Dissident Veteran For Peace: Quotable: Voting as Violence

Dissident Veteran For Peace

"I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America." —Alexis de Tocquevile. Democracy in America, Book I, Chapter XV.

With a nod to the Most Rev. Dom Helder Camara: When I support Palestinians some call me an 'anti-Semite', when I try to explain why I stand in solidarity with Palestinians they call me a Nazi.

"WAR is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives." —Major General Smedley Butler, USMC (ret.)

"... no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end." —character of O'Brien in 1984, part 3, ch. 3 by George Orwell.

"Every prophet has realized that nobody loves you for being the enemy of their illusions. Every prophet has realized that most of us want peace at any price as long as the peace is ours and somebody else pays the price. That is why the prophet Jeremiah said, ' "Peace, peace," they say, when there is no peace,' ..." —The Rev. William Sloane Coffin. "Not to Bring Peace, But a Sword."

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

Quotable: Voting as Violence

When you vote you are exercising political authority. You're using force and force, my friends, is violence—the supreme authority from which all other authority is derived.

Source: Character of Mr. Rasczak in Paul Verhoeven's 1997 film, Starship Troopers.

Labels: anarchism, art and literature, Heinlein, politics, quotations, violence, voting

# posted by VFPDissident @ 11/12/2008 12:09:00 AM

Comments:

someone made that up.. that line is NOT in the Heinlein novel

# posted by

Anonymous : Wednesday, November 12, 2008 3:26:00 PM

The post doesn't say anything about the novel. If you had followed the hyperlink in the post it would have taken you to an article that is critical of the film for its deviations from the novel. Nevertheless, you are mistaken, the sentiment expressed by Mr. Rasczak in the film is very faithful to the views of the character of Major Reid in Heinlein's Starship Troopers (see page 183 in the 1987 Ace paperback reissue).

# posted by