I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies ... If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency ... The banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered. Thomas Jefferson, attributed & probable patchwork of three separate letters
When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect of the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. American Declaration of Independence preamble
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to affect their Safety and Happiness. ibid.
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof. Constitution: 1st Amendment
A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed. ibid. second amendment
Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishment inflicted. ibid. eighth amendment
Jefferson and Washington and their colleagues were deists or atheists but what they were passionate about is that American having been founded by immigrants fleeing religious persecution should never have to undergo with that again. And the only way they could achieve that was by setting up a secular state with no state religion. They must be spinning in their graves at what is happening in America today which is rapidly degenerating into a theocracy. Richard Dawkins, interviewing Ian McEwan
Everybody has their own America, and then they have pieces of a fantasy America that they think is out there but they can’t see ... So the fantasy corners of America ... you’ve pieced them together from scenes in movies and music and lines from books. And you live in your dream America that you’ve custom-made from art and schmaltz and emotions just as much as you live in your real one. Andy Warhol
Go back to bed, America. Your government has figured out how it all transpired. Go back to bed, America. Your government is in control again. Here. Here’s American Gladiators. Watch this, shut up. Go back to bed, America. Here is American Gladiators. Here is 56 channels of it! Watch these pituitary retards bang their fucking skulls together and congratulate you on living in the land of freedom. Here you go, America! You are free to do what we tell you! You are free to do what we tell you! Bill Hicks
People in the United Kingdom and outside the United States share my bemusement with the United States that America doesn’t share with itself. Bill Hicks
I live in the States. A very puritanical place. Full of superstition and ancient religions that never serve their function on this planet because they’re based on fear instead of love. Bill Hicks
The United States was founded by the brightest people in the country and we haven’t seen them since. Gore Vidal
It is the United States of Amnesia. We miraculously forget everything. Gore Vidal
I have always regarded as a stroke of good fortune that I was not born or brought up in a small American town; they may be the backbone of the nation, but they are also the backbone of ignorance, bigotry, and boredom, all in vast quantities. Gore Vidal, Death Before Bedtime
How would you feel if we were talking about Albania? This country is as unimportant to me as Albania except for its ability to create great military mischief. Culturally it isn’t anything. Gore Vidal, televised interview
We are not dealing with a civilised culture ... Americans are very narrow ... They’re slow. ibid.
We should stop going around babbling about how we’re the greatest democracy on earth, when we're not even a democracy. We are a sort of militarised republic. The founding fathers hated two things, one was monarchy and the other was democracy, they gave us a constitution that saw to it we will have neither. I don’t know how wise they were. Gore Vidal, interview Australian Broadcasting Corporation 2001
I hate this shallow Americanism which hopes to get rich by credit, to get knowledge by raps on midnight tables, to learn the economy of the mind by phrenology, or skill without study, or mastery without apprenticeship. Ralph Waldo Emerson
My next fight would not be measured in rounds, but throughout a lifetime. It would sustain and fulfil me longer than anything in the cage could. My opponent, my fight, would be against the slipping aspects of American society. Cameron Conaway, Caged: Memoirs of a Cage-Fighting Poet
It’s like, how did Columbus discover America when the Indians were already here? What kind of shit is that, but white people’s shit? Miles Davis
Fascism: that’s what we’ve had in the United States. We’ve had a union of the government and corporate power ever since the beginning of this country. There’s an element of fascism in that. Howard Zinn
There has always been, and there is now, a profound conflict of interest between the people and the government of the United States. Howard Zinn
Intellectualism came very late to America. That’s why Americans are so proud of it. I found very few real intellectuals in America. But there are so many pseudo-intellectuals. Douglas Sirk
In a survey of fifty countries, America was ranked second to last in intelligence. Residents of the USA were outraged – once the report was slowly explained to them. Derek McGovern, article Daily Mirror 27th May 2011
There are thirteen layers on the pyramid. And the 1776 at the bottom is – 1776 a lot of people think it’s because of the country being founded in 1776; it has nothing to do with that; as I said, this is on a document published back in 1774/75, and then in 1776 the Roman numerals appeared on it in Europe. So what it amounted to was that the 1776 was when this secret society actually formed itself into a secret society and put itself into operation. They were the basis for what we call today in our country the Bavarian Illuminati – was the basis for what we call today the Columbian faction. The Columbian faction of the Illuminati came here right after this government was formed. And that’s where we get today the Columbia Space Shuttle, Columbia Movies, Columbia Television, Columbia Records, Everything, Columbia University. As a matter of fact Columbia TV; Columbia Broadcasting System. CBS. What is the symbol for CBS? It’s The All Seeing Eye. And that’s why our government is in the district of Columbia. Because these guys own our government. They print our money. And they own not only government, they own you. You are their property. Jordan Maxwell, Illuminati I
America, man. You know, it’s so beautiful I wanna eat it. The Anderson Tapes 1971 starring Sean Connery & Christopher Walken & Alan King & Martin Balsam & Dyan Cannon & Ralph Meeker Val Avery & Dick Anthony Williams & Garrett Morris et al, director Sidney Lumet, Walken
Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore,
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tossed, to me:
I lift the lamp beside the golden door. Emma Lazarus, The New Colossus 1883, inscription on Statue of Liberty
America is nothing but a bunch of little chicken cowards. The vast American population, most of them, are cowards. Bill Cooper, The Hour
It is not what we have that will make us a great nation; it is the way in which we use it. Theodore Roosevelt
Of all the questions which can come before this nation, short of the actual preservation of its existence in a great war, there is none which compares in importance with the great central task of leaving this land even a better land for our descendants than it is for us. Theodore Roosevelt
We have fallen heirs to the most glorious heritage a people ever received, and each one must do his part if we wish to show that the nation is worthy of its good fortune. Theodore Roosevelt
There can be nothing in the world more beautiful than the Yosemite, the groves of the giant sequoias and redwoods, the Canyon of the Colorado, the Canyon of the Yellowstone, the Three Tetons; and our people should see to it that they are preserved for their children and their children’s children forever, with their majestic beauty all marred. Theodore Roosevelt
Keep this great wonder of Nature as it now is. Leave it as it is. You cannot improve it. The ages have been at work at it and man can only mar it. Theodore Roosevelt