Jon Stewart · 228 pages
Rating: (82.3K votes)
“If "con" is the opposite of pro, then isn't Congress the opposite of progress? Or did we just fucking blow your mind?!?”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“So, is there hope for a truly democratic Africa? Long answer: Only if continent-wide improvements in education, human rights and public health are coupled with an aggressive and far-sighted debt-relief program that breaks the cycle of subsistence farming and urban squalor. Short answer: No.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Why did the Articles [of Confederation] fail so completely? Most historians believe the founding fathers spent a great deal of their first constitutional convention drafting the delaration of independence and only realized on July 3rd the Articles were also due.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“It's not that the Democrats are playing checkers and the Republicans are playing chess. It's that the Republicans are playing chess and the Democrats are in the nurse's office because once again they glued their balls to their thighs.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“The Republican party is the party of nostalgia. It seeks to return America to a simpler, more innocent and moral past that never actually existed. The Democrats are utopians. They seek to create an America so fair and non-judgmental that life becomes an unbearable series of apologies.
Together, the two parties function like giant down comforters, allowing a candidate to disappear into the enveloping softness, protecting them from exposure to the harsh weather of independent thought.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“The problem with the Tea Party is they're all ignorant hillbillies who drink moonshine and ride around on mules. And they believe in stereotypes too.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“1. Society needs laws. While anarchy can often turn a humdrum weekend into something unforgettable, eventually the mob must be kept from stealing the conch and killing Piggy. And while it would be nice if that "something" was simple human decency, anybody who has witnessed the "50% Off Wedding Dress Sale" at Filene's Basement knows we need a backup plan—preferably in writing. On the other hand, too many laws can result in outright tyranny, particularly if one of those laws is "Kneel before Zod." Somewhere between these two extremes lies the legislative sweet-spot that produces just the right amount of laws for a well-adjusted society—more than zero, less than fascism.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“You know what they say: If at first you don't succeed, f**k it.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Each party has a platform--a pre-fixed menu of beliefs making up its worldview. The candidate can choose one of the two platforms, but remember: no substitutions.
For example, do you support healthcare? Then you must also want a ban on assault weapons. Pro limited government? Congratulations, you are also anti-abortion.
Luckily, all human opinion falls neatly into one of the two clearly defined camps. Thus, the two-party system elegantly represents the bi-chromatic rainbow that is American political thought.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“As heirs to a legacy more than two centuries old, it is understandable why present-day Americans would take their own democracy for granted. A president freely chosen from a wide-open field of two men every four years; a Congress with a 99% incumbency rate; a Supreme Court comprised of nine politically appointed judges whose only oversight is the icy scythe of Death -- all these reveal a system fully capable of maintaining itself. But our perfect democracy, which neither needs nor particularly wants voters, is a rarity. It is important to remember there still exist other forms of government in the world today, and that dozens of foreign countries still long for a democracy such as ours to be imposed on them.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“It's great having Bruce Springsteen on my show. We have so much in common! We're both from New Jersey, just from different neighborhoods. Sort of like how Martin Luther King and Margaret Mitchell both came from Atlanta. But from different neighborhoods.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Campaigns and elections are the process in which democracy separates the willing from the able, and goes with the willing.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Classroom Activities
1. Using felt and yarn, make a hand puppet of Clarence Thomas. Ta-da! You're Antonin Scalia!”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“It is perhaps a sign of the strength of our republic that so few people feel the need to participate. That must be the reason.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“[Stump speeches] are to oratory what a stump is to a tree.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
“Newspapers abound, and though they have endured decades of decline in readership and influence, they can still form impressive piles if no one takes them out to the trash.”
― Jon Stewart, quote from America (The Book): A Citizen's Guide to Democracy Inaction
Jon Stewart
Born place: in New York, New York, The United States
Born date November 28, 1962
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“Even when he treated me like a slut, I wanted him.”
― Jettie Woodruff, quote from Suit
“Perhaps she had learned already those lessons in life that make smiling difficult.”
― Clare B. Dunkle, quote from The Hollow Kingdom
“Her face was fair and pretty, with eyes like two bits of night sky, each with a star dissolved in the blue.”
― George MacDonald, quote from The Princess and the Goblin
“Naomi Misora, are you familiar with the murder investigation going in Los Angeles as we speak?"
[...]
"I am not so skilled that I can keep track of all the murder investigations happening in Los Angeles."
"Oh? I am."
He'd returned her sarcasm with a boast.”
― NisiOisiN, quote from Death Note: Another Note - The Los Angeles BB Murder Cases
“Fear and desire for pleasure. Aggressiveness comes out of fear, predominantly, and sexuality predominantly out of the other. But they mix in the middle. Anyway, both of these impulses can destroy order, which comes out of both drives, and which is another human need I haven't yet fit into my scheme. So both have to be controlled. But in fact, despite religious commands to the contrary, aggressiveness has never really been condemned. It's been exalted, from the Bible through Homer and Virgil right down to Humbert Hemingway. Have you ever heard of a John Wayne movie being censored? did you ever see them take war books off the bookstands? They leave the genitals off Barbie and Ken, but they manufacture every kind of war toy. Because sex is more threatening to us than aggression. There have been strict rules about sex since the beginning of written rules, and even before, if we can believe myth. I think that's because it's in sex that men feel most vulnerable. In war they can hype themselves up, or they have a weapon. Sex means being literally naked and exposing your feelings. And that's more terrifying to most men than the risk of dying while fighting a bear or a soldier. Look at the rules! You can have sex if you're married, and you have to marry a person of the opposite gender, the same color and religion, an age close to your own, of the right social and economic background, even the right height, for God's sake, or else everybody gets up in arms, they disinherit you or threaten not to come to the wedding or they make nasty cracks behind your back. Or worse, if you cross color or gender lines. And once you're married, you're supposed to do only certain things when you make love: the others all have nasty names. When after all, sex itself, in itself, is harmless, and aggression is harmful. Sex never hurt anyone.”
― Marilyn French, quote from The Women's Room
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