Et Voila, Malthus

Posted by Lex, on September 16, 2010

Credit where it’s due, the Obama administration in its first two years has been largely free of scandal. We’ve seen none of the personal enrichment gimcrackery so common in political organizations when top players finally get a turn at the till after the better part of a decade on the outs. Rather, they seem to be full of honest (if in my view, mistaken) do-gooderists, eager to advance the agenda for which they believe they were elected by whatever power levers they can employ.

Such scandals as there have been are largely of the “what were they thinking?” variety. See also, Van Jones. To that admittedly abbreviated list – I am too otherwise engaged to dredge up more – add the White House science adviser:

Credo

"Sign on, young man, and sail with me. The stature of our homeland is no more than the measure of ourselves. Our job is to keep her free. Our will is to keep the torch of freedom burning for all. To this solemn purpose we call on the young, the brave, the strong, and the free. Heed my call, Come to the sea. Come Sail with me."

— John Paul Jones

"Pardon him, Theodotus; he is a barbarian, and thinks that the customs of his tribe and island are the laws of nature"

— George Bernard Shaw, Caesar and Cleopatra

"And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music."

— Friedrich Nietzsche

"A kind Providence has placed in our breasts a hatred of the unjust and cruel, in order that we may preserve ourselves from cruelty and injustice. They who bear cruelty, are accomplices in it. The pretended gentleness which excludes that charitable rancour, produces an indifference which is half an approbation. They never will love where they ought to love, who do not hate where they ought to hate."

— Edmund Burke

"Μολὼν λαβέ"

— Leonidas

"Blogito Ergo Sum"

— Neptunus Lex