Tag Archives: Quotation

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Video of Allen West’s keynote speech at CPAC

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Here’s the video for Allen West, who gave the concluding speech.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Here’s an article about Allen West’s 2011 CPAC speech.

Excerpt:

First pillar: Effective and efficient conservative government.

  • He quoted Thomas Jefferson: “Most bad government results from too much government”), which is why next week Congress will cut 100 billion dollars of spending off of the federal budget.
  • Making people more dependent on the government has to end, so hard decisions must be made. “We cannot continue on with the policies of behavior modification through excessive taxation and over burdensome regulation…and that’s why we’re going to be cutting from the EPA.” (wild cheering)
  • If health care is so great, then someone explain to me why over 200 Democrat political groups are going to the President and asking for waivers.” Here was a great quote: “I say this to the President: The good things in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: closing the doughnut hole, making sure that we take care of people with the preexisting conditions, keeping our young kids on our insurance, I can probably fit that in five to ten pages. It’s the other two thousand four hundred ninety pages with eleven new taxes, a hundred fifty nine new government agencies and beauracracies, and sixteen thousand new IRS agents, that the United States of America does not want!” (standing ovation)
  • He mentioned the financial meltdown in 2008 and blamed it (rightfully so) on government interference with the private sector.
  • He talked about reforming the individual tax code, cutting the corporate business tax rate from 35% down to 20%, eliminating capital gains taxes and dividends taxes, capping federal spending at 18-20%, developing a balanced budget amendment, and eliminating “redundant, failed, and duplicitious federal government programs and agencies.”

Second pillar: Peace through vigilance, through resolve, through strength.

  • He mentioned the famous Edmund Burke quote, one of my personal favorites: “All that is required for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.”
  • He quoted Sun Tzu: “To know your enemy, and to know yourself, and to know the terrain or the environment, in countless battles, you will always be victorious.”
  • And then he made the most important statement of the night: “Peace begins with courageous leaders who are willing to identify and define our enemy, and their objectives, because political correctness has no place in our national security strategy.” (the crowd screamed and another standing ovation ensued)
  • He said he was appalled that the Fort Hood shooting was treated like workplace violence.
  • He said “A new America, a secure America, means that we can ill afford to have a twenty-first century Sir Neville Chamberlain moment.”
  • He said “And yes, yes I do have a problem with granting American Constitutional rights to terrorists while we attempt to and have imprisoned our own warriors for killing terrorists.” (another standing ovation – there were so many during this speech)
  • Here’s another money quote: “The dawn of a new America means this: Secure our borders and enforce our laws. Recognize the emerging threats on the Korean peninsula. Recognize the threats that are coming out of South and Central America. And confront the radical Islamic non-state, non-uniformed belligerents who transit freely across borders, killing and promoting a seventh century ideology that is anathema to the values of America and to Western civilization.”
  • He said that we must never forget that Israel is our greatest ally in the Middle East, and vowed that “I shall never let Israel down.”

Third and most important pillar: Never abandon our values.

  • “We must honor our language and realize that it is the most important, most basic and common bond which makes us an American.”
  • He said we shouldn’t allow multiculturalism to “grow on steroids” and make American culture subservient.
  • He said he doesn’t support late term abortion or abortion as birth control because he doesn’t believe that having a baby is punishment (reference to an Obamateurism).
  • He said “We must hold sacred the privilege of the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman.”
  • He said we had to reclaim our “Judeo-Christian faith heritage.” He quoted John Adams: “We have no government armed with power, capable of contending with human passions, unbridled by morality and religion. Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”
  • He said “This is not about a separation of church and state. It is about making sure that we do not separate faith from the individual. You must never forget that the American motto is In God We Trust.” (standing ovation)
  • His next statement almost got a standing ovation from me: “We welcome the beliefs of others in America, but our coexistence must be based on a simple premise: when tolerance becomes a one-way street, it leads to cultural suicide. And American cultural values shall never be subjugated to any other as long as I have air in my lungs.”

His closing thoughts started with a quote from George Washington: “We are either a united people or we are not. If the former, let us in all matters of general concern act as a nation which has national objects to promote and a national character to support. If we are not, let us no longer act a farce by pretending to it.” He quoted Abraham Lincoln: “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” He discussed how he grew up in the Atlanta area and went into the military, and then ran for political office as a public service to all Americans. He said “This is what Abraham Lincoln said. ‘Be sure you put your feet in the right place. Then stand firm.’ So as you depart here today from this great hall, from this great gathering of conservatives, this is the commission that I send you out with: Stand firm, for this is the dawn of a new America. God bless you all, God bless America, steadfast and loyal. Thank you.”

And here’s Herman Cain’s speech:

Cain is probably running in 2012 and West will go in 2016 or 2020.

Humor

Friday night funny: Obama’s magic speeches and wise Latina writings

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Scrappleface reports that Obama’s Cairo speech has worked!

“I suppose I’ve been a bit unreasonable, testy, even dictatorial at times,” said the contrite Iranian leader. “After that speech, I feel like my eyes have been opened. How could I have missed all of the common ground we share with America and Israel. I’m going to have Barack over to the house, and let him know that Iran’s nuclear ambitions can take a back seat to our desire for true brotherhood and unity. And boy, do I ever owe those Jews a big apology?”

According to Press Secretary Gibbs, Obama plans a similar speech… for atheists:

“Most peace-loving atheists want nothing more than to be left alone to pursue sensory stimulus, pass along their DNA, and then to allow their carbon molecules to reunite with the soil,” said Gibbs, “but instead they bear the reproach of those who blame them for the actions of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot and George Soros.

…Like most Americans, atheists want safety for their offspring, those charming little vessels of genetic code,” said Gibbs. “They want the right to elect representatives who will make laws guaranteeing survival of the fittest. They want freedom to speak whatever ideas the electro-chemical reactions in their brains happen to produce….”

Steven Crowder meets Alfonzo Rachel, and they explain what Republicans are really like. (H/T 4Simpsons, Hot Air)

Oh, I know I’m just like those two! Well, I look more like Zo than Crowder.

Here are some of Ronald Reagan’s best lines: (H/T Club For Growth)

Barney Frank’s fascist tendencies are showing: (H/T Michelle Malkin)

You can also read some of the wise Latina’s writings. (H/T Muddling Towards Maturity)

LifeNews reports on her interview with Senator Demint:

“When I asked if an unborn child has any rights whatsoever, I was surprised that she said she had never thought about it,” he said. “This is not just a question about abortion, but about respect due to human life at all stages — and I hope this is cleared up in her hearings.”

Happy Friday!

News

Everything you need to know about the SCOTUS pick

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If you haven’t already bookmarked Verum Serum, now is the time to do it.

Verum Serum’s May 3rd post discussed Obama’s SCOTUS pick, Sonia Sotomayor.

The post features this video of the nominee from a Duke University panel in 2005.

Quote from the video: (H/T Heritage Foundation via Commenter ECM)

“All of the legal defense funds out there, they’re looking for people with Court of Appeals experience. Because it is — Court of Appeals is where policy is made. And I know, and I know, that this is on tape, and I should never say that. Because we don’t ‘make law,’ I know. [Laughter from audience] Okay, I know. I know. I’m not promoting it, and I’m not advocating it. I’m, you know. [More laughter] Having said that, the Court of Appeals is where, before the Supreme Court makes the final decision, the law is percolating. Its interpretation, its application.

Verum Serum’s May 5th post has some quotes from a speech she gave at UC Berkeley, at a conference sponsored by the Berkeley La Raza Law Journal.

Here’s one of the quotes from Verum Serum:

Whether born from experience or inherent physiological or cultural differences, a possibility I abhor less or discount less than my colleague Judge Cedarbaum, our gender and national origins may and will make a difference in our judging. Justice O’Connor has often been cited as saying that a wise old man and wise old woman will reach the same conclusion in deciding cases…I am also not so sure that I agree with the statement. First, as Professor [Martha] Minnow has noted, there can never be a universal definition of wise. Second, I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experience would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life. (emphasis added)

Nice Deb comments: “Imagine the hue and cry if a white male had said that about a Hispanic female.”

And one more from Verum Serum:

I willingly accept that we who judge must not deny the differences resulting from experience and heritage but attempt, as the Supreme Court suggests, continuously to judge when those opinions, sympathies, and prejudices are appropriate.

There is always a danger embedded in relative morality, but since judging is a series of choices that we must make, that I am forced to make, I hope I can make them by informing myself on the questions I must not avoid asking and continuously pondering. We…must continue individually and in voices united in organizations that have supported this conference, to think about these questions and to figure out how we go about creating the opportunity for there to be more women and people of color on the bench so we can finally have statistically significant numbers to measure the differences we will and are making.

You need to click through and read the rest of the quotes. Heritage Foundation has more quotes from the same speech, and some other quotes from her published papers.

Here’s one of the additional quotes from her published work:

The constant development of unprecedented problems requires a legal system capable of fluidity and pliancy. Our society would be strait-jacketed were not the courts, with the able assistance of the lawyers, constantly overhauling the law and adapting it to the realities of ever-changing social, industrial and political conditions; although changes cannot be made lightly, yet law must be more or less impermanent, experimental and therefore not nicely calculable. Much of the uncertainty of law is not an unfortunate accident: it is of immense social value.

The Heritage Foundation has more here, on their rapid response page.

And what about her judicial temperament, which is of critical importance?

John Lott has this quote on his blog from the Almanac of the Federal Judiciary:

Sotomayor can be tough on lawyers, according to those interviewed. “She is a terror on the bench.” “She is very outspoken.” “She can be difficult.” “She is temperamental and excitable. She seems angry.” “She is overly aggressive–not very judicial. She does not have a very good temperament.” “She abuses lawyers.” “She really lacks judicial temperament. She behaves in an out of control manner. She makes inappropriate outbursts.” “She is nasty to lawyers. She doesn’t understand their role in the system–as adversaries who have to argue one side or the other. She will attack lawyers for making an argument she does not like.”

And how smart is she?

Here’s Eric Posner writing on the Volokh Conspiracy blog:

The most complete effort so far to evaluate federal appellate judges is this paper by Stephen Choi and Mitu Gulati. Choi and Gulati use data from Lexis to measure three aspects of the judge’s performance—productivity, opinion quality, and independence.

…To determine how Sotomayor would do in the ranking, I had some research assistants collect her data for the years 1999-2001. To address the “freshman effect” (the possibility that her statistics are worse for her earliest years because of inexperience), we also looked at her data from 2006.

…Productivity. Judges write opinions, which provide guidance to lawyers and the public. All else equal, a judge who writes more opinions is more productive, and provides a greater social benefit. Over the three year period from 1998 to 2000, the most productive judge published 269 opinions, the least productive judge published 38 opinions, and the mean was 98.1. For the comparable period from 1999-2001, Judge Sotomayor published 73 opinions. She would have ranked 68th out of 98.

Quality (1). Choi and Gulati measure quality by counting citations to a judge’s top twenty opinions… The range is 96 to 734, with a mean of 277.9. Judge Sotomayor’s statistic is 231, which would place her 59th.

Quality (2). Judge Sotomayor’s opinions from 1999-2001 were cited 289 times in law reviews and other legal periodicals through May 31, 2004… Sotomayor would have ranked 65th.

Quality (3). Choi and Gulati also check what they call “invocations”—the frequency with which opinions written by other judges refer to the judge in question by name… Invocations range from 0 to 175 (excluding two outliers, the highest is 23), with a mean of 32. Judge Sotomayor was invoked 0 times (tied for last).

Independence. Judges should decide cases in a non-partisan way… A score of 0 means that a judge is just as likely to disagree as agree with a co-partisan (or opposite-partisan). Negative scores mean that a judge is more likely to agree with co-partisans. Judge Sotomayor’s score is -0.153 …which would have placed her 55th.

And how liberal is she?

Wendy Long at Bench Memos has that angle covered.

Judge Sotomayor is a liberal judicial activist of the first order who thinks her own personal political agenda is more important that the law as written. She thinks that judges should dictate policy, and that one’s sex, race, and ethnicity ought to affect the decisions one renders from the bench.

She reads racial preferences and quotas into the Constitution, even to the point of dishonoring those who preserve our public safety. On September 11, America saw firsthand the vital role of America’s firefighters in protecting our citizens. They put their lives on the line for her and the other citizens of New York and the nation. But Judge Sotomayor would sacrifice their claims to fair treatment in employment promotions to racial preferences and quotas. The Supreme Court is now reviewing that decision.

She has an extremely high rate of her decisions being reversed, indicating that she is far more of a liberal activist than even the current liberal activist Supreme Court.

Isn’t there are word to describe a person that discriminates against people based on their race?

Verum Serum has a video of the White House and left-wing media responses to these shocking challenges to the pick. Charles Shumer warns the GOP not to oppose her in this video at Hot Air. Michelle Malkin and Gateway Pundit go over her liberal credentials in detail.