Quote of the Week

Anita Dunn, in a presser of sorts, while bashing Fox News, stated that one of her favorite philosophers was Mao Tse-dung, murderer of some 70-100 million of his own people. The quote she cited was the well-known one about

"All political power flows from the barrel of a gun."

Which is no more than what you'd expect from someone who shot his way to power. When I was in Chinese language school, I heard the line from people who had gotten out of the country ahead of the implementation of the peoples paradise, who gave me a longer version of it. Their version ran:

"All political power flows from the barrel of a gun, and that gun must remain firmly in the hand of the state."

Which makes far more sense if you consider that a revolutionary has 2 tasks; first, to get into office, and second, to stay there. All politicians get into office using one of the "four boxes", the soap box, the jury box, the ballot box, or the cartridge box, and all of them are aware that any of the boxes can be used to remove them. It behooves the ambitious pol to try to limit access to the boxes to his opponents. It behooves the voter to remember that an attack on any of the boxes is, rhetoric notwithstanding, only an attempt to preserve some politicians phoney-baloney job.