Interest Groups Quotes - Page 3

• We plan to pick up another five seats in the Senate and hold the House through redistricting through 2012. And rather than negotiate with the teachers’ unions and the trial lawyers and the various leftist interest groups, we intend to break them.

  Grover Norquist

  Teacher, House, Groups

  "Grover Norquist: The Soul of the New Machine" by Michael Scherer, www.motherjones.com. January 2004.

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• I want to be able to say what's on my mind and in my heart and what I think is helpful and useful without somebody getting angry, some special interest group deciding this is the time to silence a voice of dissent and attack affiliates, attack sponsors. I'm sort of done with that.

  Laura Schlessinger

  Heart, Thinking, Voice

  Larry King Live, transcripts.cnn.com. August 17, 2010.

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• There is still a tendency to regard any existing government intervention as desirable, to attribute all evils to the market, and to evaluate new proposals for government control in their ideal form, as they might work if run by able, disinterested men free from the pressure of special interest groups.

  Milton Friedman

  Running, Men, Evil

  Milton Friedman (2009). “Capitalism and Freedom: Fortieth Anniversary Edition”, p.197, University of Chicago Press

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• Obama, startled that components of government behave as interest groups, seems utterly unfamiliar with public choice theory. It demystifies and de-romanticizes politics by applying economic analysis - how incentives influence behavior - to government.

  George Will

  Government, Choices, Groups

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• Now listen to the first three aims of the corporatist movement in Germany, Italy and France during the 1920s. These were developed by the people who went on to become part of the Fascist experience: (1) shift power directly to economic and social interest groups; (2) push entrepreneurial initiative in areas normally reserved for public bodies; (3) obliterate the boundaries between public and private interest -- that is, challenge the idea of the public interest. This sounds like the official program of most contemporary Western governments.

  John Ralston Saul

  Ideas, Government, People

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.89, Simon and Schuster

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• The timing & characteristics of state intervention affect not only organizational tactics and strategies, but the content and definition of interest itself... Some scholars have directly stressed that state interventions create corporatist forms... the formation, let alone the political capabilities, of such purely socioeconomic phenomena as interest groups and classes depends in significant measure on the structures and activities of the very states the social actors, in turn, seek to influence.

  Theda Skocpol

  Philosophy, Class, Political

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• If individuals do not occupy their legitimate position, then it will be occupied by a god or a king or a coalition of interest groups. If citizens do not exercise the powers confered by their legitimacy, others will do so.
  (I - The Great Leap Backwards)

  John Ralston Saul

  Kings, Exercise, Groups

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• I have always felt that public, commercial and community organisations should be as open as possible about their affairs. They need to be accountable to their owners, their customers, their members and communities and other interest groups.

  Laisenia Qarase

  Community, Groups, Needs

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• Teacher unions are an interest group that acts in defense of their own interests, which means the union bosses' interests, not the members.

  Peter Brimelow

  Teacher, Mean, Boss

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• But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups.

  Robert Higgs

  Government, Succeed, Groups

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• Politics need to stop treating women as a special-interest group.

  Eva Longoria

  Special, Groups, Needs

  "Election Q&A: Eva Longoria, Concerned Citizen". Interview with Matt Sullivan, www.esquire.com. November 5, 2012.

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• There was room for a Democrat to break with the interest groups and to vote for Roberts. (Hillary Clinton) could have because she has credentials of thirty-years standing.

  Calvin Jillson

  Years, Groups, Rooms

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• Is Christianity just another special-interest group, clawing for political power? Or, even if Christians are acting as God's spokesmen, must Christians always conduct themselves politically as if Christianity were just another special-interest group? Do Christians conduct evangelism this way?.

  Gary North

  Christian, Political, Special

  Gary North (1989). “Political polytheism: the myth of pluralism”, Inst for Christian Economics

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• Today's Democrats are little more than a collection of narrow interest groups-unions, tort lawyers, minorities headed by an ossified leadership. They are clever, tenacious and increasingly nasty in defending their perks, as establishments typically are.

  Robert L. Bartley

  Clever, Groups, Minorities

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• I basically get stereotyped a lot in terms of being a girl and writing 'chick' music for teenage girls or something. I think, if anything, the press kind of, because of my gender and my age, tends to kind of relegate my work to this sort of special-interest group. It's part of the cultural dynamic, I guess.

  Ani DiFranco

  Girl, Teenage, Writing

  "Interview: Righteous Babe Ani DiFranco". Interview with Michael Mechanic, www.motherjones.com. September 8, 1999.

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• Christ was crucified because he would have nothing to do with the crowd (even though he addressed himself to all). He did not want to form a party, an interest group, a mass movement, but wanted to be what he was, the truth, which is related to the single individual. Therefore everyone who will genuinely serve the truth is by that very fact a martyr. To win a crowd is no art; for that only untruth is needed, nonsense, and a little knowledge of human passions. But no witness to the truth dares to get involved with the crowd.

  Soren Kierkegaard

  Art, Passion, Winning

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• What is happening to teachers now across this nation is a disgrace. The attacks on them are a blot on our nation. Teachers and students are not different interest groups. Anyone who demeans teachers demeans education and hurts children.

  Diane Ravitch

  Teacher, Hurt, Children

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• But the consequences of the whole-hearted and uncritical embrace of politics by Christians has been, IN EFFECT, to reduce Christian faith to a political ideology and various Christian denominations and para-church organizations as special interest groups. The political engagement of the various Christian groups is certainly legal, but in ways that are undoubtedly unintended, it has also been counterproductive of the ends to which they aspire.

  James Davison Hunter

  Christian, Organization, Political

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• The government has departments to deal with the special interest groups that make themselves heard and felt. A Department of Agriculture cares for the farmers' needs. There is a Department of Health, Education and Welfare. There is a Department of the Interior - in which the Indians are included. Is the farmer, the doctor, the Indian, the greatest problem in America today? No - it is the black man! There ought to be a Pentagon-sized Washington department dealing with every segment of the black man's problems.

  Malcolm X

  Men, America, Doctors

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• In the months after George W. Bush's reelection, a lot of liberals and environmentalists were ready to take a hard look at their political agenda, the Democratic Party, and the interest groups they supported.

  Ted Nordhaus

  Party, Political, Groups

  Source: www.omnivoracious.com

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• I'm an environmentalist, and I don't want you to have a disposable aluminum can. I sure as hell don't want to have a disposable worker and I don't care who you vote for. You've got to have that as a moral position. Otherwise, my concern is, all we are is this petty interest group people who can't say anything back to a petty interest group of white nationalism.

  Van Jones

  White, People, Say Anything

  Source: pen.org

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• In a sense, whites who were always sort of the unthinking majority who didn't think of themselves necessarily as one among many interest groups but is simply the dominant group, now as whites become - are close to becoming a minority of Americans, are becoming a political interest group. And that's what Donald Trump is playing to. And it's a really dangerous, volatile game.

  George Packer

  Thinking, Games, Political

  Source: www.npr.org

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• If you are a minority or an interest group, the Democrats will hold the debate at your house. Whereas Republicans take a slightly different approach: they have a big tent - you're just not allowed in it.

  Jon Stewart

  House, Groups, Different

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• Senator Obama is a gifted and eloquent young man who can do great things for our country in the years ahead. But my friends, eloquence is no substitute for a record - not in these tough times for America. In the Senate he has not reached across party lines to get anything significant done, nor has he been willing to take on powerful interest groups in the Democratic Party.

  Joe Lieberman

  Country, Powerful, Party

  "The Lieberman Conundrum". voices.washingtonpost.com. November 13, 2008.

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• But all liberals only have empathy for the exact same victims - always the ones that are represented by powerful liberal interest groups.

  Ann Coulter

  Powerful, Empathy, Groups

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