Political Issues Quotes

My fellow Americans, people all over the world, we need to solve the climate crisis, it's not a political issue, it's a moral issue. We have everything we need to get started, with the possible exception of the will to act, that's a renewable resource, let's renew it. ~ Al Gore

It's a presidential [election] year [2016], certainly everyone is talking about it, but if the history of the show tells us anything, the Big Brother cast does not usually discuss political issues like that in the house. ~ Allison Grodner

When most major Protestant denominations have their annual councils, assemblies, or conventions, they make pronouncements on matters having to do with disarmament, federal aid to education, birth control, the United Nations, and any number of social and political issues. Very rarely are any resolutions passed that have to do with the
redemptive witness of the Gospel. ~ Billy Graham

It's common knowledge in the industry that people often lie, or minimize things, when they participate in surveys, No one wants to tell a stranger they drink four cocktails a night, or eat junk food for every meal. It's the same with their views on candidates and political issues. Most people won't tell you they don't like someone when they have to look you in the eye. None of that would matter for me, though, because I would know their true emotions whether they shared them or not. ~ Evette Davis

There are people who learn political information for reasons other than becoming better voters. Just as sports fans love to follow their favorite teams even if they cannot influence the outcomes of games, so there are also "political fans" who enjoy following political issues and cheering for their favorite candidates, parties, or ideologies.

Unfortunately, much like sports fans, political fans tend to evaluate new information in a highly biased way. They overvalue anything that supports their preexisting views, and to undervalue or ignore new data that cuts against them, even to the extent of misinterpreting simple data that they could easily interpret correctly in other contexts. Moreover, those most interested in politics are also particularly prone to discuss it only with others who agree with their views, and to follow politics only through like-minded media. ~ Ilya Somin

The question of receiving the immigrant is an ethical issue that becomes a political issue. ~ Ruben Martinez

But let me tell you, this gender thing is history. You're looking at a guy who sat down with Margaret Thatcher across the table and talked about serious issues. ~ George H. W. Bush

Policies that support families aren't political issues. They're personal. They're the causes I carry with me every single day. ~ Michelle Obama

As an adult, I've always found the stereotype that Jews are liberal a curious one; my parents' circle was predominantly conservative, not just on Israel but on most political issues. Most of all, they were intensely (and this is a word I remember repeating in my own angry adolescent dialogues with myself) tribal. ~ Rick Perlstein

But blaming Islam is a simple answer, easier and less controversial than re-examining the core political issues and grievances that resonate in much of the Muslim world: the failures of many Muslim governments and societies, some aspects of U.S. foreign policy representing intervention and dominance, Western support for authoritarian regimes, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, or support for Israel's military battles with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon. (p. 136-137) ~ John L. Esposito

I truly believe a woman's weight is a political issue, and if one young woman out there can see me and not feel crummy about herself, that's a good thing. ~ Janeane Garofalo

Every once in a while an issue comes up where I have to make a statement. I can't totally avoid all political issues, but I try my best to minimize them. When I do make a statement, I try to be fairly neutral. ~ Linus Torvalds

I think we're raising whole generations who regard facts as more or less optional.
We have kids in elementary school who are being urged to take stands on political issues, to write letters to congressmen and presidents about nuclear energy.
They're not a decade old, and they're being thrown these kinds of questions that can absorb the lifetime of a very brilliant and learned man. And they're being taught that it's important to have views, and they're not being taught that it's important to know what you're talking about.
It's important to hear the opposite viewpoint, and more important to learn how to distinguish why viewpoint A and viewpoint B are different, and which one has the most evidence or logic behind it. They disregard that. They hear something, they hear some rhetoric, and they run with it. ~ Thomas Sowell

In England, we have a curious institution called the Church of England. Its strength has always been in the fact that on any moral or political issue it can produce such a wide divergence of opinion that nobody
from the Pope to Mao Tse-tung
can say with any confidence that he is not an Anglican. Its weaknesses are that nobody pays much attention to it and very few people attend its functions. ~ Auberon Waugh

If you look at U.S. history through religious history, there is very much a motif that shows the importance religion has played in the U.S. We're a very religious country and it affects the way we look at various political issues. ~ Madeleine Albright

Global warming is a political issue. It is as much a political issue to the left as abortion is. It's as big a political issue as health care is. ~ Rush Limbaugh

If you are stuck in circumstances in which it takes Herculean efforts to get through the day - doing low-income work, obeying an authoritarian boss, buying clothes for the children, dealing with school issues, paying the rent or mortgage, fixing the car, negotiating with a spouse, paying taxes, and caring for older parents - it is not easy to pay close attention to larger political issues. Indeed you may wish that these issues would take care of themselves. It is not a huge jump from such a wish to become attracted to a public philosophy, spouted regularly at your job and on the media, that economic life would regulate itself automatically if only the state did not repeatedly intervene in it in clumsy ways. Now underfunded practices such as the license bureau, state welfare, public health insurance, public schools, public retirement plans, and the like begin to appear as awkward, bureaucratic organizations that could be replaced or eliminated if only the rational market were allowed to take care of things impersonally and quietly, as it were. Certainly such bureaucracies are indeed often clumsy. But more people are now attracted to compare that clumsiness to the myth of how an impersonal market would perform if it took on even more assignments and if state regulation of it were reduced even further. So a lot of "independents" and "moderates" may become predisposed to the myth of the rational market in part because the pressures of daily life encourage them to seek comfort i ~ William E. Connolly

Most people remember COINTELPRO from the days of the Black Panthers, Yippies, and other revolutionary groups who threatened our government during the civil rights movement and the Vietnam war. Sensing that these groups might incite American citizens into radical action, the FBI sent in agents to agitate members of these various groups, often pitting them against each other through various forms of subterfuge, such as blackmail.

It appears that the CIA, FBI, and NSA are now sending their goons into the metaphysical marketplace, making sure that people who think they are aspiring to higher and positively transformative things are, in reality, only becoming more self-indulgent, disconnected, and confused.

The biggest influx of these agents occurred during the blossoming of the "human potential" movement in the early '70s, through such institutions as Esalen. Legions of people threw away their protest banners and followed their bliss during a time when directly addressing the socio-political problems of the day was imperative.

Since then, the emphasis on personal development - and more recently, the You Create Your Own Reality movement - a significant segment of the population has been brainwashed into disdaining all socio-political issues. For what better way to disempower people than to have them focus on their personal evolution at the expense of their families, communities, and the countries they live in? ~ David Icke

Hunger is a political issue, and there are several things politically that are keeping people hungry - not funding food stamps adequately, not funding school lunches adequately. So there is a political solution to the problem of hunger. ~ Tom Colicchio

Normally when we think about politics, we think about issues, policies, programs - the stuff of day-to-day government. Or we think of the contest of politics - the parties, the polls, the candidates, the strategies.

These are all important questions, of course, but they are only surface manifestations of deeper political issues, issues which are moral, psychological, and ultimately, spiritual. Politics is all about how we live together as human beings, and all spiritual practices point to one profound truth about human life - that only love leads to peace, hatred never does. This is as true for nations as it is for individuals. ~ Melvin McLeod

We've got to simplify, pull back all these layers of supposed complexity , and get down to the essentials. If we want people to engage with government, we should use the same tools that are getting them engages with companies and institutions in private life. If we want people to care about political issues, we should give them a way to understand and get involved in them. ~ Gavin Newsom

It seems to me there's this tyranny that's not accidental or incidental, to make women feel compelled to look like somebody they're not. I think the effort is being made to get us to turn our time and attention to this instead of important political issues. ~ Eve Ensler

At Woodstock, we would focus our energy on peace, setting aside the onstage discussion of political issues to just groove on what might be possible. It was a chance to see if we could create the kind of world for which we'd been striving throughout the sixties: That would be our political statement - proving that peace and understanding were possible and creating a testament to the value of the counterculture.
It would be three days of peace and music. ~ Uwe Michael Lang

Margaret [Hodge] is obviously entitled to do what she wishes to do. I would ask her to think for a moment, a Tory prime minister resigned, Britain's voted to leave the European Union, there are massive political issues to be addressed, is it really a good idea to start a big debate in the Labour Party when I was elected less than a year ago with a very large mandate not from MPs, I fully concede and understand that, but from the party members as a whole. ~ Jeremy Corbyn

Social and political issues in general seem to me fairly simple; the effort to obfuscate them in esoteric and generally vacuous theory is one of the contributions of the intelligentsia to enhancing their own power and the power of those they serve. ~ Noam Chomsky

Understanding America for the Non-American Black: American Tribalism In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds - class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich folk and poor folk. Second, ideology. Liberals and conservatives. They don't merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. Intermarriage is discouraged and on the rare occasion that it happens, is considered remarkable. Third, region. The North and the South. The two sides fought a civil war and tough stains from that war remain. The North looks down on the South while the South resents the North. Finally, race. There's a ladder of racial hierarchy in America. White is always on top, specifically White ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

We will not allow to become a political issue in this country the question of Asianisation. ~ Bob Hawke

Political issues are too serious to be left only to politicians. ~ Slavoj Zizek

Conservatives and those on the right are usually willing to settle for thinking themselves correct on political issues; those on the left have always needed to feel not so much that they are correct but that they are also good. Disagree with someone on the right and he is likely to think you obtuse, wrong, sentimental, foolish, a dope; disagree with someone one the left and he is more likely to think you selfish, cold-hearted, a sellout, evil-in league with the devil, he might say, if he didn't think religious terminology too coarse for our secular age. To this day one will hear of people who fell for Communism in a big way let off the hook because they were sincere; if one's heart is in the right place, nothing else matters, even if one's naive opinions made it easier for tyrants to murder millions. ~ Joseph Epstein

We immigrants can sometimes sound a little hysterical about this because we come from places that have tried this and we know where it leads. Anybody who's lived in countries with socialized health care knows that it becomes the dominant political issue. ~ Mark Steyn

Abandon ideology. It's time for every American to think for themselves about the financial, social and political issues that will shape our future. ~ Richard L. DeProspo

In America, tribalism is alive and well. There are four kinds - class, ideology, region, and race. First, class. Pretty easy. Rich folk and poor folk. Second, ideology. Liberals and conservatives. They don't merely disagree on political issues, each side believes the other is evil. ~ Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Many poets in Iran have learned to speak almost a secret language, where political issues are talked about in allegorical ways. ~ Reza Aslan

Modern equalitarian societies whether democratic or authoritarian in their political forms, always base themselves on the claim that they are making life happier. Happiness thus becomes the chief political issue
in a sense, the only political issue
and for that reason it can never be treated as an issue at all. ~ Robert Warshow

Have you ever wondered, perhaps, why opinions which the majority of people quite naturally hold are, if anyone dares express them publicly, denounced as 'controversial, 'extremist', 'explosive', 'disgraceful', and overwhelmed with a violence and venom quite unknown to debate on mere political issues? It is because the whole power of the aggressor depends upon preventing people from seeing what is happening and from saying what they see. ~ Enoch

Other sovereign democratic states have central governments more corrupted other than our own, but most can fall back on unifying elements we lack: common ethnicity, a shared religion, or near-universal consensus on many fundamental political issues. The United States needs its central government to function cleanly, openly, and efficiently because it's one of the few things binding us together. ~ Colin Woodard

I have a lot of stands on a lot of political issues. I'm very big on campaign finance reform. I still think most Americans aren't aware of how the dumping of big corporate dollars and private donor dollars has totally corrupted the political system and taken it away from them. ~ Morgan Fairchild

A strong case can be made for religious leaders to speak out on political issues. ~ Tony Campolo

Strategic Failure: The ill-will caused by drone strikes are not reducing the threat of terrorism but increasing it. While there were many individuals who once had positive views of the United States, new polling shows the anti-American sentiment effect of drone strikes. Such sentiments discredit diplomatic and NGO efforts to address the civilian and political issues in sveral countries, and potentially drive people into the ranks of militant organizations. Finally, in the very long run, they share our concern about the danger of setting precedent. They envision a future where not only do countries have the ability to indiscriminately attack people, but that dangerous and radical non-state actors can do so as well. ~ Harry Jones

It's true that it's within the realm of cultural politics that young people tend to work through political issues, which I think is good, although it's not going to solve the problems. ~ Angela Davis

Political issues were interlinked more closely than he had previously imagined. He had always thought that problems such as Berlin and Cuba were separate from each other and had little connection with such issues as civil rights and health care. But President Kennedy had been unable to deal with the Cuban missile crisis without thinking of the repercussions in Germany. And if he had failed to deal with Cuba, the imminent midterm elections would have crippled his domestic program, and made it impossible for him to pass a civil rights bill. Everything was connected. ~ Ken Follett

In many ways the recent history of the Ukraine can be seen as an intensified version of the history of our era. Most of the political issues are familiar to us. Most of the methods used to meet those issues are also familiar. Events in the Ukraine prefigured events through the rest of the world ... ~ Michael Moorcock

It's only been in the past two generations that we truly understood the impact our civilization has had on the natural world. To our credit as a species, we have turned this obscure scientific fact about carbon cycles into one of the most important political issues of the 21st century. ~ Annalee Newitz

... this film taps perfectly into the viewers' sense of the world. It was a big, big hit, and one of Hollywood's best-remembered marriage movies, although by grounding itself in trendy political issues, it avoids ordinary day-to-day marital problems. Its bottom line is, however, marry your own kind. ~ Jeanine Basinger

In our age there is no such thing as 'keeping out of politics.' All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred and schizophrenia. ~ George Orwell

an ideology may resonate among a particular community due to a broad range of political issues like incompetent, authoritarian or corrupt governments, as well as economic issues like widespread poverty or unemployment. In many instances, the political and socioeconomic grievances that lead to terrorism are tied to a government's legitimacy, or lack thereof. ~ James J.F. Forest

Real political issues cannot be manufactured by the leaders of political parties, and real ones cannot be evaded by political parties. The real political issues of the day declare themselves, and come out of the depths of that deep which we call public opinion. ~ James A. Garfield

The First Amendment was specifically designed for citizens to insult politicians. Libel laws were written to protect law students speaking out on political issues from getting called whores by Oxycontin addicts. ~ Bill Maher

People on a spiritual path - personal growth, spiritual practice, recovery, yoga and so forth - are the last people who should be sitting out the social and political issues of our day. ~ Marianne Williamson

I think where political issues invade moral situations, spiritual leaders have to speak out. ~ Billy Graham

Ezra Pound was a crackpot on social and political issues, but he knew what he was talking about in matters of the written language. ~ Pete Hamill

I want to seduce the audience. If they can go along for a ride they wouldn't ordinarily take, or don't even know they're taking, then they might see highly charged political issues in a new and unexpected way ... The theatre is now so afraid to face its social demons that we've given that responsibility over to film. But it will always be harder to deal with certain issues in the theatre. The live event - being watched by people as we watch - makes it seem all the more dangerous. ~ Paula Vogel

The Myth of Male Power dealt much more with the political issues, the legal issues, sexual harassment, date rape, women who kill, and those issues were very much more interfaced with the agendas of feminism. ~ Warren Farrell

There has never been a time when I was not committed to, involved in, or caring of, the social and political issues of my world. ~ Jessye Norman

Always and everywhere, the only serious political issue is what the state should and should not do. All the rest distracts. ~ Llewellyn Rockwell

I grew up in a family in which political issues were often discussed, and debated intensely. ~ Joseph Stiglitz

The letter writers span the spectrum from left to right. Members say they don't want this to become a partisan political issue. In fact, there are reasons administration officials have been cautious in making a genocide declaration. ~ Tom Gjelten

I didn't know you involved yourself in political issues."
She glanced at him wryly. "Of course you didn't. You don't know a lot about me."
He scowled as he turned his attention to the circle and watched his mother dance, resplendent in her beautiful buckskins. No, he didn't know a lot about Cecily, but he did know how devastated she'd been to discover he'd paid her way through college, absorbed all her expenses out of pity for her situation. He was sorry for how much that had hurt her. But over the past two years, he'd deliberately distanced himself from her. He wondered why…
"I had dinner with Senator Holden last week," she said conversationally, deliberately trying to irritate him. "He wanted to point me toward some special collections for the museum."
He stared at his mother in the circle, but he was frowning, deep in thought. "I don't like Holden," he said curtly.
"Yes, I know. You'll be delighted to hear that he returned your sentiment," she said with a chuckle at his scowl. ~ Diana Palmer

Grant made the perfect candidate, a war hero with indistinct views on most political issues. ~ H.W. Brands

I am very much into politics, but what interests me is sacred principles applied to that area. I am interested in the intersection of the Spiritual and the political - how spiritual principles apply to the social and political issues of our day. For me, the spiritual realm, is a more powerful place to speak from on those issues. ~ Marianne Williamson

Sexuality isn't ancillary to Christianity, in the way some other cultural or political issues are. Marriage and sex point, the Bible says, to a picture of the gospel itself, the union of Christ and his church. This is why the Bible spends so much time, as some critics would put it, "obsessed" with sex. That's why, historically, churches that liberalize on sex tend to liberalize themselves right out of Christianity itself. ~ Russell D. Moore

While dealing with serious political issues focus should be on achievements rather than attachments. Burning issues that have consumed people on a higher rate need sensible dealing. ~ Nighat Hafiz

Our talks in Paris tackled economic, democratic, security and political issues; we talked on means for combating terrorism, in addition to latest regional and international developments of mutual interest, especially those in region. ~ Ali Abdullah Saleh

All struggles against oppression in the modern woeld begin by redefining what had previously been consideered private, non-public and non-political issues as matters of public concern, as issues of justice, as sites of power. ~ Seyla Benhabib

It is incredible to me that any woman should consider the fight for full equality won. It has just begun. There is hardly a field, economic or political, in which the natural and unaccustomed policy is not to ignore women ... Unless women are prepared to fight politically they must be content to be ignored politically. ~ Alice Paul

You know, I was chubby when I was a little girl. And I have all those issues everyone else has. But I try not to. And I've learned over the years that it's such a waste of time. And people like me whether I'm a little bit fatter or not. ~ Gwen Stefani

Political commercials encourage the deceptive, the destructive and the degrading. ~ John O'Toole

On health care, virtually every political error that could be made was made. ~ Sidney Blumenthal

But sovereign debt is a wider question not only in Europe but across the globe. While every country is a unique case, I think it's not an issue of countries acting on their own. We need a more coordinated strategy not only in Europe but around the world. ~ George Papandreou

Anyone who comes to grips with the issues raised in The Marrow of Modern Divinity will almost certainly grow by leaps and bounds in understanding three things: the grace of God, the Christian life, and the very nature of the gospel itself. ~ Sinclair B. Ferguson

A stable and prosperous DRC is the victory of the World. Congo is a deciding factor for Africa's development whether we like it or not. ~ Ahmed Padia Binkatabana

Open political and economic systems have been gaining ground and there's a good reason for it. They work better. ~ George P. Shultz

By making the government a combination of elected officials and citizen-backed initiatives and referenda, there can truly be a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. ~ Victoria Stoklasa

I wanted to be a part of history and not just a recorder and teacher of history. So that kind of attitude towards history, history itself as a political act, has always informed my writing and my teaching. ~ Howard Zinn

What's the use, there never was a woman living who could understand political ideas. ~ John Dos Passos

Caring for veterans shouldn't be a partisan issue. It should an American one. ~ Jennifer Granholm

He had to find time in his schedule to talk to me. Wow, that made me feel important. ~ Kody Keplinger

In every great time there is some one idea at work which is more powerful than any other, and which shapes the events of the time and determines their ultimate issues. ~ Francis Bacon

I became active in politics because I saw the possibility, if we all sat back and did nothing, of a world in which there would no longer be any stages for actors to act on. ~ Helen Gahagan

We must consider not only why the classical theory of democracy appears to be in contradiction with the observed practice, but also why the many different responses to this observation, though mutually incompatible, all share the belief that democracy is the best form of political organization. ~ Moses Finley

You have a political and media elite who have an idiom by which they describe politics. It's highly, highly polarised. It's right, left, red, blue, up, down, victorious, crushed. ~ Nick Clegg

If the lesser mind could measure the greater as a foot-rule can measure a pyramid, there would be finality in universal suffrage. As it is, the political problem remains unsolved. ~ George Bernard Shaw

On issues relating to taxes, you don't always speak with one voice. ~ Tom Daschle

We want the best possible relations with Russia, of course. But at the same time, we are very vigilant when it comes to the German-Russian relationship. The reasons for this bilateral pipeline through the Baltic Sea were purely political. ~ Lech Kaczynski

Is more unfair," as an English historian has well said, "than to judge men of the past by the ideas of the present. Whatever may be said of morality, political wisdom is certainly ambulatory. ~ Barbara W. Tuchman

(Asked by John King about the political climate that existed in Washington at the time, and criticism of the Department of Justice under his management) Listen I don't expect an apology from men like Chuck Schumer, and I would put him and other individuals who were attacking me at the top of the list contributing to the low, low public perception of Congress, the integrity of Congress quite frankly. ~ Alberto Gonzales

At the federal level, this problem could be greatly alleviated by abolishing the Electoral College system. It's the winner-take-all mathematics from state to state that delivers so much power to a relative handful of voters. It's as if in politics, as in economics, we have a privileged 1 percent. And the money from the financial 1 percent underwrites the microtargeting to secure the votes of the political 1 percent. Without the Electoral College, by contrast, every vote would be worth exactly the same. That would be a step toward democracy. ~ Cathy O'Neil

Global warming, like Marxism, is a political theory of actions, demanding compliance with its rules. ~ Paul Johnson

Well, what I will tell you is the support from the world - it's not just an African-American citizen. There are people of all different walks of life who are rallying behind the concerns with the that Sandy was treated because what that says to me is that this is an American issue. ~ Sharon Cooper

In relation to the political decontamination of our public life, the government will embark upon a systematic campaign to restore the nation's moral and material health. The whole educational system, theater, film, literature, the press and broadcasting - all these will be used as a means to this end. ~ Adolf Hitler

Of course, we also are soberly aware that historical problems remain in cross-strait relations, and that there will be issues in the future that will require time, patience and joint efforts to resolve. ~ Xi Jinping

I have three favorite politicians: Reagan, Truman, and Bobby Kennedy - Bobby for showing remarkable political courage despite being loathed by many on both sides. ~ Joe Scarborough

Great is the issue at stake, greater than appears, whether a man is to be good or bad. And what will any one be profited if, under the influence of money or power, he neglect justice and virtue? ~ Plato

It's all very well to rail against human rights violations or the absence of democracy, but when there's a need to vaccinate children, supply drinkable water, care for the wounded, you'd better step up. No matter what the host government is like. We're aid workers. Not politicians. We serve human beings, not legal or political causes. If we can make a contribution to a cause, so be it, but not at the expense of our primary mission. ~ Marc Vachon

Three important characteristics of propaganda are that ( l ) it is intentional and purposeful, designed to incite a particular reaction or action in the target audience; (2) it is advantageous to the propagandist or sender which is why advertising, public relations, and political campaigns are considered forms of propaganda; and (3) it is usually one-way and informational (as in a mass media campaign), as opposed to two-way and interactive communication. ~ Nancy Snow

If we continue to address the issue of the environment where we live as though we're the only species that lives here, we'll create a disaster for ourselves. ~ Gaylord Nelson

It's a robust time, probably the most fertile time for the underground and for revolution since Nixon. I'm not talking about political overthrow; I'm talking about just general cultural revolution. Bush has polarised the country and is creating this breeding ground for an opposition. In the next couple of months, they'll probably make it unpatriotic to be Democrat. It's pretty crazy. ~ Neil Young

Shrewdly crafted political agendas, innately complex philosophies, man-made religions, governments and regimes of every sort, and all the endless volumes of man-manufactured wisdom and penned prose all completely failed to redeem mankind and make us better. When the best of our efforts failed to redeem the worst of our behaviors, God declared enough as enough and a baby was born. ~ Craig D. Lounsbrough

It is a national tragedy of incalculable proportions....What is wrong with the United States that it can provide the environment for such an act? There is sickness in the nation when political differences cannot be accepted and settled in the democratic way.
(from The St. Louis Post-Dispatch) ~ United Press International

I loved the comradeship of the sixties and the seventies, and I still maintain friendships with the people I worked with then - the ones that are still alive. That's one of the great gifts of our political movements, great friendships ... and also a few enmities. ~ Grace Paley