It Is So Much Easier To Talk

True Opinions Can Prevail Only If The Facts To Which They Refer Are Known; If They Are Not Known, False Ideas Are Just As Effective As True Ones, If Not A Little More Effective.

The Systems Of Stereotypes May Be The Core Of Our Personal Tradition, The Defenses Of Our Position In Society. They Are An Ordered More Or Less Consistent Picture Of The World, To Which Our Habits, Our Tastes, Our Capacities, Our Comforts And Our Hopes Have Adjusted Themselves. They May Not Be A Complete Picture Of The World, But They Are A Picture Of A Possible World To Which We Are Adapted. In That World, People And Things Have Their Well-known Places, And Do Certain Expected Things. We Feel At Home There. We Fit In. We Are Members.

Successful Democratic Politicians Are Insecure And Intimidated Men. They Advance Politically Only As They Placate, Appease, Bribe, Seduce, Bamboozle, Or Otherwise Manage To Manipulate The Demanding And Threatening Elements In Their Constituencies. The Decisive Consideration Is Not Whether The Proposition Is Good But Whether It Is Popular -- Not Whether It Will Work Well And Prove Itself But Whether The Active Talking Constituents Like It Immediately. Politicians Rationalize This Servitude By Saying That In A Democracy Public Men Are The Servants Of The People.

Liberty Without Discipline Cannot Survive. Without Order And Authority In The Spirit Of Man The Free Way Of Life Leads Through Weakness, Disorganization, Self-indulgence, And Moral Indifference To The Destruction Of Freedom Itself. The Tragic Ordeal Through Which The Western World Is Passing Was Prepared In The Long Period Of Easy Liberty During Which Men Forgot The Elementary Truths Of Human Existence. They Forgot That Their Freedom Was Achieved By Heroic Sacrifice.

The First Principle Of A Civilized State Is That Power Is Legitimate Only When It Is Under Contract.