Extortion Quotes

• Today is Valentine's Day - or, as men like to call it, Extortion Day!

  Jay Leno

  Funny, Romantic, Valentines Day

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• Heck, what's a little extortion among friends?

  Bill Watterson

  Littles, Cynicism, Altruism

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• From such beginnings of governments, what could be expected, but a continual system of war and extortion?

  Thomas Paine

  War, Government, Expected

  Thomas Paine (1852). “The Rights of Man: With a Brief Historical Preface”, p.109

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• Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Jail, Needs, Term Limits

  "The Liberty Manifesto". Speech at the opening of the Cato Institute's headquarters in Washington, D.C., www.cato.org. May 06, 1993.

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• When more of the people's sustenance is exacted through the form of taxation than is necessary to meet the just obligations of government and expenses of its economical administration, such exaction becomes ruthless extortion and a violation of the fundamental principles of free government.

  Grover Cleveland

  Patriotic, Government, People

  Second Annual Message, December 1886.

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• If government were a product, selling it would be illegal.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Government, Liberty, Would Be

  P. J. O'Rourke (2007). “Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut”, p.228, Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

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• God, how patient are Thy poor! These corporations and masters of manipulation in finance heaping up great fortunes by a system of legalized extortion, and then exacting from the contributors-to whom a little means so much-a double share to guard the treasure!

  Robert M. La Follette, Sr.

  Mean, Economic Inequality, Manipulation

  "American Political Rhetoric: Essential Speeches and Writings on Founding Principles and Contemporary Controversies" by Peter Augustine Lawler, The Danger Threatening Representative Government (1897), August 16, 2010.

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• Still another danger is represented by those who, paying lip service to democracy and the common welfare, in their insatiable greed for money and the power which money gives, do not hesitate surreptitiously to evade the laws designed to safeguard the public from monopolistic extortion. American fascists of this stamp were clandestinely aligned with their German counterparts before the war, and are even now preparing to resume where they left off, after "the present unpleasantness" ceases.

  Henry A. Wallace

  War, Law, Giving

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• As things get worse and the State seems powerless to help, the State will seem less and less legitimate. People will lose their moral connection to it. Laws will seem more like revenue traps and shakedowns. The state will start to seem more like another extortion racket, and, as in Mexico, people will have a harder time telling the good guys from the bad guys.

  Jack Donovan

  Law, People, Guy

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• Well, there's a Book that says we're all sinners and I at least chose a sin that's made quite a few people happier than they were before they met me, a sin that's left me with very little time to consider other extremely popular moral misdemeanors, like usury, intolerance, bearing false tales, extortion, racial bigotry, and the casting of that first stone.

  Sally Stanford

  Book, People, Stones

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• Today is February 14th - St. Valentine's day. Women call it Love day, while men name it as Extortion day.

  Jay Leno

  Valentines Day, Men, Names

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• The extortions and oppressions of government will go on so long as such bare fraudulence deceives and disarms the victims; so long as they are ready to swallow the immemorial official theory that protesting against the stealings of the archbishop's secretary's nephew's mistress' illegitimate son is a sin against the Holy Ghost.

  H. L. Mencken

  Son, Government, Long

  H.L. MENCKEN (1958). “PREJUDICES A SELECTION”

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• For most people reform meant relief from ecclesiastical extortions.

  Barbara Tuchman

  People, Reform, Relief

  Barbara W. Tuchman (2011). “A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century”, p.327, Random House

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• Newspapers are a centre of public culture. We can’t give in to extortion.

  Alexander Lebedev

  Giving, Culture, Newspapers

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• I don't think it's bribery; I think it's extortion. Bribery, you know, is when the person that's giving the money does it voluntarily. What it is in Washington is extortion because they all ask for the money.

  John McCain

  Thinking, Giving, Political

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• Marshal Petain's Vichy regime looked like that new start. A couple of years later, it wasn't so evident that he was going to be able to protect them from German extortions, and it didn't look so much as though they had won the war, either. And so by '43, a lot of people are shifting sides.

  Robert O. Paxton

  Couple, War, Years

  "War Crime Investigations Among France's Release Of Vichy Documents". "All Things Considered" with Robert Siegel, www.npr.org. December 29, 2015.

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• These men of Law and their confederates ... the caterpillars of this Kingdom, who with their uncontrolled exactions and extortions, eat up the free-born people of this Nation.

  Bathsua Makin

  Men, Law, People

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• You know, if government were a product, selling it would be illegal. ... Government contains impure ingredients - as anybody who's looked at Congress can tell you. ... government practices deceptive advertising. And the merest glance at the federal budget is enough to convict the government of perjury, extortion, and fraud. ... in a nutshell: government should be against the law. Term limits aren't enough. We need jail.

  P. J. O'Rourke

  Law, Practice, Jail

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• He [Donald Trump] is like - he's a magnet for crime and extortion and, you know, just really criminal investments which are extremely dangerous.

  Jill Stein

  Criminals, Investment, Crime

  Source: www.politico.com

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• Identity theft, financial laundering, as well as ransom and ransomware - I mean, think of it - all involving extortion of a hacked institution are becoming increasingly common.

  Donald Trump

  Mean, Thinking, Identity

  Source: time.com

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• For many years, they said the drug lords in Colombia were unbeatable, but all the same, we've eliminated all the big capos (as the drug lords are called in Colombia). The homicide rate is as low as it was 40 years ago and the kidnapping rate has dropped to the level of 1964. Now we'll be able to bring down the street criminals specializing in extortion and robbery.

  Juan Manuel Santos

  Years, Drug, Criminals

  "Waging War Is More Popular than Negotiating". Interview with Juliane von Mittelstaedt, Helene Zuber, www.spiegel.de. May 21, 2014.

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• And you know, it's not just illegal immigration. Terrorists can come across. They're devastating our ranchers down in southern Arizona - drop houses, kidnapping, automobile accidents, extortion, drugs, the spill-over with the drug cartels. We're facing all of it.

  Jan Brewer

  Drug Cartels, House, Southern

  "Exclusive: Gov. Brewer - We're Not Going to Put Up With Insecure Borders Anymore". "On the Record" with Greta Van Susteren, www.foxnews.com. April 28, 2010.

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• Well the thing is that under the [Ronald] Reagan administration, excesses have occurred in terms of over regulating certain types of behavior, and excesses have occurred in the opposite direction, in de-regulating other types of behavior. As a matter of fact, if they continue to regulate the airlines, we might have safer skies, and if they slack off on the radio, we might have better radio. If they just use it as a threat, eventually there's going to be another test case like the one that the 7 dirty words ruling came out of, and basically, its extortion.

  Frank Zappa

  Dirty, Opposites, Sky

  Source: afka.net

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