Correspondent of the Day: Churchill’s Advice Still Applies Today
Churchill's Advice Still Applies Today
Editor, Times-Dispatch: As our nation struggles with debate over many topics, might I suggest words of infinite wisdom from the true sage of the 20th century, Sir Winston Churchill? To the authors of the stimulus package and various health care proposals: "This report, by its very length, defends itself against the risk of being read."
To the congressmen who resent the public admonishment at health care forums: "Criticism may not be agreeable, but it is necessary. It fulfills the same function as pain in the human body. It calls attention to an unhealthy state of things."
To Poland and the Czech Republic, which had an April promise of a missile shield broken by the president: "You can always count on Americans to do the right thing -- after they've tried everything else."
To the advocates of the hidden costs of cap-and-trade, surcharges, and whatever terms are used to separate the American people from their hard-earned income: "There is no such thing as a good tax."
To the president, Congress, the Pentagon, and all the citizens on the war against terrorism: "Victory at all costs, victory in spite of terror, victory however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival."
To those who oppose capitalism and free enterprise: "The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings; the inherent virtue of socialism is the equal sharing of miseries."
And last, Churchill's views on the great divide in the U.S.: "Any man who is under 30, and is not a liberal, has no heart: any man who is over 30, and is not a conservative, has no brains."
Alan Pillow.
Glen Allen.
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Reader Reactions
Isnt that what you are doing every day with every post you make? Sneering and mocking and insinuating and belittling from afar? They are great quotes and they’ve been taken out of context and applied to fit a specific worldview.
A very small percentage of the population that has been directly to go disrupt town hall forums is hardly a public admonishment. If anything, they should be ridiculed for allowing the health care system to become what it is today.
It’s America’s responsibility to invest billions upon billions into the protection of Poland and the Czech Republic from unnamed and potential menace? How do you square that with your faux-libertarian sensibilities Randy?
Everyone knows there is no such thing as a good tax - just like everyone knows that there is no such thing as good oligopolies that corrupt markets and leverage political investments to rain death and destruction upon people that cant defend themselves.
If you can define any type of victory condition in either Iraq or Afghanistan then you can pursue it. The War on Terror (patent pending) is nothing more than an offense-industry government subsidy.
Capitalism is such a nice idea - perhaps we should try it. Justice is a nice concept too. Remember when businesses failed and criminals went to jail? Was that ever the case?
The terms liberal and conservative no longer reflect their own definitions. They are nothing more than slurs.
Excellent selection of quotes Mr. pillow.
And they are dead on.
Oddly enough the oft quoted Mr. Churchill had little time for quotes.
I like them though so here is one more that seems to fit this small debate perfectly. That is the nice thing about quotes. They sum up entire concepts in one succint sentence.
“The most insignificent people are the most apt to sneer at others. They are safe from reprisals. And have no hope of rising to their self esteem but by lowering that of their neighbors.“
William Hazlitt.
To a former community agitator like Obama, Churchill is a poor black neighborhood where you send vans to pickup felons, provide them with a free lunch, give them voter lists and transport them around all day to different precincts so they can vote multiple times.
Fixate much?
Allen, you’ve written an excellent letter. The problem is that Barack Obama has made it clear that he has no interest in heeding the advice or being an ally of the British. If you wrote a letter quoting the Presidents of Iran, Venezuela and Cuba, he’d pay attention and consider it.
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