Quotes About Public discourse

I'm not really a Democrat or a Republican, but I don't like rhetoric.

Criticism in a time of war is essential to the maintenance of any kind of democratic government.

The best shows succeed because they tap into a national conversation.

We live in a culture in which condoms can be handed out in schools and Bibles can't. And I think that tells you everything you need to know about our society.

Public life is debased because it's only the nice people who are worried about imposing their views on others.

Some say our national pastime is baseball. Not me. It's gossip

The crusader's voice is the voice of the crowd and must rise louder all the time, for there is, of course, the other side to be drowned out. Worse, the voices of most crowds sound alike. Worse still, the voice that seeks to do other than communicate when it makes a noise has something brutal about it; it is no longer using words as words but as something to brandish, with which to threaten, brag or condemn.

Being out and about talking to residents and representing their views is, in my view, as important to politics as the grandstanding that takes place in Westminster.

Even if trolley problems were a realistic concern for AVs, it is not clear what, if anything, regulators or companies developing AVs should do about them. The trolley problem is an intensely debated thought experiment precisely because there isn't a consensus on what should be done.

Whenever a liberal begins a statement with 'I don't know which is more frightening', you know the answer is going to be pretty clear.

The educator and the public need to have an opportunity to discuss why certain art is important.

Well I think people think sex is controversial. Not always, but certainly it's something to be discussed.

I don't like to really dive too deep into politics.

In America... it's not divided, but with Trump now, it's like you are asking for trouble. We wouldn't dare to say any of the things he is saying in our country and get away with it. It's just... blasphemy.

The whole social media thing is ridiculous. Everybody gets to say what they want all the time. That's fine in theory, but it's not civilised. Imagine going into a bar, and everybody in that bar is talking like people do online. They'd just get their teeth punched in.

We don't have access to a national forum that we had in those days, through the news magazines which were the television news of the time. It's very disturbing to me that we've sort of been pushed to the corners.

The final conclusion I've made is that we, the people, must decide what comes next. The events of the past decade have brought to the public fore a fairly widespread recognition that certain speech is beyond the pale, but in nearly every instance I have seen, regulatory and legislative proposals to restrict such speech take the wrong aim, punishing companies (and their workers) for errors, or for not moving fast enough, while failing to do anything to address the problems at the root.

To simply withdraw from the arena of ideas, from public discourse on public issues, from the value formation of the young—to shrug our shoulders and say, "I don't know" or, worse, "I don't care about those things anymore"—is to abandon the young to the mercy of their own ideas without the benefit of experience to guide them.

If City Hall started projecting swastikas, no one would say 'You know what? Free speech.' People would say that is wrong.

There's just a proliferation of blogs and the chattering classes and people talking. More avenues for people to make their feelings known, which is good.

It's been proven in Washington: It's very hard to negotiate and try to get a deal done in public.

Freedom of speech should be wide open as long as it doesn't incite violence.

To conclude: good journalism is one of the models of good conversation and communication in the wider social context.

Modern media has a real tendency to focus on the divisions rather than the commonalities.