119 quotes found
"I believe in the separation of church and state... We all have our own religious beliefs. There are people out there who are atheists, who don't believe at all... They are all citizens of Minnesota and I have to respect that."
"We call our country home of the brave and land of the free, but it's not. We give a false portrayal of freedom. We're not free — if we were, we'd allow people their freedom. Prohibiting something doesn't make it go away. Prostitution is criminal, and bad things happen because it's run illegally by dirt-bags who are criminals. If it's legal, then the girls could have health checks, unions, benefits, anything any other worker gets, and it would be far better."
"Organized religion is a sham and a crutch for weak-minded people who need strength in numbers. It tells people to go out and stick their noses in other people's business. I live by the golden rule: Treat others as you'd want them to treat you. The religious right wants to tell people how to live."
"Every fat person says it's not their fault, that they have gland trouble. You know which gland? The saliva gland. They can't push away from the table."
"If I could be reincarnated as a fabric, I would come back as a 38 double-D bra."
"I speak my mind. If it offends some people, well, there's not much I can do about that. But I'm going to be honest. I'm going to continue to speak my mind, and that's who I am..."
"Congratulations, you have a sense of humor. And to those who didn't: Go stick your head in the mud."
"I asked him the most important question that I think you could ask — if he had ever seen Caddyshack."
"I believe patriotism comes from the heart. Patriotism is voluntary. It is a feeling of loyalty and allegiance that is the result of knowledge and belief. A patriot shows their patriotism through their actions, by their choice. Chapter 391 is not about choice. In Chapter 391, the State mandates patriotic actions and displays. Our government should not dictate actions. The United States of America exists because people wanted to be free to choose. All of us should have free choice when it comes to patriotic displays... a government wisely acting within its bounds will earn loyalty and respect from its citizens. A government dare not demand the same. There is much more to being a patriot and a citizen than reciting the pledge or raising a flag. Patriots serve. Patriots vote. Patriots attend meetings in their community. Patriots pay attention to the actions of government and speak out when needed. Patriots teach their children about our history, our precious democracy and about citizenship. Being an active, engaged citizen means being a patriotic American every day. No law will make a citizen a patriot."
"I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that that turned into nothing more than a political rally."
"The current use of the National Guard is wrong... These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations."
"I say legalize marijuana because we have a chance to leave this world a better place for our children. Marijuana legalization is job creation, tax dollars, something to rejuvenate our pathetic economy. This is a multibillion-dollar industry. This is about jobs; this is about economics; this is about freedom. This is about taking our country back."
"I didn't need this job. I ran for governor to find out if the American dream still exists in anyone's heart other than mine. I'm living proof that the myths aren't true. The candidate with the most money isn't always the one who wins. You don't have to be a career politician to serve in public office. You don't have to be well-connected. You don't even have to be a Democrat or a Republican. You can stand on your own two feet and speak your mind, because if people like where you're coming from, they will vote you in. The will of the people is still the most powerful force in our government."
"Politics is not my life. I have a career in radio and another career in film. I have a wife who is the sweetest person in the world and two kids who are growing up into terrific, well-rounded people. I don't want to spend the rest of my life in politics. When I'm finished with my term as governor, I'm going back to the life that's waiting for me in the private sector."
"During my transition period, I brought in 13 people who were either first-time voters or who hadn't voted in five consecutive elections. I asked each of them a question: Now that you've come into the system, how do we keep you involved? Their answers were very clear, very honest. They said, It's the same story every four years. Whenever an election's coming up, all the politicians come out and give you the same song and dance about the same issues, all the way up until they get elected. Then you don't hear any more from them until it's time for them to get elected again. We're tired of it. If you want to keep us involved, don't tell us what you think we want to hear, tell us the truth. There's a great need in our government right now for honesty. I speak my mind. You might not always like what you hear, but you're gonna hear it anyway. I call it like I see it; I tell the truth. And if I don't know something, I'll say so. Then I'll try to find the answer."
"I decided to run for governor because I got mad.... I want to make government more directly accountable to the people."
"I am not a career politician. I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm a working man with commonsense ideas and goals. I describe myself politically as fiscally conservative and socially moderate-to-liberal."
"I don't believe we need the government's help as much as some think we do. That belief sets me apart from the Democrats, since their way of dealing with everything is to tax and spend. I also believe that government has no business telling us how we should live our lives. I think our lifestyle choices should be left up to us. What we do in our private lives is none of the government's business. That position rules out the Republican Party for me. As the cliché says, "I don't want Democrats in the boardroom and I don't want Republicans in the bedroom.""
"There are a lot of good causes out there, but they can't possibly all be served by government. The Constitution guarantees us our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That's all. It doesn't guarantee our rights to charity. The government is not a parent. We can't expect the government to always be there, ready to bail us out. When we make decisions in life, we have to be willing to live with the consequences. We can't expect the government to help us get back on our feet every time we make a bad decision."
"We've gotten into the bad habit of overlegislating. I believe in the America people's ability to govern themselves. If government would just get out of the way and allow them to lead their lives as they choose, they will succeed."
"Remember that government doesn't earn one single dollar it spends. In order for you to get money from the government, that money must first be taken from somebody else."
"Government works less efficiently when it begins to grow out of control and takes on more and more of the responsibilities that belong to the citizens."
"Develop high expectations."
"There's hardly a more effective way to solve the problems we face in our educational system than to reduce class size. A ratio of no more than 17 students per teacher ensures more 1-on-1 contact, better classroom discipline, you name it."
"The best chance disabled students have for productive adult lives comes from being mainstreamed among other students. My daughter Jade is living proof of that. She has a disability, but we have made sure that she has gotten the same kind of exposure as other kids her age. There are a few exceptions; there are students whose special needs are such that mainstreaming won't work for them. But in the majority of cases, mainstreaming should be supported, encouraged, and facilitated for disabled students."
"Students often approached me about state-paid tuition while I was out campaigning. After I explained to them that if the state pays their tuition now, they will pay higher taxes to pay other people's tuition for the rest of their lives, most of them ended up agreeing with me."
"Government's role should be only to keep the playing field level, and to work hand in hand with business on issues such as employment. But beyond this, to as great an extent as possible, it should get the hell out of the way."
"I'm against the draft. I believe we should have a professional military; it might be smaller, but it would be more effective."
"People are always shocked when they ask me what I plan to do about crime as governor and my answer comes back as "Nothing!" Does the issue of crime need to be addressed? You bet it does. But, just as with many other social issues, I don't think that legislation is the most effective arena in which to fight crime. We already have tons of laws on the books. Most of those laws would work more effectively if we just enforced them better. As governor, there isn't a lot I can do beyond that to crack down on crime. Law enforcement is really a local issue. It's the cops' job to tighten down on criminals. Politicians always like to say "I'm gonna fight crime!" because it makes them sound great and gets them votes. But what can a politician do to fight crime?"
"How come life in prison doesn't mean life? Until it does, we're not ready to do away with the death penalty. Stop thinking in terms of "punishment" for a minute and think in terms of safeguarding innocent people from incorrigible murderers. Americans have a right to go about their lives without worrying about these people being back out on the street. So until we can make sure they're off the street permanently, we have to grit our teeth and put up with the death penalty. So we need to work toward making a life sentence meaningful again. If life meant life, I could, if you'll excuse the pun, live without the death penalty. We don't have it here in Minnesota, thank God, and I won't advocate to get it. But I will advocate to make life in prison mean life. I don't think I would want the responsibility for enforcing the death penalties. There's always the inevitable question of whether someone you gave the order to execute might truly have been innocent."
"There's no question that we need tougher drunk-driving laws for repeat offenders. We need to take a lesson from European countries where driving isn't a right but a privilege. There isn't a person on this planet by this time who doesn't know that when you consume alcohol you shouldn't get behind the wheel of a car. The people who do it anyway should have their privilege to drive taken away."
"Our government has the weirdest bias against cannabis. There's no reason for everybody to be so afraid of it. It's not the antichrist the DEA makes it out to be. Industrial hemp is a very useful plant. I challenged the attorney general to get rid of the criminal stigma associated with hemp so we can look at it in terms of how it might be useful. And government has no business telling us what we can and can't use for pain relief."
"We shouldn't be wasting so much time and so many resources on prosecuting consensual crimes such as prostitution and drug possession. I hold drug possession and drug dealing as two totally different concepts. The drug dealers who resort to deadly street violence should be dealt with severely as the criminals they are. But we have to become willing to admit as a nation that our war against drugs has failed. And we have to start looking for other solutions. I want the drug business stopped. But I know it never will stop as long as people want the drugs. It's supply and demand. You can even get drugs in prison."
"I'm all for gun control, I just define it a little differently. If you can put 2 rounds into the same hole from 25 meters, that's gun control! If you're going to own a gun, you have an obligation to know what you're doing with it. When the Constitution gave us the right to bear arms, it also made us responsible for using them properly. It's not fair of us as citizens to lean more heavily on one side of that equation than on the other. So I support waiting periods and training requirements for gun ownership, and I like the idea that it shouldn't be incredibly easy to get guns. I support the right to carry concealed weapons, but I think people who want a concealed-weapons permit need to pass a training and safety course. The Constitution calls for a "well-regulated militia." In other words, you need to know how to use your weapon, and practice with it. Where I draw the line is at gun registration. A law that says that everybody who owns a gun has to be on record is too easy to abuse."
"I don't support abortion. I could never participate in one. But I think it would be a mistake to make them illegal again. What criminalization will do is force women into garages and back alleys, and then you're going to have two lives in jeopardy. My mom, who was a nurse, used to talk about the messes that would come in after back-alley abortions went wrong. The way to stop abortion is to deal, philosophically and spiritually, with the people who get them. And that's not something government can touch."
"I get very disturbed when I see people demonstrating with signs that say "Welfare Rights." There is nothing in the Constitution that says you have a right to welfare! Do you know what welfare is? It's taking money from someone who is working to give to someone who's not!"
"A Navy SEAL will defy death at least twice a week. When you get that kind of familiarity with death, barriers go down, and anything else seems insignificant. I don't like what happened in the navy's Tailhook scandal; I think what those officers did was wrong. But I understand why it happened. When you get a force of that many hundreds of warriors together, there's bound to be trouble."
"War isn't civilized. War is failure. It's the ultimate result of a breakdown in public policy, and soldiers are the machines that handle that breakdown. In warfare, you're taught to do whatever you have to, to stay alive."
"Even while I was a Navy SEAL, I participated in the 1970s peace movement. I marched at peace rallies. I admit it wasn't so much because of my great love of peace as it was because of my great love of female companionship. To the women in the movement, I was the poor beleaguered victim of the system, sent off against his will to fight this horrible war. They didn't realize that the navy had no draft!"
"To this day, I'm against the draft. I believe the military is much stronger if it's an all-volunteer organization."
"I believe very strongly that guns are instruments of death. That's all they're used for; there's no purpose for them other than to kill. I think you have to understand that in order to respect them. I have no fear of my teenage son handling weapons, because he has that respect."
"I'm not knocking private schools, but I owe it to my kids to let them grow up in a place where private school isn't required. They're only in school 6-8 hours a day; they have to live in their neighborhood 24 hours a day. I didn't want them growing up in a place where anybody with the means had abandoned their public schools."
"I believe I was destined to become mayor of Brooklyn Park. And maybe, by fulfilling that destiny to become mayor, I sealed my destiny to become governor. I hope I'm not destined to become president. I don't say that with arrogance — it's only that everything seemed to fall so easily into place in both of my other races. But I truly wanted to be mayor and governor — I don't want the presidency. I'll never say never, because you never know what will happen. But 99% of me says no."
"While I was mayor, I learned that government is a system of checks and balances — you can't simply walk in and change things. It takes time. I used to joke that it would be nice if a magic wand came with the job, if I could just wave it and make things work the way they're supposed to. But unfortunately it's not that easy. The bureaucracy is so huge that in a lot of situations all I can do is tell people the truth and let the chips fall where they may."
"Whenever you take a stand on an issue, people will line up around the block to kick your ass over it. By having an opinion, you make yourself a target. Why do you think Congress likes to hide behind closed doors at decision-making time? I put all the city council meetings on public TV, over the good old boys' objections. Exposure creates an educated, involved public, which isn't in the interests of the old-boy network."
"I view the traditional two parties as in some ways very evil. They've become monsters that are out of control. The two parties don't have in mind what's best for Minnesota. The only things that are important to them are their own agendas and their pork. Government's become just a battle of power between the two parties. But now that Minnesota has a governor who truly comes from the private sector, a lot of light's going to be shed on how the system is unfair to people outside the two parties."
"Don't look for me to make a run for the White House. I don't want that. I see what happens to everyone who takes that office: They all go in so virile and young, and then in the course of 4 years they age 20. I can get by being governor, but being president would be too much stress, too much responsibility — I'd be the most powerful person in the world! And I don't want to do that to Terry. I won't say absolutely not, but I wouldn't put any money on there ever being a Jesse "The Prez" Ventura."
"Over the past few decades, we've gotten into the bad habit of looking to the government to solve every personal and social crisis that comes along. People have really come to misunderstand government's scope. There's only so much it can do. For one thing, it's a terrible social regulator. And morals and values aren't things that legislation can even touch. You can't legislate morality. It doesn't work."
"I'd like to clarify my comments about religious people being weak-minded. I didn't mean all religious people. I don't have any problem with the vast majority of religious folks. I count myself among them, more or less. But I believe because it makes sense to me, not because I think it can be proven. There are lots of people out there who think they know the truth about God and religion, but does anybody really know for sure? That's why the founding fathers built freedom of religious belief into the structure of this nation, so that everybody could make up their minds for themselves. But I do have a problem with the people who think they have some right to try to impose their beliefs on others. I hate what the fundamentalist fanatics are doing to our country. It seems as though, if everybody doesn't accept their version of reality, that somehow invalidates it for them. Everybody must believe the same things they do. That's what I find weak and destructive."
"I'm not disparaging suicides when I call them weak, I'm pointing out that anybody who would consider doing a thing like that needs help. I don't think a normal, mentally healthy person commits suicide. Of course, there are exceptions; people who are terminally ill are a different issue. But in the vast majority of cases, suicide is a tragedy that does unbelievable damage to the family and friends the suicide leaves behind. You don't want to encourage people to do such a thing."
"I'd like to work on having every fourth year become a year in which no laws are made, but the old laws are reviewed, updated, or deleted as needed. That way we won't get endless, obsolete laws piling up on the books."
"Whereas: The unique features of this nation at its foundation was its establishment of a secular Constitution that separated government from religion — something never done before; and Whereas: Our secular constitution has enabled people of all world views to coexist in harmony, undivided by sectarian strife; and Whereas: President James Madison made clear the importance of maintaining this harmony when he said, "The purpose of separation of church and state is to keep forever from these shores the endless strife that has soaked the soil of Europe in blood for centuries"; and Whereas: The diversity of our people requires mutual respect and equal protection for all our citizens, including minority groups, if we are to remain "One nation, indivisible"; and Whereas: It is the unfettered diversity of ideas and world views that have made our nation the strongest and most productive in the world; and Whereas: Eternal vigilance must be maintained to guard against those who seek to stifle ideas, establish a narrow orthodoxy, and divide our nation along arbitrary lines of race, ethnicity, and religious belief or non-belief. Now Therefore, I, Jesse Ventura, Governor of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim that Thursday July 4, 2002 shall be observed as: Indivisible Day In the State of Minnesota."
"They're Crips and Bloods in Brooks Brothers suits."
"They could care less about the public. The public comes in third. Number one is keeping their power. Number two are the special interests, the people footing the bill. Finally, the public good might be third — if they can profit from it. If there's no profit, they could care less."
"It's panhandling. . . That's the system we have, though. It's based on bribery."
"A third-party candidate is never treated equally. They look at you as a novelty, as cannon fodder. "This is entertaining," they think, "but we'll go back to the Democrats and Republicans, because only they can run our government." Which is baloney."
"Could someone please tell me how this will affect me? Come on, this is Harvard, folks. I came all the way out here to learn this."
"Some felt I'm not academically qualified, and they're right."
"I give kudos to them for having the courage to bring me here... The risk is, I'm not the status quo."
"I thought to myself, "This is Harvard", You expect Harvard to be this stuffy, arrogant place. But then you get here and see how bright everyone is — what could be better? I loved it."
"When you have an opportunity to learn, you become smarter at more things. Having run government for four years, and being in charge of 26 departments, that's an education. So I think I'm savvier today. And probably more cynical."
"Why did they label me a college dropout? The connotation is, he left to go have fun. Not that I served honorably in the Navy, went to college on the GI Bill, trained to be a pro wrestler, and took a job when the opportunity came up. Isn't that what college is for, to prepare you to earn a living? The positive is, I still have three years of eligibility left — if Harvard wants me for its football team."
"Having been a villain in wrestling, my relationship with the media has always been rocky. They don't view wrestling for what it really is, entertainment."
"I looked at my wife and said, "You know what? If these people put their own dollar-an-hour raise above the integrity of our nation, I don't wanna be their boss anymore.""
"We—"the free love generation"—are now telling our children to abstain from sex? When I spoke at Carleton College, I told the young people: "Unless they were a virgin on their wedding day, anyone who preaches abstinence to you is a hypocrite." Two weeks later, Ann Coulter showed up at the same school, and one of the students raised his hand and asked her whether she'd been a virgin! It made the papers—and made me laugh. You know what Coulter did? Attacked the kid and changed the subject."
"I had people coming up and telling me they hadn't voted in twenty-five years, but they were turning out for me on Tuesday. I still see the face of this kid who approached me in the little town of Willmar. "Jesse," he said, "you are us.""
"Pro wrestling had heroes and villains, and I'd already decided I was going to be a "bad guy" like "Superstar" Billy Graham. That's why I grew the blond mane, to look like a California beach bum. I knew people in the Midwest would hate that. In a sport where Gorgeous George, Gorilla Monsoon, and The Crusher were some of the big names, I knew that plain old Jim Janos wasn't going to cut the mustard. I'd always liked the name Jesse, maybe because of Jesse James. I looked on a map of California and my eyes landed on a highway that ran north of L.A. called Ventura. Jesse Ventura, the Surfer. Now that had a ring to it."
"I've often referred to pro wrestling as "ballet with violence." Yes, it's staged, as far as who's going to be the winner, but it's not fake. It's really an art form, and one that requires careful discipline. When you smash your opponent with a folding chair, you've got to know how not to hurt him. When you get body-slammed, it's painful, no way around it. But you get used to it."
"I started stating that maybe I should run for governor. Well, it caught on like wildfire. I felt I'd boxed myself into a corner—if I didn't attempt to do this, I would lose my credibility. And in the world of talk radio, once that happens, you're finished."
"The media today are controlled by the big corporations. It's all about ratings and money. Believe it or not, I think the downfall of our press today was the show 60 Minutes. Up until it came along, news was expected to lose money, in order to bring the people fair reporting and the truth. But when 60 Minutes became the top-rated program on television, the light went on. The corporate honchos said, "Wait a minute, you mean if we entertain with the news, we can make money?" It was the realization that, if packaged the correct way, the news could make you big bucks. No longer was it a matter of scooping somebody else on a story, but whether 20/20's ratings this week were better than Dateline's. I'm not knocking 60 Minutes. It was tremendously well done and hugely successful, but in the long run it could end up being a detriment to society."
"My major criticism of today's media is, they're no longer reporting the news, they're creating it. When that happens, you're in deep trouble."
"The thing about most of the media is that they want to reduce everybody to the lowest common denominator. They don't want people to have any heroes. I've got nothing against criticism of political figures, but that's different from a personal attack. It's easier to do sensationalism and character assassination than focus on the real issues. And they're obsessed, it seems, with portraying the ugliest side of humanity—the dishonesty, hypocrisy, ego battles, and fights. How dare Fox, CNN, and MSNBC call themselves news stations? They're entertainment stations."
"[A] group of scientists came out and said unequivocally that global warming is being caused by human beings. Did you hear that mentioned on the "news"? No, that day Britney Spears shaved her head. People would rather hear about this than what's happening in Iraq? Or are we simply being dumbeddown to that point? The people of the United States should demand more than this!"
"I was stunned to learn that there are CIA operatives inside some state governments. They are not in executive positions—in other words, not appointed by the governor—but are permanent state employees. Governors come and go, but they keep working—in legitimate jobs, but with dual identities. In Minnesota, this person was at a deputy commissioner level, fairly high up. [...] Are they put there to spy? To see the direction that state government is going, what's happening, and report back—to whom? And for what purpose? Do they think there are traitors in certain states? I don't know. That part, I wasn't told. I'm left to wonder why our Constitution is being violated."
"I always felt, in looking at [the Cuban] situation, that it was wrong. And I now know why. It came to me one night in Mexico. China is communist, the same as Cuba, and yet we have no problem trading with China. In fact, today we can't get over there quick enough. The difference is simple: China welcomes our corporations. Cuba threw them out. It's a basic decision of corporate America: We will punish Cuba because Castro stuck it to us by nationalizing everything after he came to power. What other reason could there be? China is far more powerful but we now welcome them into global trade with open arms—as we should—while we continue this bitter, hostile policy towards Cuba. It must be because there are still people alive in the corporate world who got hammered by Fidel's revolution."
"The Christian right wing in America is a polarizing force when it comes to gay rights, abortion, and patriotism. To me, these aren't "issues," they are matters of individual freedom of choice. But the militant Christians … especially don't like anything beyond their idea of the "normal"—like the percentage of our population who happen to be gay. To me, gay rights is simple: it's about equality. We're all supposed to be equal under the Constitution, which doesn't say anything about the "Hetero States of America.""
"My views on abortion come from my mom. She was a nurse in surgery for her entire adult life, and used to tell me how terrible it was before Roe vs. Wade—when back-alley abortions often placed the woman's life in danger. Today, some people live under a false premise that, if the government makes something illegal, it will go away. But then the illegal activity is simply controlled by an underground or criminal element. And, in the case of abortion, you will not receive the safety and precautions necessary."
"Especially at these young ages, I call it brainwashing to make it mandatory to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. If a teacher wants to make this part of the classroom, all they need do is simply say, "You know, I'm very patriotic. And every morning when you come into class, I'm going to stand up and say a Pledge of Allegiance to my country. You're welcome to join me if you'd like.""
"I wish that Canada and Mexico would legalize marijuana, because that would put the United States on an island. You'd have two countries proving, like the city of Amsterdam has, that making drugs legal is not a negative formula, but the best way to deal with the problem. Making something illegal doesn't mean it goes away, it just means criminals are going to run it."
"Why not treat marijuana in the same way as alcohol and tobacco? It's so widely used, and it has medical purposes that are denied by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Numerous doctors and private studies have clearly shown that medicinal marijuana is a painkiller that can help cancer and AIDS patients, and can also be used to treat glaucoma. The latest breakthrough is that it helps Alzheimer's patients."
"The fact is, growing hemp for industrial purposes would make it a very useful plant. It can be a fiber for clothing, a source of paper, even an alternative fuel. Canada is already using hemp this way. I simply don't see that cannabis grows wild on earth just so humans can eradicate it. Of course, the work of eradicating marijuana creates jobs within law enforcement. If we made it legal, and taxed it like we do tobacco and alcohol, maybe those law enforcement people could start paying more attention to murders and terrorism. I also think it's time for people to rise up against the prescription drug industry, the biggest opponent of legalization. You have to remember that they don't want anything out there that they can't make a profit from. Marijuana is a weed, and that means you can grow it, essentially free. This doesn't sit well with the pharmaceutical industry, and I think our Food and Drug Administration is nothing but a puppet whose strings the industry pulls."
"Another of the religious right's scams is marching into public school science classes and trying to mandate teaching of "creation science," as opposed to evolution. Somehow, they put evolutionism and creationism in the same category—believing that one makes the other impossible. But aren't these two separate systems of knowledge? One is a scientific theory, the other is a religious doctrine. It's kind of like comparing the law of gravity to the Sermon on the Mount. Evolution doesn't pretend to disprove the Bible's version of creation, or the belief in an all-powerful being as "prime mover" of the universe. Science only deals with what's observable, definable, and measurable. It's open to all possibilities, unlike creationism, which is a closed book. So leave evolution to the science teachers, and creation to the Sunday school of the parents' choosing."
"Given how many convicts awaiting capital punishment have been cleared because of DNA evidence, I no longer support the death penalty. Minnesota doesn't have this on the books, so I'm thankful that, as governor, I never had to face the decision of whether to execute someone on death row. Again, I simply don't believe that government has the inherent right to make those kinds of choices."
"I want to believe that bin Laden and al-Qaeda were responsible for the 9/11 attacks, but now I have doubts. If they were responsible, I am beginning to think it was not without some knowledge of those impending attacks on our side."
"I was a few months out of office when the invasion of Iraq took place in March 2003. Had I still been governor, I might have been the only one who opposed it. It had to do with the fact that we were lining up our military against that country as an aggressor and an occupier."
"At the end of the Vietnam War, I was actively involved in the Stop-the-Draft movement. I've done a full 180-degree turn today. [...] As long as we have a professional military, it's not going to touch that many Americans whose attitude is, "Well, they all volunteered, they're there because they want to be." The fact is, a professional military is now the strong arm of our president and corporate America, and the gun can be pulled out of the holster far too easily. It creates an atmosphere where the majority of the fighting men are poor people. Trying to improve in the military is their only way of getting a college education down the line. The rich kids, even a great majority of the middle class kids, are not serving. I'm okay with a professional military during peacetime, but the moment a vote to go to war occurs, the draft should automatically be reinstated. We need to make war as difficult as we can to declare. You've got to bring the war home."
"If I ever became president, I'd push with every ounce of power I had for Congress to pass something else into law: Every elected federal official must predesignate an individual in their immediate family who has to begin military service—the moment that official casts an affirmative vote toward going to war. This could be a grandchild, a niece or nephew, but someone. It doesn't mean they necessarily go to the war zone. What it does mean is that they and their family experience some personal discomfort because of this decision. Going to war should bring difficulty, especially to those who are the orchestrators or the authorizers. Right now, it's far too easy for them to go on TV with their bleeding hearts and give standing ovations to our service personnel. War should not be laissez-faire. If you're not willing to send someone from your family, how can you be so willing to send someone else's?"
"I would rather face the terrorists than lose my civil liberties. If protecting our safety means taking away our Bill of Rights, then could I be so crass and bold as to scream "Give me liberty or give me death"? Once freedom is gone—the bedrock foundation that built our country—what's left to stand for and believe in?"
"Now whether or not someone can participate in debates is based upon an arbitrary polling figure. You have to be polling nationally at 15 percent. If that criteria had been applied in Minnesota, I would not have become the governor. Because at the time of the primary, I was only polling at 10 percent. But I was allowed to debate, and I proved that you could be at 10 percent and still end up winning. And I did it in a mere eight weeks."
""Bunch a slack-jawed faggots around here. This stuff [Red Man chewing tobacco] will make you a god-damned sexual tyrannosaurus -- just like me." (from Predator)"
"What I found most refreshing about Governor Ventura was his willingness to defend his positions and attack his interrogators. . . He's an imposing man who's not easily intimidated, and he's convinced he has the aura that will take him to higher places."
"Can you believe a governor of a state in America would say such an insensitive, bigoted thing?"
"While this may have been intended as a joke we take the matter seriously and will not subject AP staffers to wearing something that may be intended to demean them and their profession."
"His most substantial contribution to American politics is that he showed that in the right conditions and with the right strategy, you can drive an independent populist truck straight through the Potemkin village that is the party system. … His legacy is that he showed that a centrist candidate with a healthy disrespect for big everything — corporations, government, media — can rally the unhappy, inchoate middle and ride that into office."
"He was governor of an important state and a phenomenon in American political life... It's true he's not an intellectual, but he has street smarts. Plus, Jesse is fun to be around. I have no qualms whatsoever."
"The freedom of speech and the press should remain inviolate and any law which constitutes an entering wedge into that inviolability is unsafe."
"We are assembled during the most crucial period in the history of our State and of our Nation. An army of unemployed, some 200,000 homeless and wandering boys, thousands of abandoned farms, an ever-increasing number of mortgage foreclosures, and thousands of people in want and poverty are evidences not only of an economic depression but of the failure of government and of our social system to function in the interest of the common happiness of the people."
"I am making a last appeal to the Legislature. If the Senate does not make provision for the sufferers in the State and the Federal Government refuses to aid, I shall invoke the powers I hold and shall declare martial law. [...] A lot of people who are now fighting [relief] measures because they happen to possess considerable wealth will be brought in by provost guard and be obliged to give up more than they would now. There is not going to be misery in this State if I can humanly prevent it. [...] Unless the Federal and State governments act to insure against recurrence of the present situation, I hope the present system of government goes right down to hell."
"If I were asked to name the greatest tragedy that has followed in the wake of the depression, I would say that it has been the destructive effect upon the morale of our youth. If I were asked to name the chief victim of the present heartless order I would not hesitate to say "youth.""
"Today we are endeavoring to save the system we call Capitalism, by attempting to curb selfish individualism, and the avaricious profit motive. [...] That there will be anything left of the so-called Capitalistic system, when the ultimate changes take place, is very doubtful, that there will be great change is certain."
"The Farmer-Labor Party of Minnesota maintains that the present economic order is in need of very serious alterations—that to continue it as it now is constituted is criminal folly and stupidity. We charge that it fails utterly to meet the needs of our people; that the massive load of misery and suffering which we witness all about us is due to its inherent defects. Just why people are so reluctant to make changes in government—changes for the betterment—is somewhat puzzling. Certainly we cannot hope to solve our problems by continuing the very methods responsible for creating them. In almost every other field, we are prepared to take advantage of new ideas, of new improvements. In government, however, we become confused and frightened in the presence of suggested changes. Perhaps the reason for this can be found in the fact that almost from infancy we are taught, by the rankest kind of sophistry, that it is un-American to make changes in government. We are taught that persons who suggest changes are radicals, and that a radical is an arch enemy of society, a wild destructionist, a bomb thrower, an assaulter of women. The result has been a perversion of the public mind to an where the people fear their very birth-right,—independence of action—and self-determination. We believe in something that has not been tried as yet. We believe in restoring prosperity by restoring the purchasing power of the man at the bottom. Unless labor can receive wage to buy the farmers produce, the farmer can never be prosperous. Unless the farmer has cash to buy the goods that the laborer manufactures, the city worker can never be prosperous."
"This has got me. Don't worry; it must be all for the best."
"The unorganized worker owes a debt of gratitude to his organized brother. If his living standard has not been beaten down to the level of the Russian peasant of the Czarist days, it is due to the demands the organized worker has been able to enforce. The former has benefited from the struggles and sacrifices of the latter."
"It is the Republicans who have given us government that has been both corrupt and extravagant; aided the tax dodger and transferred his load to the taxpayer — you and me; made every function of state and national government subservient to the powerful special interests, and now they are shedding crocodile tears for the poor taxpayer."
"Now I am frank to say that I am not a liberal. I enjoy working on a common basis with liberals for their platforms, but I am not a liberal. I am what I want to be—I am a radical. I am a radical in the sense that I want a definite change in the system. I am not satisfied with tinkering, I am not satisfied with patching, I am not satisfied with hanging a laurel wreath upon burglars and thieves and pirates and calling them code authorities or something else. I am not satisfied with that. I want, however, an orderly, a sane, and a constructive change. I don't want any visionary things any more than the hardest Tory or Conservative wants them. But I know the transition can take place and that, of course, it must be gradual. It can't come overnight, but I want to do all I can to set it in motion and keep it going steady, not in jerks, or jumps, or in spurts, but going steadily ahead ...."
"Never has the Republican party, both nationally and locally, been quite so low in morale and so bankrupt in ideas as today. It has stood like a man dazed, watching the parade go by, and not knowing what it is all about."
"Our ultimate goal is a cooperative commonwealth wherein Government will stifle, as much as possible, the greed and avarice of the private profit system and will bring about more equitable distribution of the wealth produced by the hands and minds of the people."
"Should not the government own all those industries which have to do with the obtaining of raw materials and transforming them into necessary products [...] mines, packing plants, grain elevators, oil fields, and iron mines? [...] I am speaking of these things as merely touching upon the ideals of this movement, of an ultimate cooperative commonwealth...."
"I look back at my three terms as Governor with one great regret. I did not have, on any occasion, a majority of the members of the legislature who agreed with the principles of this movement. To have had that, I say from my very heart—to have had that in any one session—would have been sufficient gratification so that I would have been willing thereafter to retire from public life."
"I cite you the fact that this movement sponsored and brought about the passage of the first compulsory old-age pension law; that this movement has always stood upon the principle of taxation based upon ability to pay. I cite you the fact that despite years of struggle in this State to bring about the passage of an income-tax law—it was not until the Farmer-Labor movement gained control of the executive branch of the government and the Farmer-Labor movement enlisted the aid of popular opinion and public sentiment—not until then, despite all those years of struggle—was there an income-tax law in the State of Minnesota."
"Whose liberty? Liberty for what purpose? Liberty of the Citizens' Alliance to arm thugs to shoot defenseless strikers in the back? Liberty of promoters of spurious stocks to fleece widows and orphans? Liberty of millionaires to escape taxation? Liberty to make slaves of workers and serfs of farmers? These are the individual liberties that these people mean."
"A nation cannot be preserved which does not preserve its citizens. Industry is retrenching, reducing wages, lowering the standard of living, destroying buying power, and throwing more and more men and women on the streets to shift for themselves. Just how that is going to solve our economic problems is beyond understanding."
"He recognized that for unnumbered centuries the human race lived in a world which could not produce enough food and shelter to provide for the human family. It was an age when progress was advanced by individual explorers constantly in search of new lands, new inventions, and new methods for increasing our material resources. It was a period when the common welfare was promoted by individualistic activity. Within Governor Olson's generation all of this untold individual effort produced the machine age and mass production. The human family for the first time in its history lived in a world that could produce more than enough for all. Floyd Olson understood this basic change from an age of scarcity to an age of plenty. He understood that the social usefulness of selfish individualism was ended. He saw that there must be a new spirit of cooperation if this great power of production were to serve the common welfare. Floyd Olson and the movement of which he was the leader alined themselves with this great current of change—a change going on throughout the world. He supplied the function of leadership by giving constructive direction to the force of change in the period in which he lived."
"Floyd Olson died on the threshold to greater things. A seat in the United States Senate was just a step away. The Presidency of the United States was a possibility. In the event that he had achieved either, history would have recorded him, we believe, as among the great Americans. The idealistic policies he advanced will be accepted as commonplace in the next 10 years. The cause of progress and liberalism has received a heavy blow in his death. There are other leaders, perhaps, who saw as he saw. There are advanced thinkers, no doubt, who carry on from the point where Floyd Olson, because of his tragic death, left off. We know of none, however, who has the Olson combination of brains, humanity, personality, and energy—a combination necessary to the accomplishment of radical and essential changes in a society shown, during the past generation, to be sadly out of gear."
"He was entering the national political picture for the first time, pleading eloquently for a national Farmer-Labor Party. There were little lines around his eyes that afternoon and he looked older somehow. He spoke effectively in the evening, but without the thunder and lightning that used to bring the most bitten audiences of independent farmers to their feet as a single man. After the meeting a few of us took him to a late show, trying to cheer him up, he looked so tired. At the table there, or dancing, he was conspicuous. People didn't know who he was but they sensed that he was "somebody." For even then with fatal sickness creeping over him, he radiated a graceful power, a magnetic fellowship that was irresistible. There were no tables when we came in—but the waiter took a look at Floyd and found one. He looked about him slowly, obviously a stranger here, yet at home. And people who saw him that night must have wished, as we were wishing, that they could see him again soon. Unlike us, though, they could not have been aware that this was but a breath-taking before an important engagement, a rest after a very minor skirmish, another pause before a battle in which he was bound to play a leading, if not decisive, role. And today that battle is nearer than before. The forces are gathering, now deflected by the false prophets, now rallied, now re-assembling where the rank and file sense the worthiness of the issue and a glorious outcome; still unprepared, now confident, now hesitating, ready. But Floyd Olson is dead."
"At his funeral, tens of thousands gathered for the services in the Minneapolis Auditorium—the largest and most impressive funeral which Minnesota had ever given a man in either public or private life. Two hundred thousand people lined the streets and followed the hearse to the grave. The rich and poor alike gathered—the poor to pay their last tribute to their friend and champion; the rich to pay their respects to a man who played the game hard but fair. A great American had passed on. Thus fate snatched this leader of the common people as he was about to ascend the threshold to carry on the battle for them on the national scene."
"People who were active in the movement during the 30s invariably have their favorite Olson stories to tell. One of the most revealing is a tale told by Jimmy Flowers. Flowers was an organizer for the United Farmers League during this period and an active member of the Communist Party. One day he dropped into Olson's office to dish out some hell about farm conditions in rural Minnesota. Olson's schedule was filled up pretty tight for the day, so he suggested that the two of them meet at 5:30 and drive to his home and spend the evening together. The first thing Jimmy did on reaching the Governor's home was take a hot bath (a rare luxury for a travelling farm organizer), and then he joined Olson and some other guests Floyd had invited over for the occasion. Not all of them were "good Farmer-Laborites" by any means. A few hours later, the influentials departed, and Floyd asked Jimmy what he thought. Well, Jimmy didn't think much of the affair, and he said so in his usually blunt way. He doubted the sincerity of the Governor's friends when it came to helping the farmers. Olson was equally blunt. He walked over to his bookshelf, pulled out a volume of Lenin's Collected Works, and turned to an essay called Left Wing Communism and Infantile Disorder. "You lousy Commie son of a bitch," said Olson (with more good nature than anger), "You're standing here talking to me about revolution, and you haven't even got the workers and farmers organized. That has to come first, and then we can move ahead ...." The story is indicative of the Olson approach. Floyd Olson was a practical politician with a genuine dedication to the people. He didn't believe in advancing policies they would refuse to accept. He realized that the degree of change possible was dependent not simply on a governor's decrees, or high sounding platforms, but the level of militancy and political understanding of the people themselves. He would move left as the people moved left. He would articulate that leftward progress, even encourage it, but never at the price of endangering the Farmer-Labor Movement in the process."
"I'm sure he would have been president."
"In memoriam, 1891-1936, Floyd Bjornstjerne Olson, twenty-second governor of the State of Minnesota. Born in near poverty, schooled in adversity, intimate with hunger and want. Out of this crucible came pioneer leadership with purposeful direction and the indomitable courage to seek new frontiers of economic security for the underprivileged. To that which he wrought an enduring memorial is builded in the hearts of his people."