Great Quotes II: Source and Context are Key

[Terxpahseyton]

"For the important things in life I never have explanations. I have assumptions, perhaps even presumptions."
- Jean-Claude-Juncker

 

[ParkCungHee]

It's George Orwell, producer of the IRD List; you don't have to guess.

I take it you wish the people on the IRD list had produced Anti-Soviet Propoganda for the British Empire?

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I take it you wish the people on the IRD list had produced Anti-Soviet Propoganda for the British Empire?

It's rather the suggestion that such people are not politically reliable which, to an American, sounds about the same as UnAmerican, and thus suspect. They may be a traitor, aiding the Soviets as part of the grand world communist scheme as orchestrated from Moscow.

Or so they thought in the era when Orwell made this list.

 

[Traitorfish]

I've got to be honest, if somebody who regarded me as politically suspect was weighing up the balance between taddling on me to a potential employer, and torturing me and all of my friends to death, I'd probably be rooting for option one.

 

[Flying Pig]

It's rather the suggestion that such people are not politically reliable which, to an American, sounds about the same as UnAmerican, and thus suspect. They may be a traitor, aiding the Soviets as part of the grand world communist scheme as orchestrated from Moscow.

Or so they thought in the era when Orwell made this list.

I think you're projecting your American experience onto British history - I've explained elsewhere that there was no Red Scare in the UK, that several people in high and respected were quite openly communists, and the only person on the IRD list whose career suffered for it did so because he went to live in the US.

 

[Cheezy the Wiz]

I've got to be honest, if somebody who regarded me as politically suspect was weighing up the balance between taddling on me to a potential employer, and torturing me and all of my friends to death, I'd probably be rooting for option one.

Yes I agree.

I think you're projecting your American experience onto British history - I've explained elsewhere that there was no Red Scare in the UK, that several people in high and respected were quite openly communists, and the only person on the IRD list whose career suffered for it did so because he went to live in the US.

I understand that now. But he asked why I said that when I did, and such was part of my thinking at the time.

 

[Traitorfish]

“The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures, men, and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to you, their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword; and so you justify the wicked deeds of your fathers, and that sin of your fathers shall be visited upon the head of you and your children to the third and fourth generation, and longer too, till your bloody and thieving power be rooted out of the land.”

- Gerrard Winstanley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England

 

[Borachio]

“We'll be Friends Forever, won't we, Pooh?" asked Piglet.
"Even longer," Pooh answered.

 

[Mechanicalsalvation]

Christ came into the world to purify, not to fulfil. He himself foreknew the failure of his mission and the necessity of his return with the sword of God into a world that had rejected him.

Mahomed's mission was necessary, else we might have ended by thinking, in the exaggeration of our efforts at selfpurification, that earth was meant only for the monk and the city created as a vestibule for the desert.

When all is said, Love&Force together can save the world eventually, but not Love only or Force only. Therefore Christ had to look forward to a second advent and Mahomed's religion, where it is not stagnant, looks forward through the Imams to a Mahdi.

Sri Aurobindo

 

[cardgame]

“The power of enclosing land and owning property was brought into the creation by your ancestors by the sword; which first did murder their fellow creatures, men, and after plunder or steal away their land, and left this land successively to you, their children. And therefore, though you did not kill or thieve, yet you hold that cursed thing in your hand by the power of the sword; and so you justify the wicked deeds of your fathers, and that sin of your fathers shall be visited upon the head of you and your children to the third and fourth generation, and longer too, till your bloody and thieving power be rooted out of the land.”

- Gerrard Winstanley, A Declaration from the Poor Oppressed People of England

Sounds like Rousseau

 

[Borachio]

“People say nothing is impossible, but I do nothing every day.”

Pooh.

 

[Traitorfish]

"If you think you're free, try going somewhere without ****ing money."

- Bill Hicks



Which is, basically, a tl;dr of the Winstanley thing.

 

[Borachio]

Hmm. I'm not so sure about the Winstanley thing. According to Steve Jones (Emeritus professor of genetics of somewhere or other), one of whose books I have been reading recently, every person of English descent now living is descended from a single individual from the C14th.

Which kind of makes a mockery of this idea of land theft. Somehow. I'm thinking.

 

[Arakhor]

According to the historian Dr. Ian Mortimer, as a very conservative estimate, less than 1% of children of English descent born in the UK since 1995 are not descended from King Edward III (who ruled from 1327 - 1377).

 

[Gucumatz]

"Its true hard work never killed anybody, but I figure, why take the chance?"

- Reagan, not only a poor president but a lazy one at that

 

[cardgame]

What we gain too cheaply, we esteem too lightly; it is dearness alone that gives a thing its value.

- Thomas Paine

 

[Borachio]

I disagree: I think cemeteries, and charnel houses, etc, are full of people killed by hard work.

I'm definitely taking no chances.

 

[Arakhor]

"Violent zeal for truth hath an hundred to one odds to be either petulancy, ambition, or pride."

~ Jonathan Swift, Irish writer & satirist (1667—1745)

 

[Traitorfish]

"For what suffer our patriots today?
They have a language problem, so they say,
How to write "No Trespass" must grieve their heart full sore."

Luke Kelly, "For What Died the Sons of Róisín"

 

[Borachio]

"If you think you're free, try going somewhere without ****ing money."

- Bill Hicks

I've got to ask: freedom means what exactly? Or is it only defined in relation to something else as in freedom from something?

I've often wondered about freedom especially in relation to wealth.

Is the Queen of England free? She certainly never carries money, yet she has access to the effects of vast quantities of the stuff. But is she free? She can't, for example, wander down to the pub and buy a beer whenever she feels like. Which to my mind is the very definition of not being free.

Am I free as a bird? I suspect I'm not at all. Flap my arms as I might I can't seem to take off reliably.

Or shall we go all Orwellian and declare that slavery is freedom?