Things that should actually be said in American Politics, but really aren't
(a.k.a. Vavia's reading West Wing quotes again):
Josh: I realize that as an adult not everyone shares my view of the world, and with an issue as hot as gun control I'm prepared to accept a lot of different points of view as being perfectly valid, but we can all get together on the grenade launcher, right?
Bartlet: What will be the next thing that challenges us, Toby? That makes us go farther and work harder? You know that when smallpox was eradicated, it was considered the single greatest humanitarian achievement of this century? Surely we can do it again, as we did in the time when our eyes looked towards the heavens, and with outstretched fingers we touched the face of God.
Sam: It's not just about abortion, it's about the next 20 years. Twenties and Thirties it was the role of government, Fifties and Sixties it was civil rights. The next two decades it's gonna be privacy. I'm talking about the Internet. I'm talking about cell phones. I'm talking about health records and who's gay and who's not. And moreover, in a country born on the will to be free, what could be more fundamental than this?
Bartlet: I was watching a television program before, with a kind of roving moderator who spoke to a seated panel of young women who were having some sort of problem with their boyfriends - apparently, because the boyfriends had all slept with the girlfriends' mothers. And they brought the boyfriends out, and they fought, right there on television. Toby, tell me: these people don't vote, do they?
Toby: at a time when the public is rightly concerned about the impact of sex and violence on TV this administration is gonna protect the Muppets, we're gonna protect Wall Street Week, we're gonna protect Live From Lincoln Center and by God, we are going to protect Julia Child.
Jeff Breckenridge: this country's meant to be unfinished. We're meant to keep doing better. We're meant to keep discussing and debating. And, we're meant to read books by great historical scholars and then talk about them...
Sam: Education is the silver bullet. Education is everything. We don't need little changes. We need gigantic revolutionary changes. Schools should be palaces. Competition for the best teachers should be fierce. They should be getting six-figure salaries. Schools should be incredibly expensive for government and absolutely free of charge for its citizens, just like national defense. That is my position.
Leo: We're going to raise the level of public debate in this country and let that be our legacy.
Bartlet: "We hold these truths to be self-evident," they said, "that all men are created equal." Strange as it may seem, that was the first time in history that anyone had ever bothered to write that down. Decisions are made by those who show up.
Josh: What do you say about a government that goes out of its way to protect even citizens that try to destroy it?
Toby: God bless America.
Sam: Oratory should raise your heart rate. Oratory should blow the doors off the place. We should be talking about not being satisfied with past solutions. We should be talking about a permanent revolution.
CJ: We have at our disposal a captive audience of school children. Some of them don't go to the blackboard or raise their hand cause they think they're going to be wrong. I think you should say to these kids, "You think you get it wrong sometimes, you should come down here and see how the big boys do it." I think you should tell them you haven't given up hope, and that it may turn up, but in the meantime, you want NASA to put its best people in the room, and you want them to start building Galileo VI. Some of them will laugh and most of them won't care but for some they might honestly see that it's about going to the blackboard and raising your hand.
Sam: you insist government is depraved for not legislating against what we can see on newsstands, or what we can see in an art exhibit, or what we can burn in protest, or which sex we can have sex with, or a woman's right to choose, but don't you dare try to regulate this deadly weapon I have concealed on me, for that would encroach against my freedom!
Toby: 'We can sit back and admit with great sensitivity that life isn't fair... and the less-advantaged are destined to their lot in life... and the problems of those on the other side of the world should stay there... and our leaders are cynical and can never be an instrument of change... but that, my friends, is not worthy of you; it's not worthy of a President; it's not worthy of a great nation; it's not worthy of America.'
Bartlet: Words when spoken out loud for the sake of performance are music. They have rhythm and pitch and timbre and volume. These are the properties of music and music has the ability to find us and move us and lift us up in ways that literal meaning can't.
Bruno: somebody came along and said liberal means soft on crime, soft on drugs, soft on communism, soft on defense, and we're going to tax ya back to the stone age, because people shouldn't have to go to work, if they don't want to. And instead of saying 'Well, excuse me, you right-wing reactionary xenophobic homophobic anti-education, anti-choice, pro-gun, Leave It to Beaver trip back to the fifties,' we cowered in the corner. And said 'Please don't hurt me'. No more. I really don't care who's right, who's wrong. We're both right. We're both wrong. Let's have two parties, huh, what do you say?
Bartlet: This is a time for American heroes. We will do what is hard. We will achieve what is great. This is a time for American heroes and we reach for the stars.
Bartlet: they weren't born wanting to do this. There's evil in the world, there'll always be, and we can't do anything about that. But there's violence in our schools, too much mayhem in our culture, and we can do something about that. There's not enough character, discipline, and depth in our classrooms; there aren't enough teachers in our classrooms. There isn't nearly enough, not nearly enough, not nearly enough money in our classrooms, and we can do something about that. We're not doing nearly enough, not nearly enough to teach our children well, and we can do better, and we must do better, and we will do better, and we will start this moment today! They weren't born wanting to do this.
Bartlet: "Unfunded mandate" is two words, not one big word. There are times when we're fifty states and there are times when we're one country, and have national needs. And the way I know this is that Florida didn't fight Germany in World War II or establish civil rights. You think states should do the governing wall-to-wall. That's a perfectly valid opinion. But your state of Florida got $12.6 billion in federal money last year - from Nebraskans, and Virginians, and New Yorkers, and Alaskans, with their Eskimo poetry. 12.6 out of a state budget of $50 billion. I'm supposed to be using this time for a question, so here it is: Can we have it back, please?
[Ed. Will someone say this to Sarah Palin, PLEASE?)
Bartlet: Partisan politics is what the Founders had in mind. It guarantees that the minority opinion is heard, and as a lifelong possessor of minority opinions, I appreciate it.
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