Favors Speech Quotes

Everyone is in favor of free speech. Hardly a day passes without its being extolled, but some people's idea of it is that they are free to say what they like, but if anyone else says anything back, that is an outrage.

If there is no struggle, there is no progress. Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.

Goebbels was in favor of free speech for views he liked. So was Stalin. If you’re really in favor of free speech, then you’re in favor of freedom of speech for precisely the views you despise. Otherwise, you’re not in favor of free speech.

Avoid people who are always having a bad day. In their minds, nothing ever works in their favor. They have a chronic “Woe Is Me” campaign that they continue to launch full blast. This kind of negativity depletes enthusiasm. You don’t need the woe-is-me speech every day.

I prayed aloud, less to plead for divine favor than to intimidate the tribe with articulate speech.

Anger is an assertion of rights and worth. It is communication, equality, and knowledge. It is intimacy, acceptance, fearlessness, embodiment, revolt, and reconciliation. Anger is memory and rage. It is rational thought and irrational pain. Anger is freedom, independence, expansiveness, and entitlement. It is justice, passion, clarity, and motivation. Anger is instrumental, thoughtful, complicated, and resolved. In anger, whether you like it or not, there is truth. Anger is the demand of accountability, It is evaluation, judgment, and refutation. It is reflective, visionary, and participatory. It's a speech act, a social statement, an intention, and a purpose. It's a risk and a threat. A confirmation and a wish. It is both powerlessness and power, palliative and a provocation. In anger, you will find both ferocity and comfort, vulnerability and hurt. Anger is the expression of hope. How much anger is too much? Certainly not the anger that, for many of us, is a remembering of a self we learned to hide and quiet. It is willful and disobedient. It is survival, liberation, creativity, urgency, and vibrancy. It is a statement of need. An insistence of acknowledgment. Anger is a boundary. Anger is boundless. An opportunity for contemplation and self-awareness. It is commitment. Empathy. Self-love. Social responsibility. If it is poison, it is also the antidote. The anger we have as women is an act of radical imagination. Angry women burn brighter than the sun. In the coming years, we will hear, again, that anger is a destructive force, to be controlled. Watch carefully, because not everyone is asked to do this in equal measure. Women, especially, will be told to set our anger aside in favor of a kinder, gentler approach to change. This is a false juxtaposition. Reenvisioned, anger can be the most feminine of virtues: compassionate, fierce, wise, and powerful. The women I admire most—those who have looked to themselves and the limitations and adversities that come with our bodies and the expectations that come with them—have all found ways to transform their anger into meaningful change. In them, anger has moved from debilitation to liberation. Your anger is a gift you give to yourself and the world that is yours. In anger, I have lived more fully, freely, intensely, sensitively, and politically. If ever there was a time not to silence yourself, to channel your anger into healthy places and choices, this is it.

I have always been interested in this man. My father had a set of Tom Paine's books on the shelf at home. I must have opened the covers about the time I was 13. And I can still remember the flash of enlightenment which shone from his pages. It was a revelation, indeed, to encounter his views on political and religious matters, so different from the views of many people around us. Of course I did not understand him very well, but his sincerity and ardor made an impression upon me that nothing has ever served to lessen. I have heard it said that Paine borrowed from Montesquieu and Rousseau. Maybe he had read them both and learned something from each. I do not know. But I doubt that Paine ever borrowed a line from any man... Many a person who could not comprehend Rousseau, and would be puzzled by Montesquieu, could understand Paine as an open book. He wrote with a clarity, a sharpness of outline and exactness of speech that even a schoolboy should be able to grasp. There is nothing false, little that is subtle, and an impressive lack of the negative in Paine. He literally cried to his reader for a comprehending hour, and then filled that hour with such sagacious reasoning as we find surpassed nowhere else in American letters - seldom in any school of writing. Paine would have been the last to look upon himself as a man of letters. Liberty was the dear companion of his heart; truth in all things his object. ...we, perhaps, remember him best for his declaration: 'The world is my country; to do good my religion.' Again we see the spontaneous genius at work in 'The Rights of Man', and that genius busy at his favorite task - liberty. Written hurriedly and in the heat of controversy, 'The Rights of Man' yet compares favorably with classical models, and in some places rises to vaulting heights. Its appearance outmatched events attending Burke's effort in his 'Reflections'. Instantly the English public caught hold of this new contribution. It was more than a defense of liberty; it was a world declaration of what Paine had declared before in the Colonies. His reasoning was so cogent, his command of the subject so broad, that his legion of enemies found it hard to answer him. 'Tom Paine is quite right,' said Pitt, the Prime Minister, 'but if I were to encourage his views we should have a bloody revolution.' Here we see the progressive quality of Paine's genius at its best. 'The Rights of Man' amplified and reasserted what already had been said in 'Common Sense', with now a greater force and the power of a maturing mind. Just when Paine was at the height of his renown, an indictment for treason confronted him. About the same time he was elected a member of the Revolutionary Assembly and escaped to France. So little did he know of the French tongue that addresses to his constituents had to be translated by an interpreter. But he sat in the assembly. Shrinking from the guillotine, he encountered Robespierre's enmity, and presently found himself in prison, facing that dread instrument. But his imprisonment was fertile. Already he had written the first part of 'The Age of Reason' and now turned his time to the latter part. Presently his second escape cheated Robespierre of vengeance, and in the course of events 'The Age of Reason' appeared. Instantly it became a source of contention which still endures. Paine returned to the United States a little broken, and went to live at his home in New Rochelle - a public gift. Many of his old companions in the struggle for liberty avoided him, and he was publicly condemned by the unthinking. {The Philosophy of Paine, June 7, 1925}

Among my father’s most important messages were that governments lie to protect themselves and they make incredibly stupid decisions. Years after the publication of Dune, Richard M. Nixon provided ample proof. Dad said that Nixon did the American people an immense favor in his attempt to cover up the Watergate misdeeds. By amplified example, albeit unwittingly, the thirty-seventh president of the United States taught people to question their leaders. In interviews and impassioned speeches on university campuses all across the country, Frank Herbert warned young people not to trust government, telling them that the American founding fathers had understood this and had attempted to establish safeguards in the Constitution.

If I were the Devil . . . I mean, if I were the Prince of Darkness, I would of course, want to engulf the whole earth in darkness. I would have a third of its real estate and four-fifths of its population, but I would not be happy until I had seized the ripest apple on the tree, so I should set about however necessary to take over the United States. I would begin with a campaign of whispers. With the wisdom of a serpent, I would whisper to you as I whispered to Eve: “Do as you please.” “Do as you please.” To the young, I would whisper, “The Bible is a myth.” I would convince them that man created God instead of the other way around. I would confide that what is bad is good, and what is good is “square”. In the ears of the young marrieds, I would whisper that work is debasing, that cocktail parties are good for you. I would caution them not to be extreme in religion, in patriotism, in moral conduct. And the old, I would teach to pray. I would teach them to say after me: “Our Father, which art in Washington” . . . If I were the devil, I’d educate authors in how to make lurid literature exciting so that anything else would appear dull an uninteresting. I’d threaten T.V. with dirtier movies and vice versa. And then, if I were the devil, I’d get organized. I’d infiltrate unions and urge more loafing and less work, because idle hands usually work for me. I’d peddle narcotics to whom I could. I’d sell alcohol to ladies and gentlemen of distinction. And I’d tranquilize the rest with pills. If I were the devil, I would encourage schools to refine yound intellects but neglect to discipline emotions . . . let those run wild. I would designate an athiest to front for me before the highest courts in the land and I would get preachers to say “she’s right.” With flattery and promises of power, I could get the courts to rule what I construe as against God and in favor of pornography, and thus, I would evict God from the courthouse, and then from the school house, and then from the houses of Congress and then, in His own churches I would substitute psychology for religion, and I would deify science because that way men would become smart enough to create super weapons but not wise enough to control them. If I were Satan, I’d make the symbol of Easter an egg, and the symbol of Christmas, a bottle. If I were the devil, I would take from those who have and I would give to those who wanted, until I had killed the incentive of the ambitious. And then, my police state would force everybody back to work. Then, I could separate families, putting children in uniform, women in coal mines, and objectors in slave camps. In other words, if I were Satan, I’d just keep on doing what he’s doing. (Speech was broadcast by ABC Radio commentator Paul Harvey on April 3, 1965)

It is the duty of all Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and humbly to implore His protection and favors.

The root of the disinformation problem, of course, lay in the technology. Facebook was designed to throw gas on the fire of any speech that invoked an emotion, even if it was hateful speech—its algorithms favored sensationalism.

I am mindful that scientific achievement is rooted in the past, is cultivated to full stature by many contemporaries and flourishes only in favorable environment. No individual is alone responsible for a single stepping stone along the path of progress, and where the path is smooth progress is most rapid. In my own work this has been particularly true.

He skims through the speech he prepared (for the 50th Independence day): … Before the Apocalypse, the system gave us a goal, forcing us to exhaustion at the end of the day. We had no time to look inside. The system was a slave-reproduction module where we thought we were free. With time lost, we lost our only chance of final evolution at the end of our one life … … The system succeeded, enough to turn talents into machines, warriors into lazy citizens, knights into faithful slaves, writers and artists into pets and trophies. They succeeded, and they laughed. But not after the Apocalypse. Not after the War. We fought. We lost many, but we won through evolution. Now, things are different. Now things are better … Bullshit!—Yuan stops at this point. Too many lies! Nothing has changed. Nothing is better. How can a monk with a voice lie? Moreover, a war hero favoring the Apocalypse—too dark! What was he thinking last night? “Delete all of it,” he mutters sternly.

On May 17, 1933, before the Reichstag, Hitler delivered his “Peace Speech,” one of the greatest of his career, a masterpiece of deceptive propaganda that deeply moved the German people and unified them behind him and which made a profound and favorable impression on the outside world.

When one watches some tired hack on the platform mechanically repeating the familiar phrases -- bestial atrocities, iron heel, bloodstained tyranny, free peoples of the world, stand shoulder to shoulder -- one often has a curious feeling that one is not watching a live human being but some kind of dummy: a feeling which suddenly becomes stronger at moments when the light catches the speaker's spectacles and turns them into blank discs which seem to have no eyes behind them. And this is not altogether fanciful. A speaker who uses that kind of phraseology has gone some distance toward turning himself into a machine. The appropriate noises are coming out of his larynx, but his brain is not involved as it would be if he were choosing his words for himself. If the speech he is making is one that he is accustomed to make over and over again, he may be almost unconscious of what he is saying, as one is when one utters the responses in church. And this reduced state of consciousness, if not indispensable, is at any rate favorable to political conformity.

As an engineer he favored blunt speech,

Liberal democracy is about rules, not outcomes. We uphold freedom of speech, rather than favoring specific speech.

It was nigh impossible to understand Howard's speech under normal circumstances. He favored a pidgin of his lost African tongue and slave talk. In the old days, her mother had told her, that half language was the voice of the plantation. They had been stolen from villages all over Africa and spoke a multitude of tongues. The words from across the ocean were beaten out of them over time. For simplicity, to erase their identities, to smother uprisings. All the words except for the ones locked away by those who still remembered who they had been before. "They keep 'em hid like precious gold," Mabel said.

As the leader of the international Human Genome Project, which had labored mightily over more than a decade to reveal this DNA sequence, I stood beside President Bill Clinton in the East Room of the White House... Clinton's speech began by comparing this human sequence map to the map that Meriwether Lewis had unfolded in front of President Thomas Jefferson in that very room nearly two hundred years earlier. Clinton said, "Without a doubt, this is the most important, most wondrous map ever produced by humankind." But the part of his speech that most attracted public attention jumped from the scientific perspective to the spiritual. "Today," he said, "we are learning the language in which God created life. We are gaining ever more awe for the complexity, the beauty, and the wonder of God's most divine and sacred gift." Was I, a rigorously trained scientist, taken aback at such a blatantly religious reference by the leader of the free world at a moment such as this? Was I tempted to scowl or look at the floor in embarrassment? No, not at all. In fact I had worked closely with the president's speechwriter in the frantic days just prior to this announcement, and had strongly endorsed the inclusion of this paragraph. When it came time for me to add a few words of my own, I echoed this sentiment: "It's a happy day for the world. It is humbling for me, and awe-inspiring, to realize that we have caught the first glimpse of our own instruction book, previously known only to God." What was going on here? Why would a president and a scientist, charged with announcing a milestone in biology and medicine, feel compelled to invoke a connection with God? Aren't the scientific and spiritual worldviews antithetical, or shouldn't they at least avoid appearing in the East Room together? What were the reasons for invoking God in these two speeches? Was this poetry? Hypocrisy? A cynical attempt to curry favor from believers, or to disarm those who might criticize this study of the human genome as reducing humankind to machinery? No. Not for me. Quite the contrary, for me the experience of sequencing the human genome, and uncovering this most remarkable of all texts, was both a stunning scientific achievement and an occasion of worship.

See? You can have cartoons about any of the parties, but you mustn't put anything in favor of Socialism, because the police won't stand it. Once I did a cartoon of a boa constrictor marked Capital swallowing a rabbit marked Labour. The copper came along and saw it, and he says, 'You rub that out, and look sharp about it,' he says. I had to rub it out.

To retrieve the ill consequences of a foolish conduct, and by struggling manfully with distress to subdue it, is one of the noblest efforts of wisdom and virtue. Whoever, therefore, calls such a man fortunate, is guilty of no less impropriety in speech than he would be who should call the statuary or the poet fortunate who carved a Venus or who writ an Iliad.

The speech lacked soaring cadences or memorable lines, yet it touched on two explosive issues at the finale. He advised Native Americans that their days as a hunting, gathering people were numbered and that he favored “civilization, christianization and ultimate citizenship” for them.89 Then, in sharp contrast to his predecessor, Grant championed black suffrage.

Human vocabulary size may have evolved through the same sexual selection process that favored enormous song repertoires in some bird species. But whereas only male birds sing, both men and women use large vocabularies during courtship, because courtship and choice are mutual, and because unusual words work as reliable displays only if their meanings are understood.

When the outer ego is narrow, and poorly represents these subdominant personalities then they rise up in arms, and when conditions are favorable attempt to express themselves through a momentary weakness on the part of the dominant ego. But without even doing this they may momentarily take over or express themselves through a single function, such as speech or motion, while the outer ego is blissfully unaware.

LEXICOGRAPHER, n. A pestilent fellow who, under the pretense of recording some particular stage in the development of a language, does what he can to arrest its growth, stiffen its flexibility and mechanize its methods. For your lexicographer, having written his dictionary, comes to be considered "as one having authority," whereas his function is only to make a record, not to give a law. The natural servility of the human understanding having invested him with judicial power, surrenders its right of reason and submits itself to a chronicle as if it were a statue. Let the dictionary (for example) mark a good word as "obsolete" or "obsolescent" and few men thereafter venture to use it, whatever their need of it and however desirable its restoration to favor — whereby the process of improverishment is accelerated and speech decays. On the contrary, recognizing the truth that language must grow by innovation if it grow at all, makes new words and uses the old in an unfamiliar sense, has no following and is tartly reminded that "it isn't in the dictionary" — although down to the time of the first lexicographer (Heaven forgive him!) no author ever had used a word that was in the dictionary. In the golden prime and high noon of English speech; when from the lips of the great Elizabethans fell words that made their own meaning and carried it in their very sound; when a Shakespeare and a Bacon were possible, and the language now rapidly perishing at one end and slowly renewed at the other was in vigorous growth and hardy preservation — sweeter than honey and stronger than a lion — the lexicographer was a person unknown, the dictionary a creation which his Creator had not created him to create.

Some sins, some evils in communities, could be best removed by the virtuous efforts of individuals composing these communities, but it was not so with slavery. That is such a monstrous system, such a giant crime, that it begets a character favorable to its own existence, vanquishing the moral perception, and blinding the moral vision of all who come in contact with it; and a nation has not the moral energy necessary to its removal.

At first Christ was a man – nothing more. Mary was his mother, Joseph his father. The genealogy of his father, Joseph, was given to show that he was of the blood of David. Then the claim was made that he was the son of God, and that his mother was a virgin, and that she remained a virgin until her death. The claim was made that Christ rose from the dead and ascended bodily to heaven. It required many years for these absurdities to take possession of the minds of men. If he really ascended, why did he not do so in public, in the presence of his persecutors? Why should this, the greatest of miracles, be done in secret, in a corner? Is Christ our example? He never said a word in favor of education. He never even hinted at the existence of any science. He never uttered a word in favor of industry, economy or of any effort to better our condition in this world. He was the enemy of the successful, of the wealthy. Dives was sent to hell, not because he was bad, but because he was rich. Lazarus went to heaven, not because he was good, but because he was poor. Christ cared nothing for painting, for sculpture, for music – nothing for any art. He said nothing about the duties of nation to nation, of king to subject; nothing about the rights of man; nothing about intellectual liberty or the freedom of speech. He said nothing about the sacredness of home; not one word for the fireside; not a word in favor of marriage, in honor of maternity. He never married. He wandered homeless from place to place with a few disciples. None of them seem to have been engaged in any useful business, and they seem to have lived on alms. All human ties were held in contempt; this world was sacrificed for the next; all human effort was discouraged. God would support and protect. At last, in the dusk of death, Christ, finding that he was mistaken, cried out: “My God! My God! Why hast thou forsaken me? We have found that man must depend on himself. He must clear the land; he must build the home; he must plow and plant; he must invent; he must work with hand and brain; he must overcome the difficulties and obstructions; he must conquer and enslave the forces of nature to the end that they may do the work of the world.

The smallest bell was Ranna. Sleeper, some called it, its voice a sweet lullaby calling those who heard it into slumber. The second bell was Mosrael, the Waker. Lirael touched it ever so lightly, for Mosrael balanced Life with Death. Wielded properly, it would bring the Dead back into Life and send the wielder from Life into Death. Kibeth was the third bell, the Walker. It granted freedom of movement to the Dead, or it could be used to make them walk where the wielder chose. Yet it could also turn on a bell-ringer and make her march, usually somewhere she would not wish to go. The fourth bell was called Dyrim, the Speaker. This was the most musical bell, according to The Book of the Dead, and one of the most difficult to use as well. Dyrim could return the power of speech to long-silent Dead. It could also reveal secrets, or even allow the reading of minds. It had darker powers, too, favored by necromancers, for Dyrim could still a speaking tongue forever. Belgaer was the name of the fifth bell. The Thinker. Belgaer could mend the erosion of mind that often occurred in Death, restoring the thoughts and memory of the Dead. It could also erase those thoughts, in Life as well as in Death, and in necromancers’ hands had been used to splinter the minds of enemies. Sometimes it splintered the mind of the necromancer, for Belgaer liked the sound of its own voice and would try to steal the chance to sing of its own accord. The sixth bell was Saraneth, also known as Binder. Saraneth was the favorite bell of all Abhorsens. Large and trustworthy, it was powerful and true. Saraneth was used to dominate and bind the Dead, to make them obey the wishes and directions of the wielder. Lirael was reluctant to touch the seventh bell, but she felt it would not be diplomatic to ignore the most powerful of all the bells, though it was cold and frightening to her touch. Astarael, the Sorrowful. The bell that sent all who heard it into Death.

He smiled understandingly—much more than understandingly. It was one of those rare smiles with a quality of eternal reassurance in it, that you may come across four or five times in life. It faced—or seemed to face—the whole external world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just so far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young rough-neck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.

Muslim women, and critics, male and female, of Western models of sex and sexuality, are silenced. The price of speech for a Muslim woman in the West is the disavowal of Islam. Books condemning Islam are picked by publishers and featured on talk shows. Their authors are commended for their courage. Speech in defense of Islam is read as the speech of subjection. Islam oppresses women. Any woman speaking in its favor must be deluded or forced to speak against her will. If she defends the hijab or speaks in defense of polygamy, she cannot be believed. No woman in her right mind could defend these. Any woman who does must be deluded or coerced. The more Muslim women object to Western efforts to "help" them, the more need there is to liberate them.

The third word bids us to be silent interiorly, saying nothing, not even  “speaking lofty things” as Samuel's mother counseled,[165] for the Lord is the God of knowledge and prefers that men should pray to him dumbly and in spirit and in truth, rather than by speech.[166] In fact, the more silently we beseech him, the more favorably does he listen and answer, as in the case of Moses. The latter said nothing, but prayed mutely, yet the Lord answered as though he had been importuned: “Why do you cry to me?” [167] That God grants the prayers of those who are silent about their longings in his presence is shown in the case of Zachary, who while he was dumb begot  John (whose name means ‘grace’), and did not utter a word until the child was born, though afterwards he spoke better than ever before, having become a great prophet. [168]

Hitler and Mussolini were indeed authoritarians, but it doesn’t follow that authoritarianism equals fascism or Nazism. Lenin and Stalin were authoritarian, but neither was a fascist. Many dictators—Franco in Spain, Pinochet in Chile, Perón in Argentina, Amin in Uganda—were authoritarian without being fascists or Nazis. Trump admittedly has a bossy style that he gets from, well, being a boss. He has been a corporate boss all his life, and he also played a boss on TV. Republicans elected Trump because they needed a tough guy to take on Hillary; previously they tried bland, harmless candidates like Romney, and look where that got them. That being said, Trump has done nothing to subvert the democratic process. While progressives continue to allege a plot between Trump and the Russians to rig the election, the only evidence for actual rigging comes from the Democratic National Committee’s attempt to rig the 2016 primary in favor of Hillary over Bernie. This rigging evoked virtually no dissent from Democratic officials or from the media, suggesting the support, or at least acquiescence, of the whole progressive movement and most of the party itself. Trump fired his FBI director, provoking dark ruminations in the Washington Post about Trump’s “respect for the rule of law,” yet Trump’s action was entirely lawful.18 He has criticized judges, sometimes in derisive terms, but contrary to Timothy Snyder there is nothing undemocratic about this. Lincoln blasted Justice Taney over the Dred Scott decision, and FDR was virtually apoplectic when the Supreme Court blocked his New Deal initiatives. Criticizing the media isn’t undemocratic either. The First Amendment isn’t just a press prerogative; the president too has the right to free speech.

An individualist town councillor will walk along the municipal pavement, lit by municipal gas and cleansed by municipal brooms with municipal water and - seeing by the municipal clock in the municipal market, that he is too early to meet his children coming from the municipal school, hard by the country lunatic asylum and the municipal hospital, will use the national telegraph system to tell them not to walk through the municipal park, but to come by the municipal tramway to meet him in the municipal reading-room, by the municipal museum, art-gallery, and library, where he intends ... to prepare his next speech in the municipal town hall in favor of the nationalization of canals and in increase of Government control of the railway system. "Socialism, Sir," he will say, "don't waste the time of a practical man by your fantastic absurdities. Self-help, Sir, individual self-help, that's what has made our city what it is.

Why Westerners are so obsessed with "saving" Africa, and why this obsession so often goes awry? Western countries should understand that Africa’s development chances and social possibilities remain heavily hindered due to its overall mediocre governance. Africa rising is still possible -- but first Africans need to understand that the power lies not just with the government, but the people. I do believe, that young Africans have the will to "CHANGE" Africa. They must engage their government in a positive manner on issues that matters -- I also realize that too many of the continent’s people are subject to the kinds of governments that favor ruling elites rather than ordinary villagers and townspeople. These kind of behavior trickles down growth. In Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe is the problem. In South Africa the Apartheid did some damage. The country still wrestles with significant racial issues that sometimes leads to the murder of its citizens. In Ethiopia, Somalia and Kenya the world’s worst food crisis is being felt. In Libya the West sends a mixed messages that make the future for Libyans uncertain. In Nigeria oil is the biggest curse. In Liberia corruption had make it very hard for the country to even develop. Westerners should understand that their funding cannot fix the problems in Africa. African problems can be fixed by Africans. Charity gives but does not really transform. Transformation should come from the root, "African leadership." We have a PHD, Bachelors and even Master degree holders but still can't transform knowledge. Knowledge in any society should be the power of transformation. Africa does not need a savior and western funds, what Africa needs is a drive towards ownership of one's destiny. By creating a positive structural system that works for the majority. There should be needs in dealing with corruption, leadership and accountability.

Gossip is perhaps the most familiar and elementary form of disguised popular aggression. Though its use is hardly confined to attacks by subordinates on their superiors, it represents a relatively safe social sanction. Gossip, almost by definition has no identifiable author, but scores of eager retailers who can claim they are just passing on the news. Should the gossip—and here I have in mind malicious gossip—be challenged, everyone can disavow responsibility for having originated it. The Malay term for gossip and rumor, khabar angin (news on the wind), captures the diffuse quality of responsibility that makes such aggression possible. The character of gossip that distinguishes it from rumor is that gossip consists typically of stories that are designated to ruin the reputation of some identifiable person or persons. If the perpetrators remain anonymous, the victim is clearly specified. There is, arguably, something of a disguised democratic voice about gossip in the sense that it is propagated only to the extent that others find it in their interest to retell the story.13 If they don’t, it disappears. Above all, most gossip is a discourse about social rules that have been violated. A person’s reputation can be damaged by stories about his tightfistedness, his insulting words, his cheating, or his clothing only if the public among whom such tales circulate have shared standards of generosity, polite speech, honesty, and appropriate dress. Without an accepted normative standard from which degrees of deviation may be estimated, the notion of gossip would make no sense whatever. Gossip, in turn, reinforces these normative standards by invoking them and by teaching anyone who gossips precisely what kinds of conduct are likely to be mocked or despised. 13. The power to gossip is more democratically distributed than power, property, and income, and, certainly, than the freedom to speak openly. I do not mean to imply that gossip cannot and is not used by superiors to control subordinates, only that resources on this particular field of struggle are relatively more favorable to subordinates. Some people’s gossip is weightier than that of others, and, providing we do not confuse status with mere public deference, one would expect that those with high personal status would be the most effective gossipers.

The illiberal left does not share this commitment. Their burgeoning philosophy in favor of government power to curtail freedom of thought, speech, and conscience is troubling. Environmentalist Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—a graduate of one of the nation’s most elite law schools, the University of Virginia—said in a September 2014 interview of those who deny climate change, “I wish that there were a law you could punish them under.”36 Accusing the libertarian Koch brothers of “treason” for disagreeing with his view of climate change, he said they should be “at the Hague with all the other war criminals.” He asked rhetorically, “Do I think the Koch brothers should be tried for reckless endangerment? Absolutely, that is a criminal offense and they ought to be serving time for it.” Kennedy’s penchant for arguing for state action against those who do not share his view of climate change is not new. In 2007, he said in a speech at Live Earth that politicians who are “corporate toadies for companies like Exxon and Southern Company” had committed treason and needed to be treated as traitors.37 In 2009, he deemed certain coal companies “criminal enterprises” and declared that one company’s CEO “should be in jail . . . for all of eternity.”38

Psalm 5 Song of the Clouded Dawn For the Pure and Shining One, for her who receives the inheritance.11 By King David. 1Listen to my passionate prayer! Can’t You hear my groaning? 2Don’t You hear how I’m crying out to You? My King and my God, consider my every word, For I am calling out to You. 3At each and every sunrise You will hear my voice As I prepare my sacrifice of prayer to You. Every morning I lay out the pieces of my life on the altar And wait for Your fire to fall upon my heart.12 4I know that You, God, Are never pleased with lawlessness, And evil ones will never be invited As guests in Your house. 5Boasters collapse, unable to survive Your scrutiny, For Your hatred of evildoers is clear. 6You will make an end of all those who lie. How You hate their hypocrisy And despise all who love violence! 7But I know the way back home, And I know that You will welcome me Into Your house, For I am covered by Your covenant of mercy and love. So I come to Your sanctuary with deepest awe, To bow in worship and adore You. 8Lord, lead me in the pathways of Your pleasure, Just like You promised me You would, Or else my enemies will conquer me. Smooth out Your road in front of me, Straight and level so that I will know where to walk. 9For you can’t trust anything they say. Their hearts are nothing but deep pits of destruction, Drawing people into their darkness with their speeches. They are smooth-tongued deceivers Who flatter with their words! 10Declare them guilty, O God! Let their own schemes be their downfall! Let the guilt of their sins collapse on top of them, For they rebel against You. 11But let them all be glad, Those who turn aside to hide themselves in You, May they keep shouting for joy forever! Overshadow them in Your presence As they sing and rejoice, Then every lover of Your name Will burst forth with endless joy. 12Lord, how wonderfully You bless the righteous. Your favor wraps around each one and Covers them Under Your canopy of kindness and joy. 11. 5:Title The Hebrew word used here is Neliloth, or “flutes.” It can also be translated “inheritances.” The early church father, Augustine, translated this: “For her who receives the inheritance,” meaning the church of Jesus Christ. God the Father told the Son in Psalm 2 to ask for His inheritance; here we see it is the church that receives what Jesus asks for. We receive our inheritance of eternal life through the cross and resurrection of the Son of God. The Septuagint reads “For the end,” also found in numerous inscriptions of the Psalms. 12. 5:3 Implied in the concept of preparing the morning sacrifice. The Aramaic text states, “At dawn I shall be ready and shall appear before You.

Dopey, on my right - as usual, I'd ended up sitting on the hump in the middle of the backseat - muttered, "I don't know what you see in that headcase Meducci anyway." Doc said, "Oh, that's easy. Females of any species tend to select the male partner who is best able to provide for her and any offspring which might result from their coupling. Michael Meducci, being a good deal more intelligent than most of his classmates, amply fulfills that role, in addition to which he has what is considered, by Western standards of beauty, an outstanding physique - if what I've overheard Gina and Suze saying counts for anything. Since he is likely to pass on these favorable genetic components to his children, he is irresistible to breeding females everywhere - at least, discerning ones like Suze." There was silence in the car ... the kind of silence that usually followed one of Doc's speeches. Then Gina said reverently, "They really should move you up a grade, David." "Oh, they've offered," Doc replied, cheerfully, "but while my intellect might be evolved for a boy my age, my growth is somewhat retarded. I felt it was inadvisable to thrust myself into a population of males much larger than I, who might be threatened by my superior intelligence." "In other words," Sleepy translated for Gina's benefit, "we didn't want him getting his butt kicked by the bigger kids.

We Germans have everything to gain in this struggle for existence, for to lose this war would mean our finish. Asiatic barbarism would flood Europe just as it happened at the time of the Huns or the Mongolians. Nobody knows that better than the German soldier and the nations who are fighting by his side and who have had an opportunity to become acquainted with the meaning of Bolshevist liberation of humanity. England however, will win nothing in this war. It will lose and then perhaps it will gradually begin to realize that the fate of nations and peoples must not be entrusted to the care of a cynical drunkard nor of people who are mentally ill. Truth will be the final victor in this fight. Truth, however, is with us. I'm proud of the fact that destiny has chosen me to lead the German nation in such a great period. For always I aim to tie my name and my life to its fate. I have no other favor to ask of the Almighty but to let us be victorious in the future as we were in the past and to let me live only as long as he considers necessary to conclude this fight for existence of the German nation for there is no greater glory than the honor to be the leader of one's people and thereby the bearer of responsibility in times of stress and nothing could make me feel any happier than the thought that that people is my own, my German people. Adolf Hitler – speech to the Reichstag, April 26, 1942

To a Calvinist the most important thing was Calvinism; to a Puritan the most important thing was the Puritan creed; and this in itself certainly did not favor the vague sentiments either of emancipation or fraternity. Calvinism took away a man's liberty in the universe; why, then, should it favor his liberty in the State? Puritanism denied free will; why should it be likely to affirm free speech? Why should the Calvinist object to an aristocracy? The Calvinists were an aristocracy; they were the most arrogant and awful of aristocracies by the nature of their own belief: they were the elect. Why should the Puritans dislike a baby being born a nobleman? It was the whole philosophy of the Puritans that a baby is born a celestial nobleman; and he is at birth and before birth a member of the cosmic upper classes. It should have been a small matter to the Puritans to admit that one might be born a king, seeing that they maintained the much more paradoxical position that one might be born a saint. Nor is it easy to see upon their own ideal principles why the Puritans should have disliked despotism or arbitrary power; though it is certainly much more the fact that they did dislike despotism than that they did dislike oligarchy. The first conception of Calvinism is a fierce insistence on the utterly arbitrary nature of power. The King of the Cavaliers was certainly not so purely willful, so sublimely capricious a sultan, as the God of the Puritans.

In the EPJ results, there were two statistically distinguishable groups of experts. The first failed to do better than random guessing, and in their longer-range forecasts even managed to lose to the chimp. The second group beat the chimp, though not by a wide margin, and they still had plenty of reason to be humble. Indeed, they only barely beat simple algorithms like “always predict no change” or “predict the recent rate of change.” Still, however modest their foresight was, they had some. So why did one group do better than the other? It wasn’t whether they had PhDs or access to classified information. Nor was it what they thought—whether they were liberals or conservatives, optimists or pessimists. The critical factor was how they thought. One group tended to organize their thinking around Big Ideas, although they didn’t agree on which Big Ideas were true or false. Some were environmental doomsters (“We’re running out of everything”); others were cornucopian boomsters (“We can find cost-effective substitutes for everything”). Some were socialists (who favored state control of the commanding heights of the economy); others were free-market fundamentalists (who wanted to minimize regulation). As ideologically diverse as they were, they were united by the fact that their thinking was so ideological. They sought to squeeze complex problems into the preferred cause-effect templates and treated what did not fit as irrelevant distractions. Allergic to wishy-washy answers, they kept pushing their analyses to the limit (and then some), using terms like “furthermore” and “moreover” while piling up reasons why they were right and others wrong. As a result, they were unusually confident and likelier to declare things “impossible” or “certain.” Committed to their conclusions, they were reluctant to change their minds even when their predictions clearly failed. They would tell us, “Just wait.” The other group consisted of more pragmatic experts who drew on many analytical tools, with the choice of tool hinging on the particular problem they faced. These experts gathered as much information from as many sources as they could. When thinking, they often shifted mental gears, sprinkling their speech with transition markers such as “however,” “but,” “although,” and “on the other hand.” They talked about possibilities and probabilities, not certainties. And while no one likes to say “I was wrong,” these experts more readily admitted it and changed their minds. Decades ago, the philosopher Isaiah Berlin wrote a much-acclaimed but rarely read essay that compared the styles of thinking of great authors through the ages. To organize his observations, he drew on a scrap of 2,500-year-old Greek poetry attributed to the warrior-poet Archilochus: “The fox knows many things but the hedgehog knows one big thing.” No one will ever know whether Archilochus was on the side of the fox or the hedgehog but Berlin favored foxes. I felt no need to take sides. I just liked the metaphor because it captured something deep in my data. I dubbed the Big Idea experts “hedgehogs” and the more eclectic experts “foxes.” Foxes beat hedgehogs. And the foxes didn’t just win by acting like chickens, playing it safe with 60% and 70% forecasts where hedgehogs boldly went with 90% and 100%. Foxes beat hedgehogs on both calibration and resolution. Foxes had real foresight. Hedgehogs didn’t.

THE INSTRUCTION OF PTAHHOTEP Part II If you are one among guests At the table of one greater than you, Take what he gives as it is set before you; Look at what is before you, Don’t shoot many glances at him, Molesting him offends the ka. Don’t speak to him until he summons, One does not know what may displease; Speak when he has addressed you, Then your words will please the heart. The nobleman, when he is behind food, Behaves as his ka commands him; He will give to him whom he favors, It is the custom when night has come. It is the ka that makes his hands reach out, The great man gives to the chosen man; Thus eating is under the counsel of god, A fool is who complains of it. If you are a man of trust, Sent by one great man to another, Adhere to the nature of him who sent you. Give his message as he said it. Guard against reviling speech, Which embroils one great with another; Keep to the truth, don't exceed it, But an outburst should not be repeated. Do not malign anyone, Great or small, the ka abhors it. If you plow and there’s growth in the field, And god lets it prosper in your hand, Do not boast at your neighbors’ side, One has great respect for the silent man: Man of character is man of wealth. If he robs he is like a crocodile in court. Don’t impose on one who is childless, Neither decry nor boast of it; There is many a father who has grief, And a mother of children less content than another; It is the lonely whom god fosters, While the family man prays for a follower. If you are poor, serve a man of worth, That all your conduct may be well with the god. Do not recall if he once was poor, Don’t be arrogant toward him For knowing his former state; Respect him for what has accrued to him. For wealth does not come by itself. It is their law for him whom they love, His gain, he gathered it himself ; It is the god who makes him worthy And protects him while he sleeps. Follow your heart as long as you live, Do no more than is required, Do not shorten the time of “follow-the-heart,” Trimming its moment offends the ka Don’t waste time on daily cares Beyond providing for your household; When wealth has come, follow your heart, Wealth does no good if one is glum! If you are a man of worth And produce a son by the grace of god, If he is straight, takes after you, Takes good care of your possessions. Do for him all that is good, He is your son, your ka begot him, Don’t withdraw your heart from him. But an offspring can make trouble: If he strays, neglects your counsel, Disobeys all that is said, His mouth spouting evil speech, Punish him for all his talk They hate him who crosses you, His guilt was fated in the womb; He whom they guide can not go wrong, Whom they make boatless can not cross. If you are in the antechamber, Stand and sit as fits your rank Which was assigned you the first day. Do not trespass — you will be turned back, Keen is the face to him who enters announced, Spacious the seat of him who has been called. The antechamber has a rule, All behavior is by measure; It is the god who gives advancement, He who uses elbows is not helped. If you are among the people, Gain supporters through being trusted The trusted man who does not vent his belly’s speech, He will himself become a leader, A man of means — what is he like ? Your name is good, you are not maligned, Your body is sleek, your face benign, One praises you without your knowing. He whose heart obeys his belly Puts contempt of himself in place of love, His heart is bald, his body unanointed; The great-hearted is god-given, He who obeys his belly belongs to the enemy.

We live in a time I did not think I would see in my lifetime, a time when freedom—and in particular freedom of expression, without which the world of books could not exist—is everywhere under attack from reactionary, authoritarian, populist, demagogic, narcissistic, careless voices; when places of education and libraries are subject to hostility and censorship; and when extremist religion and bigoted ideologies have begun to intrude in areas of life in which they do not belong. And there are also progressive voices being raised in favor of a new kind of bien-pensant censorship, one which appears virtuous, and which many people have begun to see as a virtue. So freedom is under pressure from the left as well as the right, the young as well as the old. This is something new, and made more complicated by our new tool of communication, the Internet, on which well-designed pages of malevolent lies sit side by side with the truth, and it is difficult for many people to tell which is which; and our social media, where the idea of freedom is every day abused to permit, very often, a kind of online mob rule, which the billionaire owners of these platforms seem increasingly willing to encourage—and to profit by. What do we do about free speech when it is so widely abused? We should still do, with renewed vigor, what we have always needed to do: to answer bad speech with better speech, to counter false narratives with better narratives, to answer hate with love, and to believe that the truth can still succeed even in an age of lies. We must defend it fiercely and define it as broadly as possible, so, yes, we should of course defend speech that offends us; otherwise we are not defending free expression at all. Let a thousand and one voices speak in a thousand and one different ways. To quote Cavafy, “the barbarians are coming today,” and what I do know is that the answer to philistinism is art, the answer to barbarianism is civilization, and in any war it may be that artists of all sorts—filmmakers, actors, singers, and, yes, those who practice the ancient art of the book—can still, together, turn the barbarians away from the gates.

It is already apparent that the word 'Fascist' will be one of the hardest-worked words in the Presidential campaign. Henry Wallace called some people Fascists the other day in a speech and next day up jumped Harrison Spangler, the Republican, to remark that if there were any Fascists in this country you would find them in the New Deal's palace guard. It is getting so a Fascist is a man who votes the other way. Persons who vote your way, of course, continue to be 'right-minded people.' We are sorry to see this misuse of the word 'Fascist.' If we recall matters, a Fascist is a member of the Fascist party or a believer in Fascist ideals. These are: a nation founded on bloodlines, political expansion by surprise and war, murder or detention of unbelievers, transcendence of state over individual, obedience to one leader, contempt for parliamentary forms, plus some miscellaneous gymnastics for the young and a general feeling of elation. It seems to us that there are many New Deal Democrats who do not subscribe to such a program, also many aspiring Republicans. Other millions of Americans are nonsubscribers. It's too bad to emasculate the word 'Fascist' by using it on persons whose only offense is that they vote the wrong ticket. The word should be saved for use in cases where it applies, as it does to members of our Ku Klux Klan, for instance, whose beliefs and practices are identical with Fascism. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately), there is a certain quality in Fascism which is quite close to a certain quality in nationalism. Fascism is openly against people-in-general, in favor of people-in-particular. Nationalism, although in theory not dedicated to such an idea, actually works against people-in-general because of its preoccupation with people-in-particular. It reminds one of Fascism, also, in its determination to stabilize its own position by whatever haphazard means present themselves--by treaties, policies, balances, agreements, pacts, and the jockeying for position which is summed up in the term 'diplomacy.' This doesn't make an America Firster a Fascist. It simply makes him, in our opinion, a man who hasn't grown into his pants yet. The persons who have written most persuasively against nationalism are the young soldiers who have got far enough from our shores to see the amazing implications of a planet. Once you see it, you never forget it.

The tendency to want what has been banned and therefore to presume that it is more worthwhile is not limited to such commodities as laundry soap. In fact, the tendency is not limited to commodities at all but extends to restrictions on information. In an age when the ability to acquire, store, and manage information is becoming increasingly the determinant of wealth and power, it is important to understand how we typically react to attempts to censor or otherwise constrain our access to information. Although much data exist on our reactions to various kinds of potentially censorable material—media violence, pornography, radical political rhetoric—there is surprisingly little evidence as to our reactions to the act of censoring them. Fortunately, the results of the few studies that have been done on the topic are highly consistent. Almost invariably, our response to the banning of information is a greater desire to receive that information and a more favorable attitude toward it than before the ban.112 The intriguing thing about the effects of censoring information is not that audience members want to have the information more than they did before; that seems natural. Rather, it is that they come to believe in the information more, even though they haven’t received it. For example, when University of North Carolina students learned that a speech opposing coed dorms on campus would be banned, they became more opposed to the idea of coed dorms. Thus, without ever hearing the speech, they became more sympathetic to its argument. This raises the worrisome possibility that especially clever individuals holding a weak or unpopular position can get us to agree with that position by arranging to have their message restricted. The irony is that for such people—members of fringe political groups, for example—the most effective strategy may not be to publicize their unpopular views, but to get those views officially censored and then to publicize the censorship. Perhaps the authors of this country’s Constitution were acting as much as sophisticated social psychologists as staunch civil libertarians when they wrote the remarkably permissive free-speech provision of the First Amendment. By refusing to restrain freedom of speech, they may have been attempting to minimize the chance that new political notions would win support via the irrational course of psychological reactance.

C. M. Knaphle, Jr., of Philadelphia had tried for years to sell fuel to a large chain-store organization. But the chain-store company continued to purchase its fuel from an out-of-town dealer and haul it right past the door of Knaphle’s office. Mr. Knaphle made a speech one night before one of my classes, pouring out his hot wrath upon chain stores, branding them as a curse to the nation. And still he wondered why he couldn’t sell them. I suggested that he try different tactics. To put it briefly, this is what happened. We staged a debate between members of the course on whether the spread of the chain store is doing the country more harm than good. Knaphle, at my suggestion, took the negative side; he agreed to defend the chain stores, and then went straight to an executive of the chain-store organization that he despised and said: “I am not here to try to sell fuel. I have come to ask you to do me a favor.” He then told about his debate and said, “I have come to you for help because I can’t think of anyone else who would be more capable of giving me the facts I want. I’m anxious to win this debate, and I’ll deeply appreciate whatever help you can give me.” Here is the rest of the story in Mr. Knaphle’s own words: I had asked this man for precisely one minute of his time. It was with that understanding that he consented to see me. After I had stated my case, he motioned me to a chair and talked to me for exactly one hour and forty-seven minutes. He called in another executive who had written a book on chain stores. He wrote to the National Chain Store Association and secured for me a copy of a debate on the subject. He feels that the chain store is rendering a real service to humanity. He is proud of what he is doing for hundreds of communities. His eyes fairly glowed as he talked, and I must confess that he opened my eyes to things I had never even dreamed of. He changed my whole mental attitude. As I was leaving, he walked with me to the door, put his arm around my shoulder, wished me well in my debate, and asked me to stop in and see him again and let him know how I made out. The last words he said to me were: “Please see me again later in the spring. I should like to place an order with you for fuel.” To me that was almost a miracle. Here he was offering to buy fuel without my even suggesting it. I had made more headway in two hours by becoming genuinely interested in him and his problems than I could have made in ten years trying to get him interested in me and my product.

Socrates: So now you won't acknowledge any gods except the ones we do--Chaos, the Clouds, the Tongue--just these three? Strepsiades: Absolutely-- I'd refuse to talk to any other gods, if I ran into them--and I decline to sacrifice or pour libations to them. I'll not provide them any incense... I want to twist all legal verdicts in my favor, to evade my creditors. Chorus Leader: You'll get that, just what you desire. For what you want is nothing special. So be confident--give yourself over to our agents here. Strepsiades: I'll do that--I'll place my trust in you. Necessity is weighing me down--the horses, those thoroughbreds, my marriage--all that has worn me out. So now, this body of mine I'll give to them, with no strings attached, to do with as they like--to suffer blows, go without food and drink, live like a pig, to freeze or have my skin flayed for a pouch-- if I can just get out of all my debt and make men think of me as bold and glib, as fearless, impudent, detestable, one who cobbles lies together, makes up words, a practiced legal rogue, a statute book, a chattering fox, sly and needle sharp, a slippery fraud, a sticky rascal, foul whipping boy or twisted villain, troublemaker, or idly prattling fool. If they can make those who run into me call me these names, they can do what they want--no questions asked. If, by Demeter, they're keen, they can convert me into sausages and serve me up to men who think deep thoughts. Chorus: Here's a man whose mind's now smart, no holding back--prepared to start. When you have learned all this from me you know your glory will arise among all men to heaven's skies. Strepsiades: And what will I get out of this? Chorus: For all time, you'll live with me a life most people truly envy. Strepsiades: You mean one day I'll really see that? Chorus: Hordes will sit outside your door wanting your advice and more-- to talk, to place their trust in you for their affairs and lawsuits, too, things which merit your great mind. They'll leave you lots of cash behind. Chorus Leader: [to Socrates] So get started with this old man's lessons, what you intend to teach him first of all--rouse his mind, test his intellectual powers. Socrates: Come on then, tell me the sort of man you are--once I know that, I can bring to bear on you my latest batteries with full effect. Strepsiades: What's that? By god, are you assaulting me? Socrates: No--I want to learn some things from you. What about your memory? Strepsiades: To tell the truth, it works two ways. If someone owes me something, I remember really well. But if it's poor me that owes the money, I forget a lot. Socrates: Do you have a natural gift for speech? Strepsiades: Not for speaking--only for evading debt. Socrates: ... Now, what do you do if someone hits you? Strepsiades: If I get hit, I wait around a while, then find witnesses, hang around some more, then go to court.

Be Positive I thank my God at all times for you because of the grace (the favor and spiritual blessing) of God which was bestowed on you in Christ Jesus, [so] that in Him in every respect you were enriched, in full power and readiness of speech [to speak of your faith] and complete knowledge and illumination [to give you full insight into its meaning]. 1 CORINTHIANS 1:4- 5 The Word of God says, “Depart from evil and do good; seek, inquire for, and crave peace and pursue (go after) it!” (Psalm 34:14). “Do all things without grumbling and faultfinding and complaining [against God] and questioning and doubting [among yourselves]” (Philippians 2:14). Be positive. Get rid of gossiping and complaining. Start your day by reading the Bible so that you will know how to speak from the authority of God’s Word. Spend time listening to God, and then tell others what you hear Him say. Bring life to whatever situations you face.

In the name of Allah, the Beneficent, the Merciful,  All praise is due to Allah, the Lord of the Worlds,  The Beneficent, the Merciful,  Master of this Day of Judgment in which we now live,  Thee do we serve and Thee do we beseech for thine aid.  Guide us on the right path,  The path upon which Thou hast bestowed favors,  Not the path upon which Thy wrath is brought down  Nor of those who go astray after they have heard Thy teaching  Say : He Allah is one God  Allah is He upon whom nothing is independent but  Upon whom we all depend  He neither begets nor is He begotten and none is like Him.  I bear witness there is none to be served but Allah,  And I bear witness that The Honorable Elijah Muhammad is  His True Servant and Last Apostle...Amen

say   v. (says; past and past part.said) 1 [reporting verb] utter words so as to convey information, an opinion, a feeling or intention, or an instruction: [with direct speech] “Thank you,” he said | [with clause] he said the fund stood at $100,000 | [trans.] our parents wouldn't believe a word we said | [with infinitive] he said to come early.    (of a text or a symbolic representation) convey specified information or instructions: [with clause] the law says such behavior is an offense.  [trans.] enable a listener or reader to learn or understand something by conveying or revealing (information or ideas): I don't want to say too much | FIGURATIVEthe movie's title says it all.  [trans.] (of a clock or watch) indicate (a specified time): the clock says ten past two.  (be said) be asserted or reported (often used to avoid committing the speaker or writer to the truth of the assertion): [with infinitive] they were said to be training freedom fighters | [with clause] it is said that she lived to be over a hundred.  [trans.] (say something for) present a consideration in favor of or excusing (someone or something): all I can say for him is that he's

When I talked ONLY about what I got right I wasn’t doing myself or anyone else any favors. I want to be a role model not an unattainable ideal, I want my story to inspire people, not make them feel like they haven’t accomplished enough or can’t measure up. I think about the people who have sat in the audience of my speeches in the past, probably wondering why they were messing up when I seemingly never did, why was it so easy for me to find success when it was so hard for them. I can’t help to think, did I un-inspire anyone, did anyone decide they weren’t cut out for owning a business or being a leader because they were comparing themselves with the one sided version of my story? I really hope not. If I could go back to the times when I told those filtered stories of everything I did right, I’d talk about the things I speak about now. The things I wrote about in this book. I’d talk about how I told people what to do, instead of empowering them. I’d talk about how my poor decisions as a leader led to my shutting down a whole branch of my company. I’d confess I learned the value of autonomy by being too controlling. I’d talk about the people I didn’t ask to leave when I should have, and all the people I missed out on because I didn’t hire them when I had the chance. I’d talk about the times I hurt and let my people down. The times I didn’t listen to them or make them feel valued. The times I failed them and they left. I’d admit there’s no guide that explains exactly what it is like to lead, and no one gets it right the first time. You don’t mess up a couple times and skip your way to success. You mess up, get a little closer to achieving something and then make another mistake that puts you 10 steps back again. Sometimes you make the same mistake twice. Sometimes you feel like you want to give up. Sometimes you go to bed crying. These are the things I wish someone had told me when I was first starting out. Things I wish more leaders would get comfortable acknowledging. Because lets face it, leadership is really hard. And I learned that if its not hard, chances are you aren’t doing it right.

Before leaving, Jackson assembled his brigade to bid them this farewell: “Officers and Soldiers of the First Brigade: I am not here to make a speech, but simply to say farewell. I first met you at Harper’s Ferry, in the commencement of this war, and I cannot take leave of you without giving expression to my admiration for your conduct from that day to this, whether on the march, the bivouac, the tented field, or the bloody plains of Manassas, when you gained the well deserved reputation of having decided the fate of that battle. “Throughout the broad extent of country over which you have marched, by your respect for the rights and property of citizens you have shown that you were soldiers, not only to defend, but able and willing to both defend and protect. You have already gained a brilliant and deservedly high reputation throughout the army and the whole Confederacy, and I trust in the future, by your own deeds on the field, and by the assistance of the same kind Providence who has heretofore favored our cause, you will gain more victories, and add additional luster to the reputation you now enjoy. “You have already gained a proud position in the future history of this, our second war of independence. I shall look with great anxiety to your future movements, and I trust that whenever I shall hear of the 1st Brigade on the field of battle it will be of still nobler deeds achieved and a higher reputation won. “In the Army of the Shenandoah you were the First Brigade, in the Army of the Potomac you were the First Brigade, in the 2d Corps of this army you are the First Brigade; you are First Brigade in the affections of your general, and I hope by your future deeds and bearing you will be handed down to posterity as the First Brigade in this, our second war of independence. Farewell!”[21] As it turned out, this moving speech was premature in its deliverance, because just one month later, after witnessing the deplorable troops over who he was to command, Jackson called for his old brigade to reinforce him in the Valley. An

The Eightfold Path, the path leading to the cessation of suffering is: 1) Right View 2) Right Intention 3) Right Speech 4) Right Action 5) Right Livelihood 6) Right effort 7) Right Mindfulness 8)Right Concentration. Let me point out here that ‘right’ in the above is not the opposite of ‘wrong’.  Right in the above is about doing those things which will yield the greatest good.  In Buddhism it is not merely enough to do no harm, we are striving to do the greatest good.  We call this living skillfully, and that is what we strive to do when following these Eight Right Ways.  Not all of the time will we be presented with clear choices, sometimes our options may all be less than favorable.  In all things though our intention, our basis for action, is to do the least harm and the greatest good.

On television and on the front pages of the major newspapers, Trump clearly seemed to be losing the election. Each new woman who came forward with charges of misbehavior became a focal point of coverage, coupled with Trump’s furious reaction, his ever darkening speeches, and the accompanying suggestion that they were dog whistles aimed at racists and anti-Semites. “Trump’s remarks,” one Washington Post story explained, summing up the media’s outlook, “were laced with the kind of global conspiracies and invective common in the writings of the alternative-right, white-nationalist activists who see him as their champion. Some critics also heard echoes of historical anti-Semitic slurs in Trump’s allegations that Clinton ‘meets in secret with international banks to plot the destruction of U.S. sovereignty’ and that media and financial elites were part of a soulless cabal.” This outlook, which Clinton’s campaign shared, gave little consideration to the possibility that voters might be angry at large banks, international organizations, and media and financial elites for reasons other than their basest prejudices. This was the axis on which Bannon’s nationalist politics hinged: the belief that, as Marine Le Pen put it, “the dividing line is [no longer] between left and right but globalists and patriots.” Even as he lashed out at his accusers and threatened to jail Clinton, Trump’s late-campaign speeches put his own stamp on this idea. As he told one rally: “There is no global anthem, no global currency, no certificate of global citizenship. From now on, it’s going to be ‘America first.’” Anyone steeped in Guénon’s Traditionalism would recognize the terrifying specter Trump conjured of marauding immigrants, Muslim terrorists, and the collapse of national sovereignty and identity as the descent of a Dark Age—the Kali Yuga. For the millions who were not familiar with it, Trump’s apocalyptic speeches came across as a particularly forceful expression of his conviction that he understood their deep dissatisfaction with the political status quo and could bring about a rapid renewal. Whether it was a result of Trump’s apocalyptic turn, disgust at the Clintons, or simply accuser fatigue—it was likely a combination of all three—the pattern of slippage in the wake of negative news was less pronounced in Trump’s internal surveys in mid-October. Overall, he still trailed. But the data were noisy. In some states (Indiana, New Hampshire, Arizona) his support eroded, but in others (Florida, Ohio, Michigan) it actually improved. When Trump held his own at the third and final debate on October 19, the numbers inched up further. The movement was clear enough that Nate Silver and other statistical mavens began to take note of it. “Is the Presidential Race Tightening?” he asked in the title of an October 26 article. Citing Trump’s rising favorability numbers among Republicans and red-state trend lines, he cautiously concluded that probably it was. By November 1, he had no doubt. “Yes, Donald Trump Has a Path to Victory” read the headline for his column that day, in which he

Jesus shows the father pouncing on his son in love not only before he has a chance to clean up his life and evidence a change of heart, but even before he can recite his repentance speech. Nothing, not even abject contrition, merits the favor of God.

Facebook and its counterparts operate more like churches than courts; they are subject to influence by states and the wealthy, and all too content with disregarding the needs of their subjects in favor of those with power.

therein lies one of the core problems with how Silicon Valley policymakers have dealt with graphic and extremist violence. When videos of beheadings began to emerge from Syria in 2011, with nameless victims, keeping them up was deemed “newsworthy.” But when an American’s death was broadcast to the world, that calculation changed. The fact that Foley’s family had spoken out in favor of banning the video from being shared certainly matters; but what about the Syrian victims whose families had no way of reaching YouTube, let alone mainstream media?

Bush took Gorbachev’s side in his address to the Ukrainian parliament, dubbed by the American media his “Chicken Kiev speech” because of the American president’s reluctance to endorse the independence aspirations of the national democratic deputies. Bush favored setting the Baltic republics free but keeping Ukraine and the rest together. He did not want to lose a reliable partner on the world stage—Gorbachev and the Soviet Union that he represented. Moreover, Bush and his advisers were concerned about the possibility of an uncontrolled disintegration of the union, which could lead to wars between republics with nuclear arms on their territory. Apart from Russia, these included Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan. In his speech to the Ukrainian parliament, President Bush appealed to his audience to renounce “suicidal nationalism” and avoid confusing freedom with independence. The communist majority applauded him with enthusiasm. The democratic minority was disappointed: the alliance of Washington with Moscow and the communist deputies in the Ukrainian parliament presented a major obstacle to Ukrainian independence. It was hard to imagine that before the month was out, parliament would vote almost unanimously for the independence of Ukraine and that by the end of November, the White House, initially concerned about the possibility of chaos and nuclear war in the post-Soviet state, would endorse that vote.

The disagreements between deontologists and consequentialists bear directly on many issues in law and policy. Consequentialists believe that constitutional rights, including the right to free speech, must be defended and interpreted by reference to the consequences; deontologists disagree. Consequentialists are favorably disposed to cost-benefit analysis in regulatory policy, but that form of analysis has been vigorously challenged on broadly deontological grounds. Consequentialists favor theories of punishment that are based on deterrence, and they firmly reject retributivism, which some deontologists endorse.

There is discrimination, and the opportunities are not equal to everyone. Most countries are blocked from using several crucial features on Google, Amazon, Shopify, AliExpress, and many more platforms that the "internet millionaires" use to get all of their wealth. They are not smarter than you! They simply have access to markets that are blocked to you! When you try to compete inside their markets, the domain owners alter the algorithms to favor people in that geolocation and put them and their products in front of your. I have been stopped from uploading books for no other reason than being in east Europe. People don't believe these stories are true because they don't want to believe they are living in such a world. It's like the story of the Native Americans, who were offered blankets contaminated with diseases to kill them. Now you are being offered a blanket of illusions that gives you lies. And when you say the truth, they call it a conspiracy and hate speech.

In June of 2022, the Supreme Court heard Kennedy’s case and ruled in his favor. Personal prayer at the end of a football game is now protected under the First Amendment, both as private speech and religious exercise, and is free from government censorship.

It should be emphasized that rejecting the naive view of information as representation does not force us to reject the notion of truth, nor does it force us to embrace the populist view of information as a weapon. While information always connects, some types of information—from scientific books to political speeches—may strive to connect people by accurately representing certain aspects of reality. But this requires a special effort, which most information does not make. This is why the naive view is wrong to believe that creating more powerful information technology will necessarily result in a more truthful understanding of the world. If no additional steps are taken to tilt the balance in favor of truth, an increase in the amount and speed of information is likely to swamp the relatively rare and expensive truthful accounts by much more common and cheap types of information.

Granted, no one actually uses Rolodex card files anymore. In fact, as a figure of speech, I prefer the concept of the favor bank. You do a favor for someone, help someone out of trouble, put someone in touch with someone else, make a connection . . . the odds are the person you helped out will pay you back.

I would have never taken you for a coward, Mr. Mulberry, but honestly, do you really believe carting out your wards is going to convince me to agree to whatever madness has you seeking me out so late at night?” Everett smiled almost as brightly as the children. “Now, now, Miss Longfellow, there’s no cause to call me a coward. Smart like a fox, perhaps, but—” “You shouldn’t antagonize her, Everett,” Lucetta suddenly said, interrupting Everett’s speech before she turned to Millie. “And you shouldn’t be surprised he brought the children with him, considering everyone knows you have a distinct weakness for the wee ones. However, before the conversation moves forward, I really am going to have to insist that the two of you drop all of this Miss and Mister nonsense. We have a common friend in Oliver Addleshaw. Which means, like it or not, we’re now friends of a sort. And because of that, there’s really no reason for such formality.” “There is if he’s here to ask me to work for him.” “Of course he’s here to ask you to work for him,” Lucetta said. “But that has absolutely nothing to do with calling him by his given name.” Millie opened her mouth, but before she could respond, something that looked remarkably like mud began seeping through the paper wrapped around the flowers she was holding. Moving to the closest table, she unwrapped the paper before setting her sights on Everett again. “Did you pull these flowers right out of the ground, Mr. Mulberry?” Everett smiled. “Please, call me Everett since Lucetta was kind enough to point out we’re friends, and of course I didn’t pull those right out of the ground.” Millie held up the flowers, exposing the roots still clinging to dirt. “You would have me believe you purchased these from a flower shop?” “It’s after ten. There are no flower shops open, but if you must know, I had Rosetta pluck those out of the ground for you.” A little girl of about five raised an incredibly dirty hand and waved at her right as Everett cleared his throat, drawing Millie’s attention. “I think you should view it as a mark in my favor that I remembered the flowers, especially since, again, I’m a little sensitive to them, but . . . you were quite vocal about what it would take to get you to work for me.” He sent her a far-too-charming smile. Ignoring the charm, Millie lifted her chin. “You might as well tell me what disaster struck your household now.” Everett shot a glance to the children and seemed to shudder. “Why would you assume something disastrous happened?” Setting the flowers, roots and all, aside, Millie crossed her arms over her chest. “Don’t insult my intelligence, Everett. You wouldn’t be bringing me flowers or children if something of a disastrous nature hadn’t occurred.” “The children are adorable, aren’t they?” “Of course they’re adorable, dear, which I’m sure you were hoping to use to your advantage,” Abigail said as she arrived in the drawing room, pushing a cart that seemed to be heavy with treats.

 Useful Figure The litotes (“didn’t appreciate”) understates a point ironically. It has fallen out of favor in our hyperbolic times, but makes for a more sophisticated kind of speech.

In my two memos to Bojia I explained that there is no set formula for writing a column, no class you attend, and that everyone does it differently to some degree. But there were some general guidelines I could offer. When you are a reporter, your focus is on digging up facts to explain the visible and the complex and to unearth and expose the impenetrable and the hidden—wherever that takes you. You are there to inform, without fear or favor. Straight news often has enormous influence, but it’s always in direct proportion to how much it informs, exposes, and explains. Opinion writing is different. When you are a columnist, or a blogger in Bojia’s case, your purpose is to influence or provoke a reaction and not just to inform—to argue for a certain perspective so compellingly that you persuade your readers to think or feel differently or more strongly or afresh about an issue. That is why, I explained to Bojia, as a columnist, “I am either in the heating business or the lighting business.” Every column or blog has to either turn on a lightbulb in your reader’s head—illuminate an issue in a way that will inspire them to look at it anew—or stoke an emotion in your reader’s heart that prompts them to feel or act more intensely or differently about an issue. The ideal column does both. But how do you go about generating heat or light? Where do opinions come from? I am sure every opinion writer would offer a different answer. My short one is that a column idea can spring from anywhere: a newspaper headline that strikes you as odd, a simple gesture by a stranger, the moving speech of a leader, the naïve question of a child, the cruelty of a school shooter, the wrenching tale of a refugee.

Rawlins let loose a stemwinder of a speech that lasted forty-five minutes. His voice throbbing with emotion, he thundered, “I have been a Democrat all my life; but this is no longer a question of politics. It is simply country or no country. I have favored every honorable compromise; but the day for compromise is passed.

Republicans accept as a well-documented fact of life that an overwhelming majority of the media is slanted against them.4 They take critical media coverage for granted. The Obama administration does not. So much so that harsh criticism by a news outlet is viewed as intolerable dissent. Moreover, this broadside from the president of the United States was not buttressed by facts. Pew Research Center found that from September 8 through October 16 of the 2008 campaign—the heat of the election cycle—40 percent of Fox News stories on then-Senator Obama were negative as were 40 percent of the network’s stories on Senator John McCain, Obama’s Republican opponent. You can’t get more fair and balanced than that. If you wanted to see bias against a candidate, CNN and MSNBC were better examples. Pew found that 61 percent of CNN’s stories on John McCain were negative, compared to only 39 percent of their Obama stories. The disparity was even greater at MSNBC where a mere 14 percent of Obama stories were negative, compared to a whopping 73 percent of McCain stories (and only 10 percent of MSNBC’s coverage of McCain was rated as positive). Overall, according to an October 2007 study of media coverage of the 2008 presidential campaign by the Project for Excellence in Journalism (funded by Pew) in collaboration with Harvard’s Joan Shorenstein Center for Press, Politics and Public Policy, the press gave much more favorable coverage to Democratic candidates, noting, for example, that 46.7 percent of stories about Barack Obama had a positive tone, while only 12.4 percent of stories about John McCain did.5 Obama should have been counting his blessings, not complaining about the one news television outlet that wouldn’t fall in line. He had received, by some measures, the most laudatory press coverage of any senatorial or presidential candidate in recent history.6

The term used by linguists to describe what Klotz was engaging in in that moment is “mitigated speech,” which refers to any attempt to downplay or sugarcoat the meaning of what is being said. We mitigate when we’re being polite, or when we’re ashamed or embarrassed, or when we’re being deferential to authority. If you want your boss to do you a favor, you don’t say, “I’ll need this by

According to the Nobel Committee (the group of ultra-liberals in Norway who pick the prize winners), Obama was awarded the 2009 prize “for his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples.”8 Really? After less than a year in office? This was an award modeled after Seinfeld—it truly was about nothing, and meant nothing, at least in reality. Even the Obama administration had the good grace to be embarrassed by the award. Besides giving an abysmally naïve “speech to the Muslim world” in Cairo and talking about things like nuclear nonproliferation and climate change, the man had done squat in terms of forwarding world peace in the months he had been in office. He said so himself: “To be honest, I do not feel that I deserve to be in the company of so many of the transformative figures who’ve been honored by this prize.”9 Though the administration was not quite embarrassed enough to show the good grace of declining the honor in favor of someone who actually deserved it. But here’s why this award matters—because it fits so perfectly with Leftist philosophy. Obama was a global rock star who had replaced the “evil” George W. Bush. He was also the first African American to lead the United States. And the Nobel Committee wanted to do what felt good. They wanted in on the action. Essentially, this once-prestigious organization decided to act like squealing teenagers at a Beatles concert; they got caught up in “Obamamania” and just couldn’t help themselves. It felt good, so it felt right. So they did it. And then this Nobel Laureate went on to spend eight years undermining world peace by kneecapping the one thing that keeps a lid on this bubbling cauldron of a world: the U.S. military. He also invaded and destabilized Libya, broke his promises on Syria, has been downright dismissive to Israel, kowtowed to China, and let Russian President Vladimir Putin walk all over him (and therefore us). This man has done more to destabilize the world than perhaps any American President, ever. And guess what? Even the Nobel Committee who scrambled to award him the prize came to regret their decision! The Nobel Institute’s director at the time told the media in September 2015 that they “thought it would strengthen Obama and it didn’t have this effect,” and “even many of Obama’s supporters thought that the prize was a mistake.”10 Oops.

In a 1965 essay titled “Repressive Tolerance,” Marcuse argued that tolerance and free speech confer benefits on society only under special conditions that almost never exist: absolute equality. He believed that when power differentials between groups exist, tolerance only empowers the already powerful and makes it easier for them to dominate institutions like education, the media, and most channels of communication. Indiscriminate tolerance is “repressive,” he argued; it blocks the political agenda and suppresses the voices of the less powerful. If indiscriminate tolerance is unfair, then what is needed is a form of tolerance that discriminates. A truly “liberating tolerance,” claimed Marcuse, is one that favors the weak and restrains the strong. Who are the weak and the strong? For Marcuse, writing in 1965, the weak was the political left and the strong was the political right. Even though the Democrats controlled Washington at that time, Marcuse associated the right with the business community, the military, and other vested interests that he saw as wielding power, hoarding wealth, and working to block social change.52 The left referred to students, intellectuals, and minorities of all kinds. For Marcuse, there was no moral equivalence between the two sides. In his view, the right pushed for war; the left stood for peace; the right was the party of “hate,” the left the party of “humanity.”53

He treated other partners like errand boys as they rushed in and out to get his approval. Everybody called him the Old Man. He was a sphinx who kept his own counsel and never tipped his hand. During eighteen years in the House of Lords, he never delivered a speech. Once, on a deadlocked charity board, he was asked whether he favored a proposed measure. “No,” he said, then added, “Or have I said too much?”38 To be interviewed for a job by Bicester was to endure an array of skeptical snorts, grunts, and harrumphs.

That was . . . awkward.” Jaxon pointing out the obvious had me itching to punch him in the face. “Fuck off.” I wasn’t in the mood. “The speech was halfway decent, and the emotion was there, but . . .” “Are you still here?” My only hope was that he'd leave me alone if I was hostile enough. “You have this incredible woman—that it’s pretty clear you’re in love with—and on her birthday, you give her a chaste kiss on the cheek in front of all these people?” “If you have a point, I suggest you get there faster.” My free fist clenched by my side. “I’m not in your relationship, and even my head is swimming from the mixed signals you’re sending.” “Who made you head of the marriage police? Not everyone feels comfortable sucking face in public. Did you ever think of that?” He wasn’t buying it. “Sure. That’s why Amy looked like she wanted to cry.” “You’re not doing yourself any favors putting it off.

Consider our first encounter with Gatsby, that smile he flashes Nick Carraway, which, we are told, “seemed to face the whole eternal world for an instant, and then concentrated on you with an irresistible prejudice in your favor. It understood you just as far as you wanted to be understood, believed in you as you would like to believe in yourself, and assured you that it had precisely the impression of you that, at your best, you hoped to convey. Precisely at that point it vanished—and I was looking at an elegant young roughneck, a year or two over thirty, whose elaborate formality of speech just missed being absurd.” Nick’s sustained focus on a single smile allows us to glimpse the fraudulence and insecurity lurking beneath Gatsby’s magnetic charm. Fitzgerald knows his hero better than Gatsby knows himself and is able to convey his core identity with shocking efficiency.

We see this in the increasing fundamentalist spirit of tribes both on the extreme left and extreme right of politics. If you’re familiar with the horseshoe theory, you know what I’m talking about. It basically goes like this: the further to the extreme left or right one’s views go, the closer they get to the extreme of the other side. Which is why we now face the increase of angry authoritarianism threatening us from opposite sides of the political aisle. Extreme leftists and rightists both want to ban books and qualify free speech. Both want to curtail (different aspects of) religious liberty. Both are in favor of (different kinds of) authoritarian government. And both have given rise to instances of political violence.

We are told that Octavian delivered a speech in Greek, almost certainly written with Arius’s help, announcing that he would spare the city, for a few reasons. The first, he said, was because Alexandria was great and beautiful. The second, because it had been founded and named after such a great man. “And thirdly,” Octavian said with a smile, and motioning to Arius, “as a favor to my friend here.

Favoring speech as the primary pathway to intimacy reinforces the notion that women’s sexual desire is legitimate only when it is embedded in relatedness—only through love can female carnality be redeemed.

Here is a parallel to the Left’s anti-Trump psychosis: In the 1930s, Churchill was out of power, out of office, demeaned as a warmonger, a fool, an unstable has-been, a lunatic, and so on. The interwar British press and the oligarchy were largely in favor of appeasement, and their influence spread to a populace legitimately unwilling to engage in another war. The British air force was flying World War I planes, the army was minuscule, and many members of the nobility (and monarchy) were actively pro-Fascist. Hitler saw that Churchill was unafraid, and it was he to whom the Brits in extremity would have to appeal. And Hitler was afraid of Churchill, because Churchill was unfazed by rhetoric, or chicanery, or threats. We cannot hate something unless we fear it. The Left’s loathing of President Trump was, finally, terror of one who was not afraid of them. * Predecessors include the Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 and Wilson’s Alien Enemy Proclamations of World War I, the public support of the latter demonstrated not only through applauding the deportation of German American citizens but through the shooting of dachshunds.

The root of the disinformation problem, of course, lay in the technology. Facebook was designed to throw gas on the fire of any speech that invoked an emotion, even if it was hateful speech—its algorithms favored sensationalism. Whether a user clicked on a link because they were curious, horrified, or engaged was immaterial; the system saw that the post was being widely read, and it promoted it more widely across users’ Facebook pages. The situation in Myanmar was a deadly experiment in what could happen when the internet landed in a country where a social network became the primary, and most widely trusted, source of news.

The September 11, 2001, terror attacks on New York and Washington turbocharged Israel’s defense sector and internationalized the war on terror that the Jewish state had been fighting for decades. On the night of the attack, former Prime Minister Netanyahu was asked on American TV what the attacks had meant for relations between the two nations. “It’s very good,” he immediately said. He quickly corrected himself: “Well, not very good, but it will generate immediate sympathy.” He thought that the assault might “strengthen the bond between our two peoples, because we’ve experienced terror over so many decades, but the United States has now experienced a massive hemorrhaging of terror.”8 Seven years later, in April 2008, Netanyahu gave a speech at Israel’s Bar Ilan University and reiterated the same message. “We are benefiting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq,” he said. These events had “swung American public opinion in our favor.

One of the enduring myths about NSO, and many of its competitors, is that it’s a private company looking to make a profit with no formal ties to the Israeli state. It’s a message that’s constantly pushed by the Israeli government, and a lot of the Western media has gone along for the ride, unwilling or unable to investigate what a state-backed spyware outfit means for global relations, privacy, and free speech. It’s easy to condemn Chinese-or Russian-backed hackers, opponents of Western governments, but what if these corporations are supported and used by a Western-favored nation like Israel?

If the Sussexes had any residual misgivings about whether they wanted out, those doubts vanished when they viewed the Queen’s 2019 televised Christmas message. With their own eyes, they saw that they had been kicked to the margins of the monarchy. Her Majesty eloquently made the point in her speech by saying nothing. The subtext was all in the flotilla of carefully arranged family photographs positioned on her writing desk, a grouping that, in case anyone thinks is accidental, has been artfully changed every year since the monarch’s first televised seasonal message in 1957. The previous Christmas, a family portrait of Charles, Camilla, the five Cambridges, and Harry and Meghan was exhibited at Her Majesty’s elbow. But in December 2019, the Sussexes had evaporated, their image excised as skillfully as Stalin would have done to an apparatchik out of favor. According to author Christopher Andersen, the Queen told the director of the broadcast that all the displayed photographs were fine to remain in the shot except for one. Her Majesty pointed at a winsome portrait of Harry, Meghan, and baby Archie. “ That one,” said the Queen. “I suppose we don’t need that one.” And a happy Christmas to you too, Granny! William was said to have been appalled when he saw the Sussexes had been edited out. He knew his brother well enough to predict a Category 5 tantrum brewing.

Buber favored the genre of public speech because of its compatibility with the very essence of his philosophy, as this form of spoken communication provided him with the adequate means to demonstrate, indeed perform, the most fundamental principle of his philosophical thought: that human existence is inherently dialogical in nature. Privileging

In Xenophon's summary of the allegory [Prodicus' "Choice of Heracles'' ] the young Heracles has sat down at a crossroads, not knowing which path to follow through life. As he sits deliberating, two women appear to him. Their physical appearance is a study in contrasts, and they are clearly villainness and heroine. Evil (Kakia) is overfed, plump, rouged, and all powdered up. She wears revealing clothes and is vain, viewing herself in a mirror and turning around to see if she is being admired. Virtue (Arete), on the other hand, wears simple white; her only adornments are purity, modesty, and temperance. These apparitions proceed to give speeches in praise of the life that they can give Heracles. Evil speaks first-an ominous choice, since in such debates, the first speaker typically loses. She offers Heracles a life of free, effortless pleasure. There will be no delights that he will not taste, no difficulties that he will not avoid. He need never worry about wars and affairs. All he need trouble himself about will be what food or drink to take; what to look at, hear, smell or touch for his pleasure; what partner he might enjoy, how he might sleep softest, and how he can obtain all these with the least toil (aponOtata). If ever there are shortages, he will not suffer ponos or hardship either in body or soul. Rather "you will enjoy those things that others work to produce, and you will not hold back from profiting everywhere." Evil tells Heracles her name, but adds confidentially that to her friends she is known as Happiness (Eudaimonia). Very different is the tone and substance of Virtue's argument. For while Evil would have Heracles live for himself alone and treat others as means to his self-gratification, Virtue begins by saying that she knows Heracles' parents and nature: Heracles must live up to his Olympian heritage. Therefore she will not deceive him with "hymns to pleasure." Evil's enticements are in fact contrary to the divine ordering, "for the gods have given men nothing good without ponos and diligence." There follows a series of emphatic verbal nouns to hammer home this truth: if you want divine favor, you must worship the gods; if you want to be admired, you must do good works for your friends; if you want to be honored, you must benefit your city and Greece; if you want the earth to bear crops, you must cultivate the land. Flocks require tending, war demands practice. And if you want strength (Heracles' trademark), you must accustom your body to serve your will, and you must train "with ponoi and sweat:' At this point, Evil bursts in to deplore such a harsh lifestyle. She is immediately silenced, however, as Virtue argues that duality is essential to a sense of fulfillment and even to pleasure itself. For paradoxically, ponos (pain, struggle) makes pleasure pleasurable. Evil's vision of happiness is one of continual and languid orgy-food without hunger, drink without thirst, sex without desire, sleep without weariness. But as experience shows, continual partying soon loses its zest, even if one goes so far as to cool expensive drinks "with snow" in summertime. By contrast, Virtue's own followers have no real trouble in satisfying their desires. They do so not by committing violence against others or living off others' labor, but by simply "holding off until they actually do desire" food or drink. Hunger is the best sauce, and it is free. Furthermore, Virtue appeals to Heracles' native idealism. What hedonists have ever accomplished any "fine work" (ergon kalon)? None, for no beautiful or divine deed is ever done "without me [Virtue] ." Therefore, wherever there are energetic, effective people, Virtue is present: she is a helper to craftsmen, a guard of the household, a partner in peacetime ponoi, an ally for the works (erga) of war, the best support of friendship. To choose Evil would be shameful and not even extremely pleasurable, while with Virtue one will lead the most varied and honorable life.

This is essentially a people's contest. On the side of the Union it is a struggle for maintaining in the world that form and substance of government whose leading object is to elevate the condition of men; to lift artificial weights from all shoulders; to clear the paths of laudable pursuits for all; to afford all an unfettered start and a fair chance in the race of life. Yielding to partial and temporary departures, from necessity, this is the leading object of the Government for whose existence we contend. I am most happy to believe that the plain people understand and appreciate this. It is worthy of note that while, in this the Government's hour of trial, large numbers of those in the army and navy who have been favored with the offices have resigned and proved false to the hand which

So swearing, when used reciprocally and in good fun, might help to bond a team, but does swearing really help you get things done? In their paper “Indecent Influence,” Dr. Cory Scherer and Dr. Brad Sagarin from the Northern Illinois University decided to test the use of a single, mild swear word on the way in which a message is received.6 Scherer and Sagarin knew from previous research carried out in the 1990s that—at least when we hear a message we disagree with—we tend to react with disgust and reject both the messenger and the message. They wondered whether the same effect held true for a message that the audience was sympathetic to. They showed a video of a speech to eighty-eight of their undergraduate students individually. The speech was about lowering tuition fees at a neighboring university. What the students didn’t know was that each person saw one of three different versions of the speech at random. One version included a mild swear word (“Lowering of tuition is not only a great idea, but damn it, also the most reasonable one”), one opened with it (“Damn it, I think lowering tuition is a great idea”), and one had no swearing at all. The actor delivering the speech did his best to keep every other part of his delivery the same between speeches. The students who saw the video with the swearing at the beginning or in the middle rated the speaker as more intense, but no less credible, than the ones who saw the speech with no swearing. What’s more, the students who saw the videos with the swearing were significantly more in favor of lowering tuition fees after seeing the video than the students who didn’t hear the swear word.

Some conservative political strategists admitted that appealing to racial fears and antagonisms was central to this strategy, though it had to be done surreptitiously. H.R. Haldeman, one of Nixon's key advisers, recalls that Nixon himself deliverately pursued a Southern, racial strategy: 'He [President Nixon] emphasized that ou have to face the fact that the whole problem is really the blacks. The key is to devise a system that recognizes this while not appearing to.' Similarly, John Erlichman, special counsel to the president, explained the Nixon administration's campaign strategy of 1968 in this way: 'We'll go after the racists.' In Erlichman's view, 'that subliminal appeal to the anti-black voter was always present in Nixon's statements and speeches.' Republican strategist Kevin Phillips is often credited for offering the most influential argument in favor of a race-based strategy for Republican political dominance in the South. He argued in The Emerging Republican Majority, published in 1969, that Nixon's successful presidential election campaign could point the way toward long-term political realignment and the building of a new Republican majority, if Republicans continued to campaign primarily on the basis of racial issues, using coded antiblack rhetoric.

. Before he [Butler] left for Atlanta, he was approached by a representative of the bankers gold group system, and offered the sum of seven hundred and fifty dollars for each speech if he would insert some short reference in favor of continuing the bankers gold standard. This would have meant an additional ten thousand dollars to General Butler, but he told the representative of the gold group that even if he were offered a hundred thousand dollars to do this, his answer would be “no.

After breakfast, he asked if the children would do him a favor between one and two o’clock. He had to make a speech before the Shoreham Business Men’s Club, which he had joined only a few days before. Since Tinker had to make some deliveries at that time, would the children come down and help?

It has, however, been supposed, that the church membership of infants is supported in the following passage: ‘Suffer little children, and for bid them not, to come unto me; for of such is the kingdom of heaven’.150 In the Gospels of Mark and Luke, it follows, ‘Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein’.151 We cannot suppose, that our Lord used words, in such different senses, in the same speech, as would unavoidably mislead his hearers. In the latter passage, the kingdom of God denotes heaven, and to receive the kingdom, as a little child, is to receive it with the humility and docile disposition which characterize children. This passage explains the former. Of such, says Christ, is the kingdom of heaven. Does he mean, of such in age and size, of such in the moral temper of the heart, or of such in humility and docility of disposition? His subsequent remark determines in favor of the latter meaning. Nor is this a singular application of the phrase. On another occasion, he says ‘Except ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven’.152 He certainly does not mean, Except ye become as little children, in age and size, but in humility; for he immediately adds, ‘Whosoever, therefore, shall humble himself, as this little child,’ zampc.

[S]ome teachers are tempted to adapt to the increasing passive support for jihadi identity politics evident among pupils. This is especially true in parts of France. One French teacher recalled a student who had refused [to] keep the one minute's silence for Hebdo victims by saying, 'I'm not Charlie; I think the terrorists did the right thing'. The teacher's response was telling: 'Children have the right to say silly things, to even say offensive things'. That's true. This is a book defending that right. But arguing for free speech and political tolerance is not an excuse for this sort of cultural cringe in the face of abhorrent ideas. We need to confront pupils who say stupid things, yet too often these sorts of views are indulged: 'So you favor Caliphate and and think 9/11 is a Zionist plot? That's an interesting idea. Any other views?'.

The university was a Christian invention, but over the centuries and especially in the decades of the twentieth century in our own country, it was progressively secularized. The focus in today's academia is not knowledge or character-building or truth, it is "diversity" or "tolerance", but a very select kind, as most universities are resolutely opposed to true diversity of thought, given their speech codes and bans, and are interested in tolerance only insofar as it benefits favored groups. Preaching tolerance, while at the same time dismissing truth, has led the millennial generation to embrace a moral and intellectual nihilism. If there is no objective truth and only subjective opinion, inevitably one's opinion becomes the summum bonum or highest good and the idea that truth exists and finding it might involve study is lost.

Senator Douglas said during his debates with Old Abe that America “ …was built by White men, for the benefit of White men and to their posterity forever,” and that “… citizenship should only be conferred upon White people and to people of European descent, and not upon Negroes, Indians and other inferior races.” Lincoln said when he was accused of trying to bring about the equality of the White and Black races: I will say then that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of bringing about in any way the social and political equality of the white and black races—that I am not, nor ever have been, in favor of making voters or jurors of Negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry with white people; and I will say in addition to this that there is a physical difference between the white and black races which I believe will forever forbid the races living together on terms of social and political equality. And inasmuch as they cannot so live, while they do remain together there must be the position of superior and inferior, and I, as much as any other man, am in favor of having the superior position assigned to the white race (Speech at Charleston, Illinois, 1858).

Clearly, our immigration policies should be reexamined. A convincing case can be made on environmental grounds alone that a nation of 300,000,000 needs no more people, especially since it would enjoy natural growth if the borders were closed tomorrow. How can we possibly claim to be fighting environmental degradation or hope for energy independence when we import a million or more people every year? How can we claim to be fighting poverty, crime, school failure, or disease when we import people who are more likely than natives to be poor, criminals, school failures, and to suffer from strange diseases? Immigration is even harder to justify when many newcomers speak no English, maintain foreign loyalties, or practice disconcerting religions. It is profoundly unwise to add yet more disparate elements to a population already divided by diversity. [D]emographers and economists are making dire projections based on the lower likelihood of blacks and Hispanics to become productive workers. These people go on to insist that the solution is to improve education for blacks and Hispanics, but the United States has already made enormous efforts to that end. There is no reason to think some kind of breakthrough is imminent. Clearly, the solution to the problems posed by an increasing Hispanic population is to stop Hispanic immigration. However, [...], our policy-makers are too afraid of accusations of racism to draw such an obvious conclusion. Americans must open their eyes to the fact that a changing population could change everything in America. The United States could come to resemble the developing world rather than Europe—in some places it already does. One recent book on immigration to Europe sounded a similar alarm when the author asked: “Can you have the same Europe with different people?” His answer was a forthright “no.” It should be clear from the changes that have already taken place in the United States that we cannot have the same America with different people, either. Different populations build different societies. The principles of European and European-derived societies—freedom of speech, the rule of law, respect for women, representative government, low levels of corruption—do not easily take root elsewhere. They were born out of centuries of struggle, false starts, and setbacks, and cannot be taken for granted. A poorer, more desperate America, one riven with racial rivalries, one increasingly populated by people who come from non-Western traditions could turn its back on those principles. Many people assert that all people can understand and assimilate Western thinking—and yet cultures are very different. Can you, the reader, imagine emigrating to Cambodia or Saudi Arabia or Tanzania and assimilating perfectly? Probably not; yet everyone in the world is thought to be a potential American. Even if there is only a small chance that non-Western immigrants will establish alien and unsettling practices, why take this risk? Immigration to the United States, like immigration to any nation, is a favor granted by citizens to foreigners. It is not a right. Immigration advocates often point to the objections Anglo-Americans made to turn-of-the-century immigrants from Italy, Ireland, Hungary, and other “non-Nordic” countries. They point out that these immigrants assimilated, and insist that Mexicans and Haitians will do the same. Those advocates overlook the fundamental importance of race. They forget that the United States already had two ill assimilated racial groups long before the arrival of European ethnics—blacks and American Indians—and that those groups are still uncomfortably distinct elements in American society. Different European groups assimilated across ethnic lines after a few generations because they were of the same race. There are many societal fault lines in “diverse” societies—language, religion, ethnicity—but the fault line of race is deepest.

The fighting over, Lincoln resumed his place, and gave one of his shortest political speeches. Fellow Citizens, I presume22 you all know who I am. I am humble Abraham Lincoln. I have been solicited by my friends to become a candidate for the Legislature. My politics are short and sweet, like the old woman’s dance. I am in favor of a national bank. I am in favor of the internal improvement system and a high protection tariff. These are my sentiments and political principles. If elected I shall be thankful; if not it will be all the same.

lamented how Lyndon had erased his own legacy as well as Dick’s when he canceled that book of the messages and speeches of the Great Society. “You’ve returned the favor with a vengeance!” Dick listened thoughtfully. “I was in the midst of a political battle,” he said, “and as we’ve well established, I had politics in the blood.

The best of news may sometimes cause the greatest perturbation of mind and heart. If you feel troubled when you receive a message from God do not be astonished, as though some strange thing had happened unto you. See how Mary, who was told that she was to receive the greatest honour and favor possible to a mortal being, was troubled by the angel’s speech, perplexed by his extraordinary salutation.

This was what Ronald Inglehart called a “postmaterialist generation,” preoccupied with personal self-realization rather than material possessions or safety. In 1970, Inglehart surveyed people across six Western countries. Among those who had grown up during World War II, materialist values outranked postmaterialist by as much as three to one. But “postmaterialism” dominated the cohort of people between the ages of fifteen and twenty-four, who had been born after the war. Which category one belonged to was an extremely accurate predictor of how one felt about the student movement. Out of those who favored “materialist” values like order and price stability, only 16 percent supported student protests. Of those who prioritized “postmaterialist” values such as political participation and freedom of speech, 71 percent did.

Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought. For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear.

Having been chosen, however, to extol these men in a speech, unless I have the sympathy of my hearers, I fear that because of my eagerness I may effect the very opposite of what I ought. For wealth and speed of foot and strength of body and all other such things have their rewards self-assured to their possessors, and in those fields they win who have the luck, even if not one of the others wishes their success. On the other hand, the persuasiveness of words depends upon the goodwill of the hearers, and with the help of this, even if the eloquence be moderate, it reaps glory and gains favor, but lacking this help, even if it be surpassingly good, it is thwarted by those who hear. (Funeral Speech section 13-14)