Politics

"In the social contract approach, the search for justice is confined to the citizens of a particular sovereign state, who can be imagined to be in a contractual relation with each other. As a result of this methodology, the people whose views are brought into any specific assessment are citizens of some particular sovereign state for which the pursuit of justice is under discussion. We may demand that the citizens of each sovereign state view citizens of other states (or even stateless people) with compassion, respect and sympathy, satisfying some requirements of ‘minimal humanitarianism’ (as both John Rawls and Thomas Nagel have argued), but ‘the principles of justice’ arrived at for any particular sovereign state would not have any application beyond the limited domain of a specific state."

"Can humans exist without some people ruling and others being ruled? The founders of political science did not think so. "I put for a general inclination of mankind, a perpetual and restless desire for power after power, that ceaseth only in death," declared Thomas Hobbes. Because of this innate lust for power, Hobbes thought that life before (or after) the state was a "war of every man against every man"—"solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short." Was Hobbes right? Do humans have an unquenchable desire for power that, in the absence of a strong ruler, inevitably leads to a war of all against all? To judge from surviving examples of bands and villages, for the greater part of prehistory our kind got along quite well without so much as a paramount chief, let alone the all-powerful English leviathan King and Mortal God, whom Hobbes believed was needed for maintaining law and order among his fractious countrymen."

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."

"Society is indeed a contract. Subordinate contracts, for objects of mere occasional interest, may be dissolved at pleasure; but the state ought not to be considered as nothing better than a partnership agreement in a trade of pepper and coffee, callico or tobacco, or some other such low concern, to be taken up for a little temporary interest, and to be dissolved by the fancy of the parties. It is to be looked on with other reverence; because it is not a partnership in things subservient only to the gross animal existence of a temporary and perishable nature. It is a partnership in all science; a partnership in all art; a partnership in every virtue, and in all perfection. As the ends of such a partnership cannot be obtained in many generations, it becomes a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born. Each contract of each particular state is but a clause in the great primaeval contract of eternal society, linking the lower with the higher natures, connecting the visible and invisible world, according to a fixed compact sanctioned by the inviolable oath which holds all physical and all moral natures, each in their appointed place. This law is not subject to the will of those, who by an obligation above them, and infinitely superior, are bound to submit their will to that law."

"Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place. What is the law, then? As I have said elsewhere, it is the collective organization of the individual right of legitimate defense."

"The principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the immutable laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate these absolute rights of individuals."

"That a man be willing, when others are so too, as far forth as for peace and defense of himself he shall think it necessary, to lay down this right to all things; and be contented with so much liberty against other men, as he would allow other men against himself."

"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilized community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others. His own good, either physical or moral, is not a sufficient warrant."

"Freedom of Men under Government is, to have a standing Rule to live by, common to every one of that Society, and made by the Legislative Power erected in it; a Liberty to follow my own Will in all things, where the Rule prescribes not; and not to be subject to the inconstant, uncertain, unknown, Arbitrary Will of another Man: as Freedom of Nature is, to be under no other restraint but the Law of Nature."

"There was, however, another approach to justice that also emerged at about the same time in the works of other Enlightenment thinkers – other than the social contract theorists of that period. These theorists did not erect a fully developed structure of a theory of justice, but the ingredients of a different approach – different from the social contract theory – which they helped to identify, can be developed from their alternative understanding of the demands of justice. These theorists (including Adam Smith, the Marquis de Condorcet and Mary Wollstonecraft in the eighteenth century, and extended later to John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx, among others) took a variety of approaches that differed in many ways from each other, but shared a common interest in making comparisons between different ways in which people’s lives may go, jointly influenced by the working of institutions, people’s actual behaviour, their social interactions and other factors that significantly impact on what actually happens. My attempt at advancing a theory of justice closely relates to this alternative foundation. The analytical – and rather mathematical – discipline of ‘social choice theory’, which had its origin in the works of French mathematicians in the eighteenth century, in particular the Marquis de Condorcet, but also others like Borda, and which has been revived and reformulated in our times by Kenneth Arrow, also belongs to this second line of investigation."

"In contrast with the ‘social contract’ tradition, a ‘social choice’ approach is concerned with public reasoning – and that can go well beyond national boundaries. There is a strong case for an inclusive effort to bring in the perspectives and values of other people, even when they live far away. Indeed, the inputs into the exercise of invoking of the ‘impartial spectator’ can come from far as well as near, as Smith explained."

"[Economic thinking] influenced it in the sense that that kind of abstract thinking and models, while I felt they often bore too little relation to the reality and the complexity of economic life, they provided a degree of rigor. Political systems are I think more complicated than economics, and political behavior is more complicated than economic behavior; nevertheless, economics provided the kind of model or hope of a model that we could make use of for increased rigor in political science."

"Public Choice and Classical Marxism have very similar theories of the state, and very similar predictions about the actions of those who seek to control it."

"Public Choice theory is really the Marxist theory of the state, and the associated political program is really Leninism."

"Public choice did not emerge from some profoundly new insight, some new discovery, some social science miracle. Public choice, in its basic insights into the workings of politics, in corporates an understanding of human nature that differs little, if at all, from that of James Madison and his colleagues at the time of the American Founding. The essential wisdom of the 18th century, of Adam Smith and classical political economy and of the American Founders, was lost through two centuries of intellectual folly. Public choice does little more than incorporate a rediscovery of this wisdom and its implications into economic analyses of modern politics."

"The key to Public Choice, as you said earlier, is common sense. And common sense tells you that a politician is very much like the rest of us. A politician who's seeking office or seeking to remain in office is responsible, as he should be, to constituents. He wants to go back to a constituency and tell them that he's either lowered their taxes, or he's brought them program benefits. You plug that into politics and you have a natural proclivity of a politician to create deficits."

"The Principle of Legitimacy tells us that the sum of these deadweight losses is less than the legislature's estimate of the gains from the redistribution of income, but Legitimacy does not tell us that these are desirable transfers, i.e, that one dollar taken from the general consumer and given to a well-paid employee of the merchant marine constitutes a net increase in the utility of the nation. If I challenge this interpretation, all that I will be doing is asserting that George Stigler's tastes are not those of the Congress, and who, besides myself, cares about that? Indeed, even I have become reconciled to the fact that American society does not fully share my preferences."

"...these comics don't have a specific author. They're treated as public property. Anyone can make their own "Polandball" using the following recipe: you have to have something to say about history or international politics and translate it into a simple comic, in which balls symbolizing different countries (which is manifested by painting them in the colors of the national flag) talk to each other using internet slang."

"Polandball's jokey simplicity, its nerdy love of history, and its focus on current affairs have made the form well suited for the Ukraine crisis."

"Polandballs also generally speak mangled English ('Engrish') of a type supposedly common in whatever countries are being portrayed."

"Polandball presents a nice medium ground between single-panel political cartoons and longer-form political satire."

"What keeps the quality of these comics so high? Each and every submission to the Polandball subreddit is reviewed by a very diligent team of moderators who demand only the highest quality."

"What is Polandball, exactly? No, it's not a Calvinball variant — it's a type of webcomic that has been steadily gaining attention on Reddit."

"In August 2009, Polandball artists took over the popular Drawball site, making its logo look like Polandball."

"They have even implemented a mechanism to keep jokes from getting overdone and ruined, the Joke Life Preserve, which limits the ability of submitters to use certain jokes that have become annoying memes. This is part of the genius of the success of Polandball."

"There are clear rules defined by the community stating that country balls can not have limbs nor can they speak proper English, keeping in line with the original Polandball style."

"Polandball memes function almost like some sort of cultural genes – they self-replicate, freely mutate, and respond to selective pressures."

"Is there anything Poland itself can learn from Polandball? Perhaps a lesson in having a sense of humour about our long-time grudges, if nothing else."

"Polandball, based on a ball in the colours of the Polish flag, has become a gathering point online for protesters against Russia's actions in Ukraine."

"Why did it become so successful? Maybe because the basic rules that apply to Polandball offer every creator a good basis for developing a funny story, yet offering very few restrictions."

"Polandball was born out of a strange cyber war that took place in August 2009. On Drawball.com, a website which allows users to draw on a huge circular canvas, a group of Polish Internet users somehow coordinated their efforts to take over the ball."

"The idea of ridiculing international stereotypes turned out to be so catchy that it soon resulted in the creation of hundreds of Polandball stories."

"Polandball is being portrayed as a hero in comics that exaggerate the nation's response to the crisis."

"Polandball is the story of one guy creating a worldwide phenomenon by making fun of another guy, creating a new format of expressing one’s views on nationality, race, language and recent history along the way."

"In recent years, a little ill-drawn circle called Polandball has gained world fame quasi-instantaneously."

"Polandball has its own brand of lolspeak, and only Anglophone countries speak with good English. Other countryballs speak a farcical rendition of their own language into English."

"One comic, in which Poland flies into space and stops Russia using Crimea as a means of ramming the United States, has shot to the top of the charts in the Polandball sub-forum on Reddit."

"Polandball speaks in an English that mimics Slavic grammar, and confuses the finer points of English usage."

"The German and English and French serf, the Italian and Russian serf, were, on emancipation, given definite rights in the land. Only the American Negro slave was emancipated without such rights and in the end this spelled for him the continuation of slavery."

"The first attempt of a democracy which includes the previously disfranchised poor is to redistribute wealth and income, and this is exactly what the black South attempted. The theory is that the wealth and the current income of the wealthy ruling class does not belong to them entirely, but is the product of the work and striving of the great millions; and that, therefore, these millions ought to have a voice in its more equitable distribution; and if this is true in modern countries, like France and England and Germany, how much more true was it in the South after the war where the poorest class represented the most extreme case of theft of labor that the world can conceive; namely, chattel slavery?"

"EMANCIPATION, n. A bondman's change from the tyranny of another to the despotism of himself."

"There is no governor anywhere; you are all absolutely free. There is no restraint that cannot be escaped. We are all absolutely free. If everybody could go into dhyana at will, nobody could be controlled — by fear of prison, by fear of whips or electroshock, by fear of death, even. All existing society is based on keeping those fears alive, to control the masses. Ten people who know would be more dangerous than a million armed anarchists."

"The media's the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that's power. Because they control the minds of the masses."

"Control yourself and no one else And you will see the Truth my brother."

"People with real power never fear of losing it. People with control think of little else."

"It's a choice, Wesley, that each of us must face: to remain ordinary, pathetic, beat-down, coasting through a miserable existence, like sheep herded by fate, or you can take control of your own destiny and join us, releasing the caged wolf you have inside. Our purpose is to maintain stability in an unstable world — kill one, save a thousand. Within the fabric of this world, every life hangs by a thread. We are that thread — a fraternity of assassins, weapons of fate. This is the decision that lies before you now: the sheep, or the wolf. The choice is yours."

"This is me taking control — from Sloan, from the Fraternity, from Janice, from billing reports, from ergonomic keyboards, from cheating girlfriends and sack-of-shit best-friends. This is me taking back control — of my life. [Breaks the fourth wall, turning to gaze at the audience] What the fuck have you done lately?"

"You can create in the prisoners feelings of boredom, a sense of fear to some degree, you can create a notion of arbitrariness that their life is totally controlled by us, by the system, you, me, and they'll have no privacy... We're going to take away their individuality in various ways. In general what all this leads to is a sense of powerlessness. That is, in this situation we'll have all the power and they'll have none."

"We don't need no education! We don't need no thought control! No dark sarcasm in the classroom — Teacher leave them kids alone!"

"THE Universal Father is the God of all creation, the First Source and Center of all things and beings. First think of God as a creator, then as a controller, and lastly as an infinite upholder. The truth about the Universal Father had begun to dawn upon mankind when the prophet said: “You, God, are alone; there is none beside you. You have created the heaven and the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts; you preserve and control them. By the Sons of God were the universes made. The Creator covers himself with light as with a garment and stretches out the heavens as a curtain.”"