What Liberals Believe: The Best Progressive Quotes Ever

by William Martin (Editor)

Overview

In a political and media environment dominated by conservative interests, liberals need every opportunity to be heard, without distortion and in their own words. What Liberals Believe fulfills this need by bringing together the largest collection of progressive quotations ever published. Compiled by William Martin from speeches, publications, books, blogs, and other sources, it offers wisdom and humor from the keenest progressive minds, both past and present, including Anna Quindlen, Frank Rich, Michael Moore, Oscar Wilde, Bill Clinton, Howard Dean, Rosa Parks, Barbara Ehrenreich, and John F. Kennedy. This one-of-a-kind book includes timely, insightful quotations covering hundreds of critical issues and even presents a chapter entitled "Callous and Clueless Quotes from the Right" to remind readers just how nasty and thuggish right-wing discourse has become. A perfect resource for writers, bloggers, researchers, activists, speechwriters, teachers, and students, What Liberals Believe will appeal to anyone who has grown weary of the extremism of the shameless right.

With a new, updated section reflecting the 2012 presidential season, this book contains everything you need to contextualize incumbent Barack Obama with what other liberals, past and present, believe. What Liberals Believe is an excellent resource to have on hand during the upcoming election.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781510720602
Publisher:	Skyhorse
Publication date:	09/01/2012
Sold by:	SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format:	eBook
Pages:	688
File size:	891 KB

About the Author

William Martin is the author of seven books and the owner of Zabby Books, an online bookstore. He has been a professor of education at both Temple University and Monmouth University. While at Monmouth University, Martin was the director of the Governor's School on Public Issues, a selective residential summer program for New Jersey gifted and talented teenagers. His career in Pennsylvania state government includes stints as a press secretary, speechwriter, management consultant, group facilitator, and special advisor to the lieutenant governor. He has a Doctoral degree in education and a Master's degree in journalism. 

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS IN A DEMOCRACY

Abortion

Abortion is not just a women's issue.

— Bob Burnett, "Why Don't Men Write About

Abortion?" Common Dreams (March 29, 2006) The conservatives' fondest dream — overturning Roe — will be the Republicans' worst nightmare.

— James Carville and Paul Begala, Take It Back (2006)

Among the first things the Nazis did upon seizing power in 1933 was to outlaw abortion.

— Steven Conn, "In Struggle for Women's Freedom, Which Side is U.S. On?" St. Paul Pioneer Press (June 23, 2006)

Democrats aren't pro-abortion. ... We do believe that a woman has a right to make up her own mind.

— Howard Dean, quoted in "Democrats Elect Dean as Committee Chairman," New York Times (February 12, 2005)

What better way to discourage abortion than to encourage and facilitate humane family planning.

— Editorial, New York Times (April 2, 1993)

Frankly, I adore your catchy slogan, "Adoption, not Abortion," although no one has been able to figure out, even with expert counseling, how to use adoption as a method of birth control.

— Barbara Ehrenreich, The Worst Years of Our Lives (1991)

Democrats do not support coerced childbirth.

— Don Hazen, "Power Play," AlterNet (January 7, 2005)

Being pro-choice is an expression of our deepest-held moral values.

— George A. Hill and Nancy Mosher, "Pro-choice supporters not ceding anything," Maine Today (January 25, 2005)

History teaches that abortions do not stop because they are made illegal.

— Edward M. Kennedy, in his address to the National Press Club, "A Democratic Blueprint for America's Future" (January 12, 2005)

If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament.

— Florynce Kennedy, quoted in "The Verbal Karate of Florynce R. Kennedy, Esq." Ms. magazine (March 1973)

The Republicans want to criminalize the right of women to choose, take us back to the days of back alleys, gag doctors and deny families the right to plan and be aware of their choices. We Democrats want to protect the constitutional right of privacy.

— John Kerry, in his keynote address to the Massachusetts Democratic Issues Convention (June 7, 2003)

Women soldiers who are raped ... and who subsequently get pregnant presently cannot end their pregnancies in a military hospital, because abortions are not permitted there.

— George Lakoff, Don't Think Like an Elephant (2004)

Pro-choice people understand that there are two lives involved in an abortion — one born (the pregnant woman) and one not (the fetus) — but that the born person must be allowed to decide what is right.

— Anne Lamott, "The Rights of the Born," Los Angeles Times (February 10, 2006)

The principles that underlie a pro-choice position are the principles of dignity and privacy for women. Abortion rights and reproductive freedom and choice need to be seen in the larger context of individual liberties, of women determining the course of their lives and having control over their lives.

— Kate Michelman, appearing with Kate O'Beirne on NBC's Meet the Press, (January 8, 2006)

Many "pro-lifers" are really pro-sperm. Basically, they insist that the sperm has an inalienable right to try to get to the egg.

— David Morris, "The Pro-Life Continuum," AlterNet (December 19, 2005)

We will not return to the back-alley, wire-hanger abortions.

— Deborah Morse-Kahn, on states such as South Dakota who have criminalized abortion even in cases of rape or incest, "Another State's Giant Step Backward for Women," Minneapolis Star Tribune, (March 7, 2006)

No one is pro-abortion.

— Barack Obama, in his speech at Benedictine University (October 5, 2004)

The pro-life movement is really no longer the anti-abortion movement. ... It has turned itself into the anti–birth control movement, the anti-sex movement, and, indeed, the anti-modern family movement.

— Cristina Page, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America (2006)

Until 1869, even the Catholic Church supported legalized abortion until quickening, at approximately nineteen weeks of pregnancy, which is when it considered the fetus was given a soul.

— Cristina Page, How the Pro-Choice Movement Saved America (2006)

The Bible doesn't mention abortion even once. ... That so many Christians are firmly persuaded that the Bible condemns abortion suggests that God's politics tend to be the politics of the people who claim to speak for him.

— Katha Pollitt, "Jesus to the Rescue?" Nation (January 20, 2005)

I believe that in a contest between the living and the almost living, the latter must, if necessary, give way to the will of the former.

— Anna Quindlen, New York Times (March 13, 1991)

A woman is a person; a zygote or a fetus is not.

— Michael Schwalbe, "Reproductive Freedom 101," Common Dreams (April 11, 2006)

The same groups who so forcefully denounce abortion have cheapened their claims to morality by actively opposing policies that might help poor, single mothers support their children. ... They love children fiercely right up until the time they leave the womb.

— Cynthia Tucker, "Theocrats Losing Their Rigid Hold on Evangelical Christians," Yahoo! News (December 22, 2006)

To conservatives, abortion isn't so much about the welfare of fetuses as it is about the status of women and the nature of sex.

— Paul Waldman, "Why Rudy Giuliani Is Destined to Fall," TomPaine.com (March 1, 2007)

If two-thirds of all women who seek abortions say they cannot afford a child, improving economic conditions by providing viable job opportunities for both men and women should greatly decrease the number of abortions. Raising the minimum wage is an abortion issue.

— Elizabeth Wardle, "Reflections from a Former Anti-Abortion Activist," AlterNet (October 14, 2006)

Civil Liberties

Everything we stand for is under assault in this country, and not from some outside force. Our rights, liberties and economic security are threatened by the Republican Party as it operates today.

— Alec Baldwin, "We Cannot Fight Everyone," Huffington Post (April 28, 2006)

This administration has shredded the Bill of Rights. We have people in cages for going on two years now — no papers, no visitors, no phone calls, no lawyers, no nothing.

— Phil Donahue, on the Bush administration, "Out in Left Field," interviewed by Bruce Kluger in Time Out New York (November 24-30, 2005)

It's too bad, really, that Americans don't pledge allegiance to the Constitution — and don't revere it as they do the Stars and Stripes. If they did, they'd see the folly in defending a rectangle of cloth at the expense of the parchment's promises.

— Editorial, "Shielding the Flag, Shattering Liberty," Minneapolis Star Tribune (June 22, 2006)

It makes no more sense to launch an assault on our civil liberties as the best way to get at terrorists than it did to launch an invasion of Iraq as the best way to get at Osama bin Laden.

— Al Gore, quoted in "Gore Urges Repeal of Patriot Act," Los Angeles Times (November 10, 2003)

Surely the right to die in a manner and at a time one's own choosing is the ultimate civil liberty.

— Derek Humphry, quoted in "The Other Pro-Choice Movement," Common Dreams (January 21, 2006)

I believe in the Bill of Rights the way some folks believe in the Bible.

— Molly Ivins, quoted in "Molly Ivins, In Memoriam," Progressive (February 1, 2007)

Civil rights and civil liberties are in grave danger. ... Preserving them will mean having to fight against some of our fellow citizens. We can fight with nonviolent methods, but there has to be a fight.

— Margaret Kimberley, "Civil War in America," Black Commentator (March 16, 2006)

Our freedoms are guaranteed only as long as ordinary, everyday people are willing to claim them — indeed, to insist on them.

— Patricia J. Princehouse, "Science and the First Amendment," Nation (May 16, 2006)

With the exception of a few stalwarts, such as the ACLU, we have witnessed the sorry spectacle of most civil libertarians remaining silent or actively supporting the most sweeping and ill-considered assault on civil liberties since the roundup of Japanese Americans during World War II.

— Robert Scheer, regarding post–September 11 hysteria, "Liberty Is Dying, Liberal by Liberal," Nation (November 20, 2001)

The main building block of a democratic society is that everyone is equal before the law, innocent until proved otherwise, and has the right to legal representation. If the guilt of the prisoners in Guantanamo Bay is beyond doubt, why are the Americans afraid to bring them to trial?

— Archbishop John Sentamu, quoted in "The Americans Are Breaking International Law ... It Is a Society Heading Towards Animal Farm," Independent (UK) (February 16, 2006)

The real threat to our nation currently comes from within, when we begin taking away the very civil rights and civil liberty protections that made us great.

— Hilary Shelton, quoted in "Kucinich Leads Move in Congress to Curb Controversial Patriot Act," Cleveland Plain Dealer (September 25, 2003)

There is a long and unfortunate history of cooperation between government security agencies and powerful corporations to deprive individuals of their privacy and other civil liberties.

— Jay Stanley, The Surveillance-Industrial Complex, American Civil Liberties Union (August 2004)

There is one tiny corner of Cuba ... where innocent people are held without charge for years, beyond international law, human decency and the mythical glow of Lady Liberty's torch. It is a place where torture is common, beating is ritual and humiliation is routine. They call it Guantanamo Bay.

— Gary Younge, "A Fantasy of Freedom," Guardian (UK) (January 24, 2005)

Dignity

An employee's dignity is violated when she isn't paid a living wage, when her right to bargain collectively is not recognized, when she is forced to work overtime against her will, and when she is forced to work in unsafe conditions.

— Robert Hinkley, quoted in "A Corporate Lawyer Speaks Out," Common Dreams (March 22, 2002)

Here is the real political story, the one most politicians won't even acknowledge: the reality of the anonymous, disquieting daily struggle of ordinary people ... searching for dignity and fairness against long odds in a cruel market world.

— Bill Moyers, "For America's Sake," Nation (January 22, 2007)

People want politicians to STAND FOR THE PEOPLE, not grovel beneath the corporations.

— Ralph Nader, "Democrats Finally Wake Up to Need for Minimum Wage Hike," Common Dreams (June 24, 2006)

Our values ground us in respect for the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and our experience tells us that our diversity is to be celebrated rather than feared.

— Rev. William G. Sinkford, "Family Values for Diverse Families," UU World (December 6, 2005)

Our economic and political systems place more value in the accumulation of wealth than in the dignity of people.

— David Taylor, quoted in "Globalization's Diverse Foes," Washington Post (September 5, 2001)

I believe that women, and men, cannot live in dignity and equality if they cannot render for themselves their most intimate family decisions.

— Rev. Carlton W. Veazey, "On the Brink of Theocracy," Center for American Progress (May 6, 2005)

Free Speech

If we don't believe in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don't believe in it at all.

— Noam Chomsky, Guardian (UK) (November 23, 1992)

When liberals disagree with me, they send in long, logical e-mails explaining all my errors. I hardly ever get well-reasoned articles from the right. People just tell me to shut up.

— Roger Ebert, in an interview with Matthew Rothschild, Progressive (August 2003)

The best remedy for free speech to which you object is not squelching that speech, but countering it with speech that upholds your point of view.

— Editorial, "The Reagans' Controversy — Must Not See TV?" Philadelphia Inquirer (November 9, 2003)

So it has come down to this: You are at liberty to exercise your First Amendment right to assemble and to protest, so long as you do so from behind chain-link fences and razor wire, or miles from the audience you seek to address.

— Dahlia Lithwick, regarding so-called "free-speech zones" at political conventions, "Muzzling Free Speech," Minneapolis Star Tribune (August 16, 2004)

What's the point of free speech if we're always afraid to speak freely?

— Anna Quindlen, in her commencement address at Colby College (May 28, 2006)

A chill wind is blowing in this nation. ... Every day, the air waves are filled with warnings, veiled and unveiled threats, spewed invective, and hatred directed at any voice of dissent.

— Tim Robbins, in his speech to the National Press Club, Common Dreams (April 16, 2003)

Free speech is the whole thing, the whole ball game. Free speech is life itself.

— Salman Rushdie, interview in Guardian (UK) (November 8, 1990)

The right to offend is far more important than any right not to be offended.

— Andrew Sullivan, quoted in "Aphorisms 2006," Yahoo! News (December 25, 2005)

Freedom

Liberty is always unfinished business.

— American Civil Liberties Union, annual report (1955–56)

Each generation must recreate liberty for its own times. Whether or not we establish freedom rests with ourselves.

— Florence Ellinwood Allen, This Constitution of Ours (1940)

Control of our own lives and destinies is what freedom is about, what democracy is about, and at a very fundamental level, what life itself is about.

— Caroline Arnold, "Status and Syntax: Who Controls? Who's Controlled?" Common Dreams (November 13, 2005)

Freedom is perhaps the most resonant, deeply held American value.

— Robert Bellah, et al., Habits of the Heart (1985) Freedom for the wolves means death for the sheep.

— Isaiah Berlin, quoted in "Lib Dems Oppose Civil Service BNP Ban," Guardian (UK) (September 20, 2004)

I call that mind free, which jealously guards its intellectual rights and powers, which calls no man master, which does not content itself with a passive or hereditary faith, which opens itself to light whensoever it may come.

— William Ellery Channing, in his sermon entitled "Spiritual Freedom" (1830)

So long as man remains free he strives for nothing so incessantly and so painfully as to find someone to worship.

— Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov (1879–1880)

The cost of liberty is less than the price of repression.

— W. E. B. Du Bois, John Brown (1909)

We do love our freedom, and we will fight to keep it. We will fight to defeat the terrorists who threaten the safety and security of our families and loved ones. And we will fight to protect the rights of law-abiding Americans against intrusive government power.

— Russ Feingold, "On the President's Warrantless Wiretapping Program," Common Dreams (February 8, 2006)

The history of liberty has largely been the history of the observance of procedural safeguards.

— Felix Frankfurter, McNabb v. United States (1943) They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.

— Benjamin Franklin, in his speech to the Pennsylvania Assembly (November 11, 1755)

Freedom, the ability to preserve one's integrity against power, is the basic condition for morality.

— Erich Fromm, Man for Himself (1947)

Nothing so denies a person liberty as the total absence of money.

— John Kenneth Galbraith, quoted in "John Kenneth Galbraith Interview," Progressive (October 2000)

The emancipation of belief is the most formidable of the tasks of reform, the one on which all else depends.

— John Kenneth Galbraith, quoted in "J. K. Galbraith's Towering Spirit," Washington Post (May 3, 2006)

Freedom includes the freedom to marry whomever you choose and to make decisions about reproduction.

— Ellen Goodman, "Amen, Dubya," Working For Change (January 26, 2005)

The government has no claim on the time and life of anyone, except the people who volunteer for military service ... and convicted criminals.

— Father Andrew Greeley, "Moral Health Tip to America: Stay out of the Draft," Chicago Sun-Times (December 1, 2006)

Libertarians argue that the state ... is the greatest threat to individual freedom. ... Liberals counterclaim that the libertarian critique ignores the reality of other organized forms of power — such as corporations, private militias, and intractably racist state governments.

— Ryan Grim, "Liberalism's Brain on Drugs," In These Times (October 31, 2005)

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "What Liberals Believe"
by .
Copyright © 2012 William Martin.
Excerpted by permission of Skyhorse Publishing.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

INTRODUCTION,
THE RIGHTS OF CITIZENS IN A DEMOCRACY,
THE CONSERVATIVE IMPULSE,
THE PROMISE OF LIBERALISM,
THE UNCHECKED POWER OF CORPORATIONS,
THE CULTURE WAR,
THE DEMAND FOR JUSTICE,
THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY,
THE CORRUPTION OF PUBLIC SERVICE,
THE COMMITMENT TO EDUCATION,
THE HUMAN CONDITION,
THE PUBLIC'S RIGHT TO KNOW,
THE NATURE OF RIGHT AND WRONG,
THE MEANING OF PATRIOTISM,
THE POLITICAL PARTIES,
THE THREAT OF RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM,
THE ASSAULT ON SCIENCE AND THE ENVIRONMENT,
THE INSANITY OF WAR AND VIOLENCE,
THE BETTER ANGELS OF OUR NATURE,
CALLOUS AND CLUELESS QUOTES FROM THE RIGHT,
THE BEST OF THE OBAMA YEARS AND MORE,
THOSE QUOTED,