People From Minneapolis

"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!"

"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'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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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?"

"I'm against the draft. I believe we should have a professional military; it might be smaller, but it would be more effective."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"Develop high expectations."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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.""

"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 decided to run for governor because I got mad.... I want to make government more directly accountable to the people."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"The current use of the National Guard is wrong... These are men who did not sign up to go occupy foreign nations."

"I feel used. I feel violated and duped over the fact that that turned into nothing more than a political rally."

"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 asked him the most important question that I think you could ask — if he had ever seen Caddyshack."

"Congratulations, you have a sense of humor. And to those who didn't: Go stick your head in the mud."

"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..."

"If I could be reincarnated as a fabric, I would come back as a 38 double-D bra."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"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."

"how do you control the oil? Nobody puts it more any than the New York Timer columnist Thomas Friedman. In an article called "Craziness Pays," he says the US has to make clear to Iraq and U.S. allies that...America will use force, without negotiation, hesitation, or UN approval." His advice was well taken. In the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as in the almost daily humiliation the U.S. government heaps on the UN. In his book on globalization, The Lexus and the Olive Tree, Friedman says, "The hidden hand of the market will never work without a hidden fist. McDonald's cannot flourish without McDonnell Douglas.... And the hidden fist that keeps the world safe for Silicon Valley's technologies to flourish is called the U.S. Army, Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps.""

"Today putative liberal and mustachioed wonker Thomas Friedman (New York Times, 6/3/15) did what he does best: take something vaguely topical and use it as a hook to promote whatever topic he and his billionaire friends want to propagandize that week."

"There is something more severe than the problem with Thomas Friedman, which can be generalized to represent someone causing action while being completely unaccountable for his words."

"Israel is now waging a war against civilians, pure and simple, although you will never hear it put that way in the United States. This is a racist war and, in its strategy and tactics, a colonial one as well. People are being killed and made to suffer disproportionately because they are not Jews. What an irony! Yet CNN never refers to “occupied” territories (always rather to “violence in Israel,” as if the main battlefields were the concert halls and cafés of Tel Aviv and not in fact the ghettos and besieged refugee camps of Palestine that have already been surrounded by no less than 150 illegal Israeli settlements). For the past ten years, the great fraud of Oslo was foisted on the world by the United States, with hardly an awareness that only 18 percent of the West Bank was given up, and 60 percent of Gaza. No one knows geography, and it’s better not to know, since the reality on the ground is so astonishing, considering the verbal hoopla and self-congratulation. And that pseudo-pundit—the insufferably conceited Thomas Friedman—still has the gall to say that “Arab TV” shows one-sided pictures, as if “Arab TV” should be showing things from Israel’s point of view the way CNN does, with “Mideast violence” the catchall word for the ethnic cleansing that Israel is wreaking on the Palestinians in their ghettos and camps. Has Friedman (or CNN, for that matter) ever tried to point out the difference between an attacking army fighting a colonial war on the territory of the people it has occupied for thirty-five years, and the people defending against that butchery? Of course not, for indeed why should Friedman ever bother to say honestly that there is no Palestinian occupation, there are no Palestinian F-16s, no Apache helicopters, no gunboats, no Merkava tanks, in short, no Palestinian occupation of Israel. So much for Friedman’s credentials as an honest commentator and reporter, who has utterly failed in unadorned terms both to explain the U.S. view and to understand the Arab and Palestinian cause. Can he not see that he and his writings are part of the problem, that in their maundering selfjustifications and their dishonesty, showing no sign of the self-criticism he keeps hectoringly expecting of others, he actually aggravates the ignorance and the misperceptions rather than reducing them? Poor journalist and educator, he."

"Thomas Friedman does not get [metaphors] right even by accident. It's not that he occasionally screws up and fails to make his metaphors and images agree. It's that he always screws it up. He has an anti-ear, and it's absolutely infallible; he is a Joyce or a Flaubert in reverse, incapable of rendering even the smallest details without genius. The difference between Friedman and an ordinary bad writer is that an ordinary bad writer will, say, call some businessman a shark and have him say some tired, uninspired piece of dialogue; Friedman will have him spout it."

"Energy independence is nice, but you need a planet to be energy independent on. Mysteriously enough, this seems to be a particularly hard point for smart people to grasp. Even in the wake of the disastrous Senate non-vote, the Nature Conservancy's climate expert told New York Times columnist Tom Friedman, "We have to take climate change out of the atmosphere, bring it down to earth, and show how it matters in people's everyday lives." Translation: ordinary average people can't possibly recognize the real stakes here, so let's put it in language they can understand, which is about their most immediate interests. It's both untrue, as I'll show below, and incredibly patronizing. It is, however, exactly what we've been doing for a decade and, clearly, It Does Not Work."

""My heart is with the greens," Thomas Friedman wrote in the New York Times. "But my head says you can't transform our energy system and our social/economic one at scale all at once. We have to prioritize energy/climate. Because for the environment, later will be too late. Later is officially over." This assumes that the social/economic components of the Green New Deal are weighing it down. In fact, they are precisely what is lifting it up."

"green growth" advocates such as Thomas Friedman tell us that the process of developing new green technologies and installing green infrastructure can provide a huge economic boost, sending GDP soaring and generating the wealth needed to "make America healthier, richer, more innovative, more productive, and more secure."

"One might ask what the reaction would be if a prominent journalist urged South Africans to "give Sambo a seat in the bus," or proposed that Jews be granted something to lose, because "if you give Hymie a seat in the bus, he may limit his demands." Promotion to chief diplomatic correspondent, perhaps?"

"He won two Pulitzer prizes. He won for balanced and informed coverage. You may have noticed that it was announced on April Fools' Day, which was not by accident. For years the guy has been covering up for Israel, falsifying facts. When the Israeli press comes out with headlines saying "Arafat Calls for Negotiations, Peres Refuses", as they did in December of 1986, Tom Friedman will choose that occasion to write one of his many articles saying that Peace Now is losing credibility because there is no counterpart in the Arab World."

"Well, I think that we're going to find out, Chris, in the next year to six months—probably sooner—whether a decent outcome is possible there, and I think we're going to have to just let this play out."