This Week In Quotes: May 21 — May 27

28 May, 2010 by John Hawkins

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Every murderous totalitarian government of the 20th century began with some insulated group of faux-intellectuals congratulating each other on how smart they are, and fantasizing about how, if they could just install a dictatorship-for-a-day, they could right all the wrongs in the world.

It is the ultimate fantasy of the narcissist. And we’ve got whole generations of them, in control of our media and our government, all intent on “remaking America. — The Anchoress

It has long been a maxim of political scientists that American voters are ideologically conservative and operationally liberal. That is another way of saying that they tend to oppose government spending in the abstract but tend to favor spending on particular programs. — Michael Barone

As you probably know, some American politicians and American journalists refer to Washington, DC as the “capital of the free world. But it seems to me that this great city (Brussels), which boasts 1,000 years of history and which serves as the capital of Belgium, the home of the European Union, and the headquarters for NATO, this city has its own legitimate claim to that title. — Joe Biden

I told (Obama) I thought there was a degree of audacity in him even showing up today after what happened with financial regulation. I just wanted him to tell me how, when he wakes up in the morning, comes over to a luncheon like ours today, how does he reconcile that duplicity? — Bob Corker

I find myself loathing Barack Obama more and more with each passing day. Not because his positions differ markedly from George W. Bush on issues of substance, but because they don’t. — Dennis the Peasant

In the 1950s there were seven workers for every retiree in advanced economies. By 2050, the ratio in the European Union will drop to 1.3 to 1. — Steven Erlanger

Here’s to the Greeks. They know what to do when corporations pillage and loot their country. They know what to do when Goldman Sachs and international bankers collude with their power elite to falsify economic data and then make billions betting that the Greek economy will collapse. They know what to do when they are told their pensions, benefits and jobs have to be cut to pay corporate banks, which screwed them in the first place. Call a general strike. Riot. Shut down the city centers. Toss the bastards out. Do not be afraid of the language of class warfare–the rich versus the poor, the oligarchs versus the citizens, the capitalists versus the proletariat. The Greeks, unlike most of us, get it. — Chris Hedges

I think our inaction shows what the danger [is] when a rogue state acquires a nuke as Pyongyang has. It’s not that it will drop a nuke tomorrow on America or its allies. It’s that if you have a nuke you can then do the kind of [conventional] aggression that they have conducted, attacking a warship – and be immune.

And that would happen if Iran acquired a nuke. It would be immunity for all kinds of terrorism and non-nuclear action, because it would have a nuke. It would be invulnerable. — Charles Krauthammer

And to those who say we must reform our immigration laws — I reply that we don’t need to reform them — we need to enforce them. Just as every other government does. Just as Mexico does.

Above all, this is a debate of, by and for the American people. If President Calderon wishes to participate in that debate, I invite him to obey our immigration laws, apply for citizenship, do what 600,000 LEGAL immigrants to our nation are doing right now, learn our history and our customs, and become an American. And then he will have every right to participate in that debate. — Tom McClintock

The bailouts started over eighteen months ago. Porkulus was enacted over a year ago. ObamaCare passed two months ago after a series of backroom deals left the details in the dark, and its passage has already resulted in sharp setbacks to employers, some of whom may abandon the provision of health benefits to their employees as a result. How long exactly are Americans expected to wait before the promised Nirvana of big-government interventions stop making things worse, and where criticism and demands for accountability don’t constitute “hypocrisy”? Two years? Five? Ten? Ever? — Ed Morrissey

Patrick said that even “on my worst day, when I’m most frustrated about folks who seem to rooting for failure,” he doesn’t face anything like the opposition faced by the president.

“It seems like child’s play compared to what is going on in Washington, where it is almost at the level of sedition, it feels to like me. — Deval Patrick

(Barack Obama) needs to take a Valium before he comes in and talks to Republicans. He’s pretty thin-skinned. — Sen. Pat Roberts

“Minimum Wage Cruelty” (4/14/10) was my column about the unemployment effects of Congress’ 2007 minimum wage increase on the canning industry in American Samoa, a U.S. territory in the far Pacific Ocean. The 2007 legislation mandated 50 cents annual increases in Samoan minimum wages until it reached the U.S. mainland’s hourly minimum of $7.25. In response, Chicken of the Sea International moved its operation from Samoa to a highly automated cannery plant in Lyons, Ga. That resulted in roughly 2,000 jobs lost in Samoa and a gain of 200 jobs in Georgia. Prior to minimum wage increases, Samoan wages were about $3.25 an hour. With the legislated increases, Samoa’s minimum wage is $5.25. So the question is: Which is preferable for the Samoan worker — being employed at $3.25 an hour or being unemployed at $5.25? Which buys more of life’s essentials? — Walter Williams