It is not my intention to do away with government. It is rather to make it work – work with us, not over us; stand by our side, not ride on our back. Government can and must provide opportunity, not smother it; foster productivy, not stifle it. Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan, January 20, 1981
In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is …
In a child’s power to master the multiplication table there is more sanctity than in all your shouted ‘Amens!’, ‘Holy, Holies!’ and ‘Hosannahs!’ An idea is a greater monument than a cathedral. And the advance of man’s knowledge is more of a miracle than any sticks turned to snakes, or the parting of waters! …Progress has never been a bargain. You’ve got to pay for it. Sometimes I think there’s a man behind a counter who says, “All right, you can have a telephone; but you’ll have to give up privacy, the charm of distance. Madam, you may vote; but at a price; you lose the right to retreat behind a powder-puff or a petticoat. Mister, you may conquer the air; but the birds will lose their wonder, and the clouds will smell of gasoline!” Darwin moved us forward to a hilltop, where we could look back and see the way from which we came. But for this view, this insight, this knowledge, we must abandon our faith in the pleasant poetry of Genesis. Jerome Lawrence and Robert E. Lee
From “Inherit the Wind” (the dramatization of the Scopes Monkey Trial), 1955
…
…without a Respectable Navy, Alas America!
John Paul Jones
Capt. John Paul Jones, 16 November 1778, in a letter to Robert Morris.
Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter …
Man has been called a rational being, but rationality is a matter of choice – and the alternative his nature offers him is: rational being or suicidal animal. Man has to be man – by choice; he has to hold his life as a value – by choice; he has to learn to sustain it – by choice; he has to discover the values it requires and practice his virtues – by choice. Ayn Rand
‘Galt’s Speech,’ Atlas Shrugged
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success …
The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. George W. Bush
January 20, 2005
The war started right here on Sept. 11, 2001. Gov. George Pataki …
The war started right here on Sept. 11, 2001.
Gov. George Pataki
New York Governor, April 10, 2003, at ‘ground zero’
Motion pictures are of course a different medium of expression than the …
Motion pictures are of course a different medium of expression than the public speech, the radio, the stage, the novel, or the magazine. But the First Amendment draws no distinction between the various methods of communicating ideas. Justice William O. Douglas
William O. Douglas, Supreme Court Justice, 1953
There is nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action. Goethe …
There is nothing more terrifying than ignorance in action.
Goethe
A Frenchman’s home is where another man’s wife is. There …
A Frenchman’s home is where another man’s wife is. There is nothing lower than the human race except the French. Mark Twain
1878-1879 Journal entry
“Maintain structural integrity” “expand exponentially” “timely fashion” “near future” and surfside condo collapse
If you hear the phrase “expand exponentially” that means it is not linear. It means it will be expanding very rapidly (depending on the exponent of course, but in this usage the exponent would cause it means quickly).
“Maintain structural integrity” means that if you don’t fix something, the something will fall apart.
The phrases “timely fashion” and “near future” don’t mean years, they means weeks or months.
So everyone looking to blame someone else about the Surfside condo collapsing needs to understand what was written in the report 2.5 years earlier.