Sometimes, association does prove guilt. That’s why the U.S. has laws against racketeering and membership in prohibited terrorist organizations.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Tag Archives: David Frum
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Rarely do good surprises occur between adversarial nations. Communicating more, rather than less, is far safer.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Leadership isn’t always straightforward, but a great leader should know when to be simple and direct.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Once upon a time, American households contained large numbers of people and a single TV set. At peak viewing times, the whole family would have to agree on a show. Dad might want an action drama, Mom might want an edgy comedy, one of the kids might want something creative, another might want something scary, but everybody liked nature shows. So that’s what the network aired on a Sunday night. Network executives described their task as inventing “the least objectionable program.” As a candidate for president, Biden may be the “least objectionable” since Dwight Eisenhower (who won reelection in 1956 despite a near-fatal heart attack the year before).
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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For all its marvelous creativity, the human imagination often fails when turned to the future. It is blunted, perhaps, by a craving for the familiar. We all appreciate that the past includes many moments of severe instability, crisis, even radical revolutionary upheaval. We know that such things happened years or decades or centuries ago. We cannot believe they might happen tomorrow.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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If we all spoke circumspectly and wisely all the time, who would even need institutional free-speech policies? The point of speech rules is to allow space for the unguarded and the ill-tempered, for the provocative and prickly person as well as the smooth and sinuous. The smooth and sinuous will seldom say anything worth hearing in the first place.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Sometimes the best way to halt an escalation cycle is to demonstrate how unafraid you are of the escalation cycle.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Punishing people for their words does not make the words vanish from memory. The unsayable is not unthinkable. Indeed, the punishment of the word may actually magnify the impact of the thought. Never mind abstract free-speech principles: Purely on pragmatic grounds, when a member of a community says something that bitterly divides the community, the way to a resolution is not to suppress the thought, but to argue it out.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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Kamala Harris’s words seem focus-grouped to please every imaginable constituency. The trouble is, at exactly the moment when communications staffers are satisfied they have pleased everybody, they have in fact left everybody frightened that the candidate is confused and hesitant. Strong leaders get in front of public opinion. Strong leaders make choices and accept consequences.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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America’s old republic was born of rebellion against Britain’s more ancient monarchy. Yet, by strange fate, the passage of time has only joined America and Britain more closely together in war and peace.
~ David Frum via The Atlantic
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