Jonah Goldberg citations (89 citations, Page 2)

“I do think my judgment is superior to (Juan Cole's) when it comes to the big picture. So, I have an idea: Since he doesn't want to debate anything except his own brilliance, let's make a bet. I predict that Iraq won't have a civil war, that it will have a viable constitution, and that a majority of Iraqis and Americans will, in two years time, agree that the war was worth it. I'll bet $1,000”

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Jonah Goldberg

which I can hardly spare right now
February 8, 2005 http://web.archive.org/web/20050209/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200502081153.asp
2000s, 2005

“Why is it fair game to question conservatives' love or loyalty to children or to their fellow man, but beyond the pale to question liberals' love of country?”

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Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2004, Patriot Games (2004)

“Boredom is a powerful incentive to come up with bad ideas, especially for intellectuals. "Capitalism," says Irving Kristol, "is the least romantic conception of a public order that the human mind has ever conceived." The reason it's so unromantic is that it doesn't tell people what to do and that can be very frustrating for intellectuals who want to tell people what to do. Indeed, court intellectuals have always been more influential where the people are less free, because when an intellectual persuades a dictator or a socialist prime minister (a small distinction to be sure), their advice gets translated into reality. When an intellectual says, "It would be a better society if all beer was free" a free-market politician would, or at least should, say "Maybe, but what can I do about it?"”

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Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2001, Free-Market Boring…Losing Consciousness (2001)

“In short, “social justice” is code for good things no one needs to argue for -- and no one dare be against.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2014, What is Social Justice (2014)

“After the rise of socialism and the retreat of monarchical and clerical rule, liberalism became, in effect, the new conservatism in that it took on the mantle of the status quo.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Liberalism, Conservatism, and the End of History (2018)

“My first piece of advice — and I mean this from the bottom of my heart — is that we should not get so carried away that we adopt a Logan's Run policy in which conservatives beyond a certain age are twirled around the ceiling of a big stadium and then blown-up to the cheers of younger conservatives.”

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Jonah Goldberg

July 19, 2004 http://web.archive.org/web/20040421/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg200407190837.asp
2000s, 2004

“He would also advise conservatives not to be deterred if their opponents on the left unfairly called them racists — something he rightly believed happened all the time. Indeed, one of the things that got him out of bed in the morning was fighting the media-Democratic narrative that conservatives are all a bunch of racists.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe (2018)

““[Thanksgiving is] my favorite holiday, I think. It's without a doubt my favorite American Holiday. I love Christmastime, Chanuka etc. But Thanksgiving is as close as we get to a nationalist holiday in America (a country where nationalism as a concept doesn't really fit). Thanksgiving's roots are pre-founding, which means its not a political holiday in any conventional sense. We are giving thanks for the soil, the land, for the gifts of providence which were bequeathed to us long before we figured out our political system. Moreover, because there are no gifts, the holiday isn't nearly so vulnerable to materialism and commercialism. It's about things -- primarily family and private accomplishments and blessings -- that don't overlap very much with politics of any kind. We are thankful for the truly important things: our children and their health, for our friends, for the things which make life rich and joyful. As for all the stuff about killing Indians and whatnot, I can certainly understand why Indians might have some ambivalence about the holiday (though I suspect many do not). The sad -- and fortunate -- truth is that the European conquest of North America was an unremarkable old world event (one tribe defeating another tribe and taking their land; happened all the time) which ushered in a gloriously hopeful new age for humanity. America remains the last best hope for mankind. Still, I think it would be silly to deny how America came to be, but the truth makes me no less grateful that America did come to be. Also, I really, really like the food.”

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Jonah Goldberg

"Thanksgiving" http://web.archive.org/web/20041126231505/http://www.nationalreview.com:80/thecorner/04_11_24_corner-archive.asp (24 November 2004), The Corner, National Review
2000s, 2004

“There was an NPR story this morning, about the indigenous peoples of Australia, which might make a good column. Apparently they want to preserve their culture, language, and religion because they're slowly disappearing, which is certainly understandable. But, for some reason, they also want more stuff — better education, housing, etc. — from the Australian government. Isn't it odd that it never occurs to such groups that maybe, just maybe, the reason their cultures are evaporating is that they get too much of that stuff already? Indeed, I'm at a loss as to how mastering algebra and biology will make aboriginal kids more likely to believe — oh, I dunno — that hallucinogenic excretions from a frog have spiritual value. And I'm at a loss as to how better clinics and hospitals will do anything but make the shamans and medicine men look more useless. And now that I think about it, that's the point I was trying to get at a few paragraphs ago, when I was talking about the symbiotic relationship between freedom and the hurly-burly of life. Cultures grow on the vine of tradition. These traditions are based on habits necessary for survival, and day-to-day problem solving. Wealth, technology, and medicine have the power to shatter tradition because they solve problems.”

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Jonah Goldberg

( August 15, 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.nationalreview.com/goldberg/goldberg081501.shtml)
2000s, 2001

“[W]e live in a popular-front moment, where no one on “our side” is worth criticizing too much, if at all, and everyone on “their side” is evil. This has as much to do with ratings and page views as it does with ideology. Moths chase light, but the incentive for politicians, producers, and pundits is to follow the heat. I’m still torn over how people such as Mark Zuckerberg should deal with slanderous carnival barkers like Alex Jones. But I’m convinced a lot of people are to blame for the problem reaching Zuckerberg’s desk in the first place.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Are We to Blame for the Alex Jones Problem? (2018)

“[I]nstitutions and communities need to be able to exploit their comparative advantages. It’s not just that the Marine Corps demands more from its members than the Peace Corps; it’s that the Marines demand different things. For some people, being a Marine would be a kind of living Hell; for others it is a reason to live. That’s what the individual pursuit of happiness means.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

“Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2001, Cynthia McKinney's Last Stand (2001)

“Everywhere, unthinking mobs of "independent thinkers" wield tired clichés like cudgels, pummeling those who dare question “enlightened” dogma. If “violence never solved anything,” cops wouldn’t have guns and slaves may never have been freed. If it’s better that 10 guilty men go free to spare one innocent, why not free 100 or 1,000,000? Clichés begin arguments, they don’t settle them.”

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Jonah Goldberg

http://web.archive.org/web/*/www.starbucks.com/retail/thewayiseeit_featuredauthor_goldberg.asp Starbucks "The Way I See It" #22]
2000s, 2005

“I'll never tire of the people so vexed by me they have to insist I am irrelevant. I may be irrelevant, but I clearly matter to you.”

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Jonah Goldberg

Twitter post https://twitter.com/JonahNRO/status/1038118908992081920 (7 September 2018)
2010s, 2018

“[N]early every political evil can be found on display in China: slavery, discrimination, religious persecution, xenophobia, tyranny, mass-political indoctrination, colonialism, cultural genocide, and so on. And yet, the outcry against these things in America and the West is a tiny fraction of what it was with regard to South Africa in the 1980s or Israel today. Why? Some of the political answers are pretty obvious — and have much merit. A few that come to mind: China is non-Western, and many of these sins are supposed to be unique to white Europeans; China is a victim (or “victim”) of colonialism, and so we shouldn’t judge it harshly; China is very powerful, and realpolitik dictates that we be diplomatic; and so on.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, When Evil Becomes Inconvenient (2018)

“[I]n many respects fascism not only is here but has been here for nearly a century. For what we call liberalism--the refurbished edifice of American Progressivism--is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism… Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today's liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism.”

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Jonah Goldberg

Source: 2000s, 2008, Liberal Fascism (2008), p. 5

“As America’s Founders well understood, a society enjoying a multiplicity of institutions, interests, and intact communities (i. e., factions) is much more difficult to subjugate by a single central power, be it a king, a dictator, or a bureaucracy.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

“[S]ocialism has never been a particularly stable or coherent program, a point I made in these pages in 2010. It has always been best defined as whatever socialists want it to be at any given moment. That is because its chief utility is as a romantic indictment of the capitalist status quo. As many of the defenders of the new socialist craze admit, socialism is the off-the-shelf alternative to capitalism, which has been in bad odor since at least the financial crisis of 2008.”

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2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

“We can debate how much socialism there was in Hitler’s National Socialism. It is remarkable, however, that many of the people insisting that Norway or Sweden is obviously socialist even though they both are more free-market than Hitlerite Germany are aghast at the suggestion that the National Socialists were…socialists.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

“[C]apitalism is as much to blame for the consolidation and homogenization of nations as champions of progressive central planning are, if not more so.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Socialism is So Hot Right Now (2018)

“I wish to hearby announce that Wikipedia represents the highest, greatest, achievements of human life to date. I shall henceforth replace the phrase "the greatest thing since sliced bread" with the phrase "the greatest thing since Wikipedia." That is so long as what it posts about me is accurate or at least inaccurately extremely flattering.”

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Jonah Goldberg

( June 16, 2005 http://web.archive.org/web/20050617/corner.nationalreview.com/05_06_12_corner-archive.asp#066356)
2000s, 2005

“The modern doctrines of diversity and multiculturalism are a kind of homogenizing totalitarianism. Its acolytes want every institution to be filled with people who look different but think alike. What our society needs is not more “diversity” of this sort but more variety. Different communities and institutions need to be able live differently, because it is only with this kind of variety that a diverse people can find places where they all feel at home and where they can all find a kind of meaning that suits them as individuals.”

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2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

“I'd love to have a complete, easy to access collection of quotes-by-me somewhere out there. Why? I dunno. Because it'd be even cooler?”

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Jonah Goldberg

June 16, 2005 http://web.archive.org/web/20050617/corner.nationalreview.com/05_06_12_corner-archive.asp#066313
2000s, 2005

“A rising economic tide is bad for people who live off of the poverty of others.”

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Jonah Goldberg

February 2001 http://web.archive.org/web/20010105/www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/jonah021501.asp
2000s, 2001

“If Andrew were still around, I bet he'd tell Bannon to stay in Europe — and not just because his tendency to wear several shirts seems more consistent with European fashion. Bannon's understanding of conservatism is entirely European.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Andrew Breitbart would tell Steve Bannon to stay in Europe (2018)

“Falsely accusing critics of “treason,” castigating law-enforcement agencies for prosecuting allies, and telling police they should rough up suspects is inconsistent with Trump’s oath — and Pence’s. But these days, oaths, like norms, are for everybody else.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, Breaking democratic norms was rampant before the anonymous op-ed. Now it's a free-for-all (2018)

“At the end of the day, happiness is derived from love — love for others and others’ love for you. When I say “love” I do not mean simply romantic love, though that is obviously one of the greatest wellsprings of true happiness. I mean the love one feels from friends, and the love for places and things that brings people together for shared purpose.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2010s, 2018, A Free People Must Be Virtuous (2018)

“An idiot is no smarter if a billion people agree with him and a genius is no dumber if a billion people don't.”

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Jonah Goldberg

2000s, 2002, Jersey Dems vs. Democracy (2002)

“The world's oldest globalist institution? Catholic church.”

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Jonah Goldberg

"The Remnant Tapes" https://web.archive.org/web/20180914075854/https://theremnant-tapes.nationalreview.com/theremnant-060-09.13.2018.mp3 (13 September 2018), National Review
2010s, 2018

“But, the people who criticized these people were … what? I am so disgusted with people who think free speech is defined as being able to say what you think without being criticized.”

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Jonah Goldberg

In reference to Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks comment at the 49th Grammy Awards that "People are using their freedom of speech tonight [by giving us] all these awards. I'm very humbled."
2000s, 2007, Dissident Chicks (2007)