“The first step in a fascist movement is the combination under an energetic leader of a number of men who possess more than the average share of leisure, brutality, and stupidity. The next step is to fascinate fools and muzzle the intelligent, by emotional excitement on the one hand and terrorism on the other.”
— Bertrand Russell, Freedom and Government (1940).
"On the question of the definition of national defense, I'd like to read to you a one sentence quote from Dwight Eisenhower. "The problem in defense spending is to figure how far you should go without destroying from within what you are trying to defend from without." And any definition of national security, it seems to me, has to involve the well-being of the citizens, economic well-being, a positive sense of the future based not on pap but on real expectations.
Education, especially in science and technology. The scientific illiteracy of Americans, in general, is scandalous. Every day, there are significant decisions made in Washington, involving science and technology, which have very long outreach into the future. And 435 members of Congress. There are, perhaps, two who, in any sense, have a scientific or technological background.
The office of the president's science advisor has been downgraded. In recent years, the president's scientific advisory committee was canceled in the Nixon administration because it gave advice that was politically undesired. The laws of physics did not correspond adequately enough to the ideological wishes of the leadership. And no subsequent president has thought it advisable to resuscitate the president's science advisory committee."
Carl Sagan "National Security" (MIT 1987)
“My mom, who is a cafeteria Catholic, recently said she didn't like this current pope because he was a "socialist". Had to remind her about "Jesus, the great capitalist".”
toysarealive On Reddit
