Jacob Weisberg quotes - page 2

I think part of the reason anyone goes into journalism is to get a response to what they write. (Jacob Weisberg)
In practice, conservatives are no less inclined than liberals to adopt superior stances or to tell people how to live their lives. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
As with the government failures that made 9/11 possible, neglecting to prevent the crash of '08 was a sin of omission - less the result of deregulation per se than of disbelief in financial regulation as a legitimate mechanism. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
All kinds of gambling, from bingo to baccarat, are benign entertainment for most people, dangerously addictive to a few, and capable of breeding unwanted side effects for society. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Founded in rebellion against colonial tyranny, our country is naturally suspicious of government intrusion, interference, and snooping. European systems, by comparison, grow out of a tradition of the state providing social benefits for workers that stretches back to Bismarck and Germany in the 1880s. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Northeastern conservatism is moderate, accepts the modern welfare state, and dislikes mixing religion with politics. Western conservatism is hawkish, hates government, and embraces individual freedom. Southern conservatism is populist, draws on evangelical Christianity, and plays upon racial resentments. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
The worst thing you can say about libertarians is that they are intellectually immature, frozen in the worldview many of them absorbed from reading Ayn Rand novels in high school. Like other ideologues, libertarians react to the world's failing to conform to their model by asking where the world went wrong. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
The best thing you can say about libertarians is that because their views derive from abstract theory, they tend to be highly principled and rigorous in their logic. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
If there's one epithet the Right never tires of, it's 'elitism.' View quote
Jacob Weisberg
In authoritarian societies, cultural institutions tend to become ideological proxies - think of the National Ballet in Cuba or the East German gymnastics team. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
America's sanctions policy is largely consistent and, in a certain sense, admirable. By applying economic restraints, we label the most oppressive and dangerous governments in the world pariahs. We wash our hands of evil, declining to help despots finance their depredations, even at a cost to ourselves of some economic growth. (Jacob Weisberg)
Academic Marxists were never going to be convinced that anything that happened in the real world could invalidate their belief system. Utopians of the Right, libertarians are just as convinced that their ideas have yet to be tried and that they would work beautifully if we could only just have a do-over of human history. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Like other forms of gambling, wagering on the Internet isn't illegal because it's bad. It's bad because we've chosen to make it illegal. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
To Trump, being a billionaire means plating everything in gold and slapping his name everywhere in huge block letters. It means that he gets to say whatever pops into his head and never has to say he is sorry. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Paternalism is the method of government activism most amenable to an impoverished public sector. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Middle-class Americans really don't want to hear about sacrifices or trade-offs - except as flattering descriptions about how ready we, as a people, are, or used to be, to accept them. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Politicians try to make friends, build constituencies, and avoid gaffes. Trump does the opposite, seeking out land mines in order to detonate them. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Sexual signals can be received without being consciously sent. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Where Reagan channeled disenchantment with overweening government, Obama symbolized America's transformation into a multiracial country. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Most people prefer living in a healthier town. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Whether couched in terms of envy, admiration, or derision, celebrity fascination begins as an exercise in imagining what it would be like to lead a more carefree and pleasurable life. (Jacob Weisberg)
American liberals are an external part of Israel's conscience, and when it disdains them, it becomes a harder and more isolated place. The support that Israel has gained from millenarian American conservatives is no substitute, in part because such allies aren't persuasive global advocates for Israel. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Southern conservatives care about government's moral stance but don't mind when it spends freely on behalf of their constituents. Western conservatives, by contrast, are soft-libertarians who want government out of people's way on principle. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Republicans with any moral sense are desperate for a supportable alternative to Donald Trump. View quote
Jacob Weisberg
Like academic Marxists, who are their sisters under the skin, libertarians are far more interested in an ideal world than in the one where ordinary humans live. View quote
Jacob Weisberg