Legitimacy Quotes - Page 3

• The state is an organization of mere mortals who, by one dubious method or another, have been allowed to don the mantle of political legitimacy and to command obedience on pain of imprisonment even of those who never consented to the preposterous arrangement.

  Sheldon Richman

  Pain, Organization, Political

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• The dominance of [an ideology] is shown by the fact that the dominated classes live their conditions of political existence through the forms of dominant political discourse: this means that often they live even their revolt against domination of the system within the frame of reference of the dominant legitimacy.

  Nicos Poulantzas

  Mean, Class, Political

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• Whether the proposed constitution is approved or rejected . . . it is a process and a text largely crafted and imposed by U.S. occupation authorities and their Iraqi dependents, and thus lacking in legal or political legitimacy.

  Phyllis Bennis

  Political, Occupation, Constitution

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• If the constitution is not changed, then we will try to bring it down either before the referendum through the law by filing a suit in international or local courts, if we can, challenging the legitimacy of this constitution and the National Assembly.

  Saleh al-Mutlaq

  Law, Challenges, Trying

  "Iraqi Sunnis Rally Against Constitution". Al-Jazeera Interview, www.foxnews.com. August 29, 2005.

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• Justice is the most "political" or institutional of the virtues. The legitimacy of a state rests upon its claim to do justice.

  Alan Ryan

  Justice, Political, Virtue

  "Justice". Introduction to the book edited by Alan Ryan, 1993.

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• The danger is not only that these austerity measures are killing the European economies but also that they threaten the very legitimacy of European democracies - not just directly by threatening the livelihoods of so many people and pushing the economy into a downward spiral, but also indirectly by undermining the legitimacy of the political system through this backdoor rewriting of the social contract.

  Ha-Joon Chang

  People, Political, Democracy

  "The root of Europe's riots" by Ha-Joon Chang, www.theguardian.com. September 28, 2012.

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• As much as we Egyptians treasure our military, acting alone it cannot provide the legitimacy to lay the foundations for democracy.

  Mohamed ElBaradei

  Military, Democracy, Acting

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• The appearance in nineteenth-century psychiatry, jurisprudence, and literature of a whole series of discourses on the species and subspecies of homosexuality, inversion, pederasty, and "psychic hermaphroditism" made possible a strong advance of social controls into this area of "perversity"; but it also made possible the formation of a "reverse" discourse: homosexuality began to speak in its own behalf, to demand that its legitimacy or "naturality" be acknowledged, often in the same vocabulary, using the same categories by which it was medically disqualified.

  Michel Foucault

  Strong, Psychics, Vocabulary

  "The History of Sexuality, Volume I: The Will to Knowledge". Book by Michel Foucault, 1978.

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• As during the time of kings it would have been naive to think that the king's firstborn son would be the fittest to rule, so in our time it is naive to think that the democratically elected ruler will be the fittest. The rule of succession is not a formula for identifying the best ruler, it is a formula for conferring legitimacy on someone or other and thus forestalling civil conflict.

  J. M. Coetzee

  Kings, Son, Thinking

  "Diary of a Bad Year". Book by J. M. Coetzee, 2007.

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• By the time President Obama took office, Guantánamo was viewed internationally as a symbol of a counterterrorism approach that flouted our laws and strayed from our values, undercutting the perceived legitimacy - and therefore the effectiveness - of our efforts.

  John O. Brennan

  Effectiveness, Law, Office

  "Strengthening our Security by Adhering to our Values and Laws". John O. Brennan's Speech at Harvard Law School in Cambridge, Massachusetts, obamawhitehouse.archives.gov. September 16, 2011.

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• At no point am I ever threatened by people who question who I am, or why I like the things I do, or my legitimacy. Because I know who I am very strongly, and I think that's what geek culture can reinforce.

  Felicia Day

  Thinking, Who I Am, People

  "Biography/ Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

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• When the President of the United States attacks a movie star it is undignified and it casts a poor light on the United States of America. When the President of the United States attacks a sitting judge and questions his legitimacy, that actually can lead to a Constitutional crisis.

  Mika Brzezinski

  Stars, America, Light

  Source: wwd.com

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• If individuals do not occupy their legitimate position, then it will be occupied by a god or a king or a coalition of interest groups. If citizens do not exercise the powers confered by their legitimacy, others will do so.
  (I - The Great Leap Backwards)

  John Ralston Saul

  Kings, Exercise, Groups

  John Ralston Saul (2012). “The Unconscious Civilization”, p.76, Simon and Schuster

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• In any institution-factory, university, health center, or whatever-there are a variety of interests that ought to be represented in decision-making: the work force itself, the community in which it is located, users of its products or services, institutions that compete for the same resources. These interests should be directly represented in democratic structures that displace and eliminate private ownership of the means of production or resources, an anachronism with no legitimacy.

  Noam Chomsky

  Mean, Community, Decision

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• The habit of disguising ideology as expertise has created a deficit of legitimacy.

  Paul Krugman

  Habit, Deficit, Ideology

  "Crisis of the Eurocrats" by Paul Krugman, www.nytimes.com. May 22, 2014.

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• With a nonviolent movement we are still inviting a strong reaction from the government or ruling authorities. We are inviting a powerful reaction against ourselves. But it undermines the moral legitimacy of our current government. That is the path we need to pursue. Rather than reinforcing their legitimacy we need to undermine their legitimacy.

  Tim DeChristopher

  Strong, Powerful, Government

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• The appalling crackdown that we witnessed in Hama and other Syrian cities on 30 and 31 July only erode the regime's legitimacy and increase resentment. In the absence of an end to the senseless violence and a genuine process of political reform, we will continue to pursue further EU sanctions.

  William Hague

  July, Cities, Political

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• In journalism just one fact that is false prejudices the entire work. In contrast, in fiction one single fact that is true gives legitimacy to the entire work. That's the only difference, and it lies in the commitment of the writer. A novelist can do anything he wants so long as he makes people believe in it.

  Gabriel Garcia Marquez

  Lying, Believe, Commitment

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• I am most proud about the science I've done with my own two hands because I have always thought that even if your life path takes you into a leadership position outside the area you were known for, your legitimacy remains in that first field.

  Gustav Nossal

  Leadership, Hands, Two

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• In the fight against ISIL, we cannot rely on an Assad regime that terrorizes its people; a regime that will never regain the legitimacy it has lost. Instead, we must strengthen the opposition as the best counterweight to extremists like ISIL, while pursuing the political solution necessary to solve Syria's crisis once and for all.

  Barack Obama

  Islamic, Fighting, People

  "US military action in Syria to pose new challenges for Obama administration". Interview with Barney Porter, www.abc.net.au. September 12, 2014.

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• Zionism is only around 100 years old. It is the transformation from religion to nationalism, to materialism created by non-religious Jews who hated their religion. The reason why they use the name Israel, the Star of David, hijacking, stealing the identity of Judaism and the Jewish people is in order to gain a legitimacy for their existence that should lead people to say, 'oh, it is God given to them' and that they should use fear and intimidate people from speaking out against their actions because they will call those that do anti Semitic; it couldn't be anything further from the Truth.

  Yisroel Dovid Weiss

  Religious, Stars, Islamic

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• Our vision of interconnectedness resonates with new networks of world citizens in nongovernmental organizations linking from numberless centers of energy, expressing the emergence of a new organic whole, seeking unity within and across national lines... If governments and their leaders, bound by hierarchy and patriarchy, wedded to military might for legitimacy, fail to grasp the implications of an emerging world consciousness for cooperation, for peace and for sustainability, they may become irrelevant.

  Dennis Kucinich

  Military, Government, Organization

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• What you're seeing is a loss of confidence in institutions and their legitimacy because they are not seen as delivering. It's hardly a surprise that it's producing a degree of paralysis. Politics becomes very reactive and it's hard to deal with the bigger issues.

  Jonathan Wood

  Loss, Issues, Democracy

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• The only justification for our concepts and systems of concepts is that they serve to represent the complex of our experiences; beyond this they have not legitimacy.

  Albert Einstein

  Experience, Justification, Concepts

  Albert Einstein (2014). “The Meaning of Relativity: Including the Relativistic Theory of the Non-Symmetric Field”, p.2, Princeton University Press

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• Because war and preparations for war have acquired legitimacy, and because of the tremendous proliferation of arms through production and export, so that they are now available more or less to all and sundry, right down to handguns and stilettos, the cult of violence has by now so permeated relations between people that we are compelled to witness as well an increase in everyday violence.

  Alva Myrdal

  War, People, Preparation

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