Politics is so personal, vicious and immediate, how are you going to get anything done? Even the local politics where I live have gotten so ugly.
Interpretation
Politics is deeply personal and often contentious, which can hinder effective progress.
In this quote, Robin Williams highlights the personal nature of politics, emphasizing how its viciousness and immediacy can obstruct meaningful achievements. He reflects on the deteriorating civility in political discussions, suggesting that the emotional and aggressive undertones prevalent in political discourse discourage constructive dialogue and action.
In practice
In a speech about local governance, one might quote Williams to emphasize the need for civility in politics.
It's that idea that you can have one drink - and no you can't. Within a week I was drinking heavily. It was so quick that even I was like, 'Wow.' Because you have that initial warm feeling going, 'Oh, I remember this'. And your body does, too. And your body goes, 'Yeah, so do I'. Then the demon voice comes, 'Yeah, so do I. You know what would be great? You know we bought a little bottle before? A full bottle would be wonderful'.
I always thought the idea of education was to learn to think for yourself.
Sometimes over things that I did, movies that didn't turn out very well - you go, 'Why did you do that?' But in the end, I can't regret them because I met amazing people. There was always something that was worth it.
I've never been asked to appear on 'I'm a Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here!,' so I guess I mustn't be on the professional skids just yet.
The Statue of Liberty is no longer saying, 'Give me your poor, your tired, your huddled masses.' She's got a baseball bat and yelling, 'You want a piece of me?'
I write on big yellow legal pads - ideas in outline form when I'm doing stand-up and stuff. It's vivid that way. I can't type it into an iPad - I think that would put a filter into the process.
It's not just a matter of whether you support Obama or Romney. It's who they have coming with them. I always keep my powder dry, as they say in the military.
What stuns me most about contemporary politics is not even that the system has been so badly corrupted by money. It is that so few people get the connection between their lives and what the bozos do in Washington and our state capitols.
They say, oh, letβs have multiparty politics. Letβs have different parties change and be in charge of the Government. Is it that simple? You vote in a Division Three government, not a Division One government, and the whole economy will just subside within three, four years. Finished.
Our American friends offer us money, arms, and advice. We take the money, we take the arms, and we decline the advice.
Politics is a rough and tumble business, and yet there seems to be an effort by the commentariat to sanitise American politics to some type of high-level Victorian debating society.
However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.
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