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Whenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight

Barney Frank

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Barney Frank
Age: 84
Born: 1940
Born: March 31
Former U.S. Representative
Politician
Bayonne
New Jersey
Barnett Frank
People
Dishonest
Implicit
Intellectually
Debate
Whenever
Fight
Fighting
Concession
Lost
Concessions

More quotes by Barney Frank

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The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.
Barney Frank
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I am not aware of any specific provision that mandates any tightening of lending to small business other than a requirement that people who lend and then sell that loan be prepared to take a part of the risk. And I'm proud of that.
Barney Frank
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The people who started the American government, the founders of the Constitution, didn't like political parties but they were forced to start them. Nobody ever created political parties in England, they evolved. And there do tend to be two general tendencies that focus around how much government you think you need.
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They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who's getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn't know how to promote homosexuality.
Barney Frank
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We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.
Barney Frank
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Ridicule is about the most powerful weapon possible.
Barney Frank
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When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
Barney Frank
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The best antidote to prejudice is reality.
Barney Frank
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Community action is as valuable a principle on the international level as it has been domestically.
Barney Frank
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I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.
Barney Frank
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It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.
Barney Frank
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Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.
Barney Frank
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The issue is not that morals be applied to public policy, it's that conservatives bring public policy to spheres of our lives where it should not enter.
Barney Frank
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There is an irony that the most active anti-gay groups are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
Barney Frank
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For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.
Barney Frank
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What's troubling is that the Republicans to defend Mr. DeLay are weakening the ethics process.
Barney Frank
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And I think there is too much bloviating around from politicians.
Barney Frank
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If people knew of ethics violations, they should have sent them to the Ethics Committee. If you think there was serious ethics violation that ought to be looked at, you don't hold it back for retaliatory purposes.
Barney Frank
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I believe it is a good thing to get rid of Gaddafi. But does America have to do everything?
Barney Frank
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These two entities—Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac—are not facing any kind of financial crisis.
Barney Frank