"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel"

[RedEarth]

Outstanding statement by Samuel Johnson. I get a kick out of using it in "discussions" with people that lean right. It makes them stop and think for awhile.

Samuel Johnson (often referred to as "Doctor Johnson"), literary titan of the 18th century — essayist, lexicographer, poet, editor, critic, and famous talker — is the second most quoted person in the English language, after Shakespeare.

http://www.samueljohnson.com/refuge.html

[bryant69]

1. I always like H.L. Mencken myself

"The trouble with fighting for human freedom is that one spends most of one's time defending scoundrels. For it is against scoundrels that oppressive laws are first aimed, and oppression must be stopped at the beginning if it is to be stopped at all." - H. L. Mencken

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[BOSSHOG]

2. Mark Twain

Extremely applicable to the bush administration:

"Always tell the truth and you'll never have to remember anything."

[oldtime dfl_er]

3. Which explains why dubya is always

tripping over his words.

http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/936290

[DavidBowman]

4. Paths of Glory

There's a great scene in Kubrick's Paths of Glory where Kirk Douglas mentions this quote to his superior, a French general in WWI. The general is not amused.

[RedEarth]

7. I haven't seen that movie, but it sounds like it could be interesting...

welcome to DU, hope you enjoy it here...... :hi:

[DavidBowman]

10. Netflix it toot sweet

It's about an honest Colonel in the corrupt-ass French brass in WWI. When the French try to scapegoat three randomly-selected privates for a failed attack on a German position, Douglas is charged with defending them in a military tribunal. It's a great war movie, a great courtroom drama, and a great expose of human cowardice.

Man, I love Kubrick.

[PurityOfEssence]

13. Churchill said that movie depicted war better than any other

What a great movie. What's also fun is that Adolphe Menjou, who was a creepy fascist prick, plays a creepy fascist prick.

[DavidBowman]

14. Get out, really?

I never knew that. Churchill!

Colonel Dax, apologize at once!

[Crankie Avalon]

5. A minor shift from patriotism to religiosity...

"If you're doing business with a religious son of a bitch, get it in writing--his word isn't worth shit, not with the Good Lord telling him how to fuck you on the deal..." --- William S. Burroughs

[bullimiami]

6. patriotism and religion.

[Solon]

8. I like these quotes...

Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons.
Bertrand Russell (1872 - 1970)

"My country, right or wrong," is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, "My mother, drunk or sober."
G. K. Chesterton (1874 - 1936)

Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)

You'll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race.
George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950), "Misalliance"

Patriotism is often an arbitrary veneration of real estate above principles.
George Jean Nathan (1882 - 1958)

[RedEarth]

16. Those are good quotes...in particular Shaw's

[unrepuke]

9. "...last resort." - I believe that it is the first.

[PurityOfEssence]

11. Johnson was good, but I think he was wrong; RELIGION is the last refuge

of a scoudrel.

[DavidBowman]

12. It's more accurate to say

that religion is the last refuge of the sick and dying. Not all of these are scoundrels.

[BOSSHOG]

15. The republican party - the very last refuge of scoundrels

Bosshog - November 2005!