Quotes / Oppressive States of America

America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.

— Abraham Lincoln

Our progress in degeneracy appears to me to be pretty rapid. As a nation, we began by declaring that 'all men are created equal'. We now practically read it 'all men are created equal, except negroes'. When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read 'all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics'. When it comes to this, I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.

— Abraham Lincoln

No people ever recognize their dictator in advance. He never stands for election on the platform of dictatorship. He always represents himself as the instrument of the incorporated national will. When Americans think of dictators they always think of some foreign model. If anyone turned up here in a fur hat, boots, and a grim look he would be recognized and shunned. Likewise anyone resembling six Roman Emperors, or someone you must greet with a stiff arm and a 'Heil!'. But when our dictator turns up you can depend on it that he will be one of the boys, and he will stand for everything traditionally American.
Since the great American tradition is freedom and democracy, you can bet that our dictator, God help us! will be a great democrat, through whose leadership alone democracy can be realized. And nobody will ever say 'Heil' to him or 'Ave Caesar,' nor will they call him 'Führer' or 'Duce.' But they will greet him with one great big, universal, democratic, sheeplike bleat of, 'O.K., Chief! Fix it like you wanna, Chief! Oh Kaaaay!'

— Dorothy Thompson

If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States.

— Henry A. Wallace

"A place where Jenny McCarthy has a role in the debate over childhood vaccinations. A country where you can walk into any IHOP and see black women fighting, and where Ubu is considered a good dog even though he never sat.
We're the proud nation where someone can shoot up their entire workplace with a thing, and then the next day, nobody talks about banning that thing. It's the land that lets people on Twitter spell the word 'their' any way they want.
And where, if you think you can dance, that assertion will be challenged and evaluated.
For we are America."

— Peter Griffin, Family Guy

"My name is Frank. That's not important. The important question is: who are you? America has become a cruel and vicious place. We reward the shallowest, the dumbest, the meanest and the loudest. We no longer have any common sense of decency. No sense of shame. There is no right and wrong. The worst qualities in people are looked up to and celebrated. Lying and spreading fear is fine as long as you make money doing it. We've become a nation of slogan-saying, bile-spewing hatemongers. We've lost our kindness. We've lost our soul. What have we become? We take the weakest in our society, we hold them up to be ridiculed, laughed at for our sport and entertainment. Laughed at to the point where they would literally rather kill themselves than live with us anymore."

— Frank Murdoch, God Bless America

The Carolina ratification convention impeachment criteria: those are impeachable 'who behave amiss or betray their public trust'. Beginning shortly after the Watergate break-in and continuing to the present time, the President has engaged in a series of public statements and actions designed to thwart the lawful investigation by government prosecutors. Moreover, the President has made public announcements and assertions bearing on the Watergate case, which the evidence will show he knew to be false. These assertions, false assertions, impeachable, those who misbehave. Those who 'behave amiss or betray the public trust'.
James Madison again at the Constitutional Convention: 'A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.' The Constitution charges the President with the task of taking care that the laws be faithfully executed, and yet the President has counseled his aides to commit perjury, willfully disregard the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, conceal surreptitious entry, attempt to compromise a federal judge, while publicly displaying his cooperation with the processes of criminal justice. 'A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution.'
If the impeachment provision in the Constitution of the United States will not reach the offenses charged here, then perhaps that 18th-century Constitution should be abandoned to a 20th-century paper shredder!

— Barbara Jordan

The history of other cultures is non-existent until it erupts in confrontation with the United States.

— Edward Said

"George W. Bush has won his fourth consecutive term as president, taking Florida, which due to a glitch in the Jeb B. voting terminals, tallied one single vote for President Bush and Vice President Schwarzenegger. Bush's presidency was unanimously declared legally binding by the Supreme Court as well as 'totally cool' by Supreme Justice Jenna Bush, who subsequently set in motion another Supreme Kegger. Following the landslide victory, a constitutional amendment banning public nudity was implemented. Shortly thereafter, President Bush dissolved Congress, claiming it was 'cramping his style'. American troops continue to be strung thin due to the still raging wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Lebanon, Libya, Pakistan, Venezuela, France, Canada, and Alaska."

— Newscaster, Zombie Strippers!

"Tell me, do you really think you go to hell for having loved?
Tell me, enough of thinking everything that you've done is good
I really need to know
After soaking the body of Jesus Christ in blood
I'm so tired of America"

—Rufus Wainwright, "Going to a Town"

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