Ideological Labeling Quotes

The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label. I certainly proved it in the case of EPIC [End Poverty in California]. Running on the Socialist ticket I got 60,000 votes, and running on the slogan to 'End Poverty in California' I got 879,000. I think we simply have to recognize the fact that our enemies have succeeded in spreading the Big Lie. There is no use attacking it by a front attack, it is much better to out-flank them.

For some reason which I have failed to understand, many people like the system [scientific totalitarianism] when it is Russian but disliked the very same system when it was German. I am compelled to think that this is due to the power of labels; these people like whatever is labelled ‘Left’ without examining whether the label has any justification.

When it comes to the liberal agenda, it's more important to pigeonhole people than it is to speak the truth.

I'm not going to be some kind of PC, tree-hugger.

When you read about the end of the Soviet Union, it's always about the "death of socialism." They never say "the death of democracy." But it makes about the same sense.

The word communist, of course, has become a rallying cry for certain people here just as the word Jew was in Hitler's Germany, a way of arousing emotion without engendering thought.

I am not a liberal who is so afraid of the word that I had to change my name to progressive.

No, the Muppets are not communist. And the character of Tex Richman is not an allegory for capitalism in any way. The character is called Tex Richman.

I begin with the renaming of the system. It used to be capitalism. But that evokes [Karl] Marx and [John] Rockefeller. So now we speak of the market system. That is a nice bland expression, which forgets those off-color references.

I'm appalled that when I talk about the neo-conservatives it's somehow twisted, some sort of a racist comment.

Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. Abortion becomes choice, communist becomes progressive, communist dictatorship becomes people's democratic republic and Nikita Khrushchev becomes Barack Obama.

How come liberals never admit that they're liberal? They've now come up with a new word called 'progressive,' which I thought was an insurance company but apparently it's a label.

I'm not that interested in labels or litmus tests.

'National Review' and 'The Weekly Standard' are both left-wing magazines, and I want to destroy them also.

...only liberal organizations are clearly designated [in the press] as "nonpatisan, nonprofit." Non-liberal research organizations are always identified as "right-wing" or "conservative."

The staunchest conservatives advocate a range of changes which differ in specifics, rather than in number or magnitude, from the changes advocated by those considered liberal…change, as such, is simply not a controversial issue. Yet a common practice among the anointed is to declare themselves emphatically, piously, and defiantly in favor of 'change.' Thus those who oppose their particular changes are depicted as being against change in general. It is as if opponents of the equation 2+2=7 were depicted as being against mathematics. Such a tactic might, however, be more politically effective than trying to defend the equation on its own merits.

It's not politically incorrect to say you're Republican or conservative.

The Russians have succeeded in one thing: they have sold the world the idea that they represent socialism and the ideas of Marx,and we have done the greatest service to their propaganda by agreeing that that's what it is.

The term neo-liberal does not have a good definition. It's mostly used when you are angry with somebody or dislike someone, you call them a neo-liberal. Because otherwise, there is no concrete definition to the term.

Whenever you discuss politics, it is always better to use individual names rather then the term neocon.

The label 'liberal' or 'conservative,' any - every time I hear that, I think of the great Gilbert and Sullivan song from 'Iolanthe.' It goes, 'Every gal and every boy that's born alive is either a little liberal or else a little conservative.' What do those labels mean? It depends on whose ox is being gored.

But it was very hard for people to separate me out from Hillary Clinton. All their ads were Hillary Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, and me. They said I was more liberal than these guys, and that if I went to Washington I'd be supporting their agenda. I found that extremely difficult to overcome.

These days I am a teetotal, mean-spirited, right-wing, narrow-minded, conservative Christian bigot, but not a racist.

We are so placid that the smallest tremor of objection to anything at all is taken as a full-scale revolution. Should any soul speak up in favor of the obvious, it is taken as a symptom of the influence of the left, the right, the pink, the black, the dangerous. An idea for its own sake - especially an obvious idea - has no respectability.

The whole politically correct movement, if it - if that's what it is, was spawned by liberals. So I try to avoid categorizing myself.