The American Way Quotes

In the American way of life pleasure involves comfort, convenience, and sexual stimulation. Pleasure, so defined, has little to do with the past and views the future as no more than a repetition of a hedonistically driven present. This market morality stigmatizes others as objects for personal pleasure or bodily stimulation. The reduction of individuals to objects of pleasure is especially evident in the culture industries
television, radio, video, music. Like all Americans, African Americans are influenced greatly by the images of comfort. These images contribute to the predominance of the market-inspired way of life over all others and thereby edge out nonmarket values
love, care, service to others
handed down by preceding generations. The predominance of this way of life among those living in poverty-ridden conditions, with a limited capacity to ward of self-contempt and self-hatred, results in the possible triumph of the nihilistic threat in black America. ~ Cornel West

The notion that moving toward renewable energy will kill jobs is an absurdity on its face. The notion that we have to live smaller lifestyles; not have the American way of life or give up the American Dream is just ridiculous. It is the opposite of the case; a new energy paradigm will create opportunity. ~ Marshall Herskovitz

Yes, believers and non-believers and skeptics can all live together and get along. But there cannot be an imperialistic imposition of religion by the state or by the church. All people must be equal
believers, skeptics, disbelievers, atheists, and those who chose religion. Unless we are all deemed equal, and unless the morality of disbelief is deemed the equivalent of the morality of belief, we will simply be tolerated, and that is not the American way. ~ Alan Dershowitz

Some people accuse me of exaggeration, so let me be clear. Those people seek nothing less than the complete and utter destruction of the American way of life. ~ Al Gore

Healthy disagreement, debate, leading to compromise has always been the American way. ~ Donald L. Carcieri

They know that as long as they keep us undereducated, or with an inferior education, it's impossible for us to compete with them for job openings. And as long as we can't compete with them and get a decent job, we're trapped. We are low-wage earners. We have to live in a run-down neighborhood, which means our children go to inferior schools. They get inferior education. And when they grow up, they fall right into the same cycle again. This is the American way. This is the American democracy that she tries to sell to the whole world as being that which will solve the problems of other people too. ~ Malcolm X

People believe that through the American way of life they can work together to encourage wider ownership of economic activities. In this way, they believe they can develop an economy of abundance which will provide a maximum of security and freedom. ~ Murray D. Lincoln

The last great escape. I was done gambling, done betting on a ship that would never come in. I would cash in my chips while I was ahead. I didn't want to suffer the growing old, didn't want to wait until my memory went. It was all so tiresome. I would just go out in a blaze of glory before the parasites of sadness got at me and made me bitter. After that's the American way: take your own life before everything else takes it from you. ~ Brian James

The North American church at present is conspicuous for replacing the Jesus way with the American way. ~ Eugene H. Peterson

It is the American way to reward ability. ~ Judd Gregg

It isn't the oceans which cut us off from the world - it's the American way of looking at things. ~ Henry Miller

If I had the flag that Betsy Ross worked so hard on, I wouldn't destroy it. I'd put it up on EBay because it's gotta be worth some serious coin. And that is the American way. ~ Paul Provenza

Reporters treat religion as beneath mention, as personally distasteful, or as a clear and present threat to the American way of life. ~ Robert Bork

Becoming a porn star is pretty much exactly like becoming a superhero. One day, an intrepid, fresh-faced young woman discovers that she has a talent. She chooses a new name – something over the top, flamboyant, a little arrogant, with a tinge of the epic. Somebody makes her a costume – skintight – revealing, a flattering color, nothing much left to the imagination. She explores her power, learns a specialty move or two, sweats her way through a training montage, throwing out punny quips here, there, and everywhere. She inhabits an archetype. She takes every blow that comes her way like she doesn't even feel it. Then she goes out into the big, bad night and saves people from loneliness. From the assorted villanies that plague the common man. From despair and bad dreams. From tedium. Oh, sure, her victories are short-lived. She finishes off her foes in one glorious masterstroke, but the minute she's gone, all the wickedness and darkness of the scheming, teeming world comes rushing back in. But when you need her, here she comes to save the day, doing it for Truth, Justice, and the American Way. ~ Catherynne M. Valente

Used to the conditions of a capitalistic environment, the average American takes it for granted that every year business makes something new and better accessible to him. Looking backward upon the years of his own life, he realizes that many implements that were totally unknown in the days of his youth and many others which at that time could be enjoyed only by a small minority are now standard equipment of almost every household. He is fully confident that this trend will prevail also in the future. He simply calls it the American way of life and does not give serious thought to the question of what made this continuous improvement in the supply of material goods possible. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

Certainly we disagree with the Communist Party, as we disagree with other political parties who are trying to maintain the American way of life. ~ Dorothy Day

Yeah, I think that's sort of the American way. And it's also the Polish way, it turns out. ~ Bill Murray

The problem in Hollywood is that they try to become the only kind of cinema in the world, okay? The imposition everywhere of a unique culture, which is Hollywood culture, and a unique way of life, which is the American way of life. ~ Bernardo Bertolucci

Pat, did you notice yesterday the ACLU, and all the Christ-haters, People For the American Way, NOW, etc. were totally disregarded by the Democrats and the Republicans in both houses of Congress as they went out on the steps and called out on to God in prayer and sang "God Bless America" and said "let the ACLU be hanged"? In other words, when the nation is on its knees, the only normal and natural and spiritual thing to do is what we ought to be doing all the time - calling upon God. ~ Jerry Falwell

The author writes that the central conflict within journalist and seller of the American way Henry Luce was between his curiosity and his certitude. ~ David Halberstam

1990 was a totally political time. George Bush was president, people were dying of AIDS, a lot of our friends, and there was no money being spent by the government either on AIDS or art. So a lot of extreme sexual and political work was made at that time. It was in response to the situation. But that kind of "edgy" political work wasn't exactly what I was doing. I felt a little like my mother. I just wasn't surprised that the government wouldn't support this work. What would you expect. I had personally grown up in a world of total censorship so I wasn't surprised to see politicians wanting to take money away from the art that was explicitly talking about this entire reality of ours. It seemed like the real desire from them (the politicians) was to have no description. That's what they would have paid for. ...Doing their business, wars or whatever, behind the scenes and meanwhile propagating a giant nothing which has become a something the government and the media have only perfected since. To a very large extent people don't even know. I mean it's kind of the great product of this country. The American Way. A big nothing. A cataclysmic unawareness in the face of evil. ~ Eileen Myles

And the word is capitalism. We are too mealy-mouthed. We fear the word capitalism is unpopular. So we talk about the free enterprise system and run to cover in the folds of the flag and talk about the American Way of Life. ~ Eric Johnston

The violence of hierarchy is the violence that the powerful use against the dispossessed to keep them subordinated. As an example, the violence committed for wealth is socially invisible or committed at enough of a distance that its beneficiaries don't have to be aware of it. This type of violence has defined every imperialist war in the history of the US that has been fought to get access to "natural resources" for corporations to turn into the cheap consumer goods that form the basis of the American way of life. ~ Lierre Keith

Followers of another political party tell us that we will strengthen ourselves by ignoring our history, our traditions, our mythologies, our culture and vision, and by following the American way. ~ B.W. Powe

Maybe we should consider this for a second. Maybe, instead of surrendering the fight because a Marine made a mistake, maybe we should train Santiago. What do you think, I'm just spit-balling, but maybe we, as officers, have a responsibility to this country to see that the men charged with its security are trained professionals. Maybe we have that responsibility to other members of the Corps. Yes, yes, I'm certain I once read something like that. See, and now I'm trying to think about how I'd feel if some Marine got hurt or killed because a Pfc. in my command didn't know what the fuck he was doing. And I'm trying to think about how the other members of his unit might feel, putting their lives in the hands of a man they can't count on ... and this brief meditation has brought me around to thinking that your suggestion of transferring Private Santiago off base, while expeditious, and certainly painless, might not be, in a manner of speaking, the "American Way". ~ Aaron Sorkin

Yes we need enhanced border control. Yes we need to focus our efforts on those who pose a threat to our country. But let's not fall into the trap set by the Tea Party and others who would tell you that every single undocumented individual is a drug smuggler, a terrorist, or a threat to the American way of life. That is simply not true. ~ Michael Nutter

That's the American way. If little kids don't aspire to make money like I did, what the hell good is this country? ~ Lee Iacocca

On a certain level, I don't think there is an answer to what the American way is, because it is constantly being re-defined. It's also been exploited and capitalized upon and politicized by one side or the other to the point that a certain degree of cynicism has attached itself to that term. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

There are members of our body politic who tell us that the public interest is best served when government action is reduced to a minimum and especially when it is kept negative in character. But just now, the nation as a whole seems to be moving rather swiftly and decisively - as is the world as a whole - in the opposite direction. More and more, we Americans are initiating new forms of positive government action for the common good. Between these two tendencies the struggle becomes every day more open and more intense. And as we wage that conflict it is well to remember that the logic of the Constitution gives no backing to either of the two combatants, as against the other. We are left free, as any self-governing people must leave itself free, to determine by specific decisions what our economy shall be. It would be ludicrous to say that we are committed by the Constitution to the economic cooperations of socialism. But equally ludicrous are those appeals by which, in current debate, we are called upon to defend the practices of capitalism, of "free enterprise," so-called, as essential to the freedom of the American Way of Life. The American Way of Life is free because it is what we Americans freely choose - from time to time - that it shall be. ~ Alexander Meiklejohn

Pray a little more, work a little harder, save, wait, be patient and, most of all, live within our means. That's the American way. It's not spending ourselves into prosperity or taxing ourselves into prosperity. ~ Mike Huckabee

The American way of life is not sustainable. It doesn't acknowledge that there is a world beyond America. ~ Arundhati Roy

The "Warrior Ethos" emphasizes placing the mission first, not accepting defeat, and being disciplined physically and mentally. Why? Because an American Soldier is a "guardian of freedom and the American way of life. ~ Dan Smee

The difference between past and present immigration experience is the existence of a defiant anti-assimilationist lobby that encourages legal and illegal aliens to resist adapting to the American way of life. ~ Michelle Malkin

The most serious dangers for American freedom and the American way of life do not come from without. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I'm not an American but I have always had the outsiders' respect for the American people and the American way. ~ Christiane Amanpour

Those who misrepresent the normal experiences of life, who decry being controversial, who shun risk, are the enemies of the American way of life, whatever the piety of their vocal professions and the patriotic flavor of their platitudes. ~ Henry Wriston

The American Way is an amalgam of our compassion, our strengths, our failings and our attempts to build a better world, a more perfect union. ~ J. Michael Straczynski

Let the rabbit of free enterprise out of its velveteen bag and too many people would have to be fired, too much idiocy exposed to the light of judgment or ridicule, too much vanity sacrificed to the fires of efficiency. Such a catastrophe obviously would threaten the American way of life, to say nothing of the belief in free markets. ~ Lewis H. Lapham

Appleby was a fair-haired boy from Iowa who believed in God, Motherhood and the American Way of Life, without ever thinking about any of them, and everybody who knew him liked him. ~ Joseph Heller

Anyway, if you needed something really dangerous, get a gun. It's easy, it's cheap, and it's the American way. ~ Craig Ferguson

The American way is to criticize and debate openly, not to accept unthinkingly the doings of government officials of this or any other country. ~ Michael Parenti

I love the American way of life. ~ Juan Pablo Montoya

I do not believe that my generation, my cousins who have been educated in the American way, all of whom are MDs or PhDs, have any comparable learning ... I am not saying anything so trite as that life is fuller when people have myths to live by. I mean rather that a life based on the Book is closer to the truth, that it provides the material for deeper research in and access to the real nature of things. Without the great revelations, epics, and philosophies as part of our natural vision, there is nothing to see out there, and eventually little left inside. The Bible is not the only means to furnish a mind, but without a book of similar gravity, read with the gravity of the potential believer, it will remain unfurnished. ~ Allan Bloom

Stayed up and watched a little spanktrovision. It's the American way. There's really nothing wrong with spanktrovision. One of the best inventions of the 1900s, 20th century. ~ David Spade

Desert Storm created the pattern for the American way of war that eventually prevailed in Kosovo. America learned from Vietnam that unilateral use of force eventually forfeits international legitimacy and domestic support. Desert Storm demonstrated the political necessity of coalition warfare. ~ Michael Ignatieff

People always kept moving, her mother had said, it's the American way. Moving west, moving south, marrying up, marrying down, getting divorced - but moving... ~ Elizabeth Strout

In the United States, after World War II, it took about two decades for the message to slowly seep in that inflation was going to be a permanent fact of the American way of life. ~ Murray Rothbard

I tend to be a great optimist when it comes to the United States and the American way of life, I think precisely because I wasn't born into it. ~ Paullina Simons

From Zachary Blake? Not a chance in hell. All his cases are high-profile. And these days, he's got a Midas touch. Every case he touches turns to gold. Blake is on a personal crusade for civil justice and safety - truth, justice, and the American way, don't you know? Guns are an excellent target issue for someone like him. ~ Mark M. Bello

...America went off the track somewhere--back around the time of the Civil War, or pretty soon afterwards. Instead of going ahead and developing along the line in which the country started out, it got shunted off in another direction...Suddenly we realize that America has turned into something ugly...and the worst of it is the intellectual dishonesty which all this corruption has bred...People are afraid to think straight--afraid to face themselves...We've become like a nation of advertising men, all hiding behind catch phrases like "prosperity" and "rugged individualism" and "the American way." And the real things like freedom, and equal opportunity and the integrity and worth of the individual...they have become just words too. ~ Thomas Wolfe

Beer commercials are so patriotic: Made the American Way. What does that have to do with America? Is that what America stands for? Feeling sluggish and urinating frequently? ~ Evelyn Waugh

Totalizing and dangerous views of "American culture" and "nationhood" can be found in current attempts to portray "Christian values" or particular constructions of "family values" as constitutive of "American culture" and "the American way of life." Views of "American culture" that picture American society as comprised of "free individuals," and of American institutions as already fair and egalitarian, obscure the ways in which various forms of institutional discrimination impede the entry and flourishing of members of marginalized groups. ~ Uma Narayan

'The more expensive the better' is kind of the American way, and if you spent $600 for a sweatshirt, then that makes it better. ~ Macklemore

I never saw anything like it. He was like the bit in the movie where Tom Cruise is a lawyer and he's decided he's really going to win this case, for the sake of justice and the American way, and that? And it's suddenly like bang-bang-bang - grabbing files off shelves and slamming them down on the desk and punching numbers in the telephone and shaking out the phone cord dramatically , and you know, snapping out instructions to all the assistants around the desk, like: "Get me all the phone records of the President of the United States for the last fifty years," and "Get me the names of every client who ever ate a banana," and "Let's get some Chinese take-out up here, on the double! ~ Jaclyn Moriarty

THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE. Even what they eat and drink, these palefaces who don't know what wine istheir uglinesstheir pink sausage skin, horrible, they only live because there is penicillin, ... the world as an Americanized vacuumtheir fake health, their fake youthfulnessthe way they use cosmetics even on corpses, their whole pornographic attitude to death. ~ Max Frisch

The American way is the way most law-abiding Americans live - in debt. Does this make a balanced budget un-American? ~ Cullen Hightower

It didn't take a Harvard economist to figure out that it'd be a hell of a lot cheaper spending money on helping keep kids safe when they were younger than it was to put them in jail when they were older. That was the American way, though. Spend a million dollars rescuing some kid who's fallen down a well, but God forbid you spend a hundred bucks up front to cap the well so the kid never falls down it in the first place. ~ Karin Slaughter

Yes, I'm a patriotic person. For these people who disgrace the American way and burn our flag and do all of these things ... I say, don't live here and disgrace my country. Go live in the Middle East and see how you like it. ~ Payne Stewart

The remedy [for the Great Depression] is to give the workers access to the means of production, and let them produce for themselves, not for others, ... the American way. ~ Upton Sinclair

The American white man (not to speak of the Indian, the Negro, the Mexican) hasn't a ghost of a chance. If he has any talent he's doomed to have it crushed one way or another. The American way is to seduce a man by bribery and make a prostitute of him. Or else to ignore him, starve him into submission and make a hack of him. ~ Henry Miller

I'm saying the American way is to overcome, to conquer, to come out on top. And we do it by spending and eating and screwing our women harder than anyone else. That's all I'm saying. ~ Neil LaBute

Americans are very easygoing people. If the added attention and great visibility that I have been able to generate can help open doors and expose more Chinese to American values and the American way of life, that is great. ~ Gary Locke

Truth, justice and the American way. The American way is: truth and justice maybe say hello in the hallway, send each other a Christmas card, but that's about the extent of their relationship. ~ Don Winslow

Obviously you follow the law of the land, there are many laws I disagree with, but you follow the law. You fight to change the law, you don't break the law. I believe that's the American way. ~ George Pataki

Ray: What else did they get rid of, truth, justice and the American way?
Leto jr.: Nah, truth ended when they shot M.L.K.. The American way died over in Vietnam.
Mitch: And Justice?
Leto jr.: Shit, man, there's no justice ... There's just us. ~ Brian K. Vaughan

Look! I've been in the Pentagon like four times, but I'm not really even sure what the Pentagon does! I'm supposed to fight crime, but I don't even know how laws get passed! I mean... Truth, Justice and the American Way? I stopped taking social studies when I was like fifteen!
I grew up in Westchester, and have never traveled anywhere else without this stupid domino mask on my face! Am I the only one who's scared that people are looking to me for answers because I can lift a car over my head?! This is crazy! ~ Brennan Lee Mulligan

Surrogate experience and surrogate environments have become the American way of life. Distinctions are no longer made, or deemed necessary, between the real and the false; the edge usually goes to the latter, as an improved version with defects corrected - accessible and user-friendly ... ~ Ada Louise Huxtable

I think that all of us, as Americans, are due due process and have a right to a fair trial, and have a right to be considered innocent until proven guilty. I think that is the American way and it's the foundation upon which this country was built. ~ Wesley Snipes

Wang-mu was surprised to hear Peter sound so oriental. The American way was to make excuses, to stay and argue. ~ Orson Scott Card

In films, we are trained by the American way of moviemaking to think we must understand and 'get' everything right away. But this is not possible. When you eat a potato, you don't understand each atom of the potato! ~ Jean-Luc Godard

Much of what we consider the American way of life is rooted in the period of remarkably broad, shared economic growth, from around 1900 to about 1978. ~ Adam Davidson

To all organic conceptions of life Americans oppose a mechanistic conception. In a society which has 'started from scratch', everything has the characteristic of being fabricated. In American society appearances are masks, not faces. At the same time, proponents of the American way of life are hostile to personality. ~ Julius Evola

People have no tolerance. They think all bugs are bad. It's the American way. If you don't like something, kill it. ~ Carl Olson

People must learn that the accumulation of wealth by the successful
conduct of business is the corollary of the improvement of their own standard of
living and vice versa. They must realize that bigness in business is not an evil, but both the cause and effect of the fact that they themselves enjoy all those amenities
whose enjoyment is called the American way of life. ~ Ludwig Von Mises

I was raised to speak out about politics and the world around me. I would do it whether I was in the public or not. It is the way I was taught. The American way. ~ Judy Collins

There must be a renewal of the spirit of our forefathers, an
appreciation of the American way of life, a strengthening of muscle and sinew and the character of the nation. America needs guts as well as guns.
National character is the core of national defense. ~ Ezra Taft Benson

My father couldn't speak English when he went to the first grade and I had to work in a factory over Christmas and summer vacations. And I think that's the American way and one of the things that excites me about this race is that pretty much everything I've done I've started at the bottom and been able to finish at the top. ~ George Pataki

Far from being freaks, the Hell's Angels are a logical product of the culture that now claims to be shocked at their existence. The generation represented by the editors of Time has lived so long in a world full of Celluloid outlaws hustling toothpaste and hair oil that it is no longer capable of confronting the real thing. For twenty years they have sat with their children and watched yesterday's outlaws raise hell with yesterday's world ... and now they are bringing up children who think Jesse James is a television character. This is the generation that went to war for Mom, God and Apple Butter, the American Way of Life. When they came back, they crowned Eisenhower and then retired to the giddy comfort of their TV parlors, to cultivate the subtleties of American history as seen by Hollywood. ~ Hunter S. Thompson

It's the American way: if you don't vote, you don't get to whine. ~ Dan Rather

Not many French producers work the American way. In France, the director decides everything, he has final cut. I'm trying to do things differently, without the Luc Besson solution. ~ Thomas Langmann

The American way is to not need help, but to help. ~ Anne Lamott

The alleged music preached of the wrongs democracy had perpetrated on the people and how to protest against the causes of their pain, which would be, according to the fascist propagandists, the police, the military, the rich and the current American government. His ballads were to call for youth and the downtrodden to unite and fight against poverty, injustice and social ills - by destroying the American way of life. Radio ~ Louis L'Amour

Whatever else the religious Right may be, it is a bonanza for its opponents ... Reports of the great terror that is upon us are raising millions of dollars in fund appeals by Planned Parenthood, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Organization for Women, Norman Lear's People for the American Way, and others who claim to believe that the religious Right is the greatest peril to American democracy since Joe McCarthy. ~ Richard John Neuhaus

The American way was for commerce, personal relationships, and religion to be voluntary. No one was forced to participate in something he didn't want. ~ Harry Browne

Justice will be served
And the battle will rage
This big dog will fight
When you rattle his cage
And you'll be sorry that you messed with
The U.S. of A.
'Cause we'll put a boot in your *ss
It's the American way ~ Toby Keith

The word 'equality' shows up too much in our founding documents for anyone to pretend it's not the American way. ~ Martha Plimpton

The American way of life, as I see it, is really the American way of death. Everything is determined by greed and the insatiable desire to be the richest and most powerful. And that desire is limitless. ~ Lydia Lunch

If any of my competitors were drowning, I'd stick a hose in their mouth and turn on the water. It is ridiculous to call this an industry. This is not. This is rat eat rat, dog eat dog. I'll kill 'em, and I'm going to kill 'em before they kill me. You're talking about the American way - of survival of the fittest. ~ Ray Kroc

A Frenchman, Alexis de Tocqueville, came to America more than a century ago and made some astute observations about the American way. He said that we have a misleading idea at the very head of our Constitution: the pursuit of happiness. One can not pursue happiness; if he does he obscures it. If he will proceed with the human task of life, the relocation of the center of gravity of the personality to something greater outside itself, happiness will be the outcome. ~ Karl Marlantes

He struck a mighty blow for equality, freedom and the American way of life. Jackie Robinson was a good citizen, a great man, and a true American champion. ~ Ronald Reagan

An argument ensued about abundance, leisure, work, nature, and what a second girl kept calling 'the American way.' When I asked her what she meant by 'the American way,' she said, 'Basically the destruction of everything
the world, your happiness, your soul, everything. The complete package. Evil and war. That's who we are, Mr. Countryman.' ~ David Guterson

The death of a social machine has never been heralded by a disharmony or a dysfunction; on the contrary, social machines make a habit of feeding on the contradictions they give rise to, on the crises they provoke, on the anxieties they engender, and on the infernal operations they regenerate. Capitalism has learned this, and has ceased doubting itself, while even socialists have abandoned belief in the possibility of capitalism's natural death by attrition. No one has ever died from contradictions. And the more it breaks down, the more it schizophrenizes, the better it works, the American way. ~ Gilles Deleuze

The American Way is so restlessly creative as to be essentially destructive; the American Way is to carry common sense itself almost to the point of madness. ~ Louis Kronenberger

You're not going to college to get educated. You're going there to get trained. They'll train you to want what you don't need. They'll train you to manipulate words so they don't mean anything anymore. They'll train you to forget what it is that you already know. They'll train you so good, you'll start believing what they tell you about equal opportunity and the American way and all that shit. They'll give you a corner office and invite you to fancy dinners, and tell you you're a credit to your race. Until you want to actually start running things, and then they'll yank on your chain and let you know that you may be a well-trained, well-paid nigger, but you're a nigger just the same. ~ Barack Obama

Most people considered options a good thing, the American way, but one tended to squander those choices, or to choose badly, and then to call a bad outcome fate, as if the choices made had nothing to do with it. ~ Scott Lasser

By extension, anyone who liked smelling the daisies, and having daisies to smell, and eating mercury-free fish, and who objected to giving birth to three-eyed infants via the toxic sludge in their drinking water was a demon-possessed Satanic minion of darkness, hell-bent on sabotaging the American Way and God's Holy Oil, which were one and the same. ~ Margaret Atwood

History textbooks still present Union and Confederate sympathizers as equally idealistic. The North fought to hold the Union together, while the South fought, according to 'The American Way', 'for the preservation of their rights and the freedom to decide for themselves'. Nobody fought to preserve racial slavery; nobody fought to end it. As one result, unlike the Nazi swastika, which lies disgraced, even in the North whites still proudly display the stars and bars of the Confederacy on den walls, license plates, t-shirts, and high school logos. Even some (white) Northerners vaguely regret the defeat of the 'lost cause'. It is as if racism against blacks could be remembered with nostalgia. In this sense, long after Appomattox, the Confederacy finally won. ~ James W. Loewen

President [Bush] believes that [high-energy consumption] is an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policymakers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one. ~ Ari Fleischer

Much of the rest of the world has already learned some English. They pretty much understand the American way of doing things, because our culture has been ubiquitous and has been the 500-pound gorilla in the global economy. But the world is far more interrelated than ever before, and no one culture can thrive without the knowledge of how to function in other cultures. ~ Bill Vaughan

Silence does not equal patriotism. Obedience is not the American way. ~ Janeane Garofalo