Out of CONTEXT

CONTEXT

A compilation of quotations on a variety of issues by national, state and regional writers, well-known personalities, just plain everyday people and from various publications collected by the editors of THE ADVANCE.

Quotes for our Times:

“We in America do not have government by the majority — we have government by the majority who participate … All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent.”

Thomas Jefferson

Lt. Daniel Furseth, DeForest, Wisconsin Police Department: I stopped caring today.

I stopped caring today because the culture of today’s instantly connected youth is only there to take and never give back. To never accept responsibility for their actions, but to blame everyone else instead of themselves. To ask “what is in it for me?” versus “what can I do for you?”

To idolize gangsters, thugs, sexually promiscuous behavior, and criminals over hard work, dedication, and achievement. To argue that getting stoned should be a right, yet getting a job or an education is a hassle. To steal versus earn. To hate versus help. Yes, I stopped caring today. But tomorrow, I will put my uniform back on and I will care again.

Leah Barkoukis, online features editor at Townhall.com: Trump nominated for Nobel Peace Prize.

President Trump has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Christian Tybring-Gjedde, a member of the Norwegian Parliament, who cited the recent peace deal brokered between Israel and the United Arab Emirates.

… “The people who have received the Peace Prize in recent years have done much less than Donald Trump. For example, Barack Obama did nothing.”

Though he had been in office less than a year, Obama won the Peace Prize in 2009 for his 'extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people … [the Committee attached] special importance to Obama’s vision of and work for a world without nuclear weapons.”

Ben Shapiro, political commentator: The Democrats pick the criminal.

On a raw level, none of this makes sense. Blake is, by all available evidence, a villain. The police officer was, by all available evidence, acting within the scope of his duty. But in the context of a broader Democratic narrative that police are systemically racist, and that all criminals of minority ethnicity are victims of that system, it all makes perfect sense. If you think that American racism is responsible for a black man allegedly raping a black woman, this is a story in which there are only victims and there is no perpetrator but the system itself — in this case, a system represented by the white police officer.

If we wish to live together in a society, this perspective cannot win. By lionizing Jacob Blake while decrying the police who tried to arrest him, Democrats justify and incentivize criminality. This must stop. Individuals are responsible for their crimes; police are necessary to stop those crimes. Those who disagree cannot be allowed to gain power.