Partisanship Quotes

How singular," murmured Maximillian; "your father hates me, while your grandfather, on the contrary -- What strange feelings are aroused by politics.

In the tired hand of a dying man, Theodore Senior had written: "The 'Machine politicians' have shown their colors... I feel sorry for the country however as it shows the power of partisan politicians who think of nothing higher than their own interests, and I feel for your future. We cannot stand so corrupt a government for any great length of time.

The mid-19th century was noted for a partisan, rather than a consensus press, but this partisanship was able to turn out voters consistently.

I sensed that if I were ever to meet [Senator Orrin] Hatch face-to-face there would be little that we could agree upon. There was something about watching Hatch that reminded me of unpleasant, futile political arguments I had had in my life. I wondered whether such political disagreements did not issue from underlying, perhaps even innate.characteristics. Certainly, experience teaches us that when we encounter another person whom we instinctively dislike, constructive political dialogue is not likely to follow. Humans can intuitively sense through a variety of subtle clues (i.e., dress, accent, gestures) when another person possesses a mix of cultural and psychological characteristics that is so substantially different to our own that political discord is also likely. Put otherwise, a liberal can usually smell a conservative, and vice versa. Moreover, the smell is not a pleasant one.-- Red Genes, Blue Genes: Exposing Political Irrationality

A lot of lip service gets paid to being honest, but no one really wants to hear it unless what's being said is the party line.

The only real radicalism in our time will come as it always has—from people who insist on thinking for themselves and who reject party-mindedness.

The author observers that better technology actually increased division because rival outlets funded by rival parties could get their slant to the partisans

He had no desire to grandstand for his country or himself.

I had no knowledge of divine help, and all the world lost faith in gradual progress.

My commitment is to urge us all toward moderation and good will toward fellow citizens. If we can set aside unworthy emotions that deepen our political divide, concentrate on finding solutions to the problems our country and communities face, we can then work toward a brighter future with less rancor but firm in our purpose. Or, we can feed our primitive fight or flight impulse by lashing out in social media and then duck into our silos. If we do that, the unhealthy polarization of the time of Trump will get even worse.

I don't have a 'side'—I'm responsible for what I say and nothing else.

Some people would regard people who look like they do as ugly if they did not look like them.

We owe our loyalty to each other and to our children's children, not to party politics.

Burke's admonition--"The effect of liberty to individuals is, that they may do what they please: We ought to see what it will please them to do, before we risk congratulations"--never seems to have occurred to Hayek. The Arnoldian ideal of the disinterested intellectual willing to criticize one side and then the other in order to create balance and counteract the one-sidedness that led toward fanaticism: That, too, was as alien to Hayek as it had been to Marcuse. If it was partisanship that led Hayek to push forward intellectually to new insights, it was also partisanship that kept him from a balanced and rounded philosophy.Perhaps a familiarity with "the best that has been thought and said" about the market will aid us in obtaining a more disinterested and informed perspective. Such a perspective might well begin with Hayek's insights. But it would by no means end with them. p. 387

The man who cannot listen to an argument which opposes his views either has a weak position or is a weak defender of it. No opinion that cannot stand discussion or criticism is worth holding. And it has been wisely said that the man who knows only half of any question is worse off than the man who knows nothing of it. He is not only one sided, but his partisanship soon turns him into an intolerant and a fanatic. In general it is true that nothing which cannot stand up under discussion and criticism is worth defending.

Memo to extreme partisans: If you can't bring yourselves to love your enemies, can you at least learn to hate your friends?