It is axiomatic: When there is no penalty for failure, failures proliferate. George Will More Quotes by George Will More Quotes From George Will A society that thinks the choice between ways of living is just a choice between equally eligible 'lifestyles' turns universities into academic cafeterias offering junk food for the mind. George Will choicesofferingthinking Sarah Palin, who with 17 months remaining in her single term as Alaska's governor quit the only serious office she has ever held, is obsessively discussed as a possible candidate in 2012. Why? She is not going to be president and will not be the Republican nominee unless the party wants to lose at least 44 states. George Will alaskapartyoffice Some calamities - the 1929 stock market crash, Pearl Harbor, 9/11 - have come like summer lightning, as bolts from the blue. The looming crisis of America's Ponzi entitlement structure is different. Driven by the demographics of an aging population, its causes, timing and scope are known. George Will summerblueamerica The 1935 Social Security Act established 65 as the age of eligibility for payouts. But welfare state politics quickly becomes a bidding war, enriching the menu of benefits, so in 1956 Congress entitled women to collect benefits at 62, extending the entitlement to men in 1961. George Will agemenwar The average American expends more time becoming informed about choosing a car than choosing a candidate. But, then, the consequences of the former choice are immediate and discernible. George Will carchoicesaverage The designs of the paper euros, introduced in 2002, proclaim a utopian aspiration. Gone are the colorful bills of particular nations, featuring pictures of national heroes of statecraft, culture and the arts, pictures celebrating unique national narratives. With the euro, 16 nations have said goodbye to all that. George Will herogoodbyeart The euro currency both presupposes and promotes a fiction - that 'Europe' has somehow become, against the wishes of most Europeans, a political rather than a merely geographic expression. George Will politicalexpressioneurope The euro pleases dispirited people for whom European history is not Chartres and Shakespeare but the Holocaust and the Somme. The euro expresses cultural despair. George Will holocaustdespairpeople When liberals advocate a value-added tax, conservatives should respond: Taxing consumption has merits, so we will consider it - after the 16th Amendment is repealed. George Will amendmentsmeritshould Twenty years ago rooting for the Yankees was like rooting for IBM. George Will yankeesbaseballyears Baseball, like Pericles' Athens (or any other good society), is simultaneously democratic and aristrocratic. Anyone can enjoy it, but the more you apply yourself, the more you enjoy it. George Will athensenjoybaseball Arizona's law makes what is already a federal offense - being in the country illegally - a state offense. Some critics seem not to understand Arizona's right to assert concurrent jurisdiction. George Will arizonalawcountry Today it would be progress if everyone would stop talking about values. Instead, let us talk, as the Founders did, about virtues. George Will progresslibertytalking We know next to nothing about virtually everything. It is not necessary to know the origin of the universe; it is necessary to want to know. Civilization depends not on any particular knowledge, but on the disposition to crave knowledge George Will civilizationscienceknowledge Baseball exemplifies a tension in the American mind, the constant pull between our atomistic individualism and our yearning for community. George Will communitybaseballmind Today more Americans are imprisoned for drug offenses than for property crimes George Will crimedrugtoday Actually, there is only one first question of government, and it is How should we live? or What kind of people do we want our citizens to be? George Will governmentpeoplefirsts It was over in a blink of an eye, that moment when aviation stirred the modern imagination. Aviation was transformed from recklessness to routine in Lindbergh's lifetime. Today the riskiest part of air travel is the drive to the airport, and the airlines use a barrage of stimuli to protect passengers from ennui. George Will airportseyeimagination Not since the multiplication of the loaves and fishes near the Sea of Galilee has there been creativity as miraculous as that of the Keystone XL pipeline. It has not yet been built but already is perhaps the most constructive infrastructure project since the Interstate Highway System. It has accomplished an astonishing trifecta George Will pipelinecreativitysea As society becomes more complex and opaque, as social processes seem more impersonal and autonomous, and as elites of 'experts' become more annoying, more people are tempted to think that some 'they' is manipulating 'us', using, among other dark arts, advertising. George Will darkartthinking
