Top 1200 Political Reform Quotes & Sayings - Page 5

In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible... Thus, political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging, and sheer cloudy vagueness... Political language [is] designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable.

The decline of witch-belief was . . . entirely the product of religious skepticism. . . . The Catholic Church did not reform itself on this matter; it was forced by outside pressure to reform. To be sure, the Protestant churches were no better in this regard; it is simply that they had less time - only two or three centuries - to engage in the torching of witches. After all, John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, stated quite correctly that disbelief in witches meant a disbelief in the Bible.

There's public health risks to doing large political gatherings, but in this country - and we do still live in America - we protect the right to free speech and we protect the right to political discourse and political events.

Political means so many things. We are political willy-nilly. Political poetry is an easy invitation to disaster. But then so is love poetry. But we are a little more patient with bad love poetry.

We all know that election reform takes time. That's because those who have benefited from the system are the ones who fight hardest to preserve it. So if we're going to succeed, we need an independent coalition of citizens who believe in reform, who believe that our election laws should treat every voter equally, who believe that low levels of competition and participation are not healthy for democracy. The Independence Party is helping to build that coalition and I am happy to join you in doing so.

To me, a political song is also a personal song. Most political activism has been driven by empathy for other people and the desire for a world that's less divisive. Even if songs aren't overtly political, they can make a listener more empathetic.

I took office as president in January 2003, and in April 2003, I sent to Congress my first proposal for tax reform. Some parts were voted on, with respect to federal taxes, and then it came to a standstill. Why? Because each state is interested in its own tax reform, has its own tax policy, and each state has its federal deputies and senators.

Faith is not a political strategy and should not be a political strategy. If it is being used as a tool to garner votes, to convince people they should support one political party or the other, I think that is a huge mistake.

There's such an aggressively apolitical movement in the US that anything that smells of being political - even the term "political" is so ridiculous, when you think about it. The worst part of governing, the political side, is the grossest part, so that's what they call it. So anything that reeks of that immediately gets tuned out by 70 percent of the population.

There is not a more dangerous experiment than to place property in the hands of one class, and political power in those of another... If property cannot retain the political power, the political power will draw after it the property.

On the eve of historic fights for health care and clean energy, opponents of reform have mounted a vicious smear campaign against me. They are using lies and distortions to distract and divide. I have been inundated with calls - from across the political spectrum -- urging me to 'stay and fight.' But I came here to fight for others, not for myself. I cannot in good conscience ask my colleagues to expend precious time and energy defending or explaining my past. We need all hands on deck, fighting for the future.

Independent economists say immigration reform will grow our economy and shrink our deficits by almost $1 trillion in the next two decades. And for good reason: when people come here to fulfill their dreams - to study, invent, and contribute to our culture - they make our country a more attractive place for businesses to locate and create jobs for everyone. So let's get immigration reform done this year.

I think that all my books are political, I think that I have a political body of work. I am essentially a political woman, but above all I am a poet. I am a poetess.

I'm not saying we don't need health care reform. We do need health care reform.

There can be no effective control of corporations while their political activity remains. To put an end to it will be neither a short nor an easy task, but it can be done ... Corporate expenditures for political purposes, and especially such expenditures by public-service corporations, have supplied one of the principal sources of corruption in our political affairs.

Now, the president would like to do tax reform, which would obviously lower rates for most people in America and make the tax code fair and get rid of loopholes and special treatment. But absent tax reform, the president believes the right way to get our fiscal house in order is ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.

Climate science has been targeted by a major political movement, environmentalism, as the focus of their efforts, wherein the natural disasters of the earth system, have come to be identified with man's activities - engendering fear as well as an agenda for societal reform and control... This greatly facilitates any conscious effort to politicize science via influence in such bodies where a handful of individuals (often not even scientists) speak on behalf of organizations that include thousands of scientists, and even enforce specific scientific positions and agendas.

Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is sustained by it as well.

As a political activist you run the risk of having to settle for one compromise or another in order to achieve your goals. Artists face the obvious accusation of elitism. The fundamental principle of my work is that it critiques capitalism in very specific ways. I am not interested in generalized political rhetoric. Instead of "aestheticizing" political issues, I try to challenge ingrained perspectives.

Three Days of the Condor is still an interesting film to watch not because it's political. It happens to be political. But that's not why the sales of the DVDs are as high as they are. It's because it's an entertaining thriller. In my opinion, Tootsie is a very political movie but truck drivers can go and laugh at it.

Modern equalitarian societies whether democratic or authoritarian in their political forms, always base themselves on the claim that they are making life happier. Happiness thus becomes the chief political issue -- in a sense, the only political issue -- and for that reason it can never be treated as an issue at all.

If we are going to deport Dreamers, and if we are going to deport undocumented individuals, our economy is going to take a big hit. That is why businesses across the country and in Nevada support immigration reform, support Dreamers, and support passing immigration reform to keep undocumented individuals in our state.

Political institutions are fair game in political debates in a democracy. Nothing is more fair game, in fact, than political matters of public concern.

For achieving good governance political will is necessary. Good governance is a political process. Though role of civil society is critical, without political will and political process, sustainable good governance cannot be achieved.

The possibility of impeachment's always there, but impeachment's a political thing, not legal, despite how it's structured. And it's not gonna happen unless there's a political will for it, and by that I mean political will among the people.

Global warming is a political issue. It is as much a political issue to the left as abortion is. It's as big a political issue as health care is.

I thought that conclusion that we leaped to right after the election, that has been disproven statistically so many times, I don't know why Republicans would advocate that advocating for comprehensive immigration reform is somehow a political solution for the Republicans losing a percentage of Hispanics. I probably have less appetite for this than either the Senate or colleagues in the House, certainly the Democrats and most likely members of the Republican Conference. They are still wrestling with trying to get their education up to a level where they can actually advocate for policy.

I believe in political solutions to political problems. But man's primary problems aren't political; they're philosophical. Until humans can solve their philosophical problems, they're condemned to solve their political problems over and over and over again. It's a cruel, repetitious bore.

It's a funny thing, I think people meet us and they assume that we know a lot more about politics than we actually do. People will really get into it. I'm like, I don't really know a lot about tariff reform or export trade reform. That's really not something I know about.

My art gets called political, as opposed to my intending it to be political. I think that's something that happens with black artists or marginalized voices trying to speak truth. Because there are things in the status quo to speak out against, speaking out against them will inherently be political.

The attempt to divide art and politics is a bourgeois which says good poetry, art, cannot be political, but since everything is … political, even an artist or work that claims not to have any politics is making a political statement by that act.

I feel like it had an impact, in that it started the attention that has been paid to what was happening. It started to get us into this whole conversation about prison reform, the whole bipartisan dialogue that's been happening over the past five, six years about this, where you have a Van Jones and a Newt Gingrich, and you have the Rick Perrys and so forth getting up and talking about the need to reform.

Climate change should not fundamentally be seen as a political or partisan issue, but it has been turned into a political football primarily by the climate deniers who have a vested interested in maintaining the status quo. That includes certain industrial interests, financial interests and political interests.

I am a political human being. I have - that's one of my interests. I studied political science in college. I was actually going to get my Ph.D. in poli-sci. And a lot of my material from early on in my career dealt with politics, so I've always considered myself as somebody who enjoys political humor. So I'm not going to stop.

We're trying our best to develop sort of strategies. We have already turned into law a labor reform law that will allow for more opportunities to ensue. We have also established a permits law that will facilitate permits in Puerto Rico. We are about to roll out a comprehensive tax reform that will enhance the base and will reduce the rates in Puerto Rico.

Let me see: art and activism. I can always fall back on, "the question should be, what isn't political? Everything you do is political, even if it's abstract. You're making a political statement even if it's unwittingly." I think so much of art is unconscious anyway, the artist doesn't know the real reason they're doing it. They're just kind of going along with it intuitively.

I think that political parties are fuelling this fear in order to create divisions. The more we bring up fear, the more we neglect real political issues. Political debate in France is crumbling since every single issue is brought to Islam now.

[Camillo] Berneri proposed that the anarchists should link up with the effort of Northern Africa to overthrow the Spanish government, carry out land reform, attract the base of the Moorish army, and see if they could undermine [Francisco] Franco's army through political warfare in Northern Africa combined with guerrilla warfare in Spain. Historians laughed at that, but I don't think they should have. This was the kind of war that might have succeeded in stopping Spanish fascism.

Do you know what social justice is? Do you know what social reform is? I didn't either, but reform and social justice are what I intend to do.

Look, the United States doesn't have political parties. In other countries, take say Europe, you can be an active member of the political party. Here, the only thing in a political party is gearing to elections, not the other things you do. So it's basically, a way of making people passive, submissive objects.

Music is more difficult - try naming a political band. The Dead Kennedys. The Dead Kennedys are political, but they are more funny than they are political.

Political realism is aware of the moral significance of political action. It is also aware of the ineluctable tension between the moral command and the requirements of successful political action. And it is unwilling to gloss over and obliterate that tension and thus to obfuscate both the moral and the political issue by making it appear as though the stark facts of politics were morally more satisfying than they actually are, and the moral law less exacting than it actually is.

There's no way you can do any homework on Black Lives Matters, and not see that it's a Marxist political organization. It's not about Black Death. It's not about black men. It is a political move. It's a communist political move.

The United States is in the midst of many spirited political debates about national priorities and public spending... However, we have found that science is an area where both political parties can find common ground, and in which political change does not necessarily create discontinuities.

Reform immigration to make it easy for individuals to come over here, be documented, pay taxes - immigration reform is needed to state that its about work, its not about welfare... Set up a grace period where they can get a work permit... social security card so that they can pay income tax, social security, Medicare.

The definition of political cinema is one I don't agree with, because every film, every show, is typically political in nature. Political cinema is simply the brainchild of bad journalists.

I've been offered political shows before, and I don't know anything about politics and I feel uncomfortable making political opinions - there's consequences to them. I often think I'm wrong, so I really don't like getting in political or religious discussions because of the giant possibility that I might be wrong.

The rise of a new kind of political science in the 1960s has been driving a wedge between political insiders and voters ever since. By turning voters into interest groups, it stopped establishment leaders from articulating a national narrative. It opened the way for Movement Conservatives to create today's political crisis.

Using the word ‘political’ in the widest possible sense. Desire to push the world in a certain direction, to alter other peoples’ idea of the kind of society that they should strive after. Once again, no book is genuinely free from political bias. The opinion that art should have nothing to do with politics is itself a political attitude.

Remember, I'm the guy who didn't want the referendum - I wouldn't have had it if I'd been prime minister. But you have to respect how people voted because this was partly about political alienation, so if the response to political alienation is to ignore it, that's a recipe for more political alienation.

Furthermore, we believe that health care reform, again I said at the beginning of my remarks, that we sent the three pillars that the President's economic stabilization and job creation initiatives were education and innovation - innovation begins in the classroom - clean energy and climate, addressing the climate issues in an innovative way to keep us number one and competitive in the world with the new technology, and the third, first among equals I may say, is health care, health insurance reform.

Erasmus dramatizes a well-established political position: that of the fool who claims license to criticize all and sundry without reprisal, since his madness defines him as not fully a person and therefore not a political being with political desires and ambitions. The Praise of Folly, therefore sketches the possibility of a position for the critic of the scene of political rivalry, a position not simply impartial between the rivals but also, by self-definition, off the stage of rivalry altogether.

Some people feel that it's controversial if I say that because my dad is known as a political artist. But I don't really believe that he was a political artist. I think some of his songs were political, and I think they were incredible because he was able to make art that was political and that wasn't pedantic. But I think he was unique in being able to do that.

I try not to focus on politics too much - I would never be described as a hugely political woman - but the fact of the matter is, just me being a female, immigrant, stand-up comedian, single-mother ... that is political. We still live in a world where a woman with a voice is a political gesture.

Self-righteousness and presumptive moral judgments pose a great danger in the political arena. To become convinced of the divine infallibility of one's personal predilections on a secular political issue is to play God, to assume to oneself the attributes of deity. It cultivates an arrogant intolerance of dissenting viewpoints and relegates one's political adversaries to the category of evil per se.

Those who advocate either slavery or income taxation should be ashamed of themselves. Genuine freedom entails the abolition, not the reform, of income taxation and the IRS, just as genuine freedom entailed the abolition, not the reform, of slavery.

I read at least one periodical every month by a political group I dislike - to keep some sense of balance. The overwhelming stupidity of political movements is caused by the fact that political types never read anything but their own gang's agit-prop.

I think I've yet to do the big heave is because New York editors tend to think D.C. guys like me want to do political stories. And I hate politics for its own sake. Politics are so... I don't know, political. Which is an odd thing for a guy to say, I suppose, who has worked at a political magazine for fourteen years.

There is much that public policy can do to support American entrepreneurs. Health insurance reform will make it easier for entrepreneurs to take a chance on a new business without putting their family's health at risk. Tort reform will make it easier to take prudent risks on new products in a number of sectors.

Legislative action will never bring genuine campaign-finance reform. Consultants will prove endlessly inventive in gaming whatever system the reformers can devise so as to give their candidate an edge and allow the power of massive money to be felt. But reform laws will become irrelevant and redundant as the Internet replaces the special-interest fat cats as the best way to raise money and takes the place of TV as the most effective way to get votes.