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Ben Shapiro [1984-0] American
Rank: 101
Author, Commentator


Benjamin Aaron "Ben" Shapiro is an American conservative political commentator, nationally syndicated columnist, author, radio talk show host, and attorney.

Failure, Government, Marriage, Religion, Success, Anger, Birthday, Death, Equality, Freedom, God, Great, History, Life, Morning, Parenting, Poetry, Respect, Technology, Truth



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During the Great Depression, levels of crime actually dropped. During the 1920s, when life was free and easy, so was crime. During the 1930s, when the entire American economy fell into a government-owned alligator moat, crime was nearly non-existent. During the 1950s and 1960s, when the economy was excellent, crime rose again. Great, Life
101
Socialism states that you owe me something simply because I exist. Capitalism, by contrast, results in a sort of reality-forced altruism: I may not want to help you, I may dislike you, but if I don't give you a product or service you want, I will starve. Voluntary exchange is more moral than forced redistribution.
102
Every so often, we all gaze into the abyss. It's a depressing fact of life that eventually the clock expires; eventually the sand in the hourglass runs out. It's the leaving behind of everything that matters to us that hurts the most.
103
Thanks to presidential immunity and executive control of the Justice Department, there are no consequences to executive branch lawbreaking. And when it comes to presidential lawbreaking, the sitting president could literally strangle someone to death on national television and meet with no consequences. Death
104
Socialism has no moral justification whatsoever; poor people are not morally superior to rich people, nor are they owed anything by rich people simply because of their lack of success. Charity is not a socialist concept - it is a religious one, an acknowledgment of God's sovereignty over property, a sovereignty the Left utterly rejects. God, Success
105
If the United States had maintained its spending under Ronald Reagan, it is possible that the attacks of 9/11 - presaged by Islamic terror attacks on multiple American targets beginning with the first bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 - would have been stopped.
106
The Left despises Texas, with its stellar record of job growth; Texas, with its strong support for traditional marriage and the sanctity of life; Texas, the root of the conservative tree. Should the Left succeed in its attempt to turn Texas purple, America could turn permanently blue. Marriage
107
Putin himself is a character out of fiction, an uber-macho former Soviet thug running a massive, expansionist kleptocracy. The man stages photographs riding horses barechested and hunting tigers. His enemies find themselves on the wrong end of radioactive poisoning.
108
President Obama's respect for the Constitution does not extend to freedom of religion - his administration has forced religious businessowners to pay for insurance plans that cover activities in violation of religious precepts. Freedom, Religion, Respect
109
When people are desperate or wealthy, they turn to socialism; only when they have no other alternative do they embrace the free market. After all, lies about guaranteed security are far more seductive than lectures about personal responsibility.
110
The Left masks its distaste for the Bible's condemnation of homosexuality in a straw man argument that Bible believers are violent bigots. They are not. Citing the Bible doesn't make you a bigot against human beings - it makes you a bigot against sin, which is a good thing.
111
Same-sex marriage is not the final nail in the coffin for traditional marriage. It is just another road sign toward the substitution of government for God. Every moral discussion now pits the wisest moral arbiters among us - the Supreme Court, President Obama - against traditional religion. Government, Marriage, Religion
112
Obama wants to raise the issue of immigration reform so that he can demonize Republicans as anti-Hispanic. That's why Obama ignores the broad support for an immigration plan that would provide border security once and for all and then deal with the illegal immigrants who live here.
113
Obama's entire foreign policy was predicated on the notion that by existing, he would bridge all gaps and bury all hatchets. Instead, the Muslim world burns his picture even as he tells them he respects their radicalism. It turns out that diversity is a one-way street for the devotees of global Islam.
114
When Americans are faced with the prospect that they can never earn their way to wealth, they have two choices: to rebel against the system, or to settle into depressed complacency.
115
In actuality, California could be a wonderful place to live. In fact, if you're highly educated and ambitious, you can do quite well here while enjoying the sun and the fun. The only problem: California will then blame you for your success and recommend that all your cash be removed from you. Success
116
President Obama has continually put off the deadline for implementation of Obamacare thanks to hang-ups in the system.
117
Washington's birthday is worthy of celebration - he is one of the greatest men in history. But Washington himself would likely have seen celebration of the office of the presidency itself as monarchic in nature. Birthday, History
118
Leisure time is only leisure time when it is earned; otherwise, leisure time devolves into soul-killing lassitude. There's a reason so many new retirees, freed from the treadmill of work, promptly keel over on the golf course: Work fulfills us. It keeps us going.
119
Socialism violates at least three of the Ten Commandments: It turns government into God, it legalizes thievery and it elevates covetousness. Discussions of income inequality, after all, aren't about prosperity but about petty spite. Why should you care how much money I make, so long as you are happy? Government
120
The story of Detroit's bankruptcy was simple enough: Allow capitalism to grow the city, campaign against income inequality, tax the job creators until they flee, increase government spending in order to boost employment, promise generous pension plans to keep people voting for failure. Rinse, wash and repeat. Failure, Government
121
Hillary Clinton is not that fascinating a person. According to those who have spent time with her, she's harsh and demanding. According to those who haven't - like her husband - she's a delight.
122
President Obama has only had two major policy victories during his tenure: the stimulus package and Obamacare. Both are massively unpopular. The stimulus package launched the Tea Party movement. Obamacare led to the Republican wipeout of 2010.
123
When we say 'less fortunate,' we generally mean the poor rather than the disabled, who actually are less fortunate. In truth, the poor are generally 'less fortunate' only in terms of genetics. They are certainly not less fortunate in the amount of help they receive. Truth
124
In many cases, Obama's exercise of authoritarian power is criminal. His executive branch is responsible for violations of the Arms Export Control Act in shipping weapons to Syria, the Espionage Act in Libya, and IRS law with regard to the targeting of conservative groups.
125
Primarily affecting low-information voters and members of the mainstream media, Obama Worship Syndrome attributes impossible capabilities to Obama's political opponents, finds excuses for every Obama failure in everyone around him and praises the president as the finest politician - nay, human being - of our time. Failure
126
While the West tries to turn its civilization into cultural variety hour, Islam tries to turn Muslim lands into a cultural monolith. The same West that justifies the rap culture thinks that every Muslim terrorist bombing is an expression of economic angst or social alienation.
201
The greatest bulwark against an overreaching government, as tyrants know, is a religious population. That is because religious people form communities of interest adverse to government control of their lives; religious communities rely on their families and each other rather than an overarching government utilizing force.
202
Selective Biblical quotation is a favorite of leftists who interpret the Bible the same way they do the Constitution: as a Chinese menu designed to allow picking and choosing. That's because when many Democrats take the Bible as a whole, they realize how much they despise it.
203
What sort of job can you hold in America in which it is safe to hold the personal conviction that same-sex marriage is wrong? The answer: there is no such job. Except Democratic presidential candidate in 2008. Then you're fine. Marriage
204
Americans take justifiable pride in the freedoms given to them by nature or God and enshrined in the Constitution's Bill of Rights.
205
Why should Congresspeople have to visit D.C.? Thanks to Skype, meetings are possible across the country. Thanks to email, communications are simple. And we've had the technology to vote from afar for decades. Why should we have backroom deals made over cigars thousands of miles distant from those who are affected by those deals? Technology
206
The European style of living is seductive: fewer hours worked, more hours at the cafe, less concern over self-betterment. But that style of living does not produce a purposeful life.
207
It took capitalism half a century to come back from the Great Depression.
208
The Muslim world just doesn't believe that skin color is all that important. Obama may be half-black, but he's still all-Western, according to them. It doesn't matter whether you're black, white or green - if you're not a devotee of Muhammad, you don't matter.
209
America's liberal arts universities have long been safe zones for leftist thinking, protected ivory towers for the pseudo-elite who earn their livings writing papers nobody reads about gender roles in the poetry of Maya Angelou. Poetry
210
By giving professors jobs for life, universities create a feeling of unanswerable power among too many. Tenured professors who are uninterested in serving the student body are less likely to respond favorably to criticism, and are more likely to feel the freedom to intimidate or harass those with opposing viewpoints.
211
One wonders what exactly Israel did to earn Arab enmity between 1948 and 1967, when Egypt controlled the Gaza Strip and Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria.
212
The real problem with Obamacare has little to do with the number of people signing up, and a lot to do with the restrictions on insurance companies and reimbursement rates to doctors.
213
In order for Obamacare's cost structure to work, millions of Americans must sign up to pay inflated prices; that would help pay for the subsidies to cover insurance company costs on those with pre-existing conditions.
214
It is possible to take the story of Noah figuratively, although virtually every Near East ancient civilization has its own version of the flood story (including the amoral epic of Gilgamesh).
215
During the Cold War, America undertook serious military cuts only once: after the election of Richard Nixon, during the Vietnam War. The result: Vietnam fell to the Communists, the Russians moved into Afghanistan, and American influence around the globe waned dramatically.
216
Historically, defense spending cuts have preceded increased international turmoil as America's global enemies sense a failure of will. Failure
217
Let's assume for the moment that the logic behind Presidents Day is actually sound for certain presidents. Why not have a separate holiday for Lincoln and one for Washington - as we used to do, before we became so concerned with the 'Every President Gets a Trophy' ethos?
218
President Obama's biggest advocates believe that Americans are ready to embrace his vision for the United States: a less muscular America on the world stage, an America with a more controlling executive branch and less conflict in the legislative branch, an America in which the government takes care of us, be we Pajama Boys or Julias.
219
The Obamacare contraception mandate was never about freedom. It was always about pitting secularism against religion, and using the power of government to sponsor secularism. Religion
220
Limbaugh can rightly be said to be the greatest populist expositor of conservatism in America since Reagan, and the link between the Reagan generation and the so-called Rush Babies.
221
Only reprobates father children and then abandon them.
222
Having children truly ends adolescence. We are all either parents or children: responsibility-takers or those who demand from others.
223
Freedom of speech and thought matters, especially when it is speech and thought with which we disagree. The moment the majority decides to destroy people for engaging in thought it dislikes, thought crime becomes a reality.
224
The Fourth Amendment is quite clear on the notion that search and seizure must not be unreasonable. It is difficult to think of something more unreasonable than searching the private phone records and digital information of citizens who are suspected of nothing.
225
Despite the fact that he has run the most incompetent administration in history, President Obama remains a solid bet for re-election in 2012. Obama's frontrunner status springs from two crucial facts: first, by overexposing himself in the public eye, he has made himself larger than life; second, the Republican field is pathetically weak.
226
When I was a kid, I'd wake up extraordinarily early every morning and turn on the television, scanning for episodes of 'The Jetsons.' For some reason, I loved the notion of a future where there would be flying cars, supercomputers, and most of all, robot maids to take care of the chores. Morning
301
The greatest obstacle to the welfare state is not greed but private charity that makes the welfare state irrelevant; the greatest obstacle to re-education of children in the name of the collective is allegiance to a higher power. More than that, the greatest obstacle to the state as god is an actual God above the state.
302
Technically, web browsers can control what users see, and sites using Javascript can overwrite anything coming from the original authors. Browsers heavily utilize Javascript to create an interactive Internet; sites like YouTube, Facebook, and Gmail could be crippled without it.
303
As of September 2012, 168 out of the 602 released Guantanamo Bay detainees are suspected of returning to terrorism. So, is this a winning scenario for the United States? Of course not.
304
The ouster of Jill Abramson as executive editor of 'The New York Times' sent shock waves through the media landscape. Reports that she was fired thanks in part to a soured relationship based on the 'Times' alleged sexist pay discrepancy only made those shock waves stronger.
305
There is no greater way to ensure that universities remain a hotbed of leftist thought than to guarantee that professors knight their own successors. But that's basically how the Ph.D. system works, with sitting professors approving the work of would-be professors.
306
A West Virginia 10 is a California 4. Or at least that's what legend tells us: The Legend of Dr. Feelgood. Plastic surgery has a permanent home here, which is why Nancy Pelosi loves our Botoxed beaches. Beverly Hills looks like a moving Madame Tussauds.
307
Bad presidents don't deserve holidays. They deserve scorn.
308
Geopolitical drama lessened but did not die after the Cold War; in 2008, the specter of thousands of seeming automatons banging drums at the opening of the Beijing Games frightened and enthralled the world, reminding us that China was a nation on the rise, a competitor for global dominance.
309
2013 was a year of myths falling apart. The myth of President Obama - a myth in which Obama was a messianic figure descending to bequeath health care, equality, and brotherhood on mankind - imploded. The myth of an America embracing the leftist social agenda collapsed. Equality
310
The Tea Party is almost solely grassroots-based; business interests have almost no grassroots organization. The Republican Party has for too long been run on behalf of business interests who favor candidates the grassroots hate; the minute that those candidates begin to flag, only loyal Tea Partiers stand behind them.
311
Few Americans have ever met their Congresspeople. They don't see them at the grocery store; they don't meet them at the bowling alley. They're more likely to see their representatives in photographs from the Daily Grill in Washington, D.C., than at a local town hall.
312
Obama seems to inspire a bizarre personal loyalty among his advocates, particularly among young people who should by all rights be concerned with their fading futures and collapsing prospects.
313
Wishful thinking won't make the Palestinians an Israeli peace partner, no matter how much President Barack Obama pressures Israel to make concessions; caustically mocking Putin's worldview won't make it any less real or mitigate the Russian threat.
314
There are times that everyone hates his or her job. Were they freed from the economic consequences of having these jobs, they'd drop out of the workforce. There are only two problems with this strategy: First, someone has to pay for it; second, it is not the recipe for human fulfillment.
315
When the Soviet Union fell, optimistic scholars believed the world had shifted inexorably in the direction of free markets and liberal democracy. Instead, the West gradually embraced bigger government and weaker social bonds, creating a fragmented society in which the only thing we all belong to, as President Barack Obama puts it, is the state.
316
Conservatives are routinely pilloried on television. A&E likely greenlit 'Duck Dynasty' in the first place because executives believed Americans would laugh at the redneck antics of the self-described 'white trash' family.
317
President Obama is a gifted politician. He is gifted with rhetoric virtuosity. He is gifted with the ability to lie directly to camera without blinking. And he is gifted with some of the most incompetent conservative opposition in the history of the country.
318
The argument that gay marriage doesn't affect straight marriages is a ridiculous red herring: Gay marriage affects society and law in dramatic ways. Religious groups will come under direct assault as federal and state governments move to strip them of their non-profit statuses if they refuse to perform gay marriages.
319
Capitalism invariably boils down to barter between two willing parties, neither of whom uses force to work with the other.
320
After the killing of Osama Bin Laden, the Obama administration steadfastly refused to say which element of the U.S. military had participated in the assault. Until Vice President Joe Biden decided to talk about it on national television, that is.
321
President Obama and members of his administration constantly express rage and anger over events totally within their control. It's an odd and unsettling fact of American life that so many Americans seem to think that such expressions of frustration should substitute for actual competence. Anger
322
The separation of church and state was meant to protect church from state; a state that declares religion off limits in public life is a state that declares itself supreme over all religious values.
323
It is no wonder that advocates of Obamacare blindly push forward with their agenda to force religious Americans to violate their own precepts: in the war between the state and the individual, religion is on the side of the individual and his or her relationship with God. That is why symbolic prayer matters. It is symbolic.
324
Google is a private company. It has the capacity to utilize its massive power for whatever political agenda it chooses. But for it to pretend to be an advocate for Internet freedom while simultaneously disadvantaging messages it finds politically incorrect is deeply hypocritical.
325
'Noah' doesn't merely get the story wrong; like all Biblical adaptations, it's bound to do that (although some aspects of the film are out and out ridiculous). It gets the morality of the story wrong, and in the process turns God into Gaia and morality into radical deep green environmentalism.
326
President Obama has created the image of an America under President Bush that routinely violated international law.
401
The violation of press freedoms has been egregious under this administration, even as the press fetes President Obama as an honest and effective commander-in-chief.
402
Michael Lewis, author of 'Moneyball,' got special access for a profile of Obama for 'Vanity Fair' - but Obama insisted on redlining his quotes.
403
It was the Obama administration that cut a faux deal with the Iranians that will not disarm Iran of its nuclear capabilities, and will in fact accelerate their nuclear development.
404
If Republicans triumph in 2014, it will undoubtedly be as a result of Obamacare. In 2010, Republicans soared to historic victory because the much-maligned Tea Party spearheaded mass resistance to Obama's takeover of the healthcare industry.
405
No number of repairs will be able to fix Obamacare. The website is the least of Americans' worries.
406
When Limbaugh entered the world of talk radio, the AM dial was essentially moribund. He turned it into a weapon for conservatism, and in the process, led the revolution that has ended in the disintegration of the old media monopoly.
407
The vast majority of murdered whites are murdered by other whites. That's why there's no national outrage when a white person is killed by a black person: it's not evidence of some underlying black violence problem directed against white people.
408
Every time we rock our babies in the night, we bring order back to a disordered world. Every time we look down at our children and cry, we make the world one shade brighter. That's what children do to us - and for us.
409
With the dramatic increase in ease of transportation and the incredible decrease in the amount of time required to travel between far-flung areas of the United States, representatives began spending more and more time in Washington and less and less time in their home districts.
410
Show Republicans a shiny pro-life or pro-marriage issue and they'd much rather address that controversial topic than keep pressing on the tyranny that Obamacare represents.
411
President Obama is one of the great political knife-fighters in modern history. He is a failed president - his economy is bleak, his foreign policy bleaker, his vision for American even bleaker still. But he wins.
412
The most formative time of our lives are the years between birth and age 21, when we explore who we are and learn from those who surround us.
413
Capitalism requires individual responsibility and accountability. People are seen as atomized units in a capitalist system - they are either useful, or they are not. They are not seen racially or ethnically or religiously. They consume and they produce, and those are their only relevant characteristics.
414
President Obama's consistent agenda has been to weaken the United States and our allies in pursuit of a more 'balanced' global power structure.
415
Kids are fat because of lack of parenting. Parenting
416
Musicians are, by and large, not the most politically savvy crew.
417
Historically, professors have defended tenure as a way to protect their individualistic thought. But tenure can also be used as a club to wield against the powerless.
418
Matt Damon's anti-fracking diatribe was funded by the royal family of the United Arab Emirates.
419
Al Gore had no problem taking hundreds of millions of dollars from the government of Qatar to sell his Current TV to Al Jazeera America.
420
Vaccinations absolutely work, and have dramatically decreased rates of childhood diseases.
421
Google has long been a leftist company.
422
It was always foolhardy for Republicans and conservatives to stake their objections to Obamacare on the number of sign-ups; Social Security is going bankrupt despite 100% enrollment. The reality is that Obama was always destined to hit his required numbers because, after all, he has the power of government to compel action.
423
President Obama has regularly granted special access to reporters who give him preferential coverage.
424
The Obama administration has been curtailing press freedom - but that hasn't ended the press' drool-cup worship for their beloved president.
425
President Obama himself has attributed the legitimacy of the Jewish State not to its historic identity as Jewish territory, but to the Holocaust.
426
In the aftermath of President Obama's re-election, members of both the administration and the media trumpeted that Obama had received his long-sought mandate. Obamacare, Americans were told, was the law of the land. It could not be changed; it could not be stopped.
501
President Obama is perhaps the most ideologically-motivated president in American history. But according to the ultimate authority, Barack Obama, he's a mere pragmatist.
502
Obama's respect for the Constitution does not apply to protections against unreasonable search and seizure, as Obama's deeply intrusive National Security Agency programs prove.
503
'The Butler' has virtually nothing in common with its source material, the life of White House butler Gene Allen, except for the fact that the main character of the film and Allen were both black butlers in the White House.
504
The Obama administration has consistently refused to recognize Jerusalem as Israeli territory, let alone as the capital of Israel.
505
When a black person kills a black person, the media ignores it completely.
506
Vice President Joe Biden believes that illegal immigrants are citizens. Obama believes that some Americans who join Islamist groups are citizens, while others are not. Who is an American? Whomever the executive branch deems an American. Who isn't? It depends on whether Obama ate his Wheaties or not.
507
Members of Congress have more in common with the people they hobnob in Washington, D.C., than they do with the people they're supposed to represent.
508
Obama's pop-cultural focus may seem demeaning to the office of the presidency. It may be mockable. But it is also tremendously effective.
509
Liberals in Hollywood can't stand when Americans resonate to conservatives on television.
510
Obama rammed through Obamacare legislation without a single Republican vote.
511
Distrust of government isn't baseless cynicism. It's realism.
512
Obamacare has made the government part of our health care decisions. The IRS controls all of our financial information. The NSA apparently sees everything else.
513
Obama has placed himself in perfect political position: he spent the 2008 campaign convincing the American people that he's a racial unifier rather than a divider, without any evidence to prove it.
514
In Britain, where the social safety net is more like a social swaddling cloth, crime rates other than murder are significantly higher than in the United States.
515

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