Monday, September 29, 2008

On "Helping"

"I sit on a man's back, choking him and making him carry me, and yet assure myself and others that I am very sorry for him and wish to ease his lot by all possible means - except by getting off his back."


- Anonymous
Blogged with the Flock Browser

On hard-won lessons, personal and cultural.

This is the work of an older and wiser thinker, one who has understood that most painfully achieved axiom of Western civilization: In religious disputation, invective achieves absolutely nothing.

--Jacques Berlinerblau (speaking of Michael Novak)

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

On the Bailout

And if they're going to do something, then what they ought to do is make loans, which the financial institutions have to repay with interest. And if you think -- that's an idea which the Chileans have used in a bigger crisis than this for them in 1982, and it worked for them.

People paid back the loans. They weren't allowed to pay dividends until they repaid the loans. They weren't allowed to take bonuses until they repaid the loans. I think that's the way -- if we're going to do this, then that's the way we should do it.

- Allan Meltzer

Monday, September 22, 2008

On Peer Pressure

“Because Jess made me.”

- Dan Kearns

Sunday, September 21, 2008

For the Love of Blue Collars

Many liberals claim to love working-class families, but the moment they glimpse a hunter with an uneven college record, they hop on chairs and call for disinfectant.
- David Brooks

Friday, September 19, 2008

How to make a blue-stater blue.....

"A theory of democracy, however intellectually sophisticated, that is neither understood nor accepted by the demos for which it is contrived is a theory of democracy both misbegotten and stillborn. Two hundred years ago, and even more so today, the American people, from whom democratic legitimacy is derived, are incorrigibly and overwhelmingly, however confusedly, religious. This America continues to be, in the telling phrase of Chesterton, “a nation with the soul of a church.”"

--Richard John Neuhaus

Monday, September 15, 2008

On taking on capitalism's iron rules, or "what is hubris?"

"Government has not been able to hold bank the forces which have taken down financial giant after financial giant. Capitalism demands pain. Good risk is rewarded and imprudent risk is punished. We were engaged in an orgy of imprudent risk taking for nearly a decade and now a heavy price will be paid for the violation of so many simple and common sense precepts of trading."

--John Jansen

Saturday, September 13, 2008

On Leadership

"Well as far as I’m concerned, I’ve had about enough cowboy for a while - an independent maverick is exactly what we DON’T need. We need a bridge builder - someone who will rebuild our relationships with our allies, cross party lines to find workable solutions to the political stand-offs of the last eight years, surround himself with others who can challenge and inform him, and lead us forward."


- Sarah Case

Wednesday, September 10, 2008

On Misquoting

"... the ad itself doesn't bother explaining how the candidates differ on school vouchers, the subject of my column. Instead, it insults our intelligence by expecting us to believe that Obama thinks kindergarteners should be taught how to use condoms before they're taught to read. Right. And Joe Biden eats puppies for breakfast." 

- Steve Chapman

On Deficit Spending

"Is there anyone who would prefer the fiscal situation of Zimbabwe, even though its deficit is not even a tenth as large as the U.S. deficit?"

- Dean Baker

Monday, September 1, 2008

On patriarchy

"Finished [my] wife's Stampin' project while she was at work in hopes of freeing up some booty time tonight. This is what married men do."

--Simianfarmer