Charles Krauthammer Quotes

In the quoted passage, it describes Diogenes as observing a thief being arrested in one of the religious temples by the officials of the temple. He had pilfered one of the temple treasures. Not unlike modern times, most religious organizations raised money be getting donations from the public. Some of the means of many of the religious groups are and have been of dubious morality and if used in commerce would generally be considered fraud. This quotation shows that this is not a new phenomenon nor was it limited to monotheistic religions.

To depose President Ngo Dinh Diem of South Vietnam Conein was one of the first American intelligence operatives in Vietnam. Diem was a creature of the Central Intelligence Agency. An anti-Communist Christian in a Buddhist county, the CIA engineered his rise to power, created his political party, provided him with cash to bribe other Vietnamese politicians, and paid for all the propaganda so he would “win” the Presidential elections. However, he abused the Buddhists, was thoroughly corrupt and ran a corrupt administration, but worst of all from the American point of view, he was unable to motivate the South Vietnamese population to fight the Communists. He reached the point where he was more of a liability, and the CIA, through Conein, engineered a coup d’etat to remove him from power and replace him with a President more to our liking. Though not planned that way, the South Vietnam military officers who we backed in the coup, then murdered Diem, who although ineffective and unsuccessful, had been a friend and ally of the United States. Even President Kennedy felt badly about the outcome. See {634539}.

Nixon's suspected that Brookings had evidence about the secret Cambodian bombings and his pre-election felony regarding Vietnam. White House Staff Member Tom Huston had put together a plan to obtain embarrassing and potentially ruinous documents and other documents that would allow them to blackmail Nixon's critics who were regarded as "enemies".

There were few if any consumer protection laws in those days and many wealthy aristocrats made their money by taking advantage of the poor. They were the landowners, bankers, financiers and often the industrialists. Shaw was a sarcastic social critic and this is a typical line he gave his upper class characters. Today, we have more controls on business and finance, and many wealthy business people have gotten that way by providing great value to the consumers and being honest. However, we still have large numbers of wealthy members of society who do make their money from the poor and middle class by unethical and often illegal means. In the aftermath of the Meltdown of 2008. hundreds of thousands of the homes of the working poor and middle class were foreclosed by the major banks forging the legal documentation for the foreclusures. Millions of consumer contracts are issued that even a PhD cannot understand the terms of without special legal and financial training. There is even a legal definition of a salesperson lying to make a sale which is so commonplace that our law excuses it and calls it "puffing". However, there has been over time, improvement over Shaw's era.

Here is another example of “the good old days” phenomenon. Similar complaints are made in most generations about most vices.

Odo of Chatillon-Sur-Marne. The Pope was addressing officials of Christian counties throughout Europe. Crime control then seems to have been a hot political issue as it is today.