Christopher Hitchens Quotes
In our native terms, the ironic style is often compounded with the sardonic and the hard-boiled; even the effortlessly superior. But irony originates in the glance and the shrug of the loser, the outsider, the despised minority. It is a nuance that comes most effortlessly to the oppressed.
Hitchens, Christopher. Letters to a Young Contrarian. Basic Books, 2001.
The Federalists had a majority of both Houses of Congress and the Presidency with George Washington. The establishment of respect for minority views had not yet been established as a tradition. The Anti-Federalists, in order to prevent the Federalists from imposing their own legislation in all fields, used every parliamentary maneuver and delaying tactic. The public, after a few years of the Federalist high-handedness, replaced them with the Jeffersonian Republicans and the Federalists were so badly beaten and unpopular that the party was destroyed, never to rise again.
Christopher Eric Hitchens was an English-American intellectual, polemicist, and socio-political critic, who expressed himself as an author, orator, essayist and columnist. He wrote, co-wrote, edited or co-edited over 30 books, including five of essays on culture, politics and literature. Having contributed to several publications, he is broadly regarded as one of the most influential atheists of all time.
