"Nixon was the last liberal president. He supported women's rights, the environment, ending the draft, youth involvement, and now he's the boogeyman? [John] Kerry couldn't even run on that today."
"Admittedly, besides its moral failure, communism failed in its crusade to convert the whole world...But communism's impact was and still is enormous. In addition to provoking significant changes in capitalist economies, such as vastly increased military spending and the growth of a military-industrial complex, the USSR's existence changed Western social development in fundamental ways.
Labor reform in the West in the past century came about under the threat of a radicalized international labor movement protected and supported by the USSR. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was in part meant to steal the thunder of radicals who looked to Moscow and therefore could not be ignored. Social goals that are commonplace today, including women's rights and racial integration, were planks of the Communist Party platform long before mainstream American parties took them seriously. It was Communists who first went to the American South and began organizing African-Americans and poor whites around issues of social justice. The more politically acceptable young people who followed them in The '60s are heroes today. On the international scene the Soviet Union provided support for Nelson Mandela and other reformers. Communism made life difficult for Western establishments, and it is doubtful that reforms would have come when they did if the USSR had not existed. Communists always rejected reform in favor of revolution. Ironically, however, the existence of the Soviet Union helped the capitalist West reform itself and avoid the bloody revolutions of the East. Twentieth-century communism was no passing illusion; its legacies are everywhere."
Labor reform in the West in the past century came about under the threat of a radicalized international labor movement protected and supported by the USSR. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal was in part meant to steal the thunder of radicals who looked to Moscow and therefore could not be ignored. Social goals that are commonplace today, including women's rights and racial integration, were planks of the Communist Party platform long before mainstream American parties took them seriously. It was Communists who first went to the American South and began organizing African-Americans and poor whites around issues of social justice. The more politically acceptable young people who followed them in The '60s are heroes today. On the international scene the Soviet Union provided support for Nelson Mandela and other reformers. Communism made life difficult for Western establishments, and it is doubtful that reforms would have come when they did if the USSR had not existed. Communists always rejected reform in favor of revolution. Ironically, however, the existence of the Soviet Union helped the capitalist West reform itself and avoid the bloody revolutions of the East. Twentieth-century communism was no passing illusion; its legacies are everywhere."
— J. Arch Getty, The Future Did Not Work
.
.Lisa: He's created a near-perfect society, where there's no crime, hunger or war, and all have access to the lively arts.
Homer: If that's your world, I don't wanna live in it!
— The Simpsons, Deleted Scene from the "Treehouse of Horror V" story "Time and Punishment", on an Alternate Timeline run by Ned Flanders.
Gul Madred: What a blind, narrow view you have. What an arrogant man you are. What do you know of Cardassian history?
Capt. Picard: I know that once you were a peaceful people with a rich spiritual life.
Madred: And what did peace and spirituality get us? People starved by the millions. Bodies went unburied. Disease was rampant. Suffering was unimaginable.
Picard: Since the military took over, hundreds of thousands more have died.
Madred: But we are feeding the people. We acquired territory during the wars. We developed new resources. We initiated a rebuilding program. We have mandated agricultural programs. That is what the military has done for Cardassia. And because of that, my daughter will never worry about going hungry.
Picard: Her belly may be full, but her spirit will be empty.
— Star Trek: The Next Generation, "Chain of Command: Part II"
Reg: They've bled us white, the bastards. They've taken everything we had, and not just from us, from our fathers, and from our fathers' fathers.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
Xerxes: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
Commando #3: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads—
Commando #1: Irrigation.
Xerxes: Medicine.
Commandos: Huh? Heh? Huh...
Commando #2: Education.
Commandos: Ohh...
Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
Commando #1: And the wine.
Commandos: Oh, yes. Yeah...
Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Commando #1: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
Commando: (laughing)
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought peace.
Reg: Oh. Peace? Shut up!
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah.
Loretta: And from our fathers' fathers' fathers' fathers.
Reg: Yeah. All right, Stan. Don't labour the point. And what have they ever given us in return?!
Xerxes: The aqueduct?
Reg: What?
Xerxes: The aqueduct.
Reg: Oh. Yeah, yeah. They did give us that. Uh, that's true. Yeah.
Commando #3: And the sanitation.
Loretta: Oh, yeah, the sanitation, Reg. Remember what the city used to be like?
Reg: Yeah. All right. I'll grant you the aqueduct and the sanitation are two things that the Romans have done.
Matthias: And the roads.
Reg: Well, yeah. Obviously the roads. I mean, the roads go without saying, don't they? But apart from the sanitation, the aqueduct, and the roads—
Commando #1: Irrigation.
Xerxes: Medicine.
Commandos: Huh? Heh? Huh...
Commando #2: Education.
Commandos: Ohh...
Reg: Yeah, yeah. All right. Fair enough.
Commando #1: And the wine.
Commandos: Oh, yes. Yeah...
Francis: Yeah. Yeah, that's something we'd really miss, Reg, if the Romans left. Huh.
Commando #1: Public baths.
Loretta: And it's safe to walk in the streets at night now, Reg.
Francis: Yeah, they certainly know how to keep order. Let's face it. They're the only ones who could in a place like this.
Commando: (laughing)
Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Xerxes: Brought peace.
Reg: Oh. Peace? Shut up!
Qin and Rome had a lot in common. Each was a spectacular example of the advantages of backwardness, combining organisational methods pioneered in an older core with military methods honed on a violent frontier; each slaughtered, enslaved and dispossessed millions; and each drove social development up faster than ever before. Qin and Rome also exemplify what we might call the paradox of violence: when the rivers of blood dried, their imperialism left most people, in both East and West, better off.
— Ian Morris, Why the West Rules — For Now
The Baron demands taxes and deals harshly with peacebreakers, yes, but he's kept the Long War at bay for years. He builds roads, schools and hospitals. I raid elsewhere but I choose to live here.
—Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, Girl Genius, v9p18
Gary Coleman: Well, what do we have here? (takes out nightstick) Looks like the biggest rip-off since Webster.
Homer: (yells) Please, Mr. Coleman, we can explain!
Gary: I'm listening.
Lisa: Your toy company is evil!
Gary: Well, isn't it possible for an evil company to make people happy?
Lisa: Are you saying the end justifies the means?
Coleman: That's a very glib interpretation.
Lisa: No, Bart, he's right. I did over-simplify.
Homer: Perhaps, but let's not get bogged down in semantics. I think what Lisa meant to say is...
Narrator (Clarence Clemons): And so, Gary Coleman and the Simpsons argued long into the night, and then, as day broke, the spirit of the season entered their hearts.
Lisa: ...Let's just agree that the commercialization of Christmas is, at best, a mixed blessing.
Gary: Amen.
— The Simpsons, "Grift Of The Magi"
