
One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.
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In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?
quote by Barack Obama

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Whatever Have the Governed Become?
What ever have the governed become?
Mere puppets fed some grain
Of fancy lies as elections come
As though they lack some needed brain?
What ever end shall the governed be,
Mere numbers on the survey scale?
Pressed upon and taxed so freely
To pay for debts when leaders fail?
Why does the governed keep so silent
Accepting all in meek obedience
When in their hearts Protest is bent
On shouting out their very Conscience?
No, the governed will speak and rule
No more of lies and sheer Deception
Governed we are and we're not fools
We will not cower in the face of Corruption!
poem by Cynthia Buhain-Baello

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Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber.
Politics is not predictions and politics is not observations. Politics is what we do. Politics is what we do, politics is what we create, by what we work for, by what we hope for and what we dare to imagine.
quote by Paul Wellstone

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Political realism believes that politics, like society in general, is governed by objective laws that have their roots in human nature. In order to improve society it is first necessary to understand the laws by which society lives. The operation of these laws being impervious to our preferences, men will challenge them only at the risk of failure. Realism, believing as it does in the objectivity of the laws of politics, must also believe in the possibility of developing a rational theory that reflects, however imperfectly and one-sidedly, these objective laws. It believes also, then, in the possibility of distinguishing in politics between truth and opinion — between what is true objectively and rationally, supported by evidence and illuminated by reason, and what is only a subjective judgment, divorced from the facts as they are and informed by prejudice and wishful thinking.
quote by Hans Morgenthau

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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Knowing Very Little
Someone knows 'someone'
Who has been quick to express disappointment,
Regretted.
That 'someone' who believes,
They were annointed to know everything...
Just because God has given them air to breathe.
Those folks are the ones,
Who say they have no interest in politics.
Announcing that religion and politics do not mix.
And knowing very little about either.
And even knowing less on a daily basis.
They do not read or participate in community activities.
And yet appear on a neighbor's doorstep,
Out of breath to express...
'What in the world is going on?
Do you know what I just found out?
I 'heard' there were problems with the economy.
And there was this Black guy on TV...
MY TV!
Telling me about changes he is going to make.
What on Earth?
Have you seen him?
Is this some kind of a joke?
What happened to Bush?
I feel I am about to have a stroke! '
They remain confined,
Out of touch and time.
And soon...
Out of their minds!
poem by Lawrence S. Pertillar

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I think your life is governed not by the bricks or mortar around you, it's governed by who holds your hand and who spits in your eye.
quote by David McCallum

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Politics is a contest among people of diverse backgrounds and philosophies, advocating different solutions to common problems. The system only works when principled, energetic people participate.
quote by Bob Ehrlich

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This country must be governed, and can be governed, simply on questions of policy and administration and the French Canadians who have had any part in this movement have never had any other intention but to organise upon those party distinctions and upon no other.
quote by Wilfrid Laurier

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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In a poem the excitement has to maintain itself. I am governed by the pull of the sentence as the pull of a fabric is governed by gravity.
quote by Marianne Moore

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The ideally non-violent state will be an ordered anarchy. That State is the best governed which is governed the least.
quote by Mahatma Gandhi

Submitted by Veronica Serbanoiu
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The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all.
quote by Gilbert K. Chesterton

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Do we want an Attorney General who will play politics with the law, play politics with the court and just play politics with international conventions designed to protect our troops? I do not want to play that kind of politics. I am going to vote against Alberto Gonzales.
quote by Barbara Mikulski

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We all participate in weaving the social fabric; we should therefore all participate in patching the fabric when it develops holes mismatches between old expectations and current realities.
quote by Anne C. Weisberg

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The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.
quote by G.K. Chesterton

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Meanwhile, politics is about getting a candidate in front of the public as a star, politics as rock'n'roll, politics as a movie.
quote by Joe Eszterhas

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Politics is there the way men and women are there, the way the Atlantic Ocean is there. Sometimes I've written about politics specifically, I mean about politics as it's understood on television and in newspapers.
quote by Kenneth Koch

Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Politics are for foreigners with their endless wrongs and paltry rights. Politics are a lousy way to get things done. Politics are, like God's infinite mercy, a last resort.
quote by P.J. O'Rourke

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I full well realize that politics is a rough and tumble business, but politics should not be reduced to lobbing partisan hand grenades. Politics is not war. Terrorism is.
quote by Pat Roberts

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Refusing to ask for help when you need it is refusing someone the chance to be helpful.
quote by Ric Ocasek

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