Activist Best Quotes

The big companies are like steel and activists are like heat. Activists soften the steel, and then I can bend it into pretty grillwork and make reforms.

I have a little different definition of evil than most people. When you have the opportunity and the ability to do good and you do nothing, that's evil. Evil doesn't always have to be an overt act, it can be merely the absence of good.

Satire, sarcasm, and irony are always best when served with a side of truth. If Oscar Wilde were alive and on Twitter today, he’d be crucified.

If you want to see philosophy in action, pay a visit to a robo-rat laboratory. A robo-rat is a run-ofthe-mill rat with a twist: scientists have implanted electrodes into the sensory and reward areas in the rat’s brain. This enables the scientists to manoeuvre the rat by remote control. After short training sessions, researchers have managed not only to make the rats turn left or right, but also to climb ladders, sniff around garbage piles, and do things that rats normally dislike, such as jumping from great heights. Armies and corporations show keen interest in the robo-rats, hoping they could prove useful in many tasks and situations. For example, robo-rats could help detect survivors trapped under collapsed buildings, locate bombs and booby traps, and map underground tunnels and caves. Animal-welfare activists have voiced concern about the suffering such experiments inflict on the rats. Professor Sanjiv Talwar of the State University of New York, one of the leading robo-rat researchers, has dismissed these concerns, arguing that the rats actually enjoy the experiments. After all, explains Talwar, the rats ‘work for pleasure’ and when the electrodes stimulate the reward centre in their brain, ‘the rat feels Nirvana’. To the best of our understanding, the rat doesn’t feel that somebody else controls her, and she doesn’t feel that she is being coerced to do something against her will. When Professor Talwar presses the remote control, the rat wants to move to the left, which is why she moves to the left. When the professor presses another switch, the rat wants to climb a ladder, which is why she climbs the ladder. After all, the rat’s desires are nothing but a pattern of firing neurons. What does it matter whether the neurons are firing because they are stimulated by other neurons, or because they are stimulated by transplanted electrodes connected to Professor Talwar’s remote control? If you asked the rat about it, she might well have told you, ‘Sure I have free will! Look, I want to turn left – and I turn left. I want to climb a ladder – and I climb a ladder. Doesn’t that prove that I have free will?

Look, I'm not here to lecture you about Eurocentricity or media bias; I just want to put forth the idea that maybe China has been the punching bag of the West for a very, very long time, and that nothing is gained from the continued demonization of its people... of my people. If you can accept that a single country can give birth to both a Donald Trump and a Donald Glover, a Steve Carell and a Stone Cold Steve Austin, you shouldn't have any difficulty accepting that the 1.3 billion people who call China home are just as varied in their ideologies and philosophies. There are the party officials, the pure-of-heart idealists, the Crazy Rich Asians, the activists, the social media influencers (smash that subscribe button!), the internet trolls and every conceivable thing in between–but perhaps most of all, there are the families like my parents, who simply did their best to stay out of trouble and survive from one day to the next.

What is the bedrock on which all of our diverse trans populations can build solidarity? The commitment to be the best fighters against each other's oppression. As our activist network grows into marches and rallies of hundreds of thousands, we will hammer out language that demonstrates the sum total of our movement as well as its component communities. Unity depends on respect for diversity, no matter what tools of language are ultimately used. This is a very early stage for trans peoples with such diverse histories and blends of cultures to form community. Perhaps we don't have to strive to be one community. In reality, there isn't one women's, or lesbian, gay, bi community. What is realistic is the goal to build a coalition between our many strong communities in order to form a movement capable of defending all our lives.

Two years ago, when leaders in neighboring Mathews County broached the subject of sea-level rise, Tea Partiers packed meetings, warning of an environmentalist plot to “put nature above man.” They linked a proposal to build dikes to a United Nations sustainability plan known as Agenda 21, which has inspired a number of conspiracy theories among far-right activists.

…since its founding fathers, the United States has always been torn between two traditions, the activist policies of Alexander Hamilton (1755–1804) and Thomas Jefferson’s (1743–1826) maxim that ‘the government that governs least, governs best’. With time and usual American pragmatism, this rivalry has been resolved by putting the Jeffersonians in charge of the rhetoric and the Hamiltonians in charge of policy. Erik Reinert (2007, 23)

One key difference between a conspiracy theorist and an activist, for lack of a better word, is that the conspiracy theorist holds that the best defense is more and better knowledge (read my website, listen to my explanation, investigate what you know) and the activist holds that the best defense is creating another world.

They opt in to being tagged by their friends. That’s a different thing to the police watching you at all times because you’re a climate activist or a guy who goes to a mosque.

As such, I have found that American politics is best understood by braiding two forms of knowledge that are often left separate: the direct, on-the-ground insights shared by politicians, activists, government officials, and other subjects of my reporting, and the more systemic analyses conducted by political scientists, sociologists, historians, and others with the time, methods and expertise to study American politics at scale. On their own, political actors often ignore the incentives shaping their decisions and academic researchers miss the human motivations that drive political decision-making. Together, however, they shine bright light on how and why American politics work the way it does.

Just imagine: if a member of the party (elected member of parliament, candidate or simple activist) were to make a public commitment, ‘Whenever I shall have to examine any political or social issue, I swear I will absolutely forget that I am the member of a certain political group; my sole concern will be to ascertain what should be done in order to best serve the public interest and justice.’ Such words would not be welcome. His comrades and even many other people would accuse him of betrayal. Even the least hostile would say, ‘Why then did he join a political party?’ – thus naively confessing that, when joining a political party, one gives up the idea of serving nothing but the public interest and justice. This man would be expelled from his party, or at least denied pre-selection; he would certainly never be elected.

Today, as young French and Dutch Muslims wander through Upper Manhattan and Chicago’s South Side, it’s not uncommon to see European politicians, journalists, and activists in those same urban areas, visiting mosques and community centers trying to identify “best practices” they can take back home.

This unintended consequence of performing unity exemplifies the ways in which people can mean well and still do absolutely wrong. Best-case scenario, the black square shows your network that you at least care about black people enough to post a photo, which I should note is free and easy. Unfortunately, worst-case scenario, this insignificant action can set forth a tidal wave of trouble for the grassroots activists on the ground doing the work. Performing solidarity is inherently selfish. Its very point is to virtue-signal that you are a good person, because it matters to you that people know you are a good person.

What the Acropolis in Athens looked like, including the Parthenon of the gods, is best told today at the British Museum in London, which houses the marble statuary removed by Lord Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople in 1801-05, and sold at a knockdown price (only 23 million dollars in our money) to the British Museum a couple of decades later. Although Elgin had or bought the permission of the Turkish sultan then ruling Greece, some contemporaries, including the poet and pro-Greek activist Lord Byron, already denounced the Elgin Marbles as 'pillage.' So the Greek government has claimed since the 1970s, but the British won't return them.

It's scary, and downing, that I make my best music when I'm going through my depression... At that moment, all i can see is black, darkness and shadows, but in the bigger picture.. it's a blessing. When I look through all my work, my art, I wouldn't change or take away my depression and anxiety for ANYTHING.. because when i get those days of rainbows, and colors.. i know deep down, i'm only honest when i'm at the deepest of the oceans.. so it's like listening to a different side of my mind, that i never realize exists, until i get that little peek through the blinds, and finally see the sunlight.. THEN on those simple moments, even if they only last a few minutes, i know deep down... maybe i do have a talent. Maybe I have got something, a "gift", that some people call... So really, if it wasn't for my depression, i would never, truly believe I have anything worth giving. So I will NOT sit back and wish i wasn't clinically depressed, I will learn to embrace it, live with it, and talk my brain into believing, and fully knowing, I HAVE A GIFT. I AM WORTHY. I DO HAVE SOMETHING TO GIVE THE WORLD. I will not let my depression or anxiety control me. They can live here(in my mind), but they best know, I AM STILL, AND WILL ALWAYS BE IN CONTROL. .. BUT This is my home, and you're just living under it.

sacred pathways Naturalist — finds God in nature Ascetic — is drawn to disciplines Traditionalist — loves historical liturgies Activist — comes alive spiritually in a great cause Caregiver — meets God in serving Sensate — senses God through five senses Enthusiast — loves to grow through people Contemplative — is drawn to solitary reflection and prayer Intellectual — loves God by learning (For more information on these categories, read

Sonia Gandhi and her son play an important part in all of this. Their job is to run the Department of Compassion and Charisma and to win elections. They are allowed to make (and also to take credit for) decisions which appear progressive but are actually tactical and symbolic, meant to take the edge off popular anger and allow the big ship to keep on rolling. (The best example of this is the rally that was organised for Rahul Gandhi to claim victory for the cancellation of Vedanta’s permission to mine Niyamgiri for bauxite—a battle that the Dongria Kondh tribe and a coalition of activists, local as well as international, have been fighting for years. At the rally, Rahul Gandhi announced that he was “a soldier for the tribal people”. He didn’t mention that the economic policies of his party are predicated on the mass displacement of tribal people. Or that every other bauxite “giri”—hill—in the neighbourhood was having the hell mined out of it, while this “soldier for the tribal people” looked away. Rahul Gandhi may be a decent man. But for him to go around talking about the two Indias—the “Rich India” and the “Poor India”—as though the party he represents has nothing to do with it, is an insult to everybody’s intelligence, including his own.) The division of labour between politicians who have a mass base and win elections, and those who actually run the country but either do not need to (judges and bureaucrats) or have been freed of the constraint of winning elections (like the prime minister) is a brilliant subversion of democratic practice. To imagine that Sonia and Rahul Gandhi are in charge of the government would be a mistake. The real power has passed into the hands of a coven of oligarchs—judges, bureaucrats and politicians. They in turn are run like prize race-horses by the few corporations who more or less own everything in the country. They may belong to different political parties and put up a great show of being political rivals, but that’s just subterfuge for public consumption. The only real rivalry is the business rivalry between corporations.

The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” –G. K. Chesterton English philosopher known as the “prince of paradox” “All happiness depends on a leisurely breakfast.” –John Gunther American journalist, author of Death Be Not Proud “The acquisition of riches has been for many men, not an end, but a change, of troubles.” –Epicurus Ancient Greek philosopher, founder of the school of Epicureanism “To handle yourself, use your head; to handle others, use your heart.” –Eleanor Roosevelt Longest-serving First Lady of the United States, diplomat, and activist

Bearing witness takes the courage to realize the potential of the human spirit. Witnessing requires us to call forth the highest qualities of our species, qualities such as conviction, integrity, empathy, and compassion. It is easier by far to retain the attributes of carnistic culture: apathy, complacency, self-interest, and "blissful" ignorance. I wrote this book––itself an act of witnessing––because I believe that, as humans, we have a fundamental desire to strive to become our best selves. I believe that each and every one of us has the capacity to act as powerful witnesses in a world very much in need. I have had the opportunity to interact with thousands of individuals through my work as a teacher, author, and speaker, and through my personal life. I have witnessed, again and again, the courage and compassion of the so-called average American: previously apathetic students who become impassioned activists; lifelong carnists who weep openly when exposed to images of animal cruelty, never again to eat meat; butchers who suddenly connect meat to its living source and become unable to continue killing animals; and a community of carnists who aid a runaway cow in her flight from slaughter. Ultimately, bearing witness requires the courage to take sides. In the face of mass violence, we will inevitably fall into a role: victim or perpetrator. Judith Herman argues that all bystanders are forced to take a side, by their action or inaction, and that their is no such thing as moral neutrality. Indeed, as Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel points out, "Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented." Witnessing enables us to choose our role rather than having one assigned to us. And although those of us who choose to stand with the victim may suffer, as Herman says, "There can be no greater honor.

It was easy for human rights crusaders and peace activists to insist on perfection in this world. But the policymaker who has to deal with reality learns to seek the best that can be achieved rather than the best that can be imagined. It would be wonderful to banish the role of military power from world affairs, but the world is not perfect, as he had learned as a child. Those with true responsibility for peace, unlike those on the sidelines, cannot afford pure idealism. They must have the courage to deal with ambiguities and accommodations, to realize that great goals can be achieved only in imperfect steps. No side has a monopoly on morality.9

An obituary of a librarian could be about anything under the sun, a woman with a phenomenal memory, who recalled the books her again patrons read as children - and was also, incidentally, the best sailor on her stretch of the Maine coast - or a man obsessed with maps, who helped automate the Library of Congress’s map catalog and paved the way for wonders like Google Maps… Whether the subject was a community librarian or a prophet, almost every librarian obituary contained some version of this sentence: “Under [their] watch, the library changed from a collection of books into an automated research center.” I began to get the idea that libraries were where it was happening - wide open territory for innovators, activists, and pioneers.

Roxy was bi, and in my opinion she was—and still is—a total badass. Of all my childhood friends, this girl’s my bestie. Even when we were young, I knew deep down that Roxy was going to conquer the world. Her brilliance, coupled with her unwavering commitment to feminism and human rights, made her truly exceptional. And she cared, really cared, about animals and the pressing issues in our world. She wasn’t just one of these people that wore shirts and posted awareness videos online. She dedicated her weekends to protests and taking action. And I loved that she was hooking up with Amren, or whoever this girl was, if she made Roxy happy. I loved her. I loved all of her. Hopefully Amren would see how awesome Roxy was and make her feel special.

What can Black feminism and the Black struggle offer to the Palestinian liberation movement? I don’t know whether I would phrase the question in that way, because I think that solidarity always implies a kind of mutuality. Given the fact that in the US we’re already encouraged to assume that we have the best of everything, that US exceptionalism puts us in a situation as activists to offer advice to people struggling all over the world, and I don’t agree with that—I think we share our experiences. Just as I think the development of Black feminism and women-of-color feminisms can offer ideas, experiences, analyses to Palestinians, so can Black feminisms and women-of-color feminisms learn from the struggle of the Palestinian people and Palestinian feminists.

In 1978, an activist named Judi Chamberlin published one of the movement's most revered manifestos called 'On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System.' Chamberlin had been diagnosed with a mental illness and found traditional psychiatric intervention unhelpful and even traumatic. She did recover, however, and she credited that recovery to an alternative mental health care facility she stayed at in Canada. Chamberlin and many other madness pride activists believe that people with 'lived experience' should not only have a proverbial seat at the table when it comes to the creation of mental health care systems, but that such people are uniquely equipped to understand what constitutes the best treatment. A slogan Chamberlin sought to make famous was 'Nothing about us without us.

This is on us. This is society. This is what America has come to. My generation just decided that we all wanted McMansions, so we maxed out our credit cards and doubled down on the rat race, thinking we could have it all. But someone always pays. And it’s the kids who are paying because we’re not paying any attention to them. Not really. We send them off to day care, to summer camp. We buy a house near the picture-perfect school: the best school in Florida! Then we congratulate ourselves on being great parents. But do we ever actually go to the school? Do we take any interest in what happens there? No! We let activists and bureaucrats force policies down teachers’ throats to make the school look better on paper. Then, if we even notice, we applaud ourselves for sending our kid to the safest school in Florida!

It would be a mistake to imagine that drug companies are the only people applying pressure for fast approvals. Patients can also feel they are being deprived of access to drugs, especially if they are desperate. In fact, in the 1980s and 1990s the key public drive for faster approvals came from an alliance forged between drug companies and AIDS activists such as ACT UP. At the time, HIV and AIDS had suddenly appeared out of nowhere, and young, previously healthy gay men were falling ill and dying in terrifying numbers, with no treatment available. We don’t care, they explained, if the drugs that are currently being researched for effectiveness might kill us: we want them, because we’re dying anyway. Losing a couple of months of life because a currently unapproved drug turned out to be dangerous was nothing, compared to a shot at a normal lifespan. In an extreme form, the HIV-positive community was exemplifying the very best motivations that drive people to participate in clinical trials: they were prepared to take a risk, in the hope of finding better treatments for themselves or others like them in the future. To achieve this goal they blocked traffic on Wall Street, marched on the FDA headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, and campaigned tirelessly for faster approvals.

for the Labour Party – splendid news. That increasingly leftward bound organisation is in process of splitting, and Shirley Williams,fn31 Roy Jenkinsfn32 etc. will found a new Social Democratic Partyfn33 (this oddly repeats events in Oxford circa 1940 when I was chairman of the leftward bound Labour Club and Roy Jenkins led a group to found a new Social Democratic Club. How right he was!). It’s a pity about the Labour Party but given the whole scene the split is best. It is now official Labour policy to leave the Common Market and NATO! And unofficially are likely to abolish the House of Lords instantly and have no second chamber, abolish private schooling etc. And of course (this is perhaps the main point) to have the leadership under the control of the executive committee (and Labour activists in the constituencies) substituting party ‘democracy’ for parliamentary democracy. I blame Denis Healey and others very much for not reacting firmly earlier against the left. A crucial move was when the parliamentary party elected Michael Foot, that wet crypto-left snake, as leader instead of Denis. Now Denis and co. are left behind, complaining bitterly, to fight the crazy left. Shirley still hasn’t resigned from the party so it’s all a bit odd! ‘On your bike, Shirl,’ the lefty trade unionists shout at her!

To our amazement Jimmy received a letter, dated August 20, 1963, from Bertrand Russell, the world-famous philosopher and peace activist, saying “I have recently finished your remarkable book The American Resolution” and “have been greatly impressed with its power and insight.” The letter goes on to ask for Jimmy’s views on whether American whites “will understand the negro [sic] revolt because “the survival of mankind may well follow or fail to follow from political and social behavior of Americans in the next decades.” On September 5 Jimmy wrote back a lengthy reply saying among other things that “so far, with the exception of the students, there has been no social force in the white population which the Negroes can respect and a handful of liberals joining in a demonstration doesn’t change this one bit.” Russell replied on September 18 with more questions that Jimmy answered in an even longer letter dated December 22. Meanwhile, Russell had sent a telegram to the November 21 Town Hall meeting in New York City at which Jimmy was scheduled to speak, warning Negroes not to resort to violence. In response Jimmy said at the meeting that “I too would like to hope that the issues of our revolt might be resolved by peaceful means,” but “the issues and grievances were too deeply imbedded in the American system and the American peoples so that the very things Russell warned against might just have to take place if the Negroes in the U.S.A. are ever to walk the streets as free men.” In his December 22 letter Jimmy repeats what he said at the meeting and then patiently explains to Russell that what has historically been considered democracy in the United States has actually been fascism for millions of Negroes. The letter concludes: I believe that it is your responsibility as I believe that it is my responsibility to recognize and record this, so that in the future words do not confuse the struggle but help to clarify it. This is what I think philosophers should make clear. Because even though Negroes in the United States still think they are struggling for democracy, in fact democracy is what they are struggling against. This exchange between Jimmy and Russell has to be seen to be believed. In a way it epitomizes the 1960s—Jimmy Boggs, the Alabama-born autoworker, explaining the responsibility of philosophers to The Earl Russell, O.M., F.R.S., in his time probably the West’s best-known philosopher. Within the next few years The American Revolution was translated and published in French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish, Catalan, and Portuguese. To this day it remains a page-turner for grassroots activists because it is so personal and yet political, so down to earth and yet visionary.

We might label this the Hobbesean fallacy: the idea that human beings were primordially individualistic and that they entered into society at a later stage in their development only as a result of a rational calculation that social cooperation was the best way for them to achieve their individual ends. This premise of primordial individualism underpins the understanding of rights contained in the American Declaration of Independence and thus of the democratic political community that springs from it. This premise also underlies contemporary neoclassical economics, which builds its models on the assumption that human beings are rational beings who want to maximize their individual utility or incomes. But it is in fact individualism and not sociability that developed over the course of human history. That individualism seems today like a solid core of our economic and political behavior is only because we have developed institutions that override our more naturally communal instincts. Aristotle was more correct than these early modern liberal theorists when he said that human beings were political by nature. So while an individualistic understanding of human motivation may help to explain the activities of commodity traders and libertarian activists in present-day America, it is not the most helpful way to understand the early evolution of human politics. Everything

Negroes have proceeded from a premise that equality means what it says, and they have taken white Americans at their word when they talked of it as an objective. But most whites in America in 1967, including many persons of goodwill, proceed from a premise that equality is a loose expression for improvement. White America is not even psychologically organized to close the gap—essentially it seeks only to make it less painful and less obvious but in most respects to retain it. Most of the abrasions between Negroes and white liberals arise from this fact. White America is uneasy with injustice and for ten years it believed it was righting wrongs. The struggles were often bravely fought by fine people. The conscience of man flamed high in hours of peril. The days can never be forgotten when the brutalities at Selma caused thousands all over the land to rush to our side, heedless of danger and of differences in race, class and religion. After the march to Montgomery, there was a delay at the airport and several thousand demonstrators waited more than five hours, crowding together on the seats, the floors and the stairways of the terminal building. As I stood with them and saw white and Negro, nuns and priests, ministers and rabbis, labor organizers, lawyers, doctors, housemaids and shopworkers brimming with vitality and enjoying a rare comradeship, I knew I was seeing a microcosm of the mankind of the future in this moment of luminous and genuine brotherhood. But these were the best of America, not all of America. Elsewhere the commitment was shallower. Conscience burned only dimly, and when atrocious behavior was curbed, the spirit settled easily into well-padded pockets of complacency. Justice at the deepest level had but few stalwart champions. A good many observers have remarked that if equality could come at once the Negro would not be ready for it. I submit that the white American is even more unprepared.

Bob Goff, the craziest lawyer, love activist, world-changer I know, and the delightful author of Love Does, says this: The world can make you think that love can be picked up at a garage sale or enveloped in a Hallmark card. But the kind of love that God created and demonstrated is a costly one because it involves sacrifice and presence. It’s a love that operates more like a sign language than being spoken outright. . . . The brand of love Jesus offers is . . . more about presence than undertaking a project. It’s a brand of love that doesn’t just think about good things, or agree with them, or talk about them . . . Love does.1

Jackson considered how the very best activist campaigns he had studied over the years not only presented an alternative path that could create more value for shareholders but also made a clear case that the target company was being run by fools.

Wilson mapped conflicts between what he called amateurs (today we might call them activists) and political professionals (today’s “political class”) over control of local political organizations. The two groups despised each other, despite being nominally on the same side (all Democrats). “A keen antipathy inevitably develops between the new and the conventional politicians. The former accuse the latter of being at best ‘hacks’ and ‘organization men’ and at worst ‘bosses’ and ‘machine leaders.’ The latter retort by describing the former as ‘dilettantes,’ ‘crackpots,’ ‘outsiders,’ and ‘hypocritical do-gooders.

A skeptical world judges the truth of what we say by the proof of how we live. Today’s activists may be the best evangelists.

This is a chance for a personal revolution: to leave your mark on this planet by causing the least amount of harm possible. What’s the argument for not causing the least amount of harm? Inconvenience? Indifference? Apathy?… Here’s the coolest thing about being vegan in this day and age: It’s never been easier. You can have the same smell, taste, and texture of meat, cheese, and milk without it. Nobody has to suffer and die for dinner any more, including you.” —GARY YOUROFSKY, THE VEGAN ACTIVIST WHOSE 2010 TALK AT GEORGIA TECH, TITLED “BEST SPEECH YOU WILL EVER HEAR,” BECAME A YOUTUBE SENSATION

The postmodern approach to knowledge denies that objective truth or knowledge is that which corresponds with reality as determined by evidence - regardless of the time or culture in question and regardless of whether that culture believes that evidence is the best way to determine truth or knowledge. Instead, the postmodern approach might acknowledge that objective reality exists, but it focuses on the barriers to knowing that reality by explaining cultural biases and assumptions and theorizing about how they work.

I vividly recall one of my best friends in university (who was raped) telling me that she was incredibly disgusted by the thought of having a romantic relationship ever again. Rape survivors have complex PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder). In fact, it has been medically proven that their trauma surpasses that of soldiers in intense war zones. My friend did not just have fear of men. She had fear of women. She became afraid of everyone. I was the only person she confided in because her mother did not have a close relationship with her. The level of isolation she felt was staggering. It’s heartbreaking beyond comprehension.

Social Reform 101 (The Sonnet) Brute force isn't always the answer, Sometimes you gotta be clever. Naivety has its place, it keeps you humble, Dealing with hyenas you gotta be a dinosaur. I am not talking about size and appearance, Appearance never brings any lasting change. Here I am talking about the faculties within, For corruption is defeated only by a hearty brain. The best way to control the manipulator is, To give them the illusion of control 'n dominance. To con the con-artist for the greater good, Is not an act of con but an act of conscience. Sentiment is good, but without wisdom it is plain stupid. An activist fights the system, a reformer manipulates it.

As a matter of principle, I didn’t believe a president should ever publicly whine about criticism from voters—it’s what you signed up for in taking the job—and I was quick to remind both reporters and friends that my white predecessors had all endured their share of vicious personal attacks and obstructionism. More practically, I saw no way to sort out people’s motives, especially given that racial attitudes were woven into every aspect of our nation’s history. Did that Tea Party member support “states’ rights” because he genuinely thought it was the best way to promote liberty, or because he continued to resent how federal intervention had led to an end to Jim Crow, desegregation, and rising Black political power in the South? Did that conservative activist oppose any expansion of the social welfare state because she believed it sapped individual initiative, or because she was convinced that it would benefit only brown people who’d just crossed the border? Whatever my instincts might tell me, whatever truths the history books might suggest, I knew I wasn’t going to win over any voters by labeling my opponents racist.

Communism is a great example of the human tendency to fail to appreciate how our best theories can fail catastrophically in practice, l even if their adherents are motivated by an idealistic vision of "the greater good".

Not long after the election of Bill Clinton, Leonard Leo realized that the Christian right had little hope of winning the culture war at the ballot box. A Catholic ultraconservative, Leo was sure that the public, seduced by the shallow values of a liberalizing culture, would never voluntarily submit to the moral medicine needed to save the nation. The last best chance to rescue civilization, he concluded, was to take over the courts. If activists could funnel just enough true believers onto the bench, especially onto the Supreme Court, they just might be able to reverse the moral tide. ‘He figured out twenty years ago their conservatives had lost the culture war,’ said Leo's former media relations director, Tom Carter. ‘Abortion, gay rights, contraception — conservatives didn't have a chance if public opinion prevailed. So they needed to stack the courts.

The real gift any person can give is a web of connective tissue. IF we love fiercely, our ancestors live among and speak to us through these incandescent filaments glowing from the warmth of memories. Loving fiercely is real-time legacy building. Maybe that's the best way to honor people

Here are the ominous parallels. Our universities are strongholds of German philosophy disseminating every key idea of the post-Kantian axis, down by now to old-world racism and romanticist technology-hatred. Our culture is modernism worn-out but recycled, with heavy infusions of such Weimarian blends as astrology and Marx, or Freud and Dada, or “humanitarianism” and horror-worship, along with five decades of corruption built on this kind of base. Our youth activists, those reared on the latest viewpoints at the best universities, are the pre-Hitler youth movement resurrected (this time mostly on the political left and addicted to drugs). Our political parties are the Weimar coalition over again, offering the same pressure-group pragmatism, and the same kind of contradiction between their Enlightenment antecedents and their statist commitments. The liberals, more anti-ideological than the moderate German left, have given up even talking about long-range plans and demand more controls as a matter of routine, on a purely ad hoc basis. The conservatives, much less confident than the nationalist German right, are conniving at this routine and apologizing for the remnants of their own tradition, capitalism (because of its clash with the altruist ethics)—while demanding government intervention in or control over the realms of morality, religion, sex, literature, education, science. Each of these groups, observing the authoritarian element in the other, accuses it of Fascist tendencies; the charge is true on both sides. Each group, like its Weimar counterpart, is contributing to the same result: the atmosphere of chronic crisis, and the kinds of controls, inherent in an advanced mixed economy. The result of this result, as in Germany, is the growth of national bewilderment or despair, and of the governmental apparatus necessary for dictatorship. In America, the idea of public ownership of the means of production is a dead issue. Our intellectual and political leaders are content to retain the forms of private property, with public control over its use and disposal. This means: in regard to economic issues, the country’s leadership is working to achieve not the communist version of dictatorship, but the Nazi version. Throughout its history, in every important cultural and political area, the United States, thanks to its distinctive base, always lagged behind the destructive trends of Germany and of the rest of the modern world. We are catching up now. We are still the freest country on earth. There is no totalitarian (or even openly socialist) party of any size here, no avowed candidate for the office of Führer, no economic or political catastrophe sufficient to make such a party or man possible—so far—and few zealots of collectivism left to urge an ever faster pursuit of national suicide. We are drifting to the future, not moving purposefully. But we are drifting as Germany moved, in the same direction, for the same kind of reason.

Hopkins is best known to literary critics and historians for her novel Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South (Colored Co-operative, 1900). The book, an example of the eighteenth-century literary genre known as sentimentalism, addressed racial issues in society by influencing readers’ emotions. This was a common characteristic of abolitionist writing and the work of African American activists and allies during and after Reconstruction. Sentimentalists would offer noble and morally strong protagonists and build readers’ compassion for characters who worked to better their financial standing and achieve education. These writers also strove to build sympathy for characters who were victims of abuse, such as young women whose virtue was under siege by unsavory villains.

This amounts to nothing more than misleading propaganda. The purpose is to create a climate of acceptance for the passage of legislation which will turn the majority of parents into criminals of the most heinous kind-those whose victims are defenseless children. The resulting body of law will play directly into the hands of ultraliberal social engineers as well as social activists within the professional community. The outward motive-the protection of children-conceals several more insidious ones: • The desire to expand and consolidate the power of the helping professions. At the present time, there is no law that says an individual must, under certain circumstances, submit to psychological evaluation and counseling. If they are written as is being suggested, however, antispanking laws will require exactly that. They will give helping professionals the power to define when the law has been broken, who is in need of "help" and how much, and when a certain parent's "rehabilitation" is complete. It is significant to note that in all of history the only other state to confer this much power on psychologists and their ilk was the former Soviet Union. • The desire to manipulate the inner workings of the American family; specifically, the desire to exercise significant control over the child-rearing process. Take it from someone who was, at one time, similarly guilty, a significant number of helping professionals possess a "save the world" mentality. They believe they know what's best for individuals, families, and children. The only problem, as they see it, is that most people are "in denial"-unwilling to recognize their need for help. This self-righteousness fuels a zealous, missionary attitude. And like the first missionaries to the New World, many helping professionals seem to believe that their vision of a perfect world justifies whatever means they deem necessary, including licensing parents, taking children away from parents they define as unfit, and the like. (For a close look at the social engineering being proposed by some professionals, see Debating Children's Lives, Mason and Gambrill, eds., Sage Publications, 1994).

Early NSW Labor is best seen as a coalition of unionists, socialists, republicans, single-taxers, and, briefly, even some anarchists, a trend replicated in other colonies. The role of socialists and single-taxers in the early Labor Party, and their uneasy relations with union activists, foreshadowed the dynamic of conflict and co-operation between middle-class radicals and unionists that has continued in the ALP to the present day.

When Calls A Promise: I made a promise to someone that I would protect humankind with my life - that I would let no savagery, no prejudice, no sectarianism tear my people apart - that I would spend every breath of my life in uniting my people - the people of earth. And my very existence is the living manifestation of that promise. Don't make promises that you know not whether you will be able to keep, but once you do make a promise, keep it at all cost, even at the cost of your life, which is exactly the kind of promise I made - to give my life in the unification of humankind. Initially I thought I would achieve that by erasing the religious barriers amongst people. Hence, in the beginning I wrote ceaselessly on religion, but as I kept studying the tenets of the society, I came to realize that the barriers amongst people have invaded every aspect of life and society, much beyond the mere traditional bounds of religion - they have invaded the very lifeblood of society and have been tearing the society apart from inside out. I came to realize that the religion of the future is not going to be christianity, islam, judaism or any such traditional system, rather, the religion of the future is going to be social justice. And the best way to shape the future is to envision it early on and start manufacturing it today. Thus, though initially the primary premise of my work was religion, eventually it acquired much wider and diverse societal roots. My purpose remains the same, that is, to unite you all, to unite my seven billion sisters and brothers of earth, but I had to make a few changes to my approach based on the need of the time as I kept evolving with my work. I started off as a scientist, but the needs of the society turned me into a reformer. Society needed not yet another scientist, it needed a reformer scientist, so I became one. All my life my need has been to serve the need of the society - need mark you, not desire. There is a difference between what the society desires and what it really needs. Society may desire for more bigotry, more segregation, more rigidity, more separatism, but that's not what the society needs - a civilized society needs humility, not bigotry - it needs inclusion, not segregation - it needs reason, not rigidity - it needs assimilation, not separatism.

In order to reach your full potential, you must first believe you have potential. You have unique skills, interests, perspectives, ideas and ways of showing up in the world that make you different than anyone else in the universe. The pain and suffering you feel now will one day be a blurry memory, and your challenges and darkest moments are what make you an inspiration to others. The things that make you different than your peers are the very things that make you important and valuable. Every great leader, activist and change-maker started as a child who chose to take action to change the world. Remind yourself over and over again that have the power to choose; You have the power to choose to embody the best version of yourself; You have the power to choose to make life better for the people and world around you; You have the power to choose the legacy you leave behind. Whoever you want to be and however you want to be remembered, choose that. Never forget you matter, and you choose your life story.

In order for kids to reach their full potential, they must first believe they have potential. They must believe that they matter and that they have the power to choose a beautiful life story. They must feel empowered to discover and use their unique skills, interests, ideas, perspectives and ways of showing up in the world to embody the best possible version of themself and create the best possible life for themself. They must be taught that every great leader, activist and change-maker started as a kid who chose to take action to change the world. It is imperative that teachers, parents, role models and mentors tell and show kids over and over again that they are valuable and important, that they matter, and that have the power to choose. They have the power to choose to embody the best version of themself. They have the power to choose to make life better for the people and world around them. They have the power to choose the legacy they leave behind. Whoever they want to be and however they want to be remembered, they have the power to choose that.

Dear li'l governments of the world, You don't have a friend in me, If you're partial to one religion. You don't have a friend in me, If you're founded on nationalism. Dear li'l governments of the world, If you know what's best for you, Walk the course of integration. If you choose tribalism instead, In me you'll find your abolition.

Dear li'l governments (The Sonnet) Dear li'l governments of the world, You don't have a friend in me, If people are not your priority. You don't have a friend in me, If you thrive on inequality. You don't have a friend in me, If you're partial to one religion. You don't have a friend in me, If you're founded on nationalism. Dear li'l governments of the world, If you know what's best for you, Walk the course of integration. If you choose tribalism instead, In me you'll find your abolition.

A second and more radical response opens up when you reject the “speech is violence” view: you can use your opponents’ ideas and arguments to make yourself stronger. The progressive activist Van Jones (who was President Barack Obama’s green jobs advisor) endorsed this view in February of 2017 in a conversation at the University of Chicago’s Institute for Politics. When Democratic strategist David Axelrod asked Jones about how progressive students should react when people they find ideologically offensive (such as someone associated with the Trump administration) are invited to speak on campus, Jones began by noting the distinction we described in chapter 1 between physical and emotional “safety”: There are two ideas about safe spaces: One is a very good idea and one is a terrible idea. The idea of being physically safe on a campus—not being subjected to sexual harassment and physical abuse, or being targeted specifically, personally, for some kind of hate speech—“you are an n-word,” or whatever—I am perfectly fine with that. But there’s another view that is now I think ascendant, which I think is just a horrible view, which is that “I need to be safe ideologically. I need to be safe emotionally. I just need to feel good all the time, and if someone says something that I don’t like, that’s a problem for everybody else, including the [university] administration.”90 Jones then delivered some of the best advice for college students we have ever heard. He rejected the Untruth of Fragility and turned safetyism on its head: I don’t want you to be safe ideologically. I don’t want you to be safe emotionally. I want you to be strong. That’s different. I’m not going to pave the jungle for you. Put on some boots, and learn how to deal with adversity. I’m not going to take all the weights out of the gym; that’s the whole point of the gym. This is the gym.

When Lonegan hosted rallies, he and his team were ready to record the e-mail address of anyone who shared it. They made phone trees and hosted volunteer training sessions. They passed out the phone numbers of local congressmen to activists and coached them on the best time to call. (Late night was sometimes best so that volunteers could leave voicemails, which would be waiting in big batches when the politician showed up for work the next day.) They taught volunteers the fine art of calling talk-radio programs and getting on the air, coaching them to mention the right website address or phone number when they were on the air. Lonegan and his colleagues did more than just get Tea Party activists to focus on the Waxman-Markey bill. Americans for Prosperity also helped direct the activists’ passion toward a very specific group of targets: Republican politicians. Attacking the Republican party was one of AFP’s central strategies from the earliest days. In 2006, Lonegan attended a private AFP event hosted by Charles and David Koch, in Aspen, Colorado.

Topnut, DOD Sonnet Take a fancy celebrity, put them in military uniform, suddenly everybody is a patriot. That's how primitive this world is, everybody yells about world peace, while living in militarist gutter. The best propaganda is one that, does not feel like propaganda; Best way to legally recruit terrorists, is to portray terrorism as valor. Best way to sustain the revenues of war, is to showcase war as peace-intervention. Till you grow up and denounce all militarism, don't you dare call yourself a civilized human! We scientists, doctors, nurses and teachers, forget self-preservation for life-preservation, while primitive civilians of a primitive planet, throw all that away, hypnotized by patriotism.

Best way to sustain the revenues of war, is to showcase war as peace-intervention. Till you grow up and denounce all militarism, don't you dare call yourself a civilized human!

Only love can bring full freedom, all else brings half freedom. What is half freedom you ask? When in the name of freedom you imprison yourself to one side or sect, everything outside that sect seems evil. For example, fundamentalists choose the side of blind faith, and every act of reason seems like blasphemy - just like cold, sharp-tongue intellectuals choose the side of rationality even at the expense of humanity, and everything illogical seems outdated - or wait, I got a better one - so-called social activists often get so attached to their self-imposed identity of victimhood, that every person with a political, corporate, legal or bureaucratic background seems to appear as devil incarnate. This, my friend, is what I call "half freedom", which by the way, is far worse than the lack of freedom. And even though it manifests as an act of willful choice, when you get down to it, it's just plain old rigidity. And if we want to build a truly just, inclusive and progressive society, this hypocritical half-freedom won't do - what's needed is whole freedom - a kind of freedom that liberates the mind of all superstition as well as ignorant suspiciousness. It's time we realize, yelling about justice without using common sense is just as useless as keeping quiet. What this means is that, we gotta come together regardless of our background - the teacher, the scientist, the student, the copper, the politician, the civil servant, the entrepreneur, the economist, the janitor, the construction worker - every single person from every single walk of life must come forward surpassing all suspicious conspiracy, and contribute the best of their capacity in the making of a real civilized world.

In this version, scholars like Otto Rank, Viktor Frankl, and Rollo May—not to mention philosophically oriented social activists like Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir—emphasize that people who succeed in both developing their own value system and living in accord with it (that is, people who live authentically) can build lives that are deeply fulfilling, even if there is no objective truth undergirding their value system.

Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth.” –Muhammad Ali Legendary American professional boxer and activist

As an activist, I know that the best way to help is to not ignore the good work being done in places like Ferguson and across the country. Instead, I make a conscious choice to surround myself with people who are fighting for justice, and I praise their work for all to hear. As an activist and an artist, I know there is always light at the end of the tunnel. This is why I write my music in the spirit of hope and celebration. Because if we never celebrate the victories, then why are we even fighting?

Most importantly, today's activists have discovered the power of making trouble, of causing disruptions. Disrupting things, says longtime labor organizer Stephen Lerner, is the best way for regular people to exercise some power. It isn't about winning everyone over to one's side; it is, instead, about finding a way to disrupt the day-to-day existence of those who do have power, to make them feel the crisis that they have inflected on millions of people. Disruption, whether it be blocking a street, going on strike, or occupying a space, is a way to ensure that the message - that something has got to give - gets across.

Maya the Chihuahua wound up dead in 2014. Maya was a beloved member of Wilbur Cerate’s family on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. One Saturday in October when Cerate came home from work, according to local TV station WAVY, Maya was gone. Cerate checked his security cameras, which had captured video of two women in a PETA van backing into the driveway, snatching Maya off the porch and driving off. Three days later, two women from PETA returned to the home and explained that Maya had been killed. They brought a fruit basket.27, 28 Perhaps it was the tiniest bit of solace for Cerate’s little daughter that her beloved Maya did not die a painful death, other than the terror of being snatched up by strangers and hauled to some foreign facility that, at best, must have seemed like a veterinarian’s office. Many of the other animals who die at the hands of bird-brained animal-rights activists suffer horrible deaths.

The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. —HELEN KELLER, American author, political activist, and lecturer

Castine is a quiet town with a population of about 1,500 people in Western Hancock County, Maine, named after John Hancock, when Maine was a part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. He was the famous statesman, merchant and smuggler who signed the “Declaration of Independence” with a signature large enough so that the English monarch, King George, could read it without glasses. Every child in New England knows that John Hancock was a prominent activist and patriot during the colonial history of the United States and not just the name of a well-known Insurance Company. Just below the earthen remains of Fort George, on both sides of Pleasant Street, lays the campus of Maine Maritime Academy. Prior to World War II, this location was the home of the Eastern State Normal School, whose purpose was to train grade school teachers. Maine Maritime Academy has significantly grown over the years and is now a four-year college that graduates officers and engineers for the United States Merchant Marine, as well as educating students in marine-related industries such as yacht and small craft management. Bachelor Degrees are offered in Engineering, International Business and Logistics, Marine Transportation, and Ocean Studies. Graduate studies are offered in Global Logistics and Maritime Management, as well as in International Logistics Management. Presently there are approximately 1,030 students enrolled at the Academy. Maine Maritime Academy's ranking was 7th in the 2016 edition of Best Northern Regional Colleges by U.S. News and World Report. The school was named the Number One public college in the United States by Money Magazine. Photo Caption: Castine, Maine

Disagreement is rarely tolerated, now that the postmodernist assumptions have been reified. This can be seen in the fact that disagreement is often regarded as, at best, a failure to have engaged with the scholarship correctly, as though engagement must imply acceptance, and, at worst, a profound moral failure. This kind of claim is more familiar from religious ideology—if you don’t believe, you haven’t read the holy text properly or you just want to sin—but applied to what is supposed to be rigorous academic scholarship.

Indeed, the best practical reason to think that social media can help bring political change is that both dissidents and governments think they can. All over the world, activists believe in the utility of these tools and take steps to use them accordingly. And the governments they contend with think social media tools are powerful, too, and are willing to harass, arrest, exile, or kill users in response.

You can take a little bit of the East and a little bit of the West, and create a formulaic soup in life that works best for you: no one else has to drink it if they don’t like

Nukes and Peace It takes hundreds of years of hard work to build a civilization, and yet with the press of a button we can destroy it all in a day. Let us not press the button my friend. In fact, if we must destroy something let us destroy the very button of destruction, both from outside and inside. Let us incapacitate every single button of death and destruction, be it technological or psychological, and redirect that energy towards creation and conservation. You see, destroying the nukes mean nothing. Destroy one, another will be built in its place in a matter of months. We have to nuke the hate in us first, so that we no longer feel the need for nukes against our own kind. However, for the sake of investigation, let us forget the common sense of peace, and talk defense strategy for a moment, in a way that might make sense to world leaders. You see, the best defense against a nuke is not another nuke, but a code. It is the best defense because it is exponentially less expensive. In a technologically advanced world, the most powerful nation is not the one with nuclear power, but the one with coding power. So, to the so-called leaders of the world I say - if you're still foolishly worried about your neighbor's nuclear capabilities, don't go about wasting billions of dollars on a nuclear program, just spend a fragment of those funds on post-launch warhead hacking. But then again, it would open up a new realm of problems at a different level, because any nation with exceptional wireless channel manipulation expertise can remotely take over the command of another nation's nuclear warheads. So, at the end of the day, so long as there is animosity among the nations of the world, between mind and mind, sustained by stupid borders and foul ideologies, there is no safe way out. I'll say it to you plainly. Wasting nuclear power on warheads is a barbaric use of a scientific revolution. Let me elaborate with some numbers. A single nuclear warhead contains nearly 4 kilograms of Plutonium-239, which in a nuclear power plant can produce sufficient heat to generate about 32 million kilowatt-hours of electricity, that is, 32 Gigawatt-hours (GWh). 1 GWh of electricity powers about 700,000 households for one hour, hence 32 GWh would power about 22.4 million households for one hour. Now, if we divide that number by the number of hours in a year, that is, 8760, we are confronted with an astounding revelation. It is that, the radioactive material from one nuclear warhead can power over two thousand households for a year (2557 to be exact). And that's just the radioactive material we are talking about. Many more resources are required to set up a nuclear program. The point is, instead of wasting such potent and precious resources on fancy, frivolous and fictitious geopolitical insecurities, let us redirect those resources to alleviate actual, real human suffering from society. Let us use them to empower communities rather than to dominate them - let us use them to elevate the whole of humankind, rather than to downgrade the parts that we do not like. Because by degrading others, we only degrade ourselves, whereas by lifting others, we rise ourselves. Remember, there is no world peace, so long as fear is off the leash.

The significance of LBJ's personal traits accounted for the growing belief, especially by anti-war activists, that Vietnam was "Johnson's War." His critics are correct in pointing to the role of these traits and in arguing that Johnson, commander-in-chief until 1969, possessed the ultimate power to stem the tide of escalation. He was the last, best, and only chance for the United States to pull itself out of the quagmire.

You played the hand you were dealt. Complaining about the unfairness of it all was best left to teenagers, activists, and other lower life-forms.

Magically modified food is a serious issue," Rosabella said. "We don't know the long-term effects on our bodies." She grabbed her ever-present picket sign. "I'm going to protest. Who's with me?" All the girls suddenly checked their MirrorPhones as if an important hext had arrived. "Suit yourselves," she said. "I'm going to talk to Ginger Breadhouse. She's the best cook on campus. Surely she cares about this issue." She hurried over to the next table. "Good luck," Darling called. Rosabella's protests were important, but there were so many things she wanted to change. It was exhausting after a while.

Why have global temperatures not risen in the best part of two decades while CO2 levels have kept on rising? •    

The political world was anathema; its activists, both retro and progressive, seemed wrongheaded and dreamy. The revolutionaries, armed or peaceful, had no notion of what should happen after they “won.” Who would rule? The “people”? Please. What did that mean? The best outcome would be to introduce a new idea into the population that perhaps a politician would act on. The rest was theater seeking an audience. Wealth alone explained humanity’s evil, and he was determined to live without deference to it.

Emotions have their own movement. They move like waves: huge tsunami waves, choppy rapids, or long slow tides. The best way I know to work with emotion, especially strong and difficult emotion is to let it move like a wave, allow it to complete its movement and, eventually, to leave. If the movement gets held back, if it gets trapped and stagnates, or an inner turbulence stirs, the unexpressed emotion and grief can turn into physical illness, fatigue, depression, anxiety, or other displaced emotion.

meet their goal of 80 percent renewable energy by 2050.12 While not having children is definitively the best choice for the environment, it is not the choice that many environmentalists make, however. Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, has one child, as does Bill McKibben, who has energized a generation of young climate activists, and Michael Mann, the climate scientist behind the famous “hockey stick” figure showing rapid global warming. As my husband and I were trying to decide whether to have a child or not, I could not help but look at the choices that those around me had made.

He was also a more astute politician than even his admirers realized. During his rise to power, he constructed his own base as an independent candidate not beholden to the oil interests in Southern California. For party loyalty, he substituted personal connections to the state’s two most important (and quite conservative) publishers—Joe Knowland in Oakland, and Harry Chandler in Los Angeles. At the very least, these friendships helped neutralize papers that might otherwise have rejected his increasingly liberal agenda. He was a distinguished governor of California. The state was growing by as many as ten thousand new residents a week, and the pressures on the state’s schools, roads, and its water resources were enormous. Facing that challenge had made him tough-minded and pragmatic about government, its limits, and how best it could benefit ordinary people. He was both an optimist and an activist: If he did not exactly bring an ideology to the Court, then he brought the faith of someone who had seen personally what government could and should do to ameliorate the lives of ordinary people. That the great figures on the bench had so much more judicial experience—Black with sixteen years of service on the Court, Frankfurter and Douglas with fourteen each, and Jackson with twelve—did not daunt him. As he saw it, they knew more about the law, but he knew more about the consequences of the law and its effect on ordinary citizens. His law clerk, Earl Pollock, said years later that there were three things that mattered to Earl Warren: The first was the concept of equality; the second was education; and the third was the right of young people to a decent life. He had spent a lifetime refining his view of the role of government, and

He was also a more astute politician than even his admirers realized. During his rise to power, he constructed his own base as an independent candidate not beholden to the oil interests in Southern California. For party loyalty, he substituted personal connections to the state’s two most important (and quite conservative) publishers—Joe Knowland in Oakland, and Harry Chandler in Los Angeles. At the very least, these friendships helped neutralize papers that might otherwise have rejected his increasingly liberal agenda. He was a distinguished governor of California. The state was growing by as many as ten thousand new residents a week, and the pressures on the state’s schools, roads, and its water resources were enormous. Facing that challenge had made him tough-minded and pragmatic about government, its limits, and how best it could benefit ordinary people. He was both an optimist and an activist: If he did not exactly bring an ideology to the Court, then he brought the faith of someone who had seen personally what government could and should do to ameliorate the lives of ordinary people. That the great figures on the bench had so much more judicial experience—Black with sixteen years of service on the Court, Frankfurter and Douglas with fourteen each, and Jackson with twelve—did not daunt him. As he saw it, they knew more about the law, but he knew more about the consequences of the law and its effect on ordinary citizens. His law clerk, Earl Pollock, said years later that there were three things that mattered to Earl Warren: The first was the concept of equality; the second was education; and the third was the right of young people to a decent life. He had spent a lifetime refining his view of the role of government, and he came to the Court ready to implement it.

Catholic activists have always insisted that the laws they seek to enact or preserve—such as laws protecting innocent human life, or those defining marriage as a lifetime union between a man and a woman—reflect moral norms that can be explained without reference to any specific religious beliefs, norms that are inscribed on the human heart. So Catholics engaged in public debate, acting from the best of motives, have sought to couch their arguments in purely secular terms. Ironically, Catholics might have had more success in the world of politics if, instead of trying to make moral norms more palatable to a secular audience, we had devoted our attention to turning secularists into Catholics—putting our primary emphasis on religious conversions and letting political matters take care of themselves. We thought we were following a subtle strategy, hoping to change minds without first changing hearts. But that approach has failed. Pure evangelization would have been more effective, even from a purely political perspective.

In their well-intentioned effort to protect what they see as a targeted minority, Western liberals unwittingly find themselves fighting to guard and protect the same backward values that their counterparts in Muslim-majority countries are fighting against. My friend Faisal Saeed Al-Mutar, an Iraqi refugee, writer, and human rights activist, puts it best: “Many [Western liberals] have betrayed us liberals in the Middle East and other Muslim countries, and sided with the Islamists against us.”3 As blunt as it sounds, this is a common sentiment among liberals in the Arab and Muslim world, and understandably so.

It pains me to admit it, but my generation tends to show we care by setting up activist groups on Facebook, creating online petitions, or sponsoring celebrities to climb Mount Kilimanjaro. We’ve become a generation of virtue signallers whereas here, people show they care with deeds and actions. Jan is the best example of that.

Three Best Ways to Start a Speech The third best way to start a speech is by using an ‘imagine’ scenario. ‘Imagine a big explosion as you climb up 3000 ft. Imagine a plane full of smoke. Imagine an engine going clack, clack, clack. It sounds scary. Well, I had a unique seat that day. I was sitting on 1D.’ This is how Ric Elias started his TED talk—‘3 Things I Learned While My Plane Crashed’1—on the Hudson river landing. This true story was captured in an award-winning film, Sully, starring Tom Hanks. The second is to start with a statistic or factoid that shocks. Jamie Oliver, a British celebrity chef, restauranteur and activist who promotes healthy eating among children, started his TED Talk—‘Teach Every Child about Food’2—with ‘Sadly, in the next eighteen minutes when I do our chat, four Americans that are alive will be dead through the food that they eat.’ Given that the audience here was mainly American, there is no way that it didn’t get their attention. The absolutely best way to start a speech—no points for guessing—is with a story, one that is inextricably linked with the topic you are speaking on. ‘I was only four years old when I saw my mother load a washing machine for the very first time in her life. That was a great day for her. My mother and father had been saving money for years to be able to buy that machine

In 1964, the best-named gay activist of the era, Guy Strait, self-published an article entitled ‘What Is a Gay Bar’ (and laid out with the headline in French—‘Qu’est-ce Que C’est? Gay Bar’). According to Strait, while homosexual men had long sniffed out hotel lobbies, public squares, dive bars and gentleman’s clubs with a tacit reputation, a true gay bar was something different. His first rule for a gay bar was its ‘freedom of speech’—the use of idioms and unguarded sex talk. (Anyone who wanted to be schooled could order Strait’s own Lavender Lexicon: A Dictionary of Gay Terms and Phrases for two dollars.) Strait contended that while a cruisy hangout could fly under the radar, a gay bar might be forced to shut down based on the conversations. ‘Gay bars are not the best pickup spots,’ he wrote, ‘but they are the safest; they are not the worst thing that has happened to society and may well be one of the best.