Jonah Goldberg Quotes

[C]onservatism is not supposed to be against change or progress... It is supposed to be skeptical of grandiose or reckless schemes which throw out the good in pursuit of the perfect.

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?

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.

Africa is a mess. It is a mess by any civilized measure of human progress. It is a mess by most uncivilized measures of human progress.

If you're too stupid to understand that a philosophy that favors a federally structured republic, with numerous restraints on the scope and power of government to interfere with individual rights or the free market, is a lot different from an ethnic-nationalist, atheistic, and socialist program of genocide and international aggression, you should use this rule of thumb: If someone isn't advocating the murder of millions of people in gas chambers and a global Reich for the White Man you shouldn't assume he's a Nazi and you should know it's pretty damn evil to call him one.

[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.

[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.

The coalition instinct is the programming that helped us form strategic groups that advance our self-interest. We are a social species and cooperation is what helped us skyrocket to the top of the food chain.

Across the media universe the questions pour out: Why is Dan Rather doing this to himself? Why does he drag this out? Why won't he just come clean? Why would he let this happen in the first place? Why is CBS standing by him? Why . . . why . . . why? There is only one plausible answer: Ours is a just and decent God.

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.

States have a habit of forming when the rules say “line starts here for free stuff.” Whoever manages the line becomes the “state” after a while.

[S]egments of the Right, who denounced phrases like “economic patriotism” when it passed Barack Obama’s lips but nod and cheer when similar phrases come out of the mouths of “nationalists.” They see the state as the key to fostering a new social solidarity because it alone speaks for their new idol — or “strong god” — of the Nation. Passionate nationalists, like passionate socialists, ultimately believe that the State can love you, and if the right people take it over, the divisions that are inevitable in a free society will be knitted together by some government initiative. But that is not love, it is lust. It is a lust for power and victory for your vision over all others.

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

I consider the Fourth a patriotic holday more than a nationalist one. We are celebrating the signing of a text, the establishment of a set of laws and principles on the Fourth of July. The Fourth is about political liberty and national independence. It is, for all its pomp and circumstance, a fairly secular and rational holiday. Meanwhile, Thanksgiving plays upon the mystic chords of memory and is prior to and independent of many of things we celebrate on the Fourth. Anyway, I agree its a fair criticism and probably just highlights different perspectives. And, yes, the food on the Fourth of July is really, really good. I am all about hotdogs, beer and barbecue.

[S]ocialists are romantics in that they want to curate their lives entirely based on their own feelings.