Well that makes things nice and clear

[grysar]

Directly (I mean really directly) stolen from Sullivan.

"We look upon authority too often and focus over and over again, for 30 or 40 or 50 years, as if there is something wrong with authority. We see only the oppressive side of authority. Maybe it comes out of our history and our background. What we don't see is that freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do,"

Rudy Giuliani, March 1994.

[Edit: Link extended to make clear that I'm linking to the speech and not some campaign site.]

Comments

[grysar.livejournal.com]

Heh, his authoritarian tendencies probably reinforce his gloryhogging, but as I mention to Reene, I sadly don't think this qualifies as a self-destruct.

Although I'll be you could make a really great You-Tube out of that one if the speech is videotaped somewhere.

[schneeble.livejournal.com]

To be fair, much of the remainder of Rudy's monologue had a slightly different thrust, according to the quotations here.

I'm not totally comforted by that information, but I do feel it's cause to be a smidgen less paranoid.

[grysar.livejournal.com]

The whole talk is actually available if you click on his name. (I should have extended the link to include that date. It looks like a link to a about Rudy page, not the talk itself.)

I do certainly concede that it's clear from the talk that he's not advocating for totalitarianism. But it's also not the only kinda creepy passage:

"The solutions are going to be found when we figure out as a society what our families are going to be like in the next century, and how maybe they are going to be different. They are going to have to be just as solid and just as strong in teaching every single youngster their responsibility for citizenship. We're going to find the answer when schools once again train citizens. Schools exist in America and have always existed to train responsible citizens of the United States of America."

I'd say the use of the word "train" and not "teach" or "educate" is probably telling. Now, to be clear, there is some social liberalism when he talks about what families will be like in the next century. He's definitely closer to Mass. Mitt Romney than national office Mitt Romney.

I'd also note that he's rather well known for always strongly backing the police when there's questionable shootings or beatings.