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We call ourselves public servants but I'll tell you this: we as public servants must set an example for the rest of the nation. It is hypocritical for the public official to admonish and exhort the people to uphold the common good.

Barbara Jordan

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Barbara Jordan
Age: 59 †
Born: 1936
Born: February 21
Died: 1996
Died: January 17
American Politician
Author
Lawyer
Politician
University Teacher
Writer
Houston
Texas
Barbara Charline Jordan
Nations
Officials
Common
Servant
Tell
Sea
Exhort
Must
Nation
Admonish
Good
Rest
Uphold
People
Example
Hypocritical
Public
Servants
Call
Official

More quotes by Barbara Jordan

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There is no executive order there is no law that can require the American people to form a national community. This we must do as individuals and if we do it as individuals, there is no President of the United States who can veto that decision.
Barbara Jordan
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If the society today allows wrongs to go unchallenged, the impression is created that those wrongs have the approval of the majority.
Barbara Jordan
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One thing is very clear: Illegal immigrants are not entitled to benefits.
Barbara Jordan
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We must exchange the philosophy of excuse - what I am is beyond my control for the philosophy of responsibility.
Barbara Jordan
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We are a party of innovation. We do not reject our traditions, but we are willing to adapt to changing circumstances, when change we must. We are willing to suffer the discomfort of change in order to achieve a better future.
Barbara Jordan
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Let's all understand that these guiding principles cannot be discarded for short-term political gains. They represent what this country is all about. They are indigenous to the American idea. And these are principles which are not negotiable.
Barbara Jordan
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It is reason, and not passion, which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
Barbara Jordan
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For our immigration policy to make sense, it is necessary to make distinctions between those who obey the law, and those who violate it.
Barbara Jordan
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Today, I am an inquisitor. I shall not sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminution, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution.
Barbara Jordan
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If you had to work in the environment of Washington, D.C., as I do, and watch those men who are so imprisoned and so confined by their eighteenth-century thought patterns, you would know that if anybody is going to be liberated, it's men who must be liberated in this country.
Barbara Jordan
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We must have an economy that does not force the migrant worker's child to miss school in order to earn...just so the family can eat. That is the moral bankruptcy that trickle-down economics is all about.
Barbara Jordan
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Justice of right is always to take precedence over might.
Barbara Jordan
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We must not become the new puritans and reject our society. We must address and master the future together. It can be done if we restore the belief that we share a sense of national community, that we share a common national endeavor. It can be done.
Barbara Jordan
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The Supreme Court has always been the last bastion of the protection of our freedoms.
Barbara Jordan
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The Commission agrees that the federal government should help alleviate these costs. The best way to do so is to reduce illegal immigration.... We recommend immediate reimbursement of criminal justice costs, because these conditions can now be met, but we urge further study of the costs of health care and education before impact aid is provided.
Barbara Jordan
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...for the system to be credible, people actually have to be deported at the end of the process.
Barbara Jordan
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Think what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down on our blankets for a nap.
Barbara Jordan
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We can certainly defuse the intensity of the anti-immigrant feeling if we can bring some reality to the discussion by showing that they are not using that many resources.
Barbara Jordan
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We believe that the people are the source of all governmental power that the authority of the people is to be extended, not restricted.
Barbara Jordan
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My faith in the Constitution is whole, it is complete, it is total, and I am not going to sit here and be an idle spectator to the diminuation, the subversion, the destruction of the Constitution. It is reason and not passion which must guide our deliberations, guide our debate, and guide our decision.
Barbara Jordan