No, what's troubling is the gap between the magnitude of our challenges and the smallness of our politics — the ease with which we are distracted by the petty and trivial, our chronic avoidance of tough decisions, our seeming inability to build a working concensus to tackle any big problem.

They just posture and pontificate. Nobody tests. Nobody does field research. Nobody dares to solve the problems — because the solution might contradict your philosophy, and for most people clinging to beliefs is more important than succeeding in the world.

As for the politics here, what can you do? There’s a lot of posturing, but it’s all kind of meaningless.

A generation ago our leaders told us where they stood and what they believed. Today they perform strenuous verbal feats to escape that fate.

Politicians that proclaim big words without meaning rule in democracy. At best they allow themselves to discover that it's better to be rich and healthy than sick and poor and that it is necessary to care for 'good of Poland" - clap clap, hurricane of clapping.

The businessmen spoke little and did much, while the politicians did as little as possible and spoke much.

Thus these politicians proceed, whilst little notice is taken of their doctrines; but when they come to be examined upon the plain meaning of their words, and the direct tendency of their doctrines, then equivocations and slippery constructions come into play.

[W]e live in a society where... presidents and candidates for president of both parties are always saying "God Bless America" and "This is the greatest ever" and they're not talking about the real facts of what's going on.

We have a large public that is very ignorant about world affairs and very susceptible to simplistic slogans by candidates who appear out of nowhere, have no track record, but mouth appealing slogans.

A few politicians, the editor of the Star-Tribune and his chief surrogate have exercised their vocal cords and their penmanship with great vigor. Since they are burdened by neither responsibility nor facts, they have hip-shot the issues with an energy usually reserved for the months preceding an election.

One of the paradoxes of our age is the fact that the intellectuals, the politicians, and all the sundry voices that choke like asthma the throat of our communications media, have never gasped and stuttered so loudly about their devotion to the public good, and about the people's will as the supreme criterion of value - and never have they been so grossly indifferent to the people. The reason, obviously, is that collectivist slogans serve as the rationalization for those who intend, not to follow the people, but to rule them.

Politics is largely governed by sententious platitudes which are devoid of truth

Over the years one of the main ploys by our politicians has been to make government so complicated that people can’t understand it. What the people can’t understand, they’re afraid of and walk away from. That leaves the politicians with a free hand.

While the politicians espouse their rhetoric designed to preserve their reputations and their political power, our soldiers die!