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Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

Barney Frank

The problem with the war in Iraq is not so much the intelligence as the stupidity.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Stupidity War
There was a degree of interventionism in American foreign policy, the notion that we must be the superpower and we have to intervene everywhere, that I think makes no sense.
BARNEY FRANK

Degree Foreign Policy Thinking
When I was here there was still a requirement that students had to swim 50 yards to graduate…because Harry Elkins Widener had drowned with the sinking of the Titanic. And it made me very grateful at the time that he had not gone down in a plane crash.
BARNEY FRANK

Funny Graduation Grateful Swim
Lawyers are very, very good at keeping you out of prison, but they will sacrifice your reputation and credibility to do so.
BARNEY FRANK

Lawyer Reputation Sacrifice
I can tell you about health care and also about the financial reform bill. The Barack Obama, the President personally and his administration officials at his direction were very much involved.
BARNEY FRANK

Care Financial President
They have to convert our agenda into something aggressive. Two guys wanting to be happy together are invading their marriages. Helping a kid who’s getting beaten up in school is promoting homosexuality. If you gave me a million dollars, I wouldn’t know how to promote homosexuality.
BARNEY FRANK

Kids School Two
The single most important thing you can do politically for gay rights is to come out. Not to write a letter to your congressman but to come out.
BARNEY FRANK

Gay Rights Writing
For most of my life, I have eaten to deal with stress.
BARNEY FRANK

Dealing Eaten Life Stress
We all have the right to call each other names. Rudeness is a deeply held constitutional value.
BARNEY FRANK

Name Rudeness Values
There is an irony that the most active anti-gay groups are Al-Qaeda and the American Right wing.
BARNEY FRANK

Gay Groups Wings
When community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.
BARNEY FRANK

Community Effort Law
Before this learning experience, I had assumed that with regard to programs that sought to help people out of poverty, the political world was essentially divided into two camps: conservatives who opposed these for a variety of reasons, and liberals who supported them.
BARNEY FRANK

People Political Two
Increasing inequality in income distribution in this country has broader policy implications, and there is also the growing problem of perverse incentives that result from executives receiving grossly disproportionate compensation based on decisions they themselves take.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Decision Receiving
For many of those who had historically supported welfare programs in the broadest sense, it was perfectly reasonable to enact legislation in which poor people were the objects of efforts to assist them.
BARNEY FRANK

Effort People Programs Welfare
It is, of course, further indication that a fundamentalist right has really taken over much of the Republican Party, People might cite George Bush as proof that you can be totally impervious to the effects of Harvard and Yale education.
BARNEY FRANK

Party Taken Yale
I smoke a cigar or two a day. I did have a brownie once. It made me sleepy.
BARNEY FRANK

Cigar Sleepy Two
The left and the right live in parallel universes. The right listens to talk radio, the left’s on the Internet and they just reinforce one another. They have no sense of reality. I have now one ambition: to retire before it becomes essential to tweet.
BARNEY FRANK

Ambition Essentials Reality
In a free society, a large degree of human activity is none of the government’s business. We should make criminal what’s going to hurt other people and other than that we should leave it to people to make their own choices.
BARNEY FRANK

Government Hurt People
I have been mislabeled as a big advocate of low-income home ownership over rental.
BARNEY FRANK

Home Income Low Ownership
I am very proud of the role I played in getting legal equality for people who are lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender, and in helping get rid of the prejudice by being visible about it, helping to block the conviction of Bill Clinton of impeachment.
BARNEY FRANK

Bisexual Block Gay
In America, unlike England, unlike Israel, unlike Japan, other democracies, we have elections that have staggered terms.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Democrats Staggered
Disruption never helps your cause. … It just looks like you’re afraid to have rational discussion.
BARNEY FRANK

Causes Helping Looks
I hope we will not so characterize religious people as being so narrow and so biased towards people not of their own religion that they cannot even work with them in this common cause to which you say they are committed.
BARNEY FRANK

People Prejudice Religious
Martin Luther King said, and it is sadly still true, that one of the most segregated times in America is the hour of worship.
BARNEY FRANK

Country Kings Worship
And unless you think there is a serious chance you’re going to jail, don’t listen to your lawyer.
BARNEY FRANK

Jail Serious Thinking
Moderate Republicans are reverse Houdinis. They tie themselves up in knots and then tell you they can’t do anything because they’re tied up in knots.
BARNEY FRANK

Knots Republican Ties
The fact that theyre a congressionally chartered group should no more incline people to give to that group than the fact that its National Pickle Month should make them eat more pickles.
BARNEY FRANK

Giving Groups People

Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

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Today, many people take for granted the notion that people whose lives are going to be very heavily affected by public policies should have a say in how they are formulated and carried out.

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Popular Authors

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