Building sustainable cities – and a sustainable future – will need open dialogue among all branches of national, regional and local government. And it will need the engagement of all stakeholders – including the private sector and civil society, and especially the poor and marginalized.
In my estimation, there should always be a mixture of economic liberalism – which means small government, a great emphasis on markets – but also a certain degree of social conservatism, not to favor change unless that change is beneficial. So I describe myself as an economic liberal and a social conservative.
When I first ran for public office, it was with the passion and idealism of a young man who believed that government could help make our lives better, that public service was a calling and that citizenship demanded responsibilities. There was a greater good.
Any people anywhere, being inclined and having the power, have the right to rise up, and shake off the existing government, and form a new one that suits them better. This is a most valuable – a most sacred right – a right, which we hope and believe, is to liberate the world.
They say not everyone can be MGR. I agree. MGR is a revolutionary. Not in a 1,000 years can there be another MGR. If anyone says he will be the next MGR, he is insane. But I have the confidence that I can give the government that MGR gave to the people of Tamil Nadu.
For almost two centuries, American gray wolves, vilified in fact as well as fiction, were the victims of vicious government extermination programs. By the time the Endangered Species Act was passed in 1973, only a few hundred of these once-great predators were left in the lower 48 states.
Government is force, pure and simple. There’s no way to sugar-coat that. And because government is force, it will attract the worst elements of society – people who want to use government to avoid having to earn their living and to avoid having to persuade others to accept their ideas voluntarily.
White America is tortured by black America’s failure to thrive, and all that guilt and anxiety has only gotten worse as a substantial quota of white America loses its own footing in the middle class and plunges into the rough country of joblessness, hopelessness, and government dependency.
They are allowing young kids in primary school to be able to have the permission to change their gender if they want by taking away the permission of the parents. They are trying to take control, as a government, to make those decisions for young kids who are basically 16 years old, or young.
In local government, it’s very clear to your customers – your citizens – whether or not you’re delivering. Either that pothole gets filled in, or it doesn’t. The results are very much on display, and that creates a very healthy pressure to innovate.
Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies are a form of money that’s a stable field that the government can’t destroy and can’t distort. Because its creation is governed by the laws of mathematics. It can’t happen any faster or slower than a certain rate, and it all sort of self-adjusts.
Instead of giving preference to oil imported from overseas, Washington should look to North American coal, oil shale and oil sands, all of which provide an affordable, abundant and alternative source of fuel. In addition to increasing cost effectiveness options for the government, it will also increase America’s energy security.
Public corruption is the FBI’s top criminal priority. The threat – which involves the corruption of local, state, and federally elected, appointed, or contracted officials – strikes at the heart of government, eroding public confidence and undermining the strength of our democracy.
A Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets has no charm for me. If the Union is dissolved and government disrupted, I shall return to my native state and share the miseries of my people, and save in defense will draw my sword on none.
In many ways, anti-anti-Trumpism mirrors Donald Trump himself because, at its core there are no fixed values, no respect for constitutional government or ideas of personal character – only a free-floating nihilism cloaked in insult, mockery, and bombast.
I’ve written about this before, but the sad truth is this: There are only a handful of Trump true believers in the Senate. The rest are chugging a toxic slurry of cowardice, ambition, and opportunism that has led members of the upper house of a co-equal branch of government to relinquish their power and prerogatives.
Margaret Thatcher was a 20th century visionary who understood the power of individual freedom versus the tyranny of government collectivism. She was a loyal supporter and friend of the United States and her terms as prime minister were marked as the beginning of the resurgence of the economy of the United Kingdom.
Our democratic values also include – and our national security demands – open and transparent government. Some information obviously needs to be protected. And since his first days in office, President Obama has worked to strike the proper balance between the security the American people deserve and the openness our democratic society expects.
There is no virtue in compulsory government charity, and there is no virtue in advocating it. A politician who portrays himself as ‘caring’ and ‘sensitive’ because he wants to expand the government’s charitable programs is merely saying that he’s willing to try to do good with other people’s money.
Our Constitution exists to secure individual freedom, the essential condition of human flourishing. Liberty is not provided by government; liberty preexists government. It’s our natural birthright, not a gift from the sovereign. Our founders upended things and divided power to enshrine a promise, not a process.
The world runs on individuals pursuing their self interests. The great achievements of civilization have not come from government bureaus. Einstein didn’t construct his theory under order from a, from a bureaucrat. Henry Ford didn’t revolutionize the automobile industry that way.
If you persist in your purpose of secession, there will be war – a bloody and cruel war. Not only will the North fight, but she will also triumph. The experiment of secession will fail, and the South, in ruin and desolation, will bitterly repent the day when she attempted to overthrow a wise and beneficent government.
The Supreme Court, of course, has the responsibility of ensuring that our government never oversteps its proper bounds or violates the rights of individuals. But the Court must also recognize the limits on itself and respect the choices made by the American people.
Before 1994, many South Africans used theater as a voice of protest against the government. But with the end of apartheid, like the artists who watched the fall of the Iron Curtain in Europe, theater had to find new voices and search for new issues.
Obama might think of himself as one, but he is not a dictator. We are not a banana republic yet. This is not an authoritarian form of government. This is a constitutional republic, and the president doesn’t allow or disallow. The president can’t buy or purchase.
