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They Said It… Andrew Sullivan, H. L. Mencken And More!

Posted on July 30, 2014 in Liberator Online by James W. Harris Comments are off
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(From the They Said It section in Volume 19, No. 12 of the Liberator Online. Subscribe here!)

Senator Rand Paul

RAND PAUL’S ADVICE TO SILICON VALLEY:

“Don’t be depressed with how bad government is. Use your ingenuity, use your big head to think of solutions the marketplace can figure out, that the idiots and trolls in Washington will never come up with.” — Sen. Rand Paul(R-KY), speaking to Silicon Valley entrepreneurs at the Lincoln Labs Reboot conference, July 18, 2014.

THE DESTRUCTION CAUSED BY POT PROHIBITION: “America’s four-decade War on Drugs is responsible for many casualties, but the criminalization of marijuana has been perhaps the most destructive part of that war. The toll can be measured in dollars — billions of which are thrown away each year in the aggressive enforcement of pointless laws. It can be measured in years — whether wasted behind bars or stolen from a child who grows up fatherless. And it can be measured in lives — those damaged if not destroyed by the shockingly harsh consequences that can follow even the most minor offenses.” — journalist Jesse Wegman, “The Injustice of Marijuana Arrests,” New York Times, July 28, 2014.
CUT THE CRAP ABOUT THE GENDER PAY GAP: “A gender pay gap, albeit one that is rapidly decreasing, still exists; but the good news is that when occupation, contracted hours and most significantly age are taken into account, it all but disappears. In fact, the youngest women today, even those working part-time, are already earning more each hour than men. We need to ask why this is not more widely known and question the motives of those who seem so desperate to cling to a last-ditch attempt to prove that women remain disadvantaged. We should be telling today’s girls that the potential to do whatever job they want and earn as much money as they please is theirs for the taking, rather than burdening them with the mantle of victimhood.” —Joanna Williams, Spiked, “Cut the Crap About the Gender Pay Gap,” July 29, 2014.

President Barack Obama

OBAMA — U.S. TORTURED: “In the immediate aftermath of 9/11, we did some things that were wrong.We did a whole lot of things that were right, but we tortured some folks. We did things that were contrary to our values.” — President Obama, commenting on the new U.S. Senate report on CIA crimes, Aug. 1, 2014.
BUSH AND OBAMA VS. AMERICAN VALUES:

Andrew Sullivan“Either the rule of law applies to the CIA or it doesn’t. And it’s now absolutely clear that it doesn’t. The agency can lie to the public; it can spy on the Senate; it can destroy the evidence of its war crimes; it can lie to its superiors about its torture techniques; it can lie about the results of those techniques. No one will ever be held to account. … And so the giant and massive hypocrisy of this country on core human rights is now exposed for good and all. The Bush administration set the precedent for the authorization of torture. The Obama administration has set the precedent for its complete impunity. America has killed the Geneva Conventions just as surely as America made them. … The GOP ran a pro-torture candidate in 2012; they may well run a pro-torture candidate in 2016. This evil — which destroys the truth as surely as it destroys the human soul — is still with us.” — Andrew Sullivan on the new U.S. Senate report on CIA crimes, “We Tortured. It Was Wrong. Never Mind,” The Dish, Aug. 3, 2014.

Sheldon RichmanWHY WE SPEAK OUT: “How does one stand by in silence when one is forced by the tax collector tounderwrite aggression around the world against the poorest individuals imaginable? Innocent people — so many children — are killed and maimed, their homes and communities shattered, with the bombs, bullets, mortar shells, tanks, airplanes, helicopter gunships, and drones paid for by you and me through a government that claims to act in our names — while lying as a matter of course. Who can know these things and not speak out — no matter how wearying that may be?” —Sheldon Richman, The Future of Freedom Foundation, “I Can’t Help That I’m a Libertarian,” Aug. 1, 2014
Noted and Re-Quoted
ENDLESS HOBGOBLINS:

H.L. Mencken“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.” — H.L. Mencken, from In Defense of Women (1918), quoted by Ralph Benko at Forbes.com.