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[Libertarianism] is about curbing state power to let people be and do what they want. Liberalism is about using state power to make people do and be what liberals want. And that makes all the difference in the world.

Jonah Goldberg

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Jonah Goldberg
Age: 55
Born: 1969
Born: March 21
Author
Journalist
Writer
Manhattan borough
New York City
Jonah Jacob Goldberg
World
Using
People
Difference
Differences
State
Makes
Curbing
Power
Libertarianism
States
Liberals
Make
Liberalism

More quotes by Jonah Goldberg

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Keep Hope alive, particularly if Hope is the name of a very cute puppy and not some ill-defined abstraction that is in fact code for big government.
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Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don't matter.
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I think there needs to be a meeting to set an agenda for more meetings about meetings.
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But if the choice is a cool president and 8 or 10 percent unemployment in a declining economy and a country that seems to be going in the wrong direction and structural unemployment for young people at 50 percent, I'd rather have a dorky president who fixed those problems.
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...associational ad hominem attacks remain the left's favorite rhetorical strategy for undermining opponents.
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Governing involves choosing and making choices between competing goods.
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The Mars Polar Lander cost the average American the price of half a cheeseburger. A human lander would cost the average American more - perhaps even ten cheeseburgers! So be it. That is no great sacrifice.
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When you treat reprehensible and ludicrous arguments with respect you have elevated the reprehensible and made the ludicrous a bit more reasonable. Having a serious argument with a Nazi makes the horror of the Holocaust a debatable point. Don't wrestle in the mud with pigs. You get dirty and the pig likes it.
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The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good.
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Pragmatism is the disguise progressive and other ideologues do when they want to demonize competing ideologies.
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[Progressives] think the Constitution is like Felix the Cat's magic bag: Look in there long enough and hard enough, and you can find anything.
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But you're never taught in schools - we don't teach anyone in public schools that government is the problem. We don't teach anyone in college that government is the problem - except maybe a handful of sort of unique, conservative schools. But mainstream media never talks as if government is the problem.
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Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies.
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Republican politics have been off-kilter for several years now because a large segment of the conservative base does not look back fondly on the Bush presidency.
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When activists say we need to move past the partisan divide, what they mean is: Shut up and get with my program. Have you ever heard anyone say, We need to get past all of this partisan squabbling and name-calling. That's why I'm going to abandon all my objections and agree with you?
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Conservatives value economic liberty and moral security, while the liberal values economic security and moral liberty.
Jonah Goldberg
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I've just returned from my daughter's Halloween parade at grade school. She was supergirl - and she was perfect. And, even better, she still considers boys to be made of kryptonite.
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We are a species that must try to impose and find systems - systems of thought, ways of organizing and categorizing reality.
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Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today's liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.
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Cultures grow on the vine of tradition.
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