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When I Was Here There Was Still A Requirement That Students Had To Swim 50 Yards To Graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener Had Drowned With The Sinking Of The Titanic. And It Made Me Very Grateful At The Time That He Had Not Gone Down In A Plane Crash.

-Barney Frank

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When I Was Here

Barney Frank

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When I Was Here There Was Still A Requirement That Students Had To Swim 50 Yards To Graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener Had Drowned With The Sinking Of The Titanic. And It Made Me Very Grateful At The Time That He Had Not Gone Down In A Plane Crash.

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Funny Graduation

More From Barney Frank

Donald Trump Has Done More For Getting People To Understand The Importance Of Public Policy That Respond To Public Needs In An Affirmative Way Than Anything We Could Have Done On Our Own.

The Single Most Important Thing You Can Do Politically For Gay Rights Is To Come Out. Not To Write A Letter To Your Congressman But To Come Out.

Before This Learning Experience, I Had Assumed That With Regard To Programs That Sought To Help People Out Of Poverty, The Political World Was Essentially Divided Into Two Camps: Conservatives Who Opposed These For A Variety Of Reasons, And Liberals Who Supported Them.

The Left And The Right Live In Parallel Universes. The Right Listens To Talk Radio, The Left's On The Internet And They Just Reinforce One Another. They Have No Sense Of Reality. I Have Now One Ambition: To Retire Before It Becomes Essential To Tweet.

I Do Not Believe That The Federal Government Should Treat Adults Who Choose To Smoke Marijuana As Criminals.

But It Is Also Clear That Left Entirely Untouched By Public Policy, The Capitalist System Will Produce More Inequality Than Is Socially Healthy Or Than Is Necessary For Maximum Efficiency.

Disruption Never Helps Your Cause. ... It Just Looks Like You're Afraid To Have Rational Discussion.

Whenever People Are Being Intellectually Dishonest In Debate, It Is An Implicit Concession They Have Lost The Fight

I Will Tell You, I'm A Lousy Cook, But I Think I'm A Pretty Good Judge Of A Good Meal.

There Were A Lot Of Romneys. There's The Romney Who Was Going To Be Better On Gay Rights Than Ted Kennedy; Now There's A Romney Who Checks With Rick Santorum On That Issue.

I Had Always Been Interested In Politics. I Had Assumed - For Two Reasons, Being Jewish And Being Gay Back In The Late '50s, Early '60s - That I Would Never Be Elected Or Anything, But I Would Participate As An Activist.

Can I Say One Other Thing That`s Very Important? I`m Indebted To Donald Trump For A Long Time, We`ve Had This Problem That People Disliked Government. And The Health Care Bill Has Shown Reminded People And Donald Trump Has Shown People There Is Something A Lot Worse Than Government. It`s Not Government. That As Bad As They Might Have Thought The Government Was On Health Care, It`s Now Created People That The Absence Of Government Healthcare Is Even Worse.

These Two Entities—fannie Mae And Freddie Mac—are Not Facing Any Kind Of Financial Crisis.

The Best Humor Is Offered Up To You By The Stupidity Of Your Opponents.

The Moral Majority Supports Legislators Who Oppose Abortions But Also Oppose Child Nutrition And Day Care. From Their Perspective, Life Begins At Conception And Ends At Birth.

Regarding Homophobia In General, The Good News Is That There Is A Lot Less Of It Than There Used To Be. The Bad News Is That It Ever Existed In The First Place, And The Worse News Is That It Remains Far Stronger Than Is Healthy For A Society Dedicated In Theory To Equality Under The Law.

Equality Under The Law

If You Care Deeply About A Cause And You Are Then Engaged On Behalf Of That Cause In An Activity That Makes You Feel Very Good And Very Brave And You're Really In Solidarity With All Your Friends, And You're Enjoying It, You're Probably Not Advancing The Cause Very Much, Because You're Spending All Your Time With People You Agree With Cheering Each Other On And Not Engaging.

When I Was Here There Was Still A Requirement That Students Had To Swim 50 Yards To Graduate...because Harry Elkins Widener Had Drowned With The Sinking Of The Titanic. And It Made Me Very Grateful At The Time That He Had Not Gone Down In A Plane Crash.

Funny Graduation

But When Others Suggested That The Poor Should Not Simply Be The Objects Of These Programs But Also The Subjects - That They Should Be Actively Involved In Shaping The Programs, Making Decisions About How To Spend The Money Etc. - Some Of The Previous Supporters Reconsidered.

There Was A Degree Of Interventionism In American Foreign Policy, The Notion That We Must Be The Superpower And We Have To Intervene Everywhere, That I Think Makes No Sense.

They Have To Convert Our Agenda Into Something Aggressive. Two Guys Wanting To Be Happy Together Are Invading Their Marriages. Helping A Kid Who's Getting Beaten Up In School Is Promoting Homosexuality. If You Gave Me A Million Dollars, I Wouldn't Know How To Promote Homosexuality.

I Think There Was An Absolute, Deep Gap Between Consensual Relations Between Adults, Which People May Like Or Dislike, And People Who Physically Impose Themselves On Children Or Misuse Their Authority To Impose On Children.

It Is, Of Course, Further Indication That A Fundamentalist Right Has Really Taken Over Much Of The Republican Party, People Might Cite George Bush As Proof That You Can Be Totally Impervious To The Effects Of Harvard And Yale Education.

For Most Of My Life, I Have Eaten To Deal With Stress.

Dealing With Stress

We Were Giving Advice For The Single-worst Idea To Come Forward From A Group That's Been Rife With Them, It Would Be This: The Idea Is This: Let's Make The Tax Code Of America Better For Very Rich People; Let's Give Substantial Tax Relief To The Richest People We Can Find. Forget About The Person Making $40,000 A Year And Paying Social Security Payroll Tax. Forget About All Those Other People Paying Income Tax; We're Here To Give Tax Relief To The Richest 2% Of America.

Let Us Not Say That We Will Decide On A Political Basis At The National Level That No State Is Competent To Regulate The Practice Of Medicine In That State If They Decide To Allow A Doctor To Prescribe Marijuana, Because That Is What We Are Talking About.

Practice Of Medicine

I Have Been Mislabeled As A Big Advocate Of Low-income Home Ownership Over Rental.

This Bill Is The Legislative Equivalent Of Crack. It Yields A Short-term High But Does Long-term Damage To The System And It's Expensive To Boot.

But Here Too It Should Be Noted That The President's Approach Was To First Ask The Repressive And Brutal Taliban To Surrender Osama Bin Laden To Us, And Only After That Government Refused To Do That Did We Invade.

Particularly 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 It’s Got All These Negative Effects, But Then Older People Are Engaging In All Kinds Of Things That Probably Have A Greater Impact On People.

And I Think There Is Too Much Bloviating Around From Politicians.

Ronald Reagan Got A Lot Of Democrats. I Wish He Hadn`t. I Got To Congress With Reagan Coming To The Whitehouse. The Reagan Program, A Very Radical One, A Very Drastic One Passed Because He Had A Lot Of Democrats. He Worked At It Personally And Also Because Reagan Retained A Popularity.

I Do Not Think That Any Self-respecting Radical In History Would Have Considered Advocating People’s Rights To Get Married, Join The Army, And Earn A Living As A Terribly Inspiring Revolutionary Platform.

Capitalism Works Better From Every Perspective When The Economic Decision Makers Are Forced To Share Power With Those Who Will Be Affected By Those Decisions.

The Problem With The War In Iraq Is Not So Much The Intelligence As The Stupidity.

For Many Of Those Who Had Historically Supported Welfare Programs In The Broadest Sense, It Was Perfectly Reasonable To Enact Legislation In Which Poor People Were The Objects Of Efforts To Assist Them.

Welfare Programs

For The Trustees To Turn Away From The Entirely Reasonable Request Of The Students That A Hearing-impaired Individual Be Made President Of The College Is A Very Unfortunate Expression Of Insensitivity.

These Two Entities Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac Are Not Facing Any Kind Of Financial Crisis. The More People Exaggerate These Problems, The More Pressure There Is On These Companies, The Less We Will See In Terms Of Affordable Housing.

Affordable Housing

It Seems To Me That Politicians Ought To Use The Same Words As Other People.

Trying 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.

I Am Not Aware Of Any Specific Provision That Mandates Any Tightening Of Lending To Small Business Other Than A Requirement That People Who Lend And Then Sell That Loan Be Prepared To Take A Part Of The Risk. And I'm Proud Of That.

Nothing In The World Is As Mobile As Capital. It Can Move Anywhere In The World Instantaneously.

Moderate Republicans Are Reverse Houdinis. They Tie Themselves Up In Knots And Then Tell You They Can’t Do Anything Because They’re Tied Up In Knots.

But On Those Occasions When I Do Strongly Disagree With The Democrats And I Don't Say Anything, I Think I Forfeit My Right To Have People Pay Attention To Me When I Say The Things That I Don't Like About What Republicans Are Saying.

What's Troubling Is That The Republicans To Defend Mr. Delay Are Weakening The Ethics Process.

I Wouldn't Want [gay Marriage] To Go To The United States Supreme Court Now Because That Homophobe Antonin Scalia Has Too Many Votes On This Current Court.

I Smoke A Cigar Or Two A Day. I Did Have A Brownie Once. It Made Me Sleepy.

I Should Have Voted For The First Iraq War. George Bush Did That One Very Well. I Had Been Skeptical. I Was Afraid That George Bush Was Going To Treat The First Iraq War The Way His Son Treated The Second.

A Leader Can`t Move A Country That`s Not Ready. You Can`t Make The Waves, But When You See Them Coming, You Can Help Direct Them.

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.

When 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.

The Best Antidote To Prejudice Is Reality.

In A Free Society, A Large Degree Of Human Activity Is None Of The Government's Business. We Should Make Criminal What's Going To Hurt Other People And Other Than That We Should Leave It To People To Make Their Own Choices.

They Appear To Have Become So Attached To Their Outrage That They Are Even More Outraged That They Won't Be Able To Be Outraged Anymore.

We Don't Get Ourselves Dry Cleaned.

I Have This Fear That One Day There's Going To Be A Fire In The Senate And There Are Only Going To Be 57 Senators There And They’ll All Die Because They Won't Have 60 Votes To Allow Themselves To Leave The Building.

Lawyers Are Very, Very Good At Keeping You Out Of Prison, But They Will Sacrifice Your Reputation And Credibility To Do So.

I Am Very Proud Of The Role I Played In Getting Legal Equality For People Who Are Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual And Transgender, And In Helping Get Rid Of The Prejudice By Being Visible About It, Helping To Block The Conviction Of Bill Clinton Of Impeachment.

We All Have The Right To Call Each Other Names. Rudeness Is A Deeply Held Constitutional Value.

If Bob Barr (conservative Republican Congressman From Georgia) Caught On Fire And I Was Holding A Bucket Of Water, It Would Be Great Act Of Discipline To Pour It On Him. I Would Do It, But I'd Hate Myself In The Morning.

You Know, When I Was In College, There Was A Big Debate: Do Unions Raise Wages? Well, With Regard To Industrial Unions, There Were Arguments Back And Forth -- International Competition. It Is Now Clear, I Think, That Whether Or Not You Think Unions Raised Wages 50 Years Ago, The Absence Of Unions And Their Weakness That Is Inflicted By Anti-union Public Policy Depresses Wages. The Fact Is That People Who Are Not Represented, In The Service Industries In Particular, Are The Victims Of Policies Which Depress Their Wages.

I'm Used To Being In The Minority. I'm A Left-handed, Gay Jew. I've Never Felt, Automatically, A Member Of Any Majority.

I Can Tell You About Health Care And Also About The Financial Reform Bill. The Barack Obama, The President Personally And His Administration Officials At His Direction Were Very Much Involved.

There Are No Moderate Republicans Left, With The Exception Of A Few Who Would Vote With Us When It Doesn’t Make Any Difference,” Frank Said. “it’s The Most Rigid Ideological Party Since Before The Civil War. … The Bumper Sticker I’m Going To Have Printed Up For Democrats This Year Is, ‘we’re Not Perfect, But They’re Nuts.’

People Are Entitled To The Presumption Of Innocence.

Presumption Of Innocence

There Is Parallels These Two Great Men John Mccain And Ted Kennedy Of Great Impact In The Senate, You Don`t Agree With Everything They Did But Certainly They Had Major Impacts As Senators. Their One Major Political Failure Not To Be Elected President But That Didn`t Stop Them From Having Enormous Impact And At Roughly The Same Age, Exactly The Same Disease. It`s Kind Of A Poignant Sad Parallel.

Excessive Partisanship Is The Problem. There Has Never Been A Democracy In The History Of The World In A Polity Of Any Size Where You Didn't Have Political Parties. Even Sometimes Over The Objections Of The People Who Started It.

The Fact That Theyre A Congressionally Chartered Group Should No More Incline People To Give To That Group Than The Fact That Its National Pickle Month Should Make Them Eat More Pickles.

And Unless You Think There Is A Serious Chance You're Going To Jail, Don't Listen To Your Lawyer.

Martin Luther King Said, And It Is Sadly Still True, That One Of The Most Segregated Times In America Is The Hour Of Worship.

Nato Was A Wonderful Idea. It Was Formed In 1949. We Are As Far Away From Nato As Nato Was When It Was Done In Time From The Presidency Of Grover Cleveland.

In The Debate Between Those Who Believe In Essentially Unregulated Markets And Others Who Hold That Reasonable Regulation Diminishes Market Excesses Without Inhibiting Their Basic Function, The Subprime Situation Unfortunately Provides Ammunition For The Latter View.

If People Knew Of Ethics Violations, They Should Have Sent Them To The Ethics Committee. If You Think There Was Serious Ethics Violation That Ought To Be Looked At, You Don't Hold It Back For Retaliatory Purposes.

I Do Have Things I Would Like To See Adopted On Behalf Of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual And Transgender People: They Include The Right To Marry The Individual Of Our Choice; The Right To Serve In The Military To Defend Our Country; And The Right To A Job Based Solely On Our Own Qualifications. I Acknowledge That This Is An Agenda, But I Do Not Think That Any Self-respecting Radical In History Would Have Considered Advocating People's Rights To Get Married, Join The Army, And Earn A Living As A Terribly Inspiring Revolutionary Platform.

I Was Still Closeted, But From The Day I Decided To Run For Office, Knowing That I Was Gay, I Decided That I Would, Of Course, Still Be Closeted But That I Would Work Very Hard For Gay Rights. It Would Be Totally Dishonorable, Being Gay, Not To Do That. So I Had That As Kind Of A Secondary Agenda.

Legislators Have A Formal Set Of Responsibilities To Work Together, But There's No Hierarchy.

Working Together

Take Free Speech: Most Of The Tough Cases On Free Speech Involve Very Unpleasant People Saying Very Obnoxious Things.

Well, Many Of Us Believe That Excessive Media Concentration Is A Subject That Ought To Be Addressed, And It Is, Of Course, The Intention Of The Majority Party Not To Allow That To Be Discussed.

Going Before An Audience Of People Who Expect You To Be Funny Is Tough. Going Before An Audience That Expect You To Be Boring, And Then Being A Little Funny, Is Much Easier. I Prefer Easier.

Increasing Inequality In Income Distribution In This Country Has Broader Policy Implications, And There Is Also The Growing Problem Of Perverse Incentives That Result From Executives Receiving Grossly Disproportionate Compensation Based On Decisions They Themselves Take.

I Believe It Is A Good Thing To Get Rid Of Gaddafi. But Does America Have To Do Everything?

I Don't Think Donald Trump Is The Right Person Because I Very Much Disagree With Him.

In The West Everybody Recognizes The Need For A Private Sector, Pretty Much, Even The One Socialist Group Understands This Now, And So There Tends To Be Debate About How Much Public Sector Intervention You Think Is Needed For A Variety Of Reasons, And There Are Very Important Differences On Party Lines That Should Be Fought Out.

While I Was Pleasantly Surprised By The Relatively High Number Of Jobs Created In April, The Fact Is That Job Creation During This Recovery Period Has Significantly Lagged Both Historical Experience In Recovery, And The Projections Of The Bush Administration.

There Is A Correlation Between People Who Attack Same-sex Marriage And Have Difficulty Maintaining Their Own.

There Is An Irony That The Most Active Anti-gay Groups Are Al-qaeda And The American Right Wing.

The People Who Started The American Government, The Founders Of The Constitution, Didn't Like Political Parties But They Were Forced To Start Them. Nobody Ever Created Political Parties In England, They Evolved. And There Do Tend To Be Two General Tendencies That Focus Around How Much Government You Think You Need.

Conservatives Believe That From The Standpoint Of The Federal Government, Life Begins At Conception And Ends At Birth.

Today, Many People Take For Granted The Notion That People Whose Lives Are Going To Be Very Heavily Affected By Public Policies Should Have A Say In How They Are Formulated And Carried Out.

Ronald Reagan Believes In The Free Market Like Some People Believe In Unicorns.

[democrats] Are Trying On Every Front To Increase The Role Of Government.

Serving In Congress Is Like Having A Second Shot At High School.

Bush Senior Used To Say That We Have More Will Than Wallet. So He Urged The Country To Attack Poverty With A Thousand Points Of Light, None Of Which Could Be Eaten.

Ridicule Is About The Most Powerful Weapon Possible.

I Hope We Will Not So Characterize Religious People As Being So Narrow And So Biased Towards People Not Of Their Own Religion That They Cannot Even Work With Them In This Common Cause To Which You Say They Are Committed.

One Of The Striking Things And Donald Trump Is Right, He Gets No Democratic Votes. It`s Interesting There Were Democrats From States Some Of Them More Conservative States That Voted Him, Indiana, Missouri, West Virginia, Montana, North Dakota. They`re Not Afraid Of Donald Trump Those Democratic Senators Because They Know More Than He Knows And Know What The People Want.

Alec Baldwin Has Done This Great Donald Trump. I Wish Somebody Would Hire Leslie Jordan To Play Jeff Sessions. The Only Way Is To Put The Two Of Them Out There. It Is The Most Bizarre, Pathetic Silliness I Can Imagine At What Should Be The Most Serious Deliberations In The American Government.

It Is Because The Fight Against The Harshest Aspects Of Unrestricted Capitalism Is Therefore A Political Problem And Not An Intellectual One That Community Action Remains So Essential.

The Public Is Ready Now For A Safety Net For The Middle Class, Something Not Just For The Poor, But For Everyone Who Will Need Help, From Time To Time, In Order To Own A Home, Educate Their Kids, Keep Themselves Healthy Or Have Something To Retire On.

Most People Who Are Activists And Are Concerned About Issues Get Their Information From Sources Which Reinforce Their Opinions And Give Them The Facts That They Want To Hear.

In America, Unlike England, Unlike Israel, Unlike Japan, Other Democracies, We Have Elections That Have Staggered Terms.

I Think There Were Two Criticisms You Can Make Of Donald Trump`s Involvement In The Health Care Bill. First Of All, There Were Times When He Wasn`t Being Helpful. Secondly, There Were Times When He Was Trying To Be Helpful. I`m Not Sure Which One Did More Damage.

The Issue Is Not That Morals Be Applied To Public Policy, It's That Conservatives Bring Public Policy To Spheres Of Our Lives Where It Should Not Enter.

The Rights Of The People Who Have Done Terrible Things Are Hard To Defend. You Have To Keep Pointing Out, The Question Is The Process To Determine Whether They've Done The Terrible Things.

Community Action Is As Valuable A Principle On The International Level As It Has Been Domestically.

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