Political Participation Quotes

My top priority for 2012 will be to make a renewed push for women's economic empowerment and political participation. ~ Michelle Bachelet

There should be a name for this, for the process whereby one knows one is being yanked and concedes it has been done successfully - that one is grateful to have been spun. In the theater, it is called the willing suspension of disbelief. That's what allows the play to make an impact on the audience: they have to be able to make believe that what's happening on the stage is really happening. Maybe to a degree it is a requirement for all political participation, all effective political communication, too. ~ Peggy Noonan

In an age of widespread communication and accountability, people expect political participation and accountability much more than they did in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries. The only way the demand for meaningful political participation and choice can be suppressed is to constrain liberty - Larry Diamond, Developing Democracy: Toward Consolidation (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1999), Chapter 1 ('Defining and Developing Democracy'). p. 4 ~ Larry Diamond

The political history of the twentieth century is the story of greater and more direct political participation. And success kept expanding democracy's scope. Whatever the ailment, more democracy became the cure. ~ Fareed Zakaria

Poverty is multidimensional. It extends beyond money incomes to education, health care, political participation and advancement of one's own culture and social organisation. ~ Atal Bihari Vajpayee

A final irony has to do with the idea of political responsibility. Christians are urged to vote and become involved in politics as an expression of their civic duty and public responsibility. This is a credible argument and good advice up to a point. Yet in our day, given the size of the state and the expectations that people place on it to solve so many problems, politics can also be a way of saying, in effect, that the problems should be solved by others besides myself and by institutions other than the church. It is, after all, much easier to vote for a politician who champions child welfare than to adopt a baby born in poverty, to vote for a referendum that would expand health care benefits for seniors than to care for an elderly and infirmed parent, and to rally for racial harmony than to get to know someone of a different race than yours. True responsibility invariably costs. Political participation, then, can and often does amount to an avoidance of responsibility. ~ James Davison Hunter

Until the chance for political participation is there, we who are poor will continue to attack the soft part of the American system - its economic structure. We will build power through boycotts, strikes, new union - whatever techniques we can develop. These attacks on the status quo will come, not because we hate, but because we know America can construct a humane society for all its citizens - and that if it does not, there will chaos. ~ Cesar Chavez

It would be interesting to go to Buckingham Palace. I'd just like to see what goes on - I'm not bothered about hearing any political chat. ~ Pauline Quirke

[C]apitalist trade and industry cannot thrive without access to military and political power. State interventions have always been critical to its advancement. ~ Amitav Ghosh

Nevertheless, it is necessary to remember that a planned economy is not yet socialism. A planned economy as such may be accompanied by the complete enslavement of the individual. The achievement of socialism requires the solution of some extremely difficult socio-political problems: how is it possible, in view of the far-reaching centralisation of political and economic power, to prevent bureaucracy from becoming all-powerful and overweening? How can the rights of the individual be protected and therewith a democratic counterweight to the power of bureaucracy be assured? ~ Albert Einstein

All popular political doctrines charge your brain with various liberal ideas, such as respect for human rights and freedom, toleration, gender equality and so and so forth. However, in the political arena, a candidate with a charismatic personality in the eyes of the masses, has a great advantage over his opponents in political competition. If you want to become a likely winner, cultivate your charisma, make people believe in you and share your opinion, with no regard to what it is. Your victory depends more on your charisma than on the ideas that you follow. ~ Elmar Hussein

I didn't work for Jimmy Carter all those years to go to cocktail parties. I was there as a political adviser, a short-order cook, to work on topical matters. ~ Hamilton Jordan

All the philosophical theories that exist have been created by the mistaken dualistic minds of human beings. In the realm of philosophy, that which today is considered true, may tomorrow be proved to be false. No one can guarantee a philosophy's validity. Because of this, any intellectual way of seeing whatever is always partial and relative. The fact is that there is no truth to seek or to confirm logically; rather what one needs to do is to discover just how much the mind continually limits itself in a condition of dualism.

Dualism is the real root of our suffering and of all our conflicts. All our concepts and beliefs, no matter how profound they may seem, are like nets which trap us in dualism. When we discover our limits we have to try to overcome them, untying ourselves from whatever type of religious, political or social conviction may condition us. We have to abandon such concepts as 'enlightenment', 'the nature of the mind', and so on, until we are no longer satisfied by a merely intellectual knowledge, and until we no longer neglect to integrate our knowledge with our actual existence. ~ Namkhai Norbu

A momentary smile appeared on Cogo's face before fading away. No matter how many times he saw it, he was still amazed by how Kuni's sincerity shaded into an instinct for political theater. He was, of course, moved by the loyalty of a man who would rather be in jail than betray him, but he also knew to play it for all it was worth to cement even more loyalty. ~ Ken Liu

Terror, as the demonstration of the will and strength of the working class, is historically justified, precisely because the proletariat was able thereby to break the political will of the intelligentsia, pacify the professional man of various categories and work, and gradually subordinate them to its own aims within the field of their specialties. ~ Leon Trotsky

If you maintain a consistent political position long enough, you'll eventually be accused of treason. ~ Mort Sahl

The demerits of our own people bringh infamiy. Their disgrace is our own disgrace. That is why infamy os such people relly hurts . It is desifrable that the ruler or the administrator may work in a way that such disgraceful conduct may not occur. ~ Chanakya

If, of course, there is neither freedom nor any moral law based on freedom, but only a state in which everything that happens or can happen simply obeys the mechanical workings of nature, politics would mean the art of utilising nature for the government of men, and this would constitute the whole of practical wisdom; the concept of right would then be only an empty idea. But if we consider it absolutely necessary to couple the concept of right with politics, or even to make it a limiting condition of politics, it must be conceded that the two are compatible. And I can indeed imagine a moral politician, i.e. someone who conceives of the principles of political expediency in such a way that they can co-exist with morality, but I cannot imagine a political moralist, i.e. one who fashions his morality to suit his own advantage as a statesman. ~ Immanuel Kant

Because of the oil-and-water relationship governments have cultivated between ethics and political economy, speaking in plain terms - spelling it out as it is - as become foreign to the public. So here goes: When government sports a surplus, this implies that the political pickpockets have stolen more funds than they can possibly dream of spending. The property is not theirs to keep! Conversely, when deficits are reported, this means that the kleptomaniacs have not been able to steal sufficient funds to cover their profligacy. ~ Ilana Mercer

any form of expression that ceases to be an experience and becomes an art form loses its glowing divinity ~ Jo M. Sekimonyo

Zero-sum thinking is a name for envy. Ovid, in his Metamorphoses, gives an apt description of the "House of Envy" (as a poet in that most zero-sum of political systems, the Roman empire, might): "Envy within, busy at the meal of snake's flesh... her tongue dripped venom. Only the sight of suffering could bring a smile to her lips. She never knew the comfort of sleep, but... looked with dismay on men's good fortune... She could hardly refrain from weeping when she saw no cause for tears." I didn't know Hillary Clinton's involvement in politics dated back to the reign of Augustus. Then ~ P. J. O'Rourke

Marcuse also believed that sexuality was a political., an ideological, category, not found but made. ~ Richard A. Posner

Prosperity last long for one who acts after proper consideration. ~ Chanakya

The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left is that they do not work. Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive. ~ Thomas Sowell

Invisible violence in Pakistan, violence against brown people, ongoing violence in Iraq - that's got to be quantified in the same way as the cinematic glamorous violence that happens in recognisable cities. ~ Russell Brand

The original Constitution is a dead letter, having suffered decades of legislative, executive and judicial usurpation. The natural- and common law traditions, once loadstars for lawmakers, have been buried under the rubble of legislation and statute. However much one shovels the muck of lawmaking aside, natural justice and the Founders' original intent remain buried too deep to exhume. ~ Ilana Mercer

Almost two thousand years, and no new god! ~ Friedrich Nietzsche

The first grand federalist design ... was that of the Bible, most particularly the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament ... Biblical thought is federal (from the Latin foedus, covenant) from first to last
from God's covenant with Noah establishing the biblical equivalent of what philosophers were later to term Natural Law to the Jews' reaffirmation of the Sinai covenant under the leadership of Ezra and Nehemiah, thereby adopting the Torah as the constitution of their second commonwealth. The covenant motif is central to the biblical world view, the basis of all relationships, the mechanism for defining and allocating authority, and the foundation of the biblical political teaching. ~ Daniel J. Elazar

It's OK to not be political unless your country is falling apart. ~ Rickie Lee Jones

In one conspicuous case, that of royalty, the State does already select the parents on purely political grounds; and in the peerage, though the heir to a dukedom is legally free to marry a dairymaid, yet the social pressure on him to confine his choice to politically and socially eligible mates is so overwhelming that he is really no more free to marry the dairymaid than George IV was to marry Mrs Fitzherbert; and such a marriage could only occur as a result of extraordinary strength of character on the part of the dairymaid acting upon extraordinary weakness on the part of the duke. Let those who think the whole conception of intelligent breeding absurd and scandalous ask themselves why George IV was not allowed to choose his own wife whilst any tinker could marry whom he pleased? Simply because it did not matter a rap politically whom the tinker married, whereas it mattered very much whom the king married. The way in which all considerations of the king's personal rights, of claims of the heart, of the sanctity of the marriage oath, and of romantic morality crumpled up before this political need shews how negligible all these apparently irresistible prejudices are when they come into conflict with the demand for quality in our rulers. We learn the same lesson from the case of the soldier, whose marriage, when it is permitted at all, is despotically controlled with a view solely to military efficiency.
Well, nowadays it is not the king that rules, but the tinker. Dynast ~ George Bernard Shaw

Our great social and political advantage is opportunity. ~ George William Curtis

I've always said as a political scientist that "culture" is what we use when we can't explain things. I think it's more about accessibility. Part of the problem is that this is an expensive game [golf]. I know in a couple of places where there are black members, and they come from pretty much the same socioeconomic level that the white members come from. ~ Condoleezza Rice

Political movements for justice are part of the fuller development of the cosmos, and nature is the matrix in which humans come to their self-awareness of their power to transform. Liberation movements are a fuller development of the cosmos's sense of harmony, balance, justice, and celebration. This is why true spiritual liberation demands rituals of cosmic celebrating and healing, which will in turn culminate in personal transformation and liberation. ~ Matthew Fox

Freedom is participation in power. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

We will reverse course on the heavy hand of regulation, discarding Dodd-Frank and any other regulations that advance a political agenda at the expense of jobs and investment on Main Street. ~ Rick Perry

I saw, during the midterm campaign of 2006, how difficult it was for opponents of stem cell research to run against hope. And so it was in the 2008 presidential contest. This was hope in the collective, a definition that should always apply to the expression of a people's political will. Christopher Reeve had believed in a formula: optimism + information = hope. In this case, the informing agent was us. Granted, it may all look different in six months to a year, but it is hard not to be buoyed by the desire for positive change as articulated and advanced by Barack Obama. It is okay to hope. This time the aspiration of many will not be derided as desperation by a few, as it was during the stem cell debate of '06.
By the time you read this book, President Obama and the 111th Congress will have established federal funding for stem cell research. The dam has broken.
Just as I'd hoped. ~ Michael J. Fox

Political correctness is a major defect of the western ethos. Some Western countries have even passed blasphemy laws that would put you in legal hot waters if you say anything negative about Islam. This means that the truth about Islam cannot be said but Muslims are given total freedom to spread their religion with lies. Islam thrives were truth is suppressed. That is one reason that westerners convert to Islam. They are lied to. How do you expect a society to survive when truth is banned and lies are allowed? ~ Ali Sina

Society was obsessed with invention, industrialization, incorporation, immigration, and, later, imperialism. It was indulgent of commercial speculation, social ostentation, and political prevarication but was indifferent to the special needs of immigrants and Indians and intolerant of African-Americans, labor unions, and political dissidents. ~ Sean Dennis Cashman

There is no regard for human lives, or local national interests. It is because the West, despite its hypocritical rhetoric (political correctness) does not really consider non-whites and non-Christians as human beings. ~ Andre Vltchek

It is a fact that fewer than 10 percent of Germany's population of 79.7 million people actively worked or campaigned to bring about Hitler's change.17 Even at the height of its power in 1945, the Nazi political party boasted only 8.5 million members. ~ Andy Andrews

. . . 'science' was now called on to sanction and sanctify existing social relations. According to Malthus, it was wholly desirable that political economy be 'taught to the common people.' Thanks to it, the poor would understand that they must attribute the cause of their privations to Mother Nature or their own improvidence. ~ Domenico Losurdo

While JFK had made the sale on a political level, he had not yet completed it on an emotional one. ~ David Pietrusza

As the books grew bigger and more ambitious, the situations in question sometimes became political ones, and so it became necessary to start painting in the social background on a scale which eventually became panoramic. ~ Jonathan Coe

Paul's exciting and paradoxical proclamation is that "God's folly is wiser than human wisdom, and God's weakness is stronger than human strength" (1 Corinthians 1:25). He says that only Spirit can hold and absorb the seeming contradictions and allow us to see and to know from an utterly new and unitive vantage point, which is the deepening fruit of contemplation. Only Spirit-in-us can know non-dually or paradoxically and absorb contradictions - inside of and with God. Only God's Spirit-with-us can fully forgive, accept, and allow reality to be what it is. Neither logic nor law can fully achieve this, but participation with and in God can. (This does not make logic or law unnecessary; they are simply inadequate to the work of transformation.) ~ Richard Rohr

Mohammed took his tribal customs and traditions and injected them into his new religion. Many of the ideas and traditions he implemented were already contained in the tribes he conquered, so in many cases, no major changes were required of his new followers. For example, most, if not all, of the tribes were polygamous. Women were seen primarily as chattel and under the complete control of their fathers or husbands. The communities of the new Islamic religion in the 600s CE often converted en masse. With minor modifications, they kept practicing their traditions. Mecca was already a major pagan religious shrine; Mohammed conveniently changed it into a place of worship and pilgrimage for Allah.
Practically speaking, Mohammed unified a fracture region under a single religion and did it with a superior military. Conquest, war, and male predominance were the hallmarks of Islam. Despite political splits over the centuries, the tribal nature of Islam remains intact. ~ Darrel Ray

"Democracy" means nothing else other than, "rule of the people", in Greek. There is nothing democratic about the political concepts of the United States and Europe. ~ Andre Vltchek

Architecture is a political act, by nature. It has to do with the relationships between people and how they decide to change their conditions of living. ~ Lebbeus Woods

We must take our sentences seriously, which means we must understand them philosophically, and the odd thing is that the few who do, who take them with utter sober seriousness, the utter sober seriousness of right-wing parsons and political saviors, the owners of Pomeranians, are the liars who want to be believed, the novelists and poets, who know that the creatures they imagine have no other being than the sounding syllables which the reader will speak into his own weary and distracted head. There are no magic words. To say the words is magical enough. ~ William H Gass

Whenever you have political conflict, such as the one that we have now between Russia and Ukraine, but also in many other conflicts around the world, it has always proved to be right to try again and again to solve such a conflict. ~ Angela Merkel

Never miss a political meeting if you think there's the slightest chance you'll wish you'd been there. ~ Morton Blackwell

If you want to know why Republicans and conservatives are in a political crisis, you need only consider the fact that the Right's deeply held view now boils down to this: Taxes should not go up on the wealthy, and your health benefits should be cut. ~ John Podhoretz

To reject this inhuman Communist ideology is simply to be a human being. Such a rejection is more than a political act. It is a protest of our souls against those who would have us forget the concepts of good and evil. ~ Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

Chess computers do not sweat during time pressure and commit costly blunders. Furthermore, the strength of these programs (over and above their faultless recall processes) lies in their capacity to make relatively superficial tactical decisions with incredible speed. Positional values, long-range strategy, aesthetic judgment, and political astuteness remain staples of human performance, man vs. machine results in the foreseeable future to the contrary not withstanding. ~ Ira Carmen

I enjoyed the administrative work because it involved working with Congress, city council, and the mayor. I had never been a politician so it was fun - learning political maneuvering. ~ Harold H. Greene