Quotes About Citizens

This was infuriating, because none of their rights as American citizens was better established, or more often used, than the privilege of being ill.

The effect of a good government is to make life more valuable; of a bad one, to make it less valuable.

I call on people to be 'obsessed citizens, ' forever questioning and asking for accountability. That's the only chance we have today of a healthy and happy life.

The more aspects of life that can be moved from private reign to public realm, the better it is for politics.

Well, again, a gun sale database is just trying to get the Department of Justice to keep track of the guns that they're purchasing and supplying to drug dealers and murderers. I mean, wow. Come on, let's get the government under control before we start restricting the rights of - innocent citizens.

If the United States sinks into political paralysis, its epitaph could well be, "government of the people, by the people, for the people.

You want a culture where citizens are free to express themselves and so live in the openness necessary to the functioning of a successful economy? Israel has a free press, much of it openly hostile to the parties in power.

The only significant exception to access to American 'entertainment' is in predominantly Muslim nations, where this form of 'entertainment' is not available. One of Islam's most effective criticisms of America is that we are sex-crazed and morally reprehensible. If one were to base one's opinion of a nation on its movies and television shows produced about itself and its citizens, then the point is made.

The irony lost on all, though, is that the Syrian regime is quietly keeping alive the traditions that Moubayed lamented had vanished, if not through his preferred method of legalization, then at least by refraining from interfering in the private daily conduct and morality of its citizens. Moubayed told me that the regime, despite the furor caused by his article, had not reacted to it at all, either positively or negatively.

Virtually every politician portrayed in film or on television over the last decade has been venal, corrupt, opportunistic, cynical, if not worse. Whether these dramatized images are accurate or exagerated matters little. The corporatist system wins either way: directly through corruption and indirectly through the damage done to the citizen's respect for the representative system. (III - From Corporatism to Democracy)

In general, democracy and individualism have advanced in spite of and often against specific economic interest. Both democracy and individualism have been based upon financial sacrifice, not gain. Even in Athens, a large part of the 7,000 citizens who participated regularly in assemblies were farmers who had to give up several days' work to go into town to talk and listen.

Given the tendency of nations, particularly great powers, to engage in war unjustifiably and to set in motion the apparatus of the state to suppress dissent, the respect accorded to pacifism serves the purpose of alerting citizens to the wrongs that governments are prone to commit in their name.

I like it because their view of government is essentially the same as mine, and I like it because they're regular people who, but for the shock of Obama's radicalism, probably would not have gotten active in politics.

When America began, government cost every citizen $20 (in [2003] money) per year. Taxes rose during wars, but for most of the life of America, spending never exceeded a few hundred dollars per person. During World War II, government got much bigger. It was supposed to shrink again after the war but never did. Instead, it just kept growing. Now the federal government costs every man, woman, and child an average of $10,000 per year.

The "people" who exercise the power, are not always the same people with those over whom it is exercised; and the "self-government" spoken of, is not the government of each by himself, but of each by all the rest.

A nation of sheep will "beget a government of wolves." – EDWARD R. MURROW CBS BROADCAST JOURNALIST 1908-1965

Why was I condemned to live in a democracy where every fool's vote is equal to a sensible man's? If all the energy that is put into diddling mugs for their votes could be turned on to useful work, what a nation we could be!

I'm just saying we can all work on our manners. We can say please and thank you. We can be punctual. We can just be nicer to one another. It's something we have in our power to do. It reminds me of that Margaret Mead quote: "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Humans, take note: You can refer to the Realm as "Faerie" without causing offense, but do not make the mistake of referring to its citizens as "fairies"—unless you want to be punched.) Elfhaeme

Teaching our children to be well-behaved, good citizens is proper as far as it goes. But we must never mistake this training for Christian nurture or discipline, nor should we mistake their acquiescence to our social mores as true Christian righteousness.

Much more than our other needs and endeavors, it is sexuality that puts us on an even footing with our kind: the more we practice it, the more we become like everyone else: it is in the performance of a reputedly bestial function that we prove our status as citizens: nothing is more public than the sexual act.

But in free nations, the votes so weighed or so counted must decide. A perfect free government is one which decides perfectly according to those votes; an imperfect, one which so decides imperfectly; a bad, one which does not so decide at all.

Free government is self-government. A government of the people by the people. The best government of this sort is that which the people think best.

The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens.