Milton Friedman

Blue Army: Persons of Interest

Soak the Rich

Advocates of capitalism are very apt to appeal to the sacred principles of liberty, which are embodied in one maxim:
The fortunate must not be restrained in the exercise of tyranny over the unfortunate.

— Bertrand Russell (1872 – 1970), Freedom in Society, Sceptical Essays, 1928.


Everything that is economically efficient is morally justified.

— Yegor Gaidar (1956 – 2009)


[Greed] is good.
Greed is right.
Greed works.
Greed … captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit.
Greed … for life, for money, for love, [for] knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind.

— Oliver Stone (1946), Wall Street, 1987.


Greed is never good.

— Linus Torvalds (1969)


[The inordinately wealthy] corrupt themselves by practising greed, and they corrupt the rest of society by provoking envy.

— Ernst Schumacher (1911 – 77), Small is Beautiful, Part IV, Chapter 5, 1973.


[The] chief business of the American people is business.

— Calvin Coolidge (1872 – 1933)


We're going to turn the bull loose.

— Ronald Reagan (1911 – 2004)

(Michael Kirk, President Trump, PBS Frontline, WGBH, 2017)

Thomas More (1478 – 1535):
I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find out; first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill-acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please; and if they can but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws …
(Utopia, 1516)

Adam Smith (1723 – 90):
People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices. …
It is impossible to prevent such meetings, by any law which either could be executed, or would be consistent with liberty and justice.
But though the law cannot hinder people of the same trade from sometimes assembling together, it ought to do nothing to facilitate such assemblies; much less to render them necessary.
(Book 1, The Wealth of Nations, Chapter 10, Part 2, 1776)

Donald Trump

Blue Army: Persons of Interest

Men lie when they think to profit by deception, and tell the truth for the same reason — to get something they want …
It is only two different roads to the same goal.

— Herodotus (c484 – c425 BCE), The Histories, Book 3, 440 BCE.


Truth isn't truth.

— Rudy Giuliani (1944), NBC News, August 2018.


Truth for us nowadays is not what is, but what others can be brought to accept …
[Dissimulation has become] one of the most striking characteristics of our age. …
Our understanding is conducted solely by means of the word: anyone who falsifies it betrays public society.
It is the only tool by which we communicate our wishes and our thoughts; it is our soul's interpreter: if we lack that, we can no longer hold together; we can no longer know each other.
When words deceive us, it breaks all intercourse and loosens the bonds of our polity.

— Michel de Montaigne (1533 – 92), On giving the lie, Essais, Chapter 18, Book II, 1580.


Infidelity does not consist in believing, or in disbelieving; it consists in professing to believe what one does not believe.
It is impossible to calculate the moral mischief … that mental lying has produced in society.
When man has so far corrupted and prostituted the chastity of his mind, as to subscribe his professional belief to things he does not believe, he has prepared himself for the commission of every other crime.

— Tom Paine (1737 – 1809), The Age of Reason, 1794-1807.


We live in a time when:

• political passions run high,
• channels of free expression are dwindling, and
• organised lying exists on a scale never before known.

— George Orwell (1903 – 50), New Statesman and Nation, 9 January 1943.


Wealth, in even the most improbable cases, manages to convey the aspect of intelligence.

— Kenneth Galbraith (1908 – 2006)


Elect a clown
Expect a circus

— peaceandlonglife

I Am Your Voice

Populist:
An adherent of a political party claiming to support the interests of ordinary people.

— The Oxford Reference Dictionary, Joyce Hawkins, Editor, 1986.

Joseph Pavlic:
We have people who are coming into this country who are trying to hurt us, and I think that we need to be protected. …
When he says "America First" and he sits there, and he talks about you:

This is for you!

— I really believe that. …

Tammy Pavlic:
… I think it's important that the [Mexican border] wall is built.
For the greater good, you've got to make sacrifices. …

I think he gets us. …
He isn't a politician.
As rich as the man is, he can relate to the regular person.
[We need] more people like him.
(Liz Garbus, American Carnage, The Fourth Estate: The NY Times and Trump, Episode 3, 2018)