We, the most powerful democracy in the world, have developed a strong norm against talking about politics. It's fine to talk about politics with people you agree with. But it is rude to argue about politics with people you disagree with. Political discourse becomes isolated, and isolated discourse becomes more extreme. We say what our friends want to hear, and hear very little beyond what our friends say.
quote by Lawrence Lessig
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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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I'm an American, and always will be. I happen to love that big, awkward, sprawling country very much — and its big, awkward, sprawling people. Anyway, I don't like politics; and I don't make "political gestures" … I don't even believe in politics. To me, politics is like one of those annoying, and potentially dangerous (but generally just painful) chronic diseases that you just have to put up with in your life if you happen to have contracted it. Politics is like having diabetes. It's a science, a catch-as-catch-can science, which has grown up out of simple animal necessity more than anything else. If I were twice as big as I am, and twice as physically strong, I think I'd be a total anarchist.
quote by James Jones
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On the other side, I do believe that the rhetoric we are seeing from the Democrats today is unprecedented, is a new low in presidential politics and goes beyond political discourse and amounts to political hate speech.
quote by Ed Gillespie
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A politics that is not sensitive to the concerns and circumstances of people's lives, a politics that does not speak to and include people, is an intellectually arrogant politics that deserves to fail.
quote by Paul Wellstone
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I believe people who go into politics want to do the right thing. And then they hit a big wall of re-election and the pettiness of politics. In the end, politics gets in the way of the business of people.
quote by Kevin Costner
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Most politicians - those people who live, eat and breathe politics - like to sit around and talk about politics and tell political war stories. Reagan didn't do that. His war stories were movie war stories and Hollywood war stories. He loved that.
quote by Lyn Nofziger
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Isolated, not just glassed in, but apart
You ever just feel like you're in another world, because you're not like them
ever feel set apart, not sanctified, because it's like you're they condemn
you, not even for being a Christian, but just because you don't fit in
not because of lack of sin
or the 'not of the world' idea, i feel that, but what happens when you
don't fit in with your own people, when your meaningless interests conflict
even contradict
their own, when they look at like some alien and assume that they too
believe, but there seems to be this wall
that stops us from being friends, because im so different,
who are my people, when i don't even belong with those who are
'not of the world' they feel so far
away from me i can't help but feel isolated sometimes
as i write these rhymes
i also must wonder of them really know the real me
they can agree
with me
on what is important, but i must say i feel isolated
not just glassed in, but
apart...
poem by David Knox
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The message that I gave on the - on the steps today was that you need to stand for those things that are right and empower the individual. Believe in the power of one person. Don't believe that you can't do it. Everybody wants - everybody wants a shot. That we can all agree on. Beyond that, it becomes politics. I'm not talking politics.
quote by Glenn Beck
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I'm not going to talk like I know about politics, because I'm a total amateur, but maybe I can be a spokesperson for people who aren't normally interested in politics.
It's a good question, because a movie isn't good or bad based on its politics. It's usually good or bad for other reasons, though you might agree or disagree with its politics.
quote by Roger Ebert
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Children of Our Age
We are children of our age,
it's a political age.
All day long, all through the night,
all affairs--yours, ours, theirs--
are political affairs.
Whether you like it or not,
your genes have a political past,
your skin, a political cast,
your eyes, a political slant.
Whatever you say reverberates,
whatever you don't say speaks for itself.
So either way you're talking politics.
Even when you take to the woods,
you're taking political steps
on political grounds.
Apolitical poems are also political,
and above us shines a moon
no longer purely lunar.
To be or not to be, that is the question.
And though it troubles the digestion
it's a question, as always, of politics.
To acquire a political meaning
you don't even have to be human.
Raw material will do,
or protein feed, or crude oil,
or a conference table whose shape
was quarreled over for months;
Should we arbitrate life and death
at a round table or a square one?
Meanwhile, people perished,
animals died,
houses burned,
and the fields ran wild
just as in times immemorial
and less political.
poem by Wislawa Szymborska
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Political Discourse
Political discourse
Good and pious for the
Country you have
If it is positive
And you are not here
To Pollute this anyway
Political discourse
Is not mud-slinging
And muck-raking exercise
Political discourse
Again not
Inflated rhetoric.
poem by Gajanan Mishra
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Politics is about the improvement of people's lives. It's about advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and the world. Politics is about doing well for the people.
quote by Paul Wellstone
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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
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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Politics
in this country of mine
there is so much politicking
they want to know my color
they want me black
pure black
the other side wants me to be white
unadulterated white
i tell them i want to have no color at all
i just want to be myself
like a neutral transparent rain water
and all of them are angry
i cannot please everybody i said
but they do not listen
they put politics in the pulpit
in the market even in the cemetery
they put politics in the air and in the water
and in the soil
and even in the sub-soil
the worms are getting political too
and even the hawks and finches
the pebbles have no choice
but to go political too
they are now in disagreement with the river
and the bamboo trees
there is chaos in the mountain
the waterfalls rage
and then politics eventually destroys the
ecosystem
and the heavens and the purgatory
now there is only hell.
this morning they put politics as breakfast on my table.
i decided finally not to eat any.
poem by Ric S. Bastasa
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Your Hero Will Never Be Mine
By the way you talk of your hero one would swear out of him the sun shine
Don''t try to convince me of his worth your hero will never be mine
To me your hero is responsible of crimes against humanity
Because of him thousands have died and thousands more maimed and injured why do you talk of him to me.
Our values are so very different I''m not saying you are wrong and I''m right
The one that you say is your hero I look on as a lesser light
I won''t argue with you about politics that''s not why I came in here tonight
I came here for a few quiet drinks and all I need is peace and quiet.
Go tell someone else of your hero since of him I do not wish to hear
You know how I feel on that subject so leave me for to drink my beer
For an argument you seem to be looking though for such I am not in the mood
You tell someone else of your hero forgive me if I do seem rude.
I don''t talk to you of my heroes as my heroes would seem cowards to you
But each to their own I believe in and those words as ever ring true
How come all of your heroes are war men did war ever solve anything
The war dead we well may remember but they can''t hear those whom their praises sing.
Don''t talk to me about your hero his type to me does not appeal
''Twould seem you are trying to annoy me since about him you know how I feel
I came here just for a few quiet drinks and since your hero is not a hero to me
Go talk to someone else about him and with what you say they may even agree.
poem by Francis Duggan
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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
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I came into American politics and into this political system proud of politics and the way we make decisions.
quote by Byron Dorgan
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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
Submitted by Lucian Velea
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