Life is a near-death experience.
George CarlinRead
Have you ever wondered why Republicans are so interested in encouraging people to volunteer in their communities? It’s because volunteers work for no pay. Republicans have been trying to get people to work for no pay for a long time.
Interpretation
The quote critiques the tendency of certain politicians to promote volunteerism as a way to reduce the need for paid work.
George Carlin's quote highlights the irony in how certain political ideologies, particularly those aligned with Republicans in this context, promote volunteerism as a noble pursuit while simultaneously benefiting from the labor of those who work without compensation. It suggests that this advocacy is not purely altruistic but serves to diminish the importance of paid labor and the value of workers' rights.
In practice
This quote can be used in a political debate about the implications of volunteerism versus paid employment.
Life is a near-death experience.
Here’s a bumper sticker I’d like to see: “We are the proud parents of a child who’s self-esteem is sufficient that he doesn’t need us promoting his minor scholastic achievements on the back of our car."
If you've got a cat and a leg, you've got a happy cat. If you've got a cat and two legs, you've got a party.
This is a lttle prayer dedicated to the separation of church and state. I guess if they are going to force those kids to pray in schools they might as well have a nice prayer like this: Our Father who art in heaven, and to the republic for which it stands, thy kingdom come, one nation indivisible as in heaven, give us this day as we forgive those who so proudly we hail. Crown thy good into temptation but deliver us from the twilight's last gleaming. Amen and Awomen.
Some people try to get out of jury duty by lying. You don't have to lie. Tell the judge the truth. Tell him you'd make a terrific juror because you can spot guilty people.
Intelligence tests are biased toward the literate.
One must bear in mind that the expansion of federal activity is a form of eating for politicians.
Remember that a civilized nation cannot just have one party; if there were only one party, this would merely be a dictatorship. Politics could not advance.
The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.
If you are a writer from Turkey, Pakistan, Nigeria, Egypt, you don't have the luxury of being apolitical. You can't say, 'That's politics. I'm just doing my work.'
All the common people want is to be left alone. All the ordinary soldier wants is to collect his pay and not get killed. That's why the great forces of history can be manipulated by astonishingly small groups of determined people.
Social democracy seeks and finds the ways, and particular slogans, of the workers' struggle only in the course of the development of this struggle, and gains directions for the way forward through this struggle alone.
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