Sublime
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American revolutionary and president John Adams said, “I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. My sons ought to study mathematics and philosophy, geography, natural history, naval architecture, navigation, commerce, and agriculture, in order to give their children a right to study painting,
... See moreJason Brennan • Against Democracy: New Preface
Until that week at the Greenbrier, Brown had thought he had measured Johnson’s political ambition—had measured it easily, he thought, for Johnson talked so incessantly about what he wanted out of politics. He was always saying that he wanted to stay in Congress until a Senate seat opened up, and then run for the Senate. Well, his congressional
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Path to Power: The Years of Lyndon Johnson I
“To recap, neoliberalism's network of influence operates as follows:
• “Oligarchs and corporations often covertly (i.e. 'using dark money') fund think tanks and academic departments.
• “These institutions, in turn, make the unreasonable demands of the oligarchs and corporations sound reasonable and normal.
• “The press - also largely controlled by
Washington looked favorably upon William Gordon’s history, as long as Congress first gave him license to open up his papers. A dissenting minister from Roxbury, Massachusetts, Dr. Gordon had been a staunch supporter of the independence movement. When Congress gave Washington its approval to unseal his papers, the indefatigable Gordon spent more
... See moreRon Chernow • Washington
To whatever extent Johnson in 1957 was already planning, at least in outline, the things he would do if he ever became President, he was planning to betray, and to betray on a very large scale, the men, some of them very clever men, who were, for years, not only his most loyal but his most important supporters. “Civil rights didn’t get accomplished
... See moreRobert A. Caro • Master of the Senate: The Years of Lyndon Johnson III
To follow Moses’ suggestions, the United States would have had to close almost completely the higher ranks of government service not only to all men without a college degree but to all men without a degree from an Ivy League college. In fact, by logical extension of Moses’ philosophy, graduates of Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Dartmouth and Penn would
... See moreRobert A. Caro • The Power Broker
Ava Kofman • Curtis Yarvin’s Plot Against America
The three legs of the progressive stool are the universities, the media, and the government. For the New Right, the universities are the source of the other two.
Michael Malice • The New Right: A Journey to the Fringe of American Politics
The penalty for excessive ambition – what the Greeks called hubris – is exhaustion, while the price for resting on one’s laurels is progressive insignificance and eventual decay.