Quotes & Sayings About Failed Government

Maybe one day History will tell us that Ebola never won but rather Government's failed to act, and that Ebola just simply walked in and meet No resistance, Barring a few brave souls that fought the Virus on their own and never relied on the Government Coming to Help, the victor always writes the history what will Ebola write about Mankind — Paul B. Gilbert

Our system was not set up to for the government to be able to do with a man's kingdom what they want. It was set up to protect that man's kingdom, to allow him to feel that his borders, no matter how great or small, would always be secure and that he would always be allowed to defend them. The Supreme Court took that right away with their eminent domain ruling back in 2005. The governments have taken advantage of that eminent domain ruling, and you, the media, have failed at protecting citizens. — Tit Elingtin

The salient feature of America in the Age of Obama is a failed government class institutionally committed to living beyond its means, and a citizenry too many of whom are content to string along. — Mark Steyn

The Great Society went wrong for three major reasons. First, the self-organization the Johnson administration promoted turned out to be not the pooling of family and community resources into shops and businesses, but political pressure for government handouts. Second, the Great Society failed to anticipate the perverse side-effects of handing money out to people who have done nothing to earn it. Third, while the Great Society was showering money on the poor, the Supreme Court was with childlike glee smashing to bits traditional methods of maintaining law and order. — David Frum

But a society that protects some people through a safety net of schools, government-backed home loans, and ancestral wealth but can only protect you with the club of criminal justice has either failed at enforcing its good intentions or has succeeded at something much darker. — Ta-Nehisi Coates

The parallels between 9/11 and Pearl Harbor are striking. In each instance there were warning signs before the attack, and in each instance our government failed to connect the dots. — Diane Watson

The two national powers that dominated the colonies, France and Britain, represented two different models of corruption. Britain was seen as a failed ideal. It was corrupted republic, a place where the premise of government was basically sound but civic virtue - that of the public and public officials - was degenerating. On the other hand, France was seen as more essentially corrupt, a nation in which there was no true polity, but instead exchanges of luxury for power; a nation populated by weak subjects and flattering courtiers. Britain was the greater tragedy, because it held the promise of integrity, whereas France was simply something of a civic cesspool. — Zephyr Teachout

The committee discloses that even after the U.S. government learned of the diversion of U.S. designs for nuclear warheads in late 1995, the Clinton Administration failed to take steps immediately to improve security. — Charles Bass

The idea that more taxes and more government spending is the best way to help hardworking middle class taxpayers - that's an old idea that's failed every time it's been tried. — Marco Rubio

The Department of Energy made an investment that failed, and it got raked over the coals for that failed investment. This is ridiculous. The fact of the matter is, the government should be making a lot of risky investments, the majority of which are likely to fail. — Peter Diamandis

We want a national emissions trading scheme, the Government does not and has rejected one for years. We want to boost the mandatory renewable energies target, the Government has failed to do that. We want a national demand side management strategy for the country to reduce electricity consumption and the Government, up until now, has done very little on that score. — Kevin Rudd

The attempt to live that way, the attempt to treat everybody - it fails all the time - but the attempt to treat people as equals is a good attempt. It's a very good attempt. And there have been very few governments that have come anywhere near it in the past. The Greeks began to, the Romans began to - they both failed. — W.S. Merwin

I think it's a typical hidden agenda of the Liberal party ... They had the courts do it for them, they put the judges in they wanted, then they failed to appeal
failed to fight the case in court ... I think the federal government deliberately lost this case in court and got the change to the law done through the back door. — Stephen Harper

If [the shooting of Gabby Giffords in] Tucson tells us anything at all, it tells us this: Government has failed. — Wayne LaPierre

Assyria had no more prospect of halting the human flow than can the British government stop illegal entrants to the UK, although an effective natural moat surrounds the British Isles. There is little hope that the US Department of Homeland Security will have greater success with its border fence than did King Shulgi of Ur and his successors, whose 'wall to keep out the Amorites' failed to prevent the migrants' eventual takeover of all lower Mesopotamia and their founding of Old Babylon. — Paul Kriwaczek

The problem, of course, lies with the realities concealed from us. This has always been the case. While the American public has slowly grappled with ongoing injustices visible within our own borders, it has long failed to discover and correct our government's abuses abroad. In the end, however, this is our government, and torture is being utilized in our names and supported by our tax dollars. We are responsible. — Jennifer Harbury

Stimulus spending, permanent bailouts, government takeovers, and federal mandates have all failed our nation. America's employers are afraid to invest in an economy racked with uncertainty over what Washington's next set of rules, regulations, mandates, and tax hikes will look like. — Geoff Davis

Day and night we are watching over your welfare. It is for YOUR sake that we drink that milk and eat those apples. Do you know what would happen if we pigs failed in our duty? Jones would come back! Yes, Jones would come back! Surely, comrades, cried Squealer almost pleadingly — George Orwell

If Liberia has failed, then, it is no evidence of the failure of the Negro in government. It is merely evidence of the failure of slavery. — Carter G. Woodson

Millions of Americans were duped by the federal government and the Federal Reserve into buying homes they could not afford and failed to count the cost. When the financial crisis of 2008 hit, they could not keep up the monthly mortgage payments and defaulted. — Mark Skousen

They can change every name in South Africa, but it won't change the fact that the government has failed to provide services or curb crime — Connie Mulder

I led the fight for the Clinton health care plan in 1994. We failed. I learned from that experience. What I learned is you can't pass a complicated government-run plan. — Dick Gephardt

I have little interest in streamlining government or in making it more efficient, for I mean to reduce its size. I do not undertake to promote welfare, for I propose to extend freedom. My aim is not to pass laws, but to repeal them. It is not to inaugurate new programs, but to cancel old ones that do violence to the Constitution, or that have failed their purpose, or that impose on the people an unwarranted financial burden. I will not attempt to discover whether legislation is "needed" before I have first determined whether it is constitutionally permissible. And if I should later be attacked for neglecting my constituents' "interests," I shall reply that I was informed that their main interest is liberty and that in that cause I am doing the very best I can. — Barry M. Goldwater

Michael also hadn't realized just how extensive Gregory's power was, he had his fingers in everything: from oil production to technology to government legislation to dealing with rogue states and terrorists to control over stock markets and currencies. If Gregory had wanted to, he could've brought the world to its knees in less than a day, but that wouldn't do anyone any good if the world economy and various governments failed in an instant, it had to do be done gradually. Michael also realized how long it would take to dilute the influence of the United States and its Christian citizens, but he would do it, and it helped him that he started so early in college with the new technologies available to him. — Cliff Ball

It's because of my grandfather that I became a Young Avenger. But it's hard sometimes, to be a black kid carrying a name like "Patriot". I remember talking to Captain America about before he died, and he explained what Patriotism meant to him...
It wasn't about blindly supporting your government. It was about knowing what your country could be, what it should be... And trying to lead it there through your example. And holding it accountable when it failed. I remember he said: "There's noting patriotic about corruption or cover-ups... or defending them. But exposing them, well, that takes a hero. — Ed Brubaker

[Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964], many governments in southern states forced people to segregate by race. Civil rights advocates fought to repeal these state laws, but failed. So they appealed to the federal government, which responded with the Civil Rights Act of 1964. But this federal law didn't simply repeal state laws compelling segregation. It also prohibited voluntary segregation. What had been mandatory became forbidden. Neither before nor after the Civil Rights Act were people free to make their own decisions about who they associated with. — Harry Browne

No one sex can govern alone. I believe that one of the reasons why civilization has failed so lamentably is that is had one-sided government. — Nancy Astor

The contented and economically comfortable have a very discriminating view of government. Nobody is ever indignant about bailing out failed banks and failed savings and loans associations. But when taxes must be paid for the lower middle class and poor, the government assumes an aspect of wickedness. — John Kenneth Galbraith

The long experiment with professional politicians and professional government is over, and it failed. — Newt Gingrich

The Constitution is ink on parchment. It is forty-four hundred words. And it is, too, the accreted set of meanings that have been made of those words, the amendments, the failed amendments, the struggles, the debates - the course of events - over more than two centuries. It is not easy, but it is everyone's. — Jill Lepore

Salvation by society failed the most where it promised the most, in the communist countries. But it also failed in the West. Practically no government program enacted since the 1950s in the Western world - or in the communist countries - has been successful. — Peter Drucker

The general public has failed to realize that the USA government has built a High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP) in most cities with the mass deployment of smart radio frequency transmitting utility meters. — Steven Magee

It is wrong for a secular government to promote prayer. We think the National Day of Prayer is unconstitutional. What if the president declared a National Day of Cursing God because He failed us on September 11? Americans would say, "You've overstepped your authority." That's how we feel when he promotes prayer. — Dan Barker

Government agents sardonically known as the Menstrual Police regularly rounded up women in their workplaces to administer pregnancy tests. If a woman repeatedly failed to conceive, she was forced to pay a steep "celibacy tax. — Steven D. Levitt

Mankind has failed miserably in its effort to devise a rational system of government. [ ... ] The art of government is the exclusive possession of quacks and frauds. It has been so since the earliest days, and it will probably remain so until the end of time. — H.L. Mencken

What Clinton severed with his welfare reform was the obligation of the federal government to step in when the states failed and to monitor these programs. — Robert Scheer

, Roosevelt was unmoved. Churchill had to agree to dispatch a political mission - the Cripps Mission - to India a few days after the fall of Rangoon. It failed and Churchill was delighted. He said to FDR, 'I feel absolutely satisfied we have done our utmost.' However, Roosevelt did not think so. He knew that Churchill had stacked the deck against the mission. He telegraphed Churchill to try again, saying that Britain's unwillingness 'to concede to the Indians the right of self-government was — Anonymous

Unfortunately, President Obama's failed policies of new regulations, higher taxes, and Obamacare and his anti-business rhetoric have hit Hispanics especially hard. Big government really hurts those who are trying to make it. — Marco Rubio

The holy art of "giving for Jesus' sake" ought to be much more strongly developed among us Christians. Never forget that all state relief for the poor is a blot on the honor of your savior. The fact that the government needs a safety net to catch those who would slip between the cracks of our economic system is evidence that I have failed to do God's work. The government cannot take the place of Christian charity. A loving embrace isn't given with food stamps. The care of a community isn't provided with government housing. The face of our Creator can't be seen on a welfare voucher. What the poor need is not another government program; what they need is for Christians like me to honor our savior. — Abraham Kuyper

Our Constitution, which was intended to limit government power and abuse, has failed, — Ron Paul

when you see someone in a tree trying to protect it , you know that every level of our society have failed , the consumers have failed , the companies have failed , the government has failed . — Julia Butterfly Hill

Iraq failed for the same reasons that all conservative public policy efforts fail. Refusing to acknowledge the importance of government while relying on it to achieve your objectives causes the same kind of chaos in foreign policy that it does in matters closer to home. — Alan Wolfe

The government is always looking for something that appears more dangerous than itself, and these criminals seem to fit the bill. Never mind that it was the government that promised but failed to protect us. It was the government that prevented the airlines from protecting themselves. It was the government that so badly botched the rescue operations. It was the government that had stirred up the hate that led to the terrorism. — Llewellyn Rockwell

I've said that we're going to produce real results for the American people because so many Americans feel left out and left behind, they think the economy has failed them, they think our government has failed, they can't stand the gridlock and dysfunction in our politics, and I'm determined to produce more good jobs with rising incomes, and deal with all of the concerns that families have about education, college affordability, student debt. — Hillary Clinton

All Europe was watching Spain. The left-wing government elected last February had suffered an attempted military coup backed by Fascists and conservatives. The rebel general Franco had won support from the Catholic Church. The news had struck the rest of the continent like an earthquake. After Germany and Italy would Spain, too, fall under the curse of Fascism? "The revolt was botched, as you probably know, and it almost failed," Billy went on. "But Hitler and Mussolini came to the rescue, and saved the insurrection by airlifting thousands of rebel troops from North Africa as reinforcements." Lenny put in: "And the unions saved the government!" "That's true," Billy said. "The government was slow to react, but the trade unions led the way in organizing workers and arming them with weapons they seized from military arsenals, ships, gun shops, and anywhere else they could find them. — Ken Follett

I have only a very brief opening statement.

I welcome these hearings because of the opportunity that they provide to the American people to better understand why the tragedy of 9/11 happened and what we must do to prevent a reoccurance.

I also welcome the hearings because it is finally a forum where I can apologize to the loved ones of the victims of 9/11.

To them who are here in the room, to those who are watching on television, your government failed you, those entrusted with protecting you failed you and I failed you. We tried hard, but that doesn't matter because we failed.

And for that failure, I would ask -- once all the facts are out -- for your understanding and for your forgiveness.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I'll be glad to take your questions. — Richard A. Clarke

When the coercive power of government is used to equalize incomes, it guarantees less prosperity across the board and spreads the misery, which is one of the many reasons Marxism and socialism have failed everywhere they've tried. — David Limbaugh

When you see a child starving and you think government failed. But I think God failed , could not even fill the hunger of a child. — John Art

What the Lib Dems have failed to do is offer any meaningful agenda for government or for power. — Lucy Powell

I and some colleagues came to the conclusion that as violence in this country was inevitable, it would be wrong and unrealistic for African leaders to continue preaching peace and non-violence at a time when the government met our peaceful demands with force. It was only when all else had failed, when all channels of peaceful protest had been barred to us, that the decision was made to embark on violent forms of political struggle. — Nelson Mandela

The Second Amendment is a doomsday provision, one designed for those exceptionally rare circumstances where all other rights have failed - where the government refuses to stand for reelection and silences those who protest; where courts have lost the courage to oppose, or can find no one to enforce their decrees. However improbable these contingencies may seem today, facing them unprepared is a mistake a free people get to make only once. — Alex Kozinski

From the takeover of Detroit and the failed stimulus packages to the enactment of Obamacare, the president and congressional Democrats chose to use Americas economic crisis as an excuse to expand government rather than as an opportunity to responsibly shrink it. — Jeb Hensarling

[Barack Obama failed to sell a health care reform plan to American voters] because the utter implausibility of its central promise - expanded coverage at lower cost - led voters to conclude that it would lead ultimately to more government, more taxes and more debt. — Charles Krauthammer

[E]conomic history is a long record of government policies that failed because they were designed with a bold disregard for the laws of economics — Ludwig Von Mises

The Declaration of Independence says when government fails, the people have the right to replace it. Well, New York State government has failed and the people have the right, indeed the people have the the people have the obligation, to act. — Andrew Cuomo

To you, the people of Flint, I say, as I have before, I am sorry and I will fix it. No citizen of this great state should endure this kind of catastrophe. Government failed you. Federal, state and local leaders by breaking the trust you placed in us. — Rick Snyder

In the case of the Irish banks, the private bonds that they had purchased were uninsured. In the case of Greek state bonds, their buyers also knew that these were Greek law contracts, meaning that they could be given a haircut (written down) by a future stressed Greek government. This is precisely why the interest rates were higher than in Germany. Higher risk, higher rewards. As long as the gamble was paying off, the German bankers reaped benefits that they shared with no one. But when the gambles turned bad, as Irish banks and the Greek state failed, they demanded that the taxpayers of Greece and Ireland pay up, as if they had bought insurance from them. — Yanis Varoufakis

The federal government has failed us, so we, the elected officials of small-town America, are getting tough with illegal immigration. — Lou Barletta

Haile Selassie was not an evil man, but his priorities were misplaced. He was so concerned with establishing a strong central government and modernizing the country that he failed to meet the challenge of natural disaster ... It was his false pride, this lack of courage to admit mistakes, that brought about his downfall. — Haile Selassie

The last four years under President Obama have been trying and troubling for this entire country. The tired big government policies of the past have failed us. We can't afford more disappointments. We need a new direction. We need a new president. — Reince Priebus

The worst thing the federal government could do is to increase the size, reach and cost of government. If government failed in its response to the hurricane, the answer is not more inefficient government. — Cal Thomas

The dioxin story is the story of how science has failed to provide us with answers, how corporations control policymaking and decisions in our society, and how government is silenced. — Lois Gibbs

Whatever failures may have come to parliamentary government in countries which have not those traditions, and where it is not a natural growth, that is no proof that parliamentary government has failed. — Stanley Baldwin

when civic engagement was not enough, when government failed, when private banks could no longer hold the line, Chicago turned to an old tool in the American repertoire - racial violence. — Anonymous

The income tax is a twentieth-century socialist experiment that has failed. Before the income tax was imposed on us just 80 years ago, government had no claim to our income. Only sales, excise, and tariff taxes were allowed. — Alan Keyes

In the North, the sale of government bonds was the one measure for raising funds that seemed to work. Even that, however, with the lure of compounded interest to be paid in gold at a future date, failed to raise more than about half the needed amount. So the Union faced a real dilemma. The only options remaining were (1) terminate the war or (2) print fiat money. For Lincoln and the Republicans who controlled Congress, the choice was never seriously in doubt. — G. Edward Griffin

You're not supposed to be admitted to America if you're likely to be a charge on the public - if you're going to need government aid to take care of yourself ... It [2006 immigration bill] failed because it did not do what it said it would do ... End the illegality first. Then we can wrestle with how to treat compassionately people who have been in America for a long time. — Jeff Sessions

Printing money is the last resort of desperate governments when all other policies have failed. — George Osborne

Certainly, if we believe in democracy and democratic systems, when [Benazir Bhutto] failed to pass any legislation, really, at all in her first two years in government during her first term and in fact had a tenure that was marked not only by gross corruption but by human rights abuses, that should have been a time for people to say, "Well, OK, we've given you an opportunity and you haven't bettered the institutions, you haven't strengthened the democratic cause - we may not vote you back." — Fatima Bhutto

The world was already a miserable place in the spring of that cursed year. The New Depression was at its height. Stocks fell, jobs were lost, and consumer consumption fell in a corporate death spiral as the aging technoczars were revealed to have feet of clay. Financial institutions underreacted, the government overreacted, and a society living on borrowed time paid for with borrowed dollars failed. Hard times and hunger came to the Western world, which was all the more of a shock because the generation that survived the last financial collapse had virtually died out. — E.E. Knight

Arizona did not make illegal, illegal. It is a crime to enter or remain in the U.S. in violation of federal law. States have had inherent authority to enforce immigration laws when the federal government has failed or refused to do so. — Russell Pearce

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac - two bloated and corrupt government-sponsored programs - contributed heavily to the crisis.In order to prevent another crisis, we need to do what we should have done years ago - reform Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. We also need to repeal Dodd-Frank, the Democrats' failed solution. Under Dodd-Frank, 10 banks too big to fail have become five banks too big to fail. Thousands of community banks have gone out of business. — Carly Fiorina

Let's be honest about this; the liberal agenda with failed stimulus plans and government entitlement programs is crippling our economy and our quality of life. — Alveda King

With respect to sticking accelerator pedals, we failed to connect the dots between problems in Europe and problems in the United States because the European situation related primarily to right-hand-drive vehicles. Toyota will increase its outreach to government agencies charged with protecting the safety of motorists and passengers. — Akio Toyoda

Direct popular government of a state larger than a city state had already failed therefore in Italy, because as yet there was no public education, no press, and no representative system; it had failed though these mere mechanical difficulties, before the first Punic War. — H.G.Wells

But politicians who talk about failed policies are just blowing smoke. Government policies succeed in doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the general public to politically organized and influential interests groups. — Robert Higgs

Battles against Rome have been lost and won before, but hope was never abandoned, since we were always here in reserve. We, the choicest flower of Britain's manhood, were hidden away in her most secret places. Out of sight of subject shores, we kept even our eyes free from the defilement of tyranny. We, the most distant dwellers upon earth, the last of the free, have been shielded till today by our very remoteness and by the obscurity in which it has shrouded our name. Now, the farthest bounds of Britain lie open to our enemies; and what men know nothing about they always assume to be a valuable prize ...
A rich enemy excites their cupidity; a poor one, their lust for power. East and West alike have failed to satisfy them. They are the only people on earth to whose covetousness both riches and poverty are equally tempting. To robbery, butchery and rapine, they give the lying name of 'government'; they create a desolation and call it peace ... — Tacitus

The United States has entered the ranks of the failed states. One of the most remarkable manifestations of a failed state is that the criminals are all inside the government operating against the people, whereas in a normal state, the criminals are on the outside of the government, operating against it. So, we now have every manifestation of being a failed state, with the government in the hands of a few Wall Street gangsters. — Paul Craig Roberts

I can officially state that my government and myself believe that all over Europe we need to open a debate on the 'drug question' in order to create more coherent and human policies with better perspectives ... The policy of criminalizing consumers has failed, creating many problems to our society. — George Papandreou

When the U.S. Government shows a proper appreciation of the services of the Negro who has never failed it in every crisis of its history to do his whole duty, to shed his blood freely in its behalf ... then, and not till then, will I be heard. — Francis James Grimke

The CDC and the federal government have already admitted that they have failed to get ahead of the spread of Ebola in Texas, and we aren't going to let that happen in Florida. — Rick Scott

Our government has failed us. From the billion-dollar bailouts to the 'stimulus' package that failed to stimulate to the government takeover of health care, you cried 'Stop!' ... but the Democratic Majority in Washington has refused to listen. — Kevin McCarthy

Slavery happened. That flag stands for segregation. We have monuments to Civil War generals and slave owners, as well as preserved plantations. But we have only one slavery museum, and that was built by a private citizen. We have no national or federal slavery museum. There is no government-funded slavery museum. A proposal to put one in Virginia came through in 2001 and went unfunded and failed. Another one in Richmond reached a similar fate. This is absolutely shameful. — Trae Crowder

...the whole of American life was organized around the cult of the powerful individual, that phantom ideal which Europe herself had only begun to outgrow in her last phase. Those Americans who wholly failed to realize this ideal, who remained at the bottom of the social ladder, either consoled themselves with hopes for the future, or stole symbolical satisfaction by identifying themselves with some popular star, or gloated upon their American citizenship, and applauded the arrogant foreign policy of their government. — Olaf Stapledon

Denial is not a solution. Governments naturally lie to maintain power. Eventually the deception perpetrated is believed by the government officials themselves. This encourages them to continue a failed policy until it's too late. Ego plays a large part in it as well. It's highly likely that our policy of foreign intervention will not be reversed and that world chaos will result as a new world order sets in - and it won't be the New World Order that interventionists have promoted for so many years. — Ron Paul

The people in a position to resolve the financial crisis were, of course, the very same people who had failed to foresee it: Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson, future Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein, Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack, Citigroup CEO Vikram Pandit, and so on. A few Wall Street CEOs had been fired for their roles in the subprime mortgage catastrophe, but most remained in their jobs, and they, of all people, became important characters operating behind the closed doors, trying to figure out what to do next. With them were a handful of government officials - the same government officials who should have known a lot more about what Wall Street firms were doing, back when they were doing it. All shared a distinction: They had proven far less capable of grasping basic truths in the heart of the U.S. financial system than a one-eyed money manager with Asperger's syndrome. — Michael Lewis

Closing the gap for women entrepreneurs should be a priority for the federal government - and yet the Small Business Administration has failed in their promise to women business owners. — Ruben Hinojosa

And once again the government has failed to get the kind of cooperation from the relatives that might allow the case of this young boy to end in a civilized manner that is best for him. — Peter Jennings

Governments having failed the people, the people are entirely justified in assuming for themselves and essential role in government. Where a government takes proper measures to protect the people under its care, such a proceeding might have been thought both unnecessary and unjustifiable: But here it is quite the Reverse. — Benjamin Franklin

As a leftover sixties liberal, I believe that the long arm and beady eyes of the government have no place in our bedrooms, our kitchens, or the backseats of our parked cars. But I also feel that the immediate appointment of a Special Pastry Prosecutor would do much more good than harm. We know the free market has totally failed when 89 percent of all the tart pastry, chocolate-chip cookies, and tuiles in America are far less delicious than they would be if bakers simply followed a few readily available recipes. What we need is a system of graduated fines and perhaps short jail sentences to discourage the production of totally depressing baked goods. Maybe a period of unpleasant and tedious community service could be substituted for jail time. — Jeffrey Steingarten

The governments and their policies have failed, the church is the last hope of the common man, I value a church that is a home for all. — Ifeanyi Enoch Onuoha

If left unattended by nonvigilant citizens, the freedoms of democracy can be lost to an all-powerful state, and citizens can become transformed into subjects of the government they failed to keep in check. — Christine Barbour

When the three branches of government have failed to represent the citizenry and the mass of the media has failed to represent the citizenry, then the citizenry better represent the citizenry. — David Mamet

The only thing worse than too much government is too little: in failed states, people suffer at least as much violence and injustice as under authoritarian rule, and in addition their trains do not run on time. — Tony Judt

Yet, here we are, long and difficult years into that conflict," ... "we still have not created the state we promised them. On the contrary, our costly and valiant efforts have produced an outcome our government did not predict or intend-a failed state spinning out of control into anarchy and civil war. — Anthony Zinni

From the beginning of time, we've had financial crises. People always blame the banks and for good reason. When you look for the root causes, they're almost always failed government policies. — Henry Paulson

I doubt that my sense of personal freedom is any stronger than anybody else's. I'm happy to respect authority when it's genuine authority, based on moral or intellectual or even technical superiority. I'm eager to follow a hero if we can find one. But I tend to resist or evade any kind of authority based merely on the power to coerce. Government, for example. The Army tried to train us to salute the uniform, not the man. Failed. I will salute the man, maybe, if I think he's worthy of it, but I don't salute uniforms anymore. — Edward Abbey

I take seriously the concerns that voters are expressing. There's a lot of disappointment, fear, even anger, among people who believe that the economy has failed them, their government has failed them, politics has failed them. They have every right to be concerned. — Hillary Clinton