Jonah Goldberg Quotes & Sayings

Forests are breaking out all over America. New England has more forests since the Civil War. In 1880, New York State was only 25 percent forested. Today it is more than 66 percent. In 1850, Vermont was only 35 percent forested. Now it's 76 percent forested and rising. In the south, more land is covered by forest than at any time in the last century. In 1936 a study found that 80 percent of piedmont Georgia was without trees. Today nearly 70 percent of the state is forested. In the last decade alone, America has added more than 10 million acres of forestland. — Jonah Goldberg

In crude Marxist terms, liberals have a theory of infallible government that is constantly at war with the reality of life. — Jonah Goldberg

John Kerry is a sphincter. Okay, that's a bit juvenile. — Jonah Goldberg

Fascism's success almost always depends on the cooperation of the "losers" during a time of economic and technological change. The lower-middle classes - the people who have just enough to fear losing it - are the electoral shock troops of fascism (Richard Hofstadter identified this "status anxiety" as the source of Progressivism's quasi-fascist nature). Populist appeals to resentment against "fat cats," "international bankers," "economic royalists," and so on are the stock-in-trade of fascist demagogues. — Jonah Goldberg

One upside of the heat. Kind of cool to see a cat pant. — Jonah Goldberg

Americans are very smart about the things they care about, and ignorant about the things they don't. — Jonah Goldberg

The mainstream perception that conservatives are close-minded and dogmatic while liberals are open-minded and free-thinking has it almost exactly backward. Liberal dogma is settled: The government should do good, where it can, whenever it can. That is President Obama's idea of pragmatism and bipartisanship: He's open to all ideas, from either side of the aisle, about how best to expand government and get the state more involved in our lives. — Jonah Goldberg

Social distinctions tend to matter only at your own level and above. — Jonah Goldberg

Are you a producer or a looter? If diversity were always and everywhere good we would be clamoring for more midgets in the NBA. — Jonah Goldberg

If there is ever a fascist takeover in America, it will come not in the form of storm troopers kicking down doors but with lawyers and social workers saying. I'm from the government and I'm here to help. — Jonah Goldberg

Liberals and leftists have been dismissing inconvenient facts by attacking motives for generations. In the 1930s, '40s, and '50s, Soviet spies and abettors attacked the motives of their accusers because the fact of their guilt was undeniable. In the 1960s, over a thousand psychiatrists who'd never even met Barry Goldwater signed a petition saying the GOP candidate was too mentally unstable to be president. — Jonah Goldberg

But you're never taught in schools - we don't teach anyone in public schools that government is the problem. We don't teach anyone in college that government is the problem - except maybe a handful of sort of unique, conservative schools. But mainstream media never talks as if government is the problem. — Jonah Goldberg

We are a species that must try to impose and find systems - systems of thought, ways of organizing and categorizing reality. — Jonah Goldberg

But it is one of these sort of mythologies about America and its intellectual history, that the right embraced this thing called social Darwinism, when it never did so. — Jonah Goldberg

Whenever you hear a politician start a sentence with, "If we can put a man on the moon ... ," grab your wallet. — Jonah Goldberg

There was no intellectual movement in American history called social Darwinism. The people who were supposedly the leaders of the social Darwinist movement never embraced something called social Darwinism. It didn't exist. — Jonah Goldberg

Keep in mind that Eric Alterman is media critic for The Nation-a hysterically left-wing magazine dedicated to the proposition that corporate America, U.S. foreign policy and the Republican Party are criminal, racist or both. The simple reality is that, for him, the Democratic Party is far too conservative. — Jonah Goldberg

The Mars Polar Lander cost the average American the price of half a cheeseburger. A human lander would cost the average American more
perhaps even ten cheeseburgers! So be it. That is no great sacrifice. — Jonah Goldberg

We're not going to get the jack-booted thugs stomping on a human face that you get in '1984' but we might get the 'Brave New World' where the biggest problem there is how to deal with the fact that everyone is so happy ... [W]hat we're going to get is a nanny-type of fascism, if we get one at all ... [S]imply because the nanny-state wants to hug you doesn't mean it's not tyrannical if you don't want to be hugged. — Jonah Goldberg

I'd like to know why sociologists can't decide whether movie sex and violence has any effect on children, but there's a universal consensus that even a glimpse of a Camel will force children to become lifelong smokers. — Jonah Goldberg

I suppose in John Kerry's world good diplomacy lets the boys in the bar finish raping the girl for fear of causing a fuss. Okay, that was unfair. — Jonah Goldberg

There is no - let me repeat - no example in the last quarter-century of a large, complex economy that has been successful with high taxes. — Jonah Goldberg

A rising economic tide is bad for people who live off of the poverty of others. — Jonah Goldberg

The search for a moral equivalent of war continues to define American liberalism to this day. — Jonah Goldberg

(I)f France's righteous bloviating against war makes them your Dashboard Saint of International Integrity, it's either because you are sand-poundingly ignorant of how the world works or it's because you think France's self-interest is more important than America's. If the former applies to you, read a book. If it's the latter, maybe you should move there along with Alec Baldwin, Robert Altman, and the rest of the crowd who promised to leave a long time ago. But whatever you do, don't call France's position principled, because that just insults us both. — Jonah Goldberg

Government money only pays for the "liberties" the government thinks you should have, and therefore it can determine how you exercise them. That turns liberties into privileges dispensed at the whim of the state. — Jonah Goldberg

As we all know, the most effective lies are the ones sprinkled with the most actual truths. — Jonah Goldberg

It was in the 1960s that the left convinced itself that there is something fascistic about patriotism and something perversely "patriotic" about running down America. Anti-Americanism - a stand-in for hatred of Western civilization - became the stuff of sophisticates and intellectuals as never before. Flag burners became the truest "patriots" because dissent - not just from partisan politics, but the American project itself - became the highest virtue. — Jonah Goldberg

The logical upshot of liberalism's hatred of hypocrisy is that it is better for the liar to champion lying, the glutton to advocate gluttony, the adulterer to celebrate adultery, than for someone to preach the right thing if he himself occasionally does the wrong thing. Better to let your failings define you and be happy about it, than to let your ideals define you but then fall short of them, for that opens you up to the charge of hypocrisy. — Jonah Goldberg

Progressivism, liberalism, or whatever you want to call it has become an ideology of power. So long as liberals hold it, principles don't matter. — Jonah Goldberg

As a broad generalization, big businesses have no moral objections to being whores. Getting into bed with Uncle Sam is all a question of price, not principle. — Jonah Goldberg

Republican politics have been off-kilter for several years now because a large segment of the conservative base does not look back fondly on the Bush presidency. — Jonah Goldberg

American Progressivism - the moralistic social crusade from which modern liberals proudly claim descent - is in some respects the major source of the fascist ideas applied in Europe by Mussolini and Hitler. — Jonah Goldberg

Pragmatism is the disguise progressive and other ideologues do when they want to demonize competing ideologies. — Jonah Goldberg

Capitalism is the greatest system ever created for alleviating general human misery, and yet it breeds ingratitude. — Jonah Goldberg

But this is the kind of ass-clownery that stems from the fact that all philosophy looks weird when you don't have one. — Jonah Goldberg

You know those Navy SEALs, they weren't Democrats and Republicans. They were just doing what was best for America. Wouldn't that be a great country if all of you Americans were just like that? You followed orders, you marched in step and you followed my agenda. — Jonah Goldberg

Socialism preceded Marxism, and socialism has survived Marxism, in part because Marxism was subjected to a real-world test for nearly a century and failed on an epic scale. Soviet revolutionaries did not engage in Fabian incrementalism; they got their country and their empire and their worldwide movement, and they worked their will without opposition. — Jonah Goldberg

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. — Jonah Goldberg

Associational ad hominem attacks remain the left's favorite rhetorical strategy for undermining opponents. — Jonah Goldberg

Gov. Christie says 'New Jersey First.' State-based Isolationism! — Jonah Goldberg

Obama did inherit a deficit when he came into office. Why this fact justifies racking up vastly more debt and bigger deficits is a logical mystery. — Jonah Goldberg

If we say that anyone who 'moralizes' must be perfect morally then we are in effect saying no one can moralize. — Jonah Goldberg

Those who say they dislike dogma, or 'certainty', tend to be liars, hypocrites, or simply wrong. What they really dislike is the dogma of those they disagree with. A society that was certain, certain beyond all certainty, that putting its citizens in death camps was wrong, would never put people in death camps. Such things are only possible when you're open to new ideas. — Jonah Goldberg

(J)ust to clarify: If you go into every situation saying there's absolutely nothing worth fighting over, you will inevitably end up on a cot sleeping next to a guy named Tiny, bringing him breakfast in his cell every morning, and spending your afternoons ironing his boxers. Or, in the case of the French, you might spend your afternoon rounding up Jews to send to Germany, but you get the point. — Jonah Goldberg

We tend to forget that unity is, at best, morally neutral and often a source of irrationality and groupthink. Rampaging mobs are unified. The Mafia is unified. Marauding barbarians bent on rape and pillage are unified. Meanwhile, civilized people have disagreements, and small-d democrats have arguments. Classical liberalism is based on this fundamental insight, which is why fascism was always antiliberal. Liberalism rejected the idea that unity is more valuable than individuality. For fascists and other leftists, meaning and authenticity are found in collective enterprises - of class, nation, or race - and the state is there to enforce that meaning on everyone without the hindrance of debate. — Jonah Goldberg

Cultures grow on the vine of tradition. — Jonah Goldberg

If you're uncertain when life begins, why not give the unborn the benefit of the doubt and oppose abortion? — Jonah Goldberg

I like vengeance as much as the next guy, if the next guy likes vengeance a whole lot ... — Jonah Goldberg

There's nothing within science per se that says medical researchers must not experiment on human subjects; it is the imposition of ethical dogma that constrains the scientist. — Jonah Goldberg

Progressivism was a sister movement of fascism, and today's liberalism is the daughter of Progressivism. — Jonah Goldberg

What is more likely? That tomorrow will be called 'Thursday' or that Maxine Waters will play the race card in her ethics investigation? — Jonah Goldberg

Champions of Liberty get called Fascists by Champions of Statism — Jonah Goldberg

Liberals are Nazis, and Nazis are liberals. And if you don't agree with me, you're a Nazi too. — Jonah Goldberg

I don't think twice about picking up my dog's poop, but if another dog's poop is next to it, I think, 'Eww, dog poop! — Jonah Goldberg

It is faith that moves mountains, not reason. Reason is a tool, but it can never be the motive force of the crowd." This — Jonah Goldberg

We are all descended from cavemen who broke the skulls of their enemies with rocks for fun or profit. But that hardly mitigates the crimes of a man who does the same thing today. I see no problem judging the behavior of the Islamic State and its apologists from the vantage point of the West's high horse, because we've earned the right to sit in that saddle. — Jonah Goldberg

I think as - all in all, it's better to have a cool president than a not cool president. — Jonah Goldberg

The Nazis played the same games against Jews that today's left plays against 'Eurocentrism,' 'whiteness,' and 'logocentrism.' When you hear a campus radical denounce 'white logic' or 'male logic,' she is standing on the shoulders of a Nazi who denounced 'Jewish logic' and the 'Hebrew disease' ... The white man is the Jew of liberal fascism. — Jonah Goldberg

In many respects fascism not only is here but has been here for nearly a century. For what we call liberalism
the refurbished edifice of American Progressivism
is in fact a descendant and manifestation of fascism. — Jonah Goldberg

Nationalism and socialism as actually lived and applied in the 20th century are the same thing (and in the 18th and 19th century, nationalism was often a force for classical liberalism!). It's all a kind of reactionary tribalism (another "ism" which becomes poisonous quickly as you up the dosage). When you nationalize an industry, you socialize it. When you socialize an industry you nationalize it. Yes, international socialism rejected this formulation. And that's why international socialism failed! People wanted to be Germans or Russians or Italians and they wanted to be socialists. Even the Soviet Union embraced national-socialism (socialism in one country) because that 'workers of the world unite' crap wouldn't fly. After Stalin, no Communist or socialist regime failed to exploit nationalism to one extent or another. — Jonah Goldberg

[Progressives] think the Constitution is like Felix the Cat's magic bag: Look in there long enough and hard enough, and you can find anything. — Jonah Goldberg

The progressive notion of the state as a loving, caring parent is becoming a bipartisan affair. — Jonah Goldberg

On Tuesday, the so-called Islamic State released a slickly produced video showing a Jordanian pilot being burned alive in a steel cage. On Wednesday, the United Nations issued a report detailing various 'mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children, and burying children alive' at the hands of the Islamic State. — Jonah Goldberg

I would also say Barack Obama has spent much, much, much, much more money than the Republicans. — Jonah Goldberg

Look, I think liberals have reasonable gripes with Fox News. It does lean to the right, primarily in its opinion programming but also in its story selection (which is fine by me) and elsewhere. But it's worth remembering that Fox is less a bastion of ideological conservatism and more a populist, tabloidy network. — Jonah Goldberg

The problem with the United Nations is that while democracy within nations is the best available form of government, democracy among nations can be a moral disaster - especially if some nations are not democracies. — Jonah Goldberg

(T)he most important reason American leftists love France is that French elites say bad things about America. French intellectuals call us racist, stupid, imperialistic, simplistic, etc. ' and that alone is proof of their intellectualism. So long as you call America "racist," you could add that an enema is as good as a toothbrush and some professor of "communications theory" would applaud. — Jonah Goldberg

The government cannot love you, and any politics that works on a different assumption is destined for no good. — Jonah Goldberg

I've just returned from my daughter's Halloween parade at grade school. She was supergirl - and she was perfect. And, even better, she still considers boys to be made of kryptonite. — Jonah Goldberg

If you think shrinking government and getting it less involved in your life is a hallmark of tyranny it is only because you are either grotesquely ignorant or because you subscribe to a statist ideology that believes the expansion of the state is the expansion of liberty. — Jonah Goldberg

When you treat reprehensible and ludicrous arguments with respect you have elevated the reprehensible and made the ludicrous a bit more reasonable. Having a serious argument with a Nazi makes the horror of the Holocaust a debatable point. Don't wrestle in the mud with pigs. You get dirty and the pig likes it. — Jonah Goldberg

Despite what you may have been taught about Indians or Africans or ancient Celts, poor people are terrible stewards of their environment. For instance, if my kid were starving to death, I would happily feed her fresh panda. — Jonah Goldberg

And it's the President of the United States who said he wasn't going to spike the football and all this, we shouldn't gloat about it, running campaign ads, gloating about it and saying the other guy isn't good enough to do the tough things that I did, which I think is, one reprehensible. — Jonah Goldberg

[A] country without a word to describe its love for what is best within it is a country ill-equipped to defend what is best within it. — Jonah Goldberg

The problem with saying "the personal is political" is twofold: You politicize what is personal ("Everyone must celebrate my lifestyle!") and you personalize the political ("Your opposition to the minimum wage hurts my feelings!").
This is how you un-think yourself out of a civilization; When politics becomes a fashion choice and fashion becomes political. If you wear your politics on your sleeve, it usually means you don't keep them in your brain where they belong. — Jonah Goldberg

Free trade has been proven, time and again, as a reliable path to economic development. It pushes the public and private sectors alike toward greater accountability and transparency. It lifts people out of poverty, and while it can force unsettling changes on a society, those changes prove to be worthwhile in a very short time. — Jonah Goldberg

By this point, it was clear she wasn't interested in continuing the relationship. What publication on earth would continue a relationship with a writer who would refuse to discuss her work with her editors? What publication would continue to publish a writer who attacked it on TV? What publication would continue to publish a writer who lied about it - on TV and to a Washington Post reporter? ... It's true: Ann is fearless, in person and in her writing. But fearlessness isn't an excuse for crappy writing or crappier behavior. — Jonah Goldberg

And, of course, liberals see no problem with using the government to impose their cultural beliefs on others; they just won't admit that's what they're doing. — Jonah Goldberg

You can see why the Marxist left would resist the idea that Hitler was a revolutionary. Because if he was, then either Hitler was a force for good, or revolutions can be bad. — Jonah Goldberg

Dissent is morally neutral. You can correctly call yourself a dissident because you like to kick puppies, but at the end of the day, you're just a jerk who likes to kick puppies. — Jonah Goldberg

I have a simple answer to any American patriot who claims that there is no conflict between his love of country and his desire to hitch our fate to the United Nations: "You're mistaken." And, therefore, I'm thinking of adding this corollary to my General Rule of patriotism: The more intellectually consistent and pro-U.N. you are, the less patriotic you are likely to be. I haven't thought that all the way through, but it seems right to me. — Jonah Goldberg

Our country, if you read the 'Federalist Papers,' is about disagreement. It's about pitting faction against faction, divided government, checks and balances. The hero in American political tradition is the man who stands up to the mob - not the mob itself. — Jonah Goldberg

If you write for the critics, only the critics will read you. — Jonah Goldberg

But there's a fourth interpretation: Obama can't leave his comfort zone. No president since Woodrow Wilson has been as enamored of abstract ideas or more sure that disagreement with him is proof of ignorance, bad faith or dogmatism. As a candidate, he insisted his real opponent was 'cynicism,' and in his address last week, he returned to this trite formulation, insisting again he was bravely battling the cynics. — Jonah Goldberg

American conservatism, unlike traditional European conservatism, is liberty-loving because we are defending the revolutionary ideals of classical liberalism. ... Conservatism is about more than classical liberalism, but a conservatism that doesn't conserve classical liberalism isn't worth conserving. — Jonah Goldberg

Three explanations dominate speculation about what Obama is up to. The first is that he's trying to lay the groundwork for his successor, presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton. The second is that he's trying to pad his legacy. The third is that he's trying to 'troll' or bait the GOP into debating his agenda rather than pursuing its own. All are plausible, and none necessarily contradicts the others. — Jonah Goldberg

The more you socialize the costs of personal liberty, the more license you give others to regulate it. — Jonah Goldberg

Science is wonderful at explaining what science is wonderful at explaining, but beyond that it tends to look for its car keys where the light is good. — Jonah Goldberg

Hence the great irony: Hayek, one of the greatest champions of individual liberty and economic freedom the world has ever known, believed that knowledge was communal. Dewey, the champion of socialism and collectivism, believed that knowledge was individual. Hayek's is a philosophy that treats individuals as the best judges of their own self-interests, which in turn yield staggering communal cooperation. Dewey's was the philosophy of a giant, Monty Pythonesque crowd shouting on cue: We're All Individuals! — Jonah Goldberg

And in the minds of progressives you are free to live anyway you want so long as it's progressive. — Jonah Goldberg

I am just mystified by these people telling me I would think Obama was doing a great job if his skin contained less melanin. — Jonah Goldberg

Those who say [Joseph] Padilla should get a civilian trial are essentially saying that if you reject the rules of civilized nations, like those inscribed in the Geneva Convention, you therefore deserve to be treated better, not worse, than those rules require. — Jonah Goldberg

Keep Hope alive, particularly if Hope is the name of a very cute puppy and not some ill-defined abstraction that is in fact code for big government. — Jonah Goldberg

Facts are mere speed bumps on the road to lefty moral outrage. — Jonah Goldberg

Seriously, in 2008 we elected a community organizer, state senator, college instructor first term senator over a guy who spent five years in a Vietnamese prison. And now he's lecturing us about how America's gone "soft"? Really? — Jonah Goldberg

Let's treat politicians like Twinkies. They have to disclose their ingredients - i.e., where their money is from - but beyond that, let the buyer beware. — Jonah Goldberg

The suggestion that liberals aren't moralizers is so preposterous it makes it hard for me to take any of them seriously when they wax indignant about "moralizers." Almost every day, they tell us what is moral or immoral to think and to say about race, taxes, abortion - you name it. They explain it would be immoral for me to spend more of my own money on my own children when that money could be spent by government on other people's children. In short, they think moralizing is fine. They just want to have a monopoly on the franchise. — Jonah Goldberg

Tip to all British tabloids: Do Not Hack Amy Winehouse's Phone. I repeat: Do Not Hack Amy Winehouse's Phone. — Jonah Goldberg

Christian socialism"). This is a difficult concept for modern liberals to grasp because they are used to thinking of the progressives as the people who cleaned up the food supply, pushed through the eight hour workday, and ended child labor. But liberals often forget that the progressives were imperialists, at home and abroad. They were the authors of Prohibition, the Palmer Raids, eugenics, loyalty oaths, and, in its modern incarnation, what many call "state capitalism. — Jonah Goldberg