Social Issue Quotes & Sayings

The real issue in the Christian community was that it was conditional. You were loved, but if you had questions, questions about whether the Bible was true or whether America was a good country or whether last week's sermon was good, you were not so loved. You were loved in word, but there was, without question, a social commodity that was being withheld from you until you shaped up. By toeing the party line you earned social dollars; by being yourself you did not. If you wanted to be valued, you became a clone. These are broad generalizations, and they are unfair, but this is what I was thinking at the time. — Donald Miller

The working people of the Flint area hated this rag, but it was our only daily so you read it. Everyone called it the "Flint Urinal." Editorially, the paper had historically been on the wrong side of every major social and political issue of the twentieth century
"the wrong side" meaning: whatever side the union workers were on, the Urinal took the opposite position. — Michael Moore

The writer should have a comprehensive outlook. He should aim at a holistic understanding of the prevailing social, political and economic conditions.

He should evaluate all factors in a balanced way. To take a selective view will be erroneous. A realistic approach becomes necessary. This requires healthy literary criticism and exchange of views.

A writer should necessarily venture into his enterprise by touching on a single issue. But then he should relate it to other socially relevant issues. This is what we call the socio-spiritual approach.

You may begin your work dwelling upon the problems of an individual, but then as a writer you should be able to view it as part of the larger social reality. — Jayakanthan

Another night then,' Mom said. 'Maybe on the weekend we can have a barbecue and invite your sister.'
'Or,' I said turning to Rafe, 'if you want to skip the whole awkward meet-the-family social event you could just submit your life story including your view on politics religion and every social issue imaginable along with anything else you think they might need to conduct a thorough background check.'
Mom sighed. 'I really don't know why we even bother trying to be subtle around you.'
'Neither do I. It's not like he isn't going to realize he's being vetted as daughter-dating material.'
Rafe grinned. 'So we are dating.'
'No. You have to pass the parental exam first. It'll take you awhile to compile the data. They'd like it in triplicate.' I turned to my parents. 'We have Kenjii. We have my cell phone. Since we aren't yet officially dating I'm sure you'll agree that's all the protection we need.'
Dad choked on his coffee. — Kelley Armstrong

The public school system is not about educating black children. Never has been. Inner-city schools are about social control. Period. They're operated as holding pens - miniature jails, really. It's only when black children start breaking out of their pens and bothering white people that society even pays any attention to the issue of whether these children are being educated. — Barack Obama

When, as happened recently in France, an attempt is made to coerce women out of the burqa rather than creating a situation in which a woman can choose what she wishes to do, it's not about liberating her, but about unclothing her. It becomes an act of humiliation and cultural imperialism. It's not about the burqa. It's about the coercion. Coercing a woman out of a burqa is as bad as coercing her into one. Viewing gender in this way, shorn of social, political and economic context, makes it an issue of identity, a battle of props and costumes. It is what allowed the US government to use western feminist groups as moral cover when it invaded Afghanistan in 2001. Afghan women were (and are) in terrible trouble under the Taliban. But dropping daisy-cutters on them was not going to solve their problems. — Arundhati Roy

The Ministry places great importance and focus on the waste management issue as one of the most pressing priorities in the UAE, given its economic, social, environmental and medical effects. The Ministry addresses this issue through two approaches, the first in limiting the generation of waste form the source, by organizing awareness programs that target families and individuals, or by regulations and developing a national regulatory framework for waste management. The second revolves around the reuse and recycling of waste as a national commitment and one of the major objectives of the national agenda of the UAE Vision 2021. We all hope that we can strengthen the cooperation between the public and private sector in that domain, and encourage private companies to play a more vital role in waste management in a way that exceeds corporate social responsibility initiatives. — Anonymous

Architecture and architectural freedom are above all a social issue that must be seen from inside a political structure, not from outside it, — Lina Bo Bardi

Their analysis clearly revealed the existence of a color line that effectively blocked black occupational, residential, and social mobility. They demonstrated that any assumption about urban blacks duplicating the immigrant experience had to confront the issue of race. — William Julius Wilson

I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice. — Arne Duncan

I don't think there is a single social issue I haven't spoken on. — Billy Graham

It just seems like right now we're in a place where people are being witch-hunted for expressing an opinion. Even if it's a lousy opinion or a shitty opinion, and comics I don't think can ever fall into the trap of any groups that want to censor what a person says or thinks or punish a person for expressing what they think. Anything you say about a social issue is going to offend half the country. I don't care how nicely you say it, I don't care how well you construct the joke, simply by stating the opinion, you are for something and anti something else. — Jim Norton

Transit-for-all is about values. Improving public transportation is about giving all Americans the freedom of equal access to social and economic opportunities that enhance our quality of life. Investing in alternative transportation is using the common wealth for the common good. It is an expansion of freedom, creating more diverse transportation. Transit-for-all is a progressive strategic initiative to advance many of our goals at once. It's an economic issue. It would increase mobility of goods and labor. It would revitalize neglected neighborhoods. And it would spur growth and attract development. It's a labor issue. — George Lakoff

More important than the material issue ... the opening of a new, high frontier will challenge the best that is in us ... the new lands waiting to be built in space will give us new freedom to search for better governments, social systems, and ways of life. — Gerard K. O'Neill

Moreover, since (as chapters 3 and 5 will argue) tolerance requires that the tolerated refrain from demands or incursions on public or political life that issue from their "difference," the subject of tolerance is tolerated only so long as it does not make a political claim, that is, so long as it lives and practices its "difference" in a depoliticized or private fashion. In addition to being at odds with the epistemological and political stance to which many politicized identities aspire, this requirement also results in the discursive suppression of the social powers that constitute "difference" as well as in the strengthening of the hegemony of unmarked cultures, ethnicities, races, or sexualities; — Wendy Brown

The key to solving the social problems of our age is to abolish the white race. Until that task is accomplished, even partial reform will prove elusive, because white influence permeates every issue in U.S. society, whether domestic or foreign. — Noel Ignatiev

On issue after issue, the polls - and these are not snapshot polls; these are polls over a consistent period of time - show that most Americans share what one could call core liberal or progressive values: investment in health care and education over tax cuts; fair trade over free trade; corporate accountability over deregulation; environmental protection over laissez-faire policies; defending Social Security and Medicare over privatizing them; raising the minimum wage over eliminating it. The country prefers progressive alternatives to the failed policies of the conservative right. — Katrina Vanden Heuvel

Holding one's self responsible is a critical feature in stigma and in the generation of shame since violation of standards, rules, and goals are insufficient in its elicitation unless responsibility can be placed on the self. Stigma may differ from other elicitors of shame and guilt, in part because it is a social appearance factor. The degree to which the stigma is socially apparent is the degree to which one must negotiate the issue of blame, not only for one's self but between one's self and the other who is witness to the stigma. Stigmatization is a much more powerful elicitor of shame and guilt in that it requires a negotiation not only between one's self and one's attributions, but between one's self and the attributions of others. — Michael Lewis

Even today we don't pay serious attention to the issue of poverty, because the powerful remain relatively untouched by it. Most people distance themselves from the issue by saying that if the poor worked harder, they wouldn't be poor. — Muhammad Yunus

One of the more difficult tasks for me as president was to decide on the issue of confirming capital punishment awarded by courts ... to my surprise ... almost all cases which were pending had a social and economic bias. — A. P. J. Abdul Kalam

What is the big political issue for Britain at the moment? Without wishing to sound portentous, it is about whether we can build a social democratic settlement, whether we can lay the political and cultural foundations for the next several years. — David Miliband

A society governed by consent does not necessarily issue from a social contract, whether actual or implied. It is a society in which dealings between citizens, and between citizens and those in authority, are consensual, in the manner of daily courtesies, games of football, theatrical events or family meals. As Adam Smith made clear, order may emerge from consensual dealings. But it emerges 'by an invisible hand', and not, as a rule, because someone has imposed it. In — Roger Scruton

The Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue really sets the social standard for what people expect the perfect woman's body to look like, and a lot of those bodies usually look the same. — Ronda Rousey

The two commandments go beneath social performance and social appearance to the deep, elemental, defining issue of God versus the gods. — Walter Brueggemann

Th direct elimination of elimination of poverty should be the objective of all development aid. Development should be viewed as a human rights issue, not as a question of simply increasing the gross national product (GNP). — Muhammad Yunus

What to do about climate change is political, it's social, and it's moral, which is one of the reasons the scientific community reached out to the Pope, to ask for his involvement in this issue. — Naomi Oreskes

The issue of homosexuality in the church is complex, highly charged, and defined by misrecognized fears related to rapid social change and the perceived threat to familiar social institutions and the sense of security they represent. Underlying this conflict are the church's historic discomfort with issues of sexuality, and dualistic constructions that codify that unease into categories of sexual insiders (monogamous heterosexuals and celibates) and outsiders (everybody else). These have been magnified in recent years by cultural differences between different generations and African countries where the church has grown. — Jane Ellen Nickell

You know, Republicans should have a consistent philosophy. And if your philosophy is about limited government and not intruding in people's lives, you shouldn't just inconveniently take a social issue like gay marriage and say, 'Well, unless we think - actually we should be intruding your life.' — Mark McKinnon

There are some wounds unreachable by words, some sins immune to apology. — Amy Hatvany

Take childcare for example, an issue that never gets much support beyond lip service in the feminist world, despite it being something that would benefit the majority of women. Once you reach a certain income level, it's easier and more convenient for you to take care of your own childcare needs than to pay the taxes or contribute to a system that would help all women. If your child is in a failing school, it's much more convenient to place your child in a private or charter school than to organize ways to improve the situation for the entire community. This also applies to expanding social welfare programs, supporting community clinics, and so on. As a woman's ability to take care of herself expands thanks to feminist efforts, the feminist goals she's willing to really fight for, or contribute time and money and effort to, shrink. — Jessa Crispin

But this belief demonstrated only that Lyndon Johnson simply had not grasped that there was another world, a world in which Douglas and Lehman were not crazies but heroes, in which principles mattered far more than they did in the Senate. In addition, Lyndon Johnson had not fully appreciated that it didn't matter what he did for the liberals in Social Security and housing so long as he was not on their side on the "great issue." He should have appreciated this. — Robert A. Caro

There is no allusion to marriage or family in the Constitution. It is barely mentioned in the Federalist Papers or elsewhere in the ratification debates. The reason why the founders "ignored" the family was that it was not an issue for them. It was not a social problem. On the contrary, the family was the accepted substratum of society. It — Jean Bethke Elshtain

In all of these various instances of stigma, however, including those the Greeks had in mind, the same sociological features are found: an individual who might have been received easily in ordinary social intercourse possesses a trait that can obtrude itself upon attention and turn those of us whom he meets away from him, breaking the claim that his other attributes have on us. He possesses a stigma, an undesired differentness from what we had anticipated. We and those who do not depart negatively from the particular expectations at issue I shall call the normals. — Erving Goffman

The past is the occupational realm of historians - their daily work - and scholars have debated what their stance toward these social issues should be. As citizens and professionals, historians may naturally form a desire, as Carl Becker puts it, "to do work in the world." That is, they might aspire to write history that is not only of scholarly value but also has a salutary impact in society. Becker defines the appropriate impact and the historian's proper role as "correcting and rationalizing for common use Mr. Everyman's mythological adaption of what actually happened."

That process is never simple, however, when the subject involves divisions so deep that they led to civil wars. One issue that inevitably leads to controversy is the extent to which history involves moral judgment. Another is the power of myths, exerting their influence on society and acting in opposition to the findings of historical research [190 - 91]. — Paul D. Escott

For nearly a decade Democrats have sought a religious wedge issue that could separate big chunks of white evangelical voters from their Republican home. Now they've found it, and are thrusting at the Social Darwinist/Ayn Rand underbelly of American conservatism. — Marvin Olasky

We're taking on Social Security as a property rights issue. We figure that every single American has an absolute property right interest in the fruits of his or her own labor. What I work for should be my property. — Malcolm Wallop

Like it or not, philosophy or intellectual activity in ancient China was distinguished from manual labor, and thus philosophical texts were not only political in nature (because they normally addressed the issue of good government and social order) but also "esoteric." They were not meant to contribute to general education, but to be studied only by a small fraction of the population, i.e., by those who had access to learning and power. If we want to understand the Laozi historically, we have to accept this context and thus also the fact that, as a philosophical treatise, it did not attempt to be generally accessible. It was originally a text for the few - and it clearly shows. — Hans-Georg Moeller

I couldn't trust my own emotions. Which emotional reactions were justified, if any? And which ones were tainted by the mental illness of BPD? I found myself fiercely guarding and limiting my emotional reactions, chastising myself for possible distortions and motivations. People who had known me years ago would barely recognize me now. I had become quiet and withdrawn in social settings, no longer the life of the party. After all, how could I know if my boisterous humor were spontaneous or just a borderline desire to be the center of attention? I could no longer trust any of my heart felt beliefs and opinions on politics, religion, or life. The debate queen had withered. I found myself looking at every single side of an issue unable to come to any conclusions for fear they might be tainted. My lifelong ability to be assertive had turned into a constant state of passivity. — Rachel Reiland

When the wilderness movement emerged, it emerged separate from the issue of social inequality and the economic problems of survival. It was a preservationist ecology movement created by an occupying culture. Clearly, a wilderness movement started by Native Americans would not have had the same roots. — Vandana Shiva

Race was an issue because in every assignment I have had in Special Operations, racism has been as much a part of the social bond as football and fast cars. I never cared for either of them either, but this was special. — Stan Goff

Vampires let us play with death and the issue of mortality. They let us ponder what it would mean to be truly long lived. Would the long view allow us to see the world differently, imagine social structures differently? Would it increase or decrease our reverence for the planet? Vampires allow us to ask questions we usually bury. — Margot Adler

Not too long ago, I was speaking at Princeton, and some of the students asked me how they were to choose which issue of social justice is the most important. The question made me cringe. Issues? These issues have faces. We're talking not only about ideas but also about human emergencies. My response to the well-intentioned Princeton students was, Don't choose issues; choose people. Come play in the fire hydrants in North Philly. Fall in love with a group of people who are marginalized and suffering, and then you won't have to worry about which cause you need to protest. Then the issues will choose you. — Shane Claiborne

Animal Rights is now the greatest Social Justice issue since the abolition of slavery. — Philip Wollen

Power is a central issue in social and personal transformation. Our sources and uses of power set our boundaries, give form to our relationships, even determine how much we let ourselves liberate and express aspects of the self. More than party registration, more than our purported philosophy or ideology, personal power defines our politics. — Marilyn Ferguson

Ultimately I think what people care about, particularly on an issue like Social Security, is not really what's right and what's left but what's right and what's wrong. — John Podesta

The proof that the One Stone Solution is political lies in what women feel when they eat 'too much': guilt. Why should guilt be the operative emotion, and female fat be a moral issue articulated with words like good and bad? If our culture's fixation on female fatness of thinness were about sex, it would be a private issue between a woman and her lover; if it were about health, between a woman and herself. Public debate would be far more hysterically focused on male fat than on female, since more men [40 percent] are medically overweight than women [32 percent] and too much fat is far more dangerous for men than for women ...
... But female fat is the subject of public passion, and women feel guilty about female fat, because we implicitly recognize that under the myth, women's bodies are not our own but society's, and that thinness is not a private aesthetic, but hunger a social concession exacted by the community. — Naomi Wolf

The stigma of mental illness is first and foremost a social justice issue! — Patrick W. Corrigan

We have to start with recognition of the issue, confession that it exists, and a willingness to change. The fundamental problem is that white people who own the system as it is now do not allow the absence of black people to bother them."

"It has not dawned on enough whites that the real issue is the integrity of the gospel itself and, consequently, the integrity of our witness to the rest of the world-where the majority is blessedly nonwhite. — William Pannell

Gun crime is a major cause of fear and distress throughout the UK. The problem is deeply entrenched in a wide range of social and cultural factors and therefore not an isolated issue. — Diane Abbott

I am a huge admirer of Franklin Roosevelt's, and I believe social security has done untold good in alleviating the once-widespread issue of poverty among the elderly. FDR believed in the greatness and generosity of Americans - but he was also a cold-blooded politician. — Jon Meacham

Charity work. Any smart, ethical business owner is going to be involved with something that gives back, whether it is at the community level, in the fight against a specific disease, or in a broad campaign to address another social issue. If you are willing to take the time to roll up your sleeves - first, to find out what groups your targeted mentor works with, and second, to start giving your money, time, or resources to that same group - you can find inroads to business mentors very quickly, and all while pursuing a worthy cause. — Ryan Blair

Vice President Biden's surprising declaration of unqualified support for gay marriage seems to have forced President Obama into a public endorsement of a controversial social issue. It is difficult not to suspect that Biden's pronouncement aimed to give the president some political cover. — Robert Dallek

The only debatable issue, it seems to me, is whether it is more ridiculous to turn to experts in social theory for general well-confirmed propositions, or to the specialists in the great religions and philosophical systems for insights into fundamental human values. — Noam Chomsky

But on the other hand, in discussion and debate concerning social issues or American foreign policy, Vietnam or the Middle East, for example, the issue is constantly raised, often with considerable venom. I've repeatedly been challenged on grounds of credentials, or asked, what special training do you have that entitles you to speak of these matters. The assumption is that people like me, who are outsiders from a professional viewpoint, are not entitled to speak on such things. — Noam Chomsky

The end is what you want, the means is how you get it. Whenever we think about social change, the question of means and ends arises. The man of action views the issue of means and ends in pragmatic and strategic terms. He has no other problem; he thinks only of his actual resources and the possibilities of various choices of action. He asks of ends only whether they are achievable and worth the cost; of means, only whether they will work ... The real arena is corrupt and bloody. — Saul Alinsky

Globalization is a complex issue, partly because economic globalization is only one part of it. Globalization is greater global closeness, and that is cultural, social, political, as well as economic. — Amartya Sen

The great question that hovers over this issue, one that we have dealt with mainly by indifference, is the question of what people are for. Is their greatest dignity in unemployment? Is the obsolescence of human beings now our social goal? One would conclude so from our attitude toward work, especially the manual work necessary to the long-term preservation of the land, and from our rush toward mechanization, automation, and computerization. In a country that puts an absolute premium on labor-saving measures, short workdays, and retirement, why should there be any surprise at permanence of unemployment and welfare dependency? Those are only different names for our national ambition. — Wendell Berry

I would hope that we could have this in an adult fashion and stop demagogueing the issue anytime you talk about any substantive reforms that will actually save social security and save Medicare and save the system from imploding on itself. — Ben Quayle

...People so often ignored their gut because of social niceties and expectations. Luckily Dax didn't have that issue; he was barely fucking civilized. — Katie Reus

Just being an obedient Christian is increasingly becoming a social, political, legal issue ... — John Piper

You know, social issue movies don't make a lot of money. — Ryan Phillippe

Of course, almost ali people, guided by the traditional manner of dealing with ethical precepts, peremptorily repudiate such an explanation of the issue. Social institutions, they assert, must be just. It is base to judge them merely according to their fitness to attain definite ends, however desirable these ends may be from any other point of view. What matters first is justice. The extreme formulation of this idea is to be found in the famous phrase: fiai fustitia, pereat mundus. Let justice be done, even if it destroys the world. Most supporters of the postulate of justice will reject this maxim as extravagant, absurd, and paradoxical. But it is not more absurd, merely more shocking, than any other reference to an arbitrary notion of absolute justice. It clearly shows the fallacies of the methods applied in the discipline of intuitive ethics. — Ludwig Von Mises

The characteristic feature of contemporary literary radicalism is that it rarely addresses the question of its own determination by the conditions of its production and the class location of its agents. In the rare case where this issue of one's own location
hence of the social determination of one's own practice
is addressed at all, even fleetingly, the stance is characteristically that of a very poststructuralist kind of ironic self- referentiality and self-pleasuring. — Aijaz Ahmad

In the pioneer West Whitopias, immigration tended to be the dominant social and racial issue. In Forsyth County, Georgia, immigration is still an issue, but because you have that complicated history of the Trail of Tears and slavery and Jim Crow, the Whitopia has a different flavor. — Richard Benjamin

Yes, look, social class is definitely an issue in Britain, it is definitely an issue and I think that most people across the country would sympathise with the idea that there are lots of people with talent and ability all across this country who want to make more of themselves and part of the responsibility of government is to make that happen. — Ed Miliband

Men often have grievances against prominent and powerful persons. Historically, the grievances of the powerless against the powerful have furnished the steam for the engines of revolutions. My point is that in many of the famous medicolegal cases involving the issue of insanity, persons of relatively low social rank openly attacked their superiors. Perhaps their grievances were real and justified, and were vented on the contemporary social symbols of authority, the King and the Queen. Whether or not these grievances justified homicide is not our problem here. I merely wish to suggest that the issue of insanity may have been raised in these trials to obscure the social problems which the crimes intended to dramatize. — Thomas Szasz

Every decision you ever make has its own consequences. Freedom is not the issue. You have freedom to do what you want, you just cannot do it and not pay the price for it. — John Patrick Hickey

What disturbs and compels about pornography is not the sex, which is always a snooze, but that the medium addresses every social issue in the absolute wrong way. Not long after any social event or trend, a pornographic response emerges. It will be incredibly creepy and wrong headed, an underbelly view of public life via the worst excesses of capitalism in which the answer to every social problem is the commodification of desire. — Jarett Kobek

Individual heterosexual women came to the movement from relationships where men were cruel, unkind, violent, unfaithful. Many of these men were radical thinkers who participated in movements for social justice, speaking out on behalf of the workers, the poor, speaking out on behalf of racial justice. However when it came to the issue of gender they were as sexist as their conservative cohorts. — Bell Hooks

I feel like a centrist, an issue-specific person. I'm pretty conservative fiscally and pretty liberal on social issues. — Howard Gordon

Finding happiness is not as simple as having good friends or a full social life. The crunch issue is our ability, or inability, to find within ourselves a sense of meaning or deeper purpose, something not found in everyday life. — Mark Vernon

The word power typically signifies a capacity for action. The Oxford English Dictionary tells us power lies in an 'ability to do or effect something or anything, or to act upon a person or thing'. The person who has power may influence the material or social environment, generally on the basis of possessing high-tech weapons, money, oil, superior intelligence or large muscles. In war, I am powerful because I can blow up your city walls or drop bombs on your airfields. In the financial world, I am powerful because I can buy up your shares and invade your markets. In boxing, I am ,ore powerful because my punches outwit and exhaust yours. But in love, this issue appears to depend on a far more passive, negative definition; instead of looking at power as a capacity to do something, one may come to think of it as the capacity to do nothing. — Alain De Botton

I also took issue with the practice of donors typically only funding programs instead of institutions ... That is a fine strategy for providing alms or direct charity. At the same time, no one would invest in a company and not expect it to pay for hiring great people, paying the rent, and keeping the lights on. We need philanthropists to build institutions in the social sector too. — Jacqueline Novogratz

I wish we had met away from all these battles. I wish we had met in a land of peace without social classes and with no conflicts. I wish we had met in prehistoric times wearing cranberry leaves. I wish we had met when there were no disagreements about our bodies and no doctrinal differences. I wish we had met when the veil was not an issue and when there were no shaving blades, no hair colors and no perfumes to hide your natural smell. I wish we have met when there were no shoes to coerce our steps, no fashion and socks brands to put each of us in a certain social class. I wish we have met when there were no cars and no traffic. I wish we have met when there were no battles to be forced to see you as an unarmed knight with the heresy of currencies. — Jihad Eltabey

Fat is a social disease, and fat is a feminist issue. — Susie Orbach

The economic distress of America's inner cities may be the most pressing issue facing the nation. The lack of businesses and jobs in disadvantaged urban areas fuels not only a crushing cycle of poverty but also crippling social problems such as drug abuse and crime ... A sustainable economic base can be created in the inner city, but only as it has been created elsewhere: through private, for-profit initiatives and investment based on economic self-interest and genuine competitive advantage. — Michael Porter

A ... difference between most system-building in the social sciences and systems of thought and classification of the natural sciences is to be seen in their evolution. In the natural sciences both theories and descriptive systems grow by adaptation to the increasing knowledge and experience of the scientists. In the social sciences, systems often issue fully formed from the mind of one man. Then they may be much discussed if they attract attention, but progressive adaptive modification as a result of the concerted efforts of great numbers of men is rare. — Lawrence Joseph Henderson

I urge Governments to considerably reduce funds allocated to the military, not only as a disarmament issue, but also as a potential contributor to social and environmental protection and call for the holding of referenda on this issue worldwide. — Alfred-Maurice De Zayas

They therefore never knew how to evaluate antisemitism, or rather never recognized the moment when social discrimination changed into a political argument. For more than a hundred years, antisemitism had slowly and gradually made its way into almost all social strata in almost all European countries until it emerged suddenly as the one issue upon which an almost unified opinion could be achieved. — Hannah Arendt

The President must be true to his word. He must keep his faith with the folks who elected him twice. In other words, he must replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a strict constructionist. The president has a God-given opportunity to change the balance on the Supreme Court. On issue after issue - abortion, sodomy, public display of the Ten Commandments - O'Connor has sided with the court's liberal bloc. Time and again, Justice O'Connor and her colleagues have used the Constitution as an excuse to force weird social experiments on the nation. — Rick Scarborough

Creator and Sustainer. Men are to make their own mistakes and successes. Each man is to work out his salvation (or damnation) in fear and trembling (Philippians 2:12). Other men are to sit in judgment over him only when he commits public evil. They are not to command him as imitation gods. They are not to issue comprehensive commands and monitor him constantly. That is God's job, not man's. Thus, God's hierarchy produces social freedom. It relieves mankind from any pretended autonomy from God's total sovereignty. Men are not to seek to create predestinating hierarchies. They can leave their fellow men alone, so long as God's institutional laws are obeyed in public. — Gary North

Business is about problem-solving, but it does not always have to be about maximizing profit. When I went into business, my interest was to figure out how to solve problems I see in front of me. That's why I looked at the poverty issue. I got involved in lots of things to address it, and one of them was money lending with loans and credits and savings accounts, and in the process I created Grameen Bank. So you can also have social objectives. Ask yourself these questions: Who are you? What kind of world do you want? — Muhammad Yunus

I think it's ... I don't want to become a social crusader on this issue, but I think sports, male sports, has traditionally not been an inviting environment for gay men to identify themselves. But eventually ... we will get to a place where it is not an issue in sports. — David Stern

Your book is full of piquant ideas on how sexual assault is practiced by many people but in African countries the issue is pressurized by females themselves as they tend to dress on night attires as a result males are piquant ed
to commit an offense — Nicholas D. Kristof

Social security was the most emotional issue that session. Republicans protested that if the administration bill were passed, children would no longer support their parents, the payroll tax would discourage workmen so much that they would quit their jobs, and that, taken all in all, the measure would remove the romance of life. — William Manchester

Arguably the most substantive domestic issue facing the republic is the fate of Social Security, with privatization the most frequently mentioned option. For the first time in history, a familiarity with the behavior of the financial markets has become a prerequisite for competent citizenship, apart from its obvious pecuniary value. Using — William J. Bernstein

Sexuality is a big issue, but there are others - how much you commit to a relationship, to social obligation, to honesty and being honest with yourself. — Ang Lee

And every historic effort to forge a democratic project has been undermined by two fundamental realities: poverty and paranoia. The persistence of poverty generates levels of despair that deepen social conflict the escalation of paranoia produces levels of distrust that reinforce cultural division. Rae is the most explosive issue in American life precisely because it forces us to confront the tragic facts of poverty and paranoia despair, and distrust. In short, a candid examination of race matters takes us to the core of the crisis of American democracy (p. 107). — Cornel West

I do think economic and social anxiety is the number one issue. And I'm pretty confident Hillary Clinton will be really riding that train pretty hard. — David Brooks

People say that being a vegan creates a social problem in that others may react negatively. But isnt that the case if you take a principled position on any issue, whether its racism, sexism, heterosexism, violence as a general matter - or speciesism? The key is to educate others about *why* you take the position. — Gary L. Francione

Statehood for the District of Columbia is the most important civil rights and social justice issue in America today. — Jesse Jackson

I often feel the pressure, from my peers and others, to come out and "take a stand" on a moral or social issue. Typically, I refuse to do so, or at least I refuse to do so in a way that will please my critics. On so many of the hard and divisive issues of our times, I don't close my eyes. I do stand for something: I stand for love. For if Jesus came, not to condemn the world, but to redeem it, how can we who bear the Name respond any differently? Yes, what I believe about all these moral and social issues matters, without a doubt. But these beliefs mean nothing, if my first and consuming conviction is not love for those who are different and believe differently than me. We have a choice: We can choose to show how "right" we are, or we can choose to love. Sometimes, it is impossible to do both at the same time. — Ronnie McBrayer

Today the story is no less attitude-adjusting. It is about the defining cultural, social and political issue of our age. It is about human transformation. — Joel Garreau

What can I say to you today, what I have to say to you is that we need a new sense of urgency about the issue of social justice in this country. — Joe Stroud

I'm going to spend a lot of time on Social Security. I enjoy it. I enjoy taking on the issue. I guess, it's the mother in me. — George W. Bush

My being gay is not a social issue; it's a fact. It's not something to be debated. It's a reality. — Jose Antonio Vargas

This was never about welfare. You can have almost any opinion about welfare, you can be bitterly opposed to its very existence, and you could and perhaps should still find what goes on with welfare fraud prosecution in America crazy, even shocking.

Because the issue here isn't the efficacy of the welfare state. This is about fairness. Do we treat people the same way everywhere? How does a poor person end up getting arrested for fraud, and does the state have the same playbook for rich people?

The obvious answer is no, but you have to see the difference up close, at a day-to-day level, to really grasp the breadth of the gap. When you see, up close, where the awesome power of the American criminal justice space station is directed, you will begin scratching your head, no matter what you think of people on welfare. — Matt Taibbi

I felt numb, I felt empty. I was a shell, an abandoned chrysalis, a tomb lying in wait for the dead — Amy Hatvany

Japan has a fundamental problem with information itself: it's often lacking, and when it does exist, is fuzzy at its best, bogus at its worst. In this respect, Japan's traditional culture stands squarely at odds with modernity - and the problem will persist. The issue of hidden or falsified information strikes at such deeply rooted social attitudes that the nation may never entirely come to grips with it. Because of this, one may confidently predict that in the coming decades Japan will continue to have trouble digesting new ideas from abroad - and will find it more and more difficult to manage its own increasingly baroque and byzantine internal systems. — Alex Kerr

I know that when I look at today's Mexicans and Central Americans, they seem to me fundamentally the same as my grandparents seeking a better life in America. On the other side, however, open immigration can't coexist with a strong social safety net; if you're going to assure health care and a decent income to everyone, you can't make that offer global. So Democrats have mixed feelings about immigration; in fact, it's an agonizing issue. — Paul Krugman