This Week In Quotes: 3/12 – 3/18

19 Mar, 2010 by John Hawkins

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The liberal argument is easily grasped by children, because it rarely includes the ideas of costs or tradeoffs. That’s why children and teenagers tend to be liberal in their thinking. Do you want to feed the hungry? Clothe the naked? Heal the sick? Boy do I!!! These are very simplistic propositions, and furthermore come from a place of pure emotion — empathy. Their is little intellectual thrust behind these impulses. And certainly there is none of the higher-order mathematical-type thinking involved in cost-benefit analysis ad risk management and moral hazard and unintended consequences and the free-rider problem and so on. But their claims of complex, nuanced intellectual appeals are most spectactularly self-refuted when they trot out — as they are wont to do — children to repeat the exact same arguments they make. — Ace

This handful of people thinks they can enforce their will on 300 million Americans? They’re not gonna do that. This is dictatorial, what they are doing. We are not compelled to follow a non-law just because Obama and Pelosi tells us we have to. If they pass the bill legitimately, then yes, we have to follow the law — until we repeal it. But if they pass it illegitimately, then the bill is illegitimate, and we don’t have to lay down for this. — Michele Bachmann

I want to send a couple of messages to my colleagues in the House. If you voted no and you vote yes, and you lose your election, and you think any nomination to a federal position isn’t going to be held in the Senate, I’ve got news for you. It’s going to be held.

Number two is, if you get a deal, a parochial deal for you or your district, I’ve already instructed my staff and the staff of seven other senators that we will look at every appropriations bill, at every level, at every instance, and we will outline it by district, and we will associate that with the buying of your vote. So, if you think you can cut a deal now, and it not come out until after the election, I want to tell you that isn’t going to happen. And be prepared to defend selling your vote in the House. — Tom Coburn

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse NEW customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire. That isn’t an “insurance company”; it’s what’s known as a “Christian charity. — Ann Coulter

Nancy Pelosi, I think, has got them all liquored up on sake and you know, they’re making a suicide run here. — Lindsey Graham

From my own experience, it seems that it is difficult to change (Lindsey Graham’s) mind on anything — whether it is on cap and trade or GITMO or amnesty. Senator Graham knows how to command media attention for being a maverick, but I wish he was getting that label for taking the right position on these issues. — Sen. Jim Inhofe (R, OK)

The reason we don’t have violence in this country like they do in dictatorships is because we have votes, and our leaders listen to their constituents. Now we’re in a situation where the leaders are defying the people! — Rep Steve King (R-Iowa)

Is there anything cooler than Al Franken at Netroots Nation? — Kos

If you don’t tie our hands, (Congress) will keep stealing. — Rep. Tom Perriello (D-VA)

While deeming, like reconciliation, has been used by Republicans and Democrats in the past, the context in which it would be used in this case leads me to conclude that it would poison an already terribly partisan atmosphere and leave the Congress even less able to find bipartisan solutions to fiscal problems that are on the verge of becoming overwhelming. — Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-S.D.)

If you pass the Stupak amendment, more children will be born, and therefore it will cost us millions more. That’s one of the arguments I’ve been hearing. Money is their hang-up. Is this how we now value life in America? If money is the issue – come on, we can find room in the budget. This is life we’re talking about. — Bart Stupak