The most active people in the country know different things, and because each one tends to hear mostly and deal mostly with people with whom they agree, they are reinforced not simply in the conviction that they are right, which is totally appropriate, but that they are the majority. So you have both sides, the Left and the Right, thinking that the majority of the country is really with them.
Barney FrankWhenever people are being intellectually dishonest in debate, it is an implicit concession they have lost the fight
Barney FrankWhen community action was put into federal law in the early sixties as part of the effort to combat poverty and social injustice, I supported it intellectually.
Barney FrankParticularly marijuana, I think is a great hypocrisy. I think frankly it contributes to a good deal of the sense of unfairness you have among younger people who are told they shouldn't do this because itโs got all these negative effects, but then older people are engaging in all kinds of things that probably have a greater impact on people.
Barney FrankTrying to avert foreclosures, once you can't just force the banks to do it as a condition of getting aid, means that you have to put some public money into it or you have to do other things that are politically unpopular. From the macroeconomic standpoint there is overwhelming need to help people reduce what they owe so that we don't get the foreclosures and we don't get people kicked out of their homes. On the other hand, there is great resistance politically to helping people, not all of whom would be worth recipients of the help.
Barney Frank