“Well, you have to work out what it is. They are a little splinter. They can't summon many voters at any given time. They are a minority of a minority of a minority. They have everybody buffaloed because the great corporations like them and pay money to their candidates for sheriff and senator. And they're playing big-time politics. Yes, indeed. But the average person doesn't like them. You know, any time I want to get applause — and I lecture across America in state after state after state — when I fear things are getting a little low, I always say, “And another thing: Let us tax all the religions,” I bring down the goddamn house with that. And any politician would if he had sense enough to do it. The people don't like their tax exemption.”

— Gore Vidal

On the religious right in America http://therealnews.com/t/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=342
2000s, What I've Learned (2008), Gore Vidal's America (2009)

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Gore Vidal 163

American writer 1925–2012

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Mark Kirk (1959) former U.S. junior senator from Illinois

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“At a state level, it's up to them. I don't want it to be a federal thing. I personally still think it's wrong. People don't understand the dictionary— it's called queer. Queer means strange and unusual. It's not like a slur, like you would call a white person a honky or something like that. You know, God is pretty explicit in what we're supposed to do — what man and woman are for. Now, at the same time, we're supposed to love everybody and accept people, and preach against the sins. I've had some friends that are actually homosexual. And, I mean, they know where I stand, and they know that I wouldn't have them anywhere near my children. But at the same time, they're people, and they're going to do their thing.”

Joe the Plumber (1973) American conservative activist and commentator

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“I realize there is a great lack of information about what I did as governor of California and it increases the farther east you go. As a result of this, I know that the minority community has an impression that I have little or no interest in their problems. When I became governor I discovered that after eight years of liberal Democratic rule in Sacramento, very little outside of rhetoric had been done for the minorities. The civil service regulations were such that it was virtually impossible for a black employee of state government to rise above the very lowest job levels. We got those rules changed.”

Ronald Reagan (1911–2004) American politician, 40th president of the United States (in office from 1981 to 1989)

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1970s

“According to many of our political and intellectual elites, both liberal and conservative, the minority in a democracy enjoys only such rights as the majority chooses to bestow upon them. The Bill of Rights in the American Constitution—and similar bills in state Constitutions—are regarded as gifts from the majority to the minority. But the American Constitution, and the state constitutions subordinate to it have, at one time or another, sanctioned both slavery and Jim Crow, by which the bills of rights applied to white Americans were denied to black Americans. But according to the elites, it is not undemocratic for the minority to lose. From this perspective, both slavery and Jim Crow were exercises of democratic majority rule. This is precisely the view of democracy by the Sunnis in Iraq, and is the reason they are fighting the United States.”

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“I don't believe in this nonsense about time. Time is just common, it's like water for a fish. Everybody's in this water, nobody gets out of it, or if he does the same thing happens to him that happens to the fish, he dies. And you know what happens in this water, time? The big fish eat the little fish. That's all. The big fish eat the little fish and the ocean doesn't care.”

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“When you use the term minority or minorities
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Jair Bolsonaro (1955) Brazilian president elect

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“Some of these people have come up with some very elaborate arguments [for not paying taxes]. For instance, there were these guys, in Indiana and Nebraska, and they argued that Indiana and Nebraska weren't states, which was a pretty valid argument in the late 1700s. But in 1995 and '96, well, I saw a map and at that time, trust me, Indiana and Nebraska are shitholes, but they're states. I saw them! They were right there in the middle someplace. I may not be able to point them out immediately, but I know they're there.”

Lewis Black (1948) American stand-up comedian, author, playwright, social critic and actor

Taxed Beyond Belief (2002)

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