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Liberalism's fatal flaw,... is that it has no permanent norms, only a succession of enthusiasms espoused by minor prophets. Each of these seems like a hot new idea to liberals, but soon goes to irksome and destructive extremes.

Joseph Sobran

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Joseph Sobran
Age: 64 †
Born: 1946
Born: February 23
Died: 2010
Died: September 30
Journalist
Writer
Ypsilanti
Michigan
Enthusiasm
Norm
Irksome
Permanent
Liberals
Norms
Soon
Flaws
Flaw
Goes
Liberalism
Prophets
Idea
Prophet
Succession
Seems
Destructive
Minor
Ideas
Extremes
Fatal
Espoused
Like
Hot
Minors
Enthusiasms

More quotes by Joseph Sobran

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It would be a healthy exercise for every politician to look in the mirror every morning and remind himself that he holds office only because, in a two-man race against another mediocrity, a modest majority of those half-informed people who imagined that their votes mattered reckoned that he was the lesser evil. And they weren't too sure about that.
Joseph Sobran
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Not surprisingly, the federal judiciary nearly always rules in favor of the federal government. Judicial review, contrary to the assurances of its advocates, has hardly restrained Congress at all. Instead it has progressively stripped the states of their traditional powers, while allowing federal power to grow unchecked.
Joseph Sobran
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If Communism was liberalism in a hurry, liberalism is Communism in slow motion.
Joseph Sobran
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Destroying white civilization is the inmost desire of the league of designated victims we call minorities.
Joseph Sobran
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Some people don't mind a little constitutional sophistry in a good cause and for liberals, centralizing all power in the federal government is always a good cause. Since most Americans don't know or care what the Constitution says, let alone what their ancestors thought it meant, the great liberal snow job has been very successful.
Joseph Sobran
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The Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government.
Joseph Sobran
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Chesterton spoke of 'the modern and morbid habit of always sacrificing the normal to the abnormal.' It would be hard to sum up liberalism for succinctly.
Joseph Sobran
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It's I politics that men are always aggravating the hopeless tangle of their laws, obscuring the simplest principles and making a mockery of liberty.
Joseph Sobran
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If we need women in our defense forces, we must not need much defense.
Joseph Sobran
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Politics is the conspiracy of the unproductive but organized against the productive but unorganized.
Joseph Sobran
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Politicians never accuse you of 'greed' for wanting other people's money - only for wanting to keep your own money.
Joseph Sobran
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Voters who live off taxpayers are the Democrats' ace in the hole. The Democrats created big programs and never let the recipients forget it. This gives them an initial advantage of tens of millions of votes in any presidential election.
Joseph Sobran
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...[T]he Constitution conferred only a few specific powers on the federal government, all others being denied to it (as the Tenth Amendment would make plain). Unfortunately, only a tiny fraction of the U.S. population today - subtle logicians like you - can grasp such nuances. Too bad. The Constitution wasn't meant to be a brain-twister.
Joseph Sobran
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Freedom is coming to mean little more than the right to ask permission.
Joseph Sobran
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There has never been a humane communist regime. Marxism is inherently totalitarian. It recognizes no moral limits on the state. It’s the most convenient ideology for aspiring tyrants it also retains its appeal for intellectuals, who have proved equally skillful at rationalizing abuses of power and at exculpating themselves.
Joseph Sobran
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Why does corruption in government always surprise us? Why do we expect anything else from it? Government is organized force. It takes our wealth and makes war. And we think honest men would do that work?
Joseph Sobran
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When liberals clamor for 'diversity,' they don't necessarily mean they are ready to tolerate actual disagreement.
Joseph Sobran
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The attempt to silence a man is the greatest honor you can bestow on him. It means that you recognize his superiority to yourself.
Joseph Sobran
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Tyranny may creep in under the outward forms of traditional law.
Joseph Sobran
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In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in High School to teaching remedial English in college.
Joseph Sobran