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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Samizdata quote of the day

The right to be heard does not automatically include the right to be taken seriously.

– Hubert H. Humphrey

Not everything left-liberals say is nonsense.

9 comments to Samizdata quote of the day

  • Jso

    I think left-liberals would disagree.

    I mean about being taken seriously.

  • Indeed. A stopped clock is right twise a day too.

  • Winzeler

    There is no such legitimate thing as a right to be heard…only a right to speak.

  • The fact that a stopped clock is right twice a day does not make it any less worthless.

  • Lexington Green

    Humphrey had a pretty big slice of Midwestern common sense in his intellectual and moral makeup. Not an entirely bad guy, really.

    Like so many things, Left liberals are not what they used be, either.

  • CFM

    The incessant Leftie bleat of “Having Our Voices Heard” has no credibility. Being heard isn’t their point. What they want is to be obeyed.

    CFM

  • Paul Marks

    Quite so CFM

    And H.H. was no different. Whether it was the 1964 Civil Rights Act (“it will not lead to quotas” – as if anti discrimination statutes can lead to anything else, for one can not prove that one did not discriminate so one adopts a quota as a defence) or the rest of the “Great Society” Welfare State.

    He did not say “employ black people” or “give money to the poor”, he said do this OR ELSE (the big stick was behind the nice words).

    The idea that the “freedom of association” must include freedom not to associate (i.e. no Jim Crow regulations, but no “civil rights laws” either) and the idea that charity is not charity (i.e. is not a virtue) if it is compulsory were alien to H.H. – as they are to all modern “liberals”.

  • Ed "What the" Heckman

    A stopped clock is right twise a day too.

    Liberals claim to be modern and progressive. My thoroughly modern office contains only modern clocks; i.e., digital. If they’re stopped they’re not right ever!

  • Windy Wilson

    If a stopped clock is right twice a day, how do you know when that is?

    HHH was compassionate, but he was also cruel, and the true mark of his cruelty was who he was compassionate to and who he was cruel to. I believe his statement quoted above was directed to his political opponents who disbelieved him when he said “this will not lead to quotas”. There is no greater joy than throwing their words back at them to condemn them out of their own mouths.

    I’ll take an imperfect clock that has to be reset regularly , thank you very much, that way you have some idea of what time it is, which is the point of having a clock, not the knowledge that in some abstract sense the clock is correct at some unknown time. This is really the point of the debate between leftism and capitalism; Leftism is correct in some abstract sense of equality of condition, while capitalism is a messy system where things seem to work out in the long run, but there is nothing approaching equality of condition in the short run.