EthixBytes
A Collection of Quotes, Comments, Statistics, and News Items
“Those who would sacrifice essential liberties to gain temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.”
Benjamin Franklin
“I’ve spoken of the shining city all my political life. . . . In my mind it was a tall, proud city . . . God-blessed and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; . . . and if there had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone with the will and heart to get here.”
Ronald Reagan’s Farewell Address to the American People (1989), which summed up his view of the United States.
“If tyranny and oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.”
James Madison.
“At crucial moments we have been startlingly dependent on having a chief executive who demonstrates what I call presidential courage-the bravery and wisdom to risk his popularity, even his life, for a vital larger cause.”
Michael Beschloss, author of Presidential Courage reflecting on Presidents Lincoln and Truman in Newsweek, 5/14/07.
“Although the public thinks 44% of men and 36% of women are unfaithful to their spouses, twenty years of extensive reliable sex research concludes only 16% of marital partners have ever had an affair in their lives, and only about 4% did last year.”
Pamela Tuckerman, author of Lust in Translation: Adultery Around the World on NBC Today (4/23/07).
“A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.”
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., quoted by Jim Wallis who noted we spend billions of dollars on the war in Iraq, while 37 million Americans are living in poverty and 3 billion people worldwide live on less than $2 a day.
“Farm workers who pick tomatoes for Burger King’s sandwiches earn 40 to 50 cents for every 32-pound bucket of tomatoes they pick, a rate that has not risen significantly in 30 years. Workers must pick two tons of tomatoes to earn $50 in one day.”
Sojourners Online (6/15/07).
“According to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo, the program sponsored by The Carter Center to eradicate the Guinea worm in Africa has reduced cases in his country from 656,000 to 48.”
Carter Center Report, February 4-16. 2007.
“The honest answer is ‘yes.’ There are times that I have fallen short of my own standards [and] of God’s standards.”
Newt Gingrich, in response to a question by James Dobson, admitting that he had an affair while leading the impeachment charge against Pres. Clinton.
“It seems like [Paige Patterson] can do whatever he chooses, even if it’s unethical-even if it’s not the Christian thing to do.”
Dr. Sheri Klouda, reflecting on her dismissal as professor of Hebrew because women are not allowed to teach in the School of Theology at Southwestern Seminary.
“I’m prepared to continue to kick their fanny until the last day I’m alive on this earth because they have mistreated too many people.”
Sen. Trent Lott, criticizing insurance companies State Farm and Allstate for their “arrogant” and “mean-spirited” treatment of policy holders after Katrina, Bloomberg News (5/21/07).
“This is not the ‘coalition of the willing,’ but the ‘coalition of the billing.’
Peter Singer of the Brookings Institute, quoted on PBS Radio concerning the 180,000 private contractors in Iraq, who are paid higher salaries with tax dollars than our 130,00 military personnel there.
“Jack Bauer is a criminal. In real life, he would be prosecuted.”
Jesse Holcomb in a Sojourners article (June, 2007), noting how TV shows like 24 make torture acceptable.
“You are leaving here as our basic constitutional principles are under assault-the rule of law, and independent press, independent courts, the separation of church and state, and the social contract itself. . . . America’s a broken promise. America needs fixing. So I look out on your graduating class and pray someone or more of you will take it on.”
Journalist Bill Moyers speaking to Southern Methodist University graduates.
“The older I get the more I admire and crave competence, in any field from adultery to zoology.”
Legendary journalist H. L. Mencken, quoted by Geo. Will in relation to Iraq.
Correction for EthixByte quote in the Spring Issue 64: In 2007 (as of June 20) Texas had executed 17 (not 49) and the other 49 states had executed only 1.
