Plato's Cave

Seen from another point of view, the "monopoly of mainstream media" is a translation into actuality of Plato's celebrated figure of the cave.  The defect of the prisoners, let us recall, is that they cannot perceive the truth.  The wall before them, on which the shadows play, is the screen on which press, motion picture, and radio project their account of life.  The chains which keep the prisoners from turning their heads are the physical monopoly which the engines of publicity naturally possess.  And is it not pathetically true that these victims, with their limited vision, are "in the habit of conferring honors among themselves to those who are the quickest to observe the passing shadows and to remark which of them went before and which followed after, and which were together"?

 Source: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948

Newspapers

I have given up newspapers in exchange for Tacitus and Thucydides, for Newton and Euclid; and I find myself much the happier

Source: Thomas Jefferson in a Letter to John Adams, 1812 (unsourced)
Taken From: Richard Weaver, Ideas Have Consequences 1948 

Imperial Issues

I don’t want to try to insert Britain in some leading role where, as with so many of the world’s problems, we are responsible for the issue in the first place.

Source: David Cameron, Prime Minister of the UK
Taken From: Cameron's F-word outburst at reporters over British Empire 'gaffe', Mail Online 4/10/2011

The Military Spirit

The right of the people to keep and bear arms has been recognized by the General Government; but the best security of that right after all is, the military spirit, that taste for martial exercises, which has always distinguished the free citizens of these states ... Such men form the best barrier to the liberties of America.

Gazette of the United States, October 14, 1789

Power and Wisdom

Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it.

Reverend Dale Turner  (1/11/2003, The Seattle Times)

Escape

There will be no escape from wars, from hunger, from misery, from racial discrimination, from denial of human rights, and not even from missiles, if our hearts are not changed.

Milan Newspaper (~1982)

President and the Press

No president should fear public scrutiny of his program, for from that scrutiny comes understanding, and from that understanding comes support or opposition; and both are necessary. ... Without debate, without criticism, no Administration and no country can succeed—and no republic can survive.  That is why the Athenian law-maker Solon decreed it a crime for any citizen to shrink from controversy. And that is why our press was protected by the First Amendment.

John F. Kennedy (April 27, 1961 - "President and the Press" Speech)

Liberty is

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. 

H.L. Mencken (Chicago Tribune, January 30th, 1927)

Wounded and Staggering

The money-wasting is staggering. [U.S.] Aid payments are never followed, never audited, never evaluated. The impression is of the world's superpower roaming helpless in a world in which nobody behaves as bidden. Iran, Russia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, the United Nations, are all perpetually off script. Washington reacts like a wounded bear, its instincts imperial but its power projection unproductive.

Simon Jenkins (November 28th, 2010, Guardian.co.uk)

Broken

Democracy broke down, not when the Union ceased to be agreeable to all it's constituent states, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms.

London Times (September 13, 1862)

Party's Over

For nations living the good life, the party's over, IMF says

Washington Post, 4/24/2010

American Primacy

The classified document makes the case for a world dominated by one superpower whose position can be perpetuated by constructive behavior and sufficient military might to deter any nation or group of nations from challenging American primacy.

New York Times - March 8th, 1992

Grade Inflation

[A] bachelor of Arts degree in 1997 may not be the equal of a graduation certificate from an academic high school in 1947.

 An article in the Wall Street Journal (1/30/97)

Fiat Counterfeit

But economists say Mr. Bernanke’s most important accomplishment was to create staggering amounts of money out of thin air.

New York Times (2009)