my family about what can actually be done. We've come up with this philosophy that in a truly multicultural society, the only way to have liberty and justice for everybody is to have multiple parties. And by multiple parties, I mean 50 parties, not one or two.
There is nothing the state can do, and which society needs done, that cannot be done far better by the market.
Last I looked - and I'm not a candidate - but last time I checked reading about the Constitution, the Electoral College has nothing to do with parties, has absolutely nothing to do with parties. It's most states are winners take all.
I don't think the federal government should be a part of everything. I think that governing should be done state-by-state... so that you can tailor your governing to the people's needs.
Things must be done by parties, not by persons using parties as tools.
No change in the balance of political parties can alter the general determination that no class should be excluded from contributing to and sharing responsibility for the state.
I would say that today the real support for State power and totalitarianism comes from the Communist parties and the Socialist parties and, where they are sizable, the Trotskyist groups. They are the ones that really frighten me.
Think about it: What the busybodies are saying is that third parties like themselves -- who are paying nothing to anybody -- should be determining how much somebody else should be paying those who work for them.
I always say that no matter what the torture is, or the tool is, first of all it's nothing worse than what's been done already and that wasn't done by the church and the state for over a period of 250 years during the European witch trials.
Mindfulness is Buddha's word for meditation. By mindfulness he means: you should always remain alert, watchful. You should always remain present. Not a single thing should be done in a sort of sleepy state of mind. You should not move like a somnambulist, you should move with a sharp consciousness.
Nothing fails like success; nothing is so defeated as yesterday's triumphant Cause.