What’s really astounding about these brickheads who claim to be in touch with the original intent of the founders is (1) none of them seem to have read what the founders wrote, from Thomas Jefferson’s essays to Jamie Madison’s notes, and (2) you know damn well if they had been alive at the time of the American Revolution, they all would have been Tories.
Molly Ivins (1944-2007) American writer, political columnist [Mary Tyler Ivins]
Essay (1987-09-11), “We the People,” Texas Observer
(Source)
Collected in Molly Ivins Can't Say That, Can She? (1991).
Quotations about:
conservatives
Note not all quotations have been tagged, so Search may find additional quotes on this topic.
Conservatives are always with us, they have been opposing change ever since the days of the cave-man. But, fortunately for mankind, they agitate in vain.
The conservatives nearly always tolerate the demagogue while he is destroying liberals. The conservatives may even know that their turn will come next, but they usually take this calculated risk. “Let him knock their heads together,” they say, “we’ll take care of him in good time.” […] But it never works out the way the conservatives would like to have it, especially if the demagogue knows how to consolidate his position before he finally goes after his early “allies.”
Harry Golden (1902-1981) Austrian-American writer and newspaper publisher [b. Herschel Goldhirsch]
“The Death of Senator McCarthy,” Carolina Israelite (5 May 1957)
(Source)
Reprinted in Only in America (1958).
In politics, again, it is almost a commonplace, that a party of order or stability, and a party of progress or reform, are both necessary elements of a healthy state of political life. […] Each of these modes of thinking derives its utility from the deficiencies of the other; but it is in a great measure the opposition of the other that keeps each within the limits of reason and sanity.
John Stuart Mill (1806-1873) English philosopher and economist
On Liberty, ch. 2 “Of the Liberty of Thought and Discussion” (1859)
(Source)
