Political action Quotes

“It is true that some secluded intellectuals in their esoteric circles talk differently. They proclaim the priority of what they call eternal absolute values and feign in their declamations—not in their personal conduct—a disdain of things secular and transitory. But the public ignores such utterances. The main goal of present-day political action is to secure for the respective pressure group memberships the highest material well-being. The only way for a leader to succeed is to instill in people the conviction that his program best serves the attainment of this goal. ”

“In insisting that personal habit and political action be one and the same, absolutist moralizing limits the possibilities of both.”

“Political action means taking on responsibility. This cannot happen without power. Power is to serve responsibility.”

“The final result of political action often, no regularly, stands in completely inadequate and often even paradoxical relation to its original meaning.”

“What is politics, after all, but the compulsion to preside over property and make others people's decisions for them? Liberty, the very opposite of ownership and control, cannot, then, result from political action, either at the polls or at the barricades, but rather evolves out of attitude. If it results from anything, it must be levity.”

“If the citizens of the United States are to turn away from the Communist Manifesto and preserve the purpose of the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and our Bill of Rights, we must first thoroughly reexamine and learn about each of them, and uphold America's founding documents by testing every political action in light of them.”

“... Weber insists that one should not give up or lose faith in the face of this struggle. Indeed, he calls for us to engage in, rather than withdraw from, the problems of this world. He reminds us, for example, that while 'successful political action is always the "art of the possible" ... the possible is often reached only by striving to attain the impossible that lies beyond it'.”

“Why is it that all individuals today, at least all who are socially conscious, are in one way or another tortured by social guilt? Because whatever they do is fatally false, falsified by the pressure of an utterly false society. If you live solely for individual contacts and personal service, then you betray your obligation to the suffering millions with whom you have no contact. If you live for economic or social and political action to cure the sick world, then, either you will be entirely ineffective, or else you will gain power, and so be corrupted by power; and then you will contribute to the burden of the institutionalism and mechanized tyranny that is turning all men into robots. If you withdraw from the world to purge your soul of the world’s poison, seeking a lone salvation in religious discipline and contemplation, then again you betray your immediate obligation to your fellows, even if you innocently suppose you will discover truth invaluable to a future generation. No! As I see it, do what you will, you are damned, just because you are all of a piece with a damned world, a damned species.”

“What I find particularly hypocritical and dishonest is the suggestion that secularism is synonym for “doubt” and “tolerance”, as opposed to the certainty and intolerance of religion. Since the French Revolution, secularism, when translated into social or political action, has hardly been a synonym for tolerance and scepticism, but has been instead unfailingly characterised by a presumption to occupy the moral high ground which entitles to deal out moral judgments. This self-righteousness has often extended to a point that its proponents have not hesitated to execute those who dare to dissent from the new received orthodoxy, with an unwavering certainty that they are fulfilling the momentous mission of promoting social and moral progress. It is perhaps worth reminding that communism – an ideological monster responsible for, within just a few short decades, mass murders on a scale previously unprecedented in human history – is a political manifestation of the idea of a secular society. Marxist communist ideologies are intrinsically linked to the notion of a state sponsored, and enforced, secularism. 3 Communism has never struck me as particularly tolerant or imbued with scepticism. It is indeed a shame that the ruthless dictators of state atheism – such as Stalin, Mao and Pol Pot - before butchering tens of millions of people, did not doubt for an instant of doing the right thing.”