#self-interest — Public Fediverse posts

One cannot be a patriot and hate upon national parks

“Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism.”

– George Washington (via brainyquotes.com)

We recently drove the northern 120 miles of the Natchez Trace National Historic Parkway in Alabama and Tennessee. The corridor is typically a scenic and relaxing drive along an historic corridor that has been traverse by bison, Native American, and pioneers for centuries. The course includes access to historic sites, natural sites, and lovely view sheds.

Having been so impressed while driven a large chunk of the Trace in 2005 between Jackson and Tupelo in Mississippi, it was disconcerting to see the lack of simply routine maintenance along this northern segment. Fallen trees, broken branches, and damaged trees about to fall were common along our 2026 trip. All one could think of was…why is being allowed to deteriorate so sadly.

What is taking place along the Natchez Trace National Parkway is symbolic of the disgraceful and disrespectful treatment of our treasured national parks, national forests, national monuments, and other public lands across the United States. When an administration’s budget priorities underfund and underserve these awe-inspiring landscapes, they begin to fall apart right in front of our eyes. For the Natchez Trace National Historic Parkway, this becomes quite evident by the plethora of fallen, damaged, and dead trees.

“Patriot” is an overused and often misapplied term in modern America. Many of our national parks and public lands preserve and protect key locations representing the formation of the nation and its ongoing cultural development. What else could be more patriotic than protecting and preserving the natural, historical, and cultural features that made America in the first place!

“Those who hate upon our national parks and public lands with budget cuts, staff reductions, selling of development rights, and essentially promoting land abuse are anything but patriots. Instead, they are selfish, greedy souls who live solely for power and the love of money.” – panethos.wordpress.com

Frankly, the description above is the current administration in D.C. in a nutshell and it is oh, so tiresome and frustrating to observe their nefarious efforts to degrade, devalue, and dismiss our national treasures. Because, one thing is for sure…money, gold, diamonds, and other coveted valuables are not riches at all when compared to majestic snowcapped mountains, scenic vistas, pristine beaches, cascading waterfalls, death-defying rock formations, free-flowing rivers, enormous canyons, and other splendid natural features dotting the American landscape.

Nor are they riches when compared to the hallowed grounds where our ancestors and loved-ones lived, passed-though, fought, fell, died, and/or are buried. Nor are they riches compared to where our freedoms were won, strengthened, and sustained whether it be on the battlefield, in the courtroom, or on the streets. And lastly, those so-called riches cannot begin to compare to the richness of the American people…their diversity, their uniqueness and individuality, and their tenacity. It doesn’t matter if we came here by ship, by plane, on foot, or already lived upon this land, our strength is rooted in our diversity.

May we, as a nation, soon return to this paradigm and always remain committed to its welcoming principles.

Peace!

A quotation from Madeleine L'Engle

Perhaps people who read and write and have enough vocabulary to think with are universe disturbers. But we need to disturb the universe if, as human beings on planet earth, we are to survive. We need to have the vocabulary to question ourselves, and enough courage to disturb creatively, rather than destructively, even if it is going to make us uncomfortable or even hurt.

Madeleine L'Engle (1918-2007) American writer
Speech (1983-11-16), “Dare To Be Creative,” Lecture, Library of Congress, Washington, DC

More about this quote: wist.info/lengle-madeleine/836…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #madeleinelengle #candidate #choice #democracy #election #illusionofchoice #partisanship #politicians #selfdefeat #selfinterest #voting #creativity #writing

A quotation from Douglas Adams

   “It comes from a very ancient democracy, you see ….”
   “You mean, it comes from a world of lizards?”
   “No,” said Ford, who by this time was a little more rational and coherent than he had been, having finally had the coffee forced down him, “nothing so simple. Nothing anything like so straightforward. On its world, the people are people. The leaders are lizards. The people hate the lizards and the lizards rule the people.”
   “Odd,” said Arthur, “I thought you said it was a democracy.”
   “I did,” said Ford. “It is.”
   “So,” said Arthur, hoping he wasn’t sounding ridiculously obtuse, “why don’t the people get rid of the lizards?”
   “It honestly doesn’t occur to them,” said Ford. “They’ve all got the vote, so they all pretty much assume that the government they’ve voted in more or less approximates to the government they want.”
   “You mean they actually vote for the lizards?”
   “Oh yes,” said Ford with a shrug, “of course.”
   “But,” said Arthur, going for the big one again, “why?”
   “Because if they didn’t vote for a lizard,” said Ford, “the wrong lizard might get in.”

Douglas Adams (1952-2001) English author, humorist, screenwriter
Hitchhiker’s Guide No. 4, So Long, and Thanks for All the Fish, ch. 36 (1984)

More about this quote: wist.info/adams-douglas/49165/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #douglasadams #hitchhikersguide #hitchhikersguidetothegalaxy #solongandthanksforallthefish #candidate #choice #democracy #election #illusionofchoice #partisanship #politicians #selfdefeat #selfinterest #voting

Multilateralism for middle powers

" Multilateralism is shorthand for the much-invoked “rules-based international order”; multipolarity is the world of competing spheres of interest, what Stubb calls “an oligopoly of power”, where the strong do what they will and the weak do what they must.

We are not simply in a transition; we are in a fight for a future world order. And the path to a healthy outcome necessarily runs through international institutions, from the UN to settings far beyond it, where we must rethink membership and power for global cooperation to survive.The world is being reshaped by the “structural” forces of demography, climate and technology,

Part of the problem, Stubb argues, is that “the US is not a modern society by European or Asian standards”. This helps to explain the growing influence of a radical form of evangelical Christianity within the Trump administration. But it also accounts for the absence of adequate healthcare, education and housing that plagues the US, in particular, and neoliberal economies like Australia’s more generally.

Without strong multilateral systems, all interstate deals become transactional. A multipolar world runs on self-interest. A multilateral world makes the common interest a self-interest. " >>
https://theconversation.com/finlands-president-alexander-stubb-has-some-ideas-to-save-the-international-order-and-ourselves-280153
#Multilateralism #MiddlePowers #Australia #TheWest #InternationalOrder #SelfInterest #oligopoly

“The things we admire in men, #kindness and #generosity, #openness, #honesty, #understanding and feeling are the concomitants of #failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, #greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, #egotism and #self-interest are the traits of success.” - #JohnSteinbeck

@alexadeswift

No arguments with anything you have said... a horrible person only interested in his own #selfinterest ...

@latelesley @wood5y

Max Hastings, ex editor of the Telegraph (when even if right wing it was a respectable newspaper) and historian writes a good piece here. Heaven forbid the loonies In the Tory party and Reform (even Starmer is having problems) get their way. But he is wrong about Wilson, refusing US folly was important, the Open University was greatness. Even if Tory and Labour have crapped on it ever since.

http://archive.today/2026.03.20-203305/https://www.thetimes.com/comment/columnists/article/britain-stay-out-war-iran-b56wzdd7p

#War #UKPol #Lunacy #SelfInterest #Death #OU

#Politics #ukpol #ukpolitics #uspol #usPolitics #apathy #Pericles #selfinterest #selfinvolved #selfish #selfcentred #selfcentered #selfintererested #quote #quotes

A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Self-interest will set all sorts of virtues and vices in motion.
 
[L’intérêt met en œuvre toutes sortes de vertus et de vices.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶253 (1665-1678) [tr. FitzGibbon (1957)]

More about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #larochefoucauld #enlightenedselfinterest #interest #motivation #selfinterest #selfserving #selfishness #vice #virtue

Lee Anderson, Nadine Dorries, Jonathan Gullis, Malcolm Offord, Nadhim Zahawi, Andrea Jenkyns & now Robert Jenrick!
I've finally understood why it's called the Reform Party - it's just the Conservative Party that's being Re-formed.
#Rebranding #RatsAndSinkingShips #SelfInterest

A quotation from John Adams

Every Man must seriously set himself to root out his Passions, Prejudices and Attachments, and to get the better of his private Interest. The only reputable Principle and Doctrine must be that all Things must give Way to the public.

John Adams (1735-1826) American lawyer, Founding Father, statesman, US President (1797-1801)
Letter (1776-04-16) to Mercy Otis Warren

More about this quote: wist.info/adams-john/81374/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #johnadams #commongood #commoninterest #community #democracy #mutuality #privateinterest #publicgood #publicservice #republic #selfcontrol #selfdenial #selfinterest #selfmastery #selfpolicing #selfrespect #selfsacrifice #society

A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Virtues are lost in self-interest as rivers are lost in the sea.
 
[Les vertus se perdent dans l’intérêt, comme les fleuves se perdent dans la mer.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶171 (1665-1678) [tr. Whichello (2016)]

More info about (and translations of) this quote: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #larochefoucauld #selfcenteredness #selfinterest #selfsatisfaction #selfishness #virtue

Extreme individualism and the entrepreneurial self of neoliberalism are 'clogging up courts' of Western democracy
>>
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-11-21/growing-number-sovereign-citizens-clogging-australias-courts/106035790
#individualism #HyperIndividualism #neoliberalism #Liberalism #libertarians #SelfInterest #extremism #citizens #judicature #state #law #constitution #legitimacy #interdependency #TheCommons #society #governance

A quotation from Bertrand Russell

If all our happiness is bound up entirely in our personal circumstances it is difficult not to demand of life more than it has to give.

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) English mathematician and philosopher
Conquest of Happiness, Part 2, ch. 10 “Is Happiness Still Possible?” (1930)

More info about this quote: wist.info/russell-bertrand/800…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #bertrandrussell #dissatisfaction #happiness #perspective #selfcenteredness #selfinterest #selfishness

A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt

We have always known that heedless self-interest was bad morals; we know now that it is bad economics.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1937-01-20), Inaugural Address, Washington, D.C.

More info about this quote: wist.info/roosevelt-franklin-d…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #franklinroosevelt #fdr #franklindroosevelt #franklindelanoroosevelt #avarice #capitalism #economics #greed #morality #policy #power #profit #prosperity #selfinterest #selfishness

A quotation from Samuel Johnson

There will always be a part, and always a very large part of every community, that have no care but for themselves, and whose care for themselves reaches little further than impatience of immediate pain, and eagerness for the nearest good.

Samuel Johnson (1709-1784) English writer, lexicographer, critic
Essay (1775), “Taxation No Tyranny”

More info about this quote: wist.info/johnson-samuel/19474…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #SamuelJohnson #community #freerider #greed #neighbor #selfcenteredness #selfinterest #selfishness #society

#Wallace anticipated a “new vision of the #U.S.A. as an atomized mass of watchers and appearers.” Instead of participating in a “community of #relationships” we become locked into “ #networks of strangers connected by #self-interest and #technology.” www.honest-broker.com/p/david-fost...

David Foster Wallace Tried to ...

A quotation from Wendell Berry

What could be more absurd, to begin with, than our attitude of high moral outrage against other nations for manufacturing the selfsame weapons that we manufacture? The difference, as our leaders say, is that we will use these weapons virtuously, whereas our enemies will use them maliciously — a proposition that too readily conforms to a proposition of much less dignity: we will use them in our interest, whereas our enemies will use them in theirs.

Wendell Berry (b. 1934) American farmer, educator, poet, conservationist
Essay (1999), “The Failure of War,” Citizenship Papers (2003)

More info about this quote: wist.info/berry-wendell/17802/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #wendellberry #arms #enemies #foreignaffairs #foreignpolicy #foreignrelations #hypocrisy #internationalaffairs #internationalrelations #selfinterest #selfrighteousness #war #weapons

A quotation from Judith Martin

Q. Is it ever acceptable to be rude?
 
A. No. Now, that doesn’t mean you have to let people walk all over you. Etiquette does not render you defenseless. If it did; even I wouldn’t subscribe to it. But rudeness in retaliation for rudeness just doubles the amount of rudeness in the world.

Judith Martin (b. 1938) American author, journalist, etiquette expert [a.k.a. Miss Manners]
Interview (2011-08), “Q and A with Miss Manners,” by Arcynta Ali Childs, Smithsonian magazine

More info about this quote: wist.info/martin-judith/78705/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #judithmartin #missmanners #etiquette #impoliteness #retaliation #rudeness #selfcontrol #selfdefeating #selfdefense #selfdiscipline #selfesteem #selfinterest #selfpossession #selfpreservation #toxicity

A quotation from Robert Herrick

’Twixt kings and tyrants there’s this difference known:
Kings seek their subjects’ good; tyrants their own.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674) English poet
“Kings and Tyrants,” Hesperides, # 861 (1648)

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/herrick-robert/78445…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #robertherrick #despot #dictator #king #leader #leadership #ruler #selfaggrandizement #selfinterest #socialcontract #tyranny #tyrant

A quotation from La Rochefoucauld

Our repentance is not so much regret for the evil we have done, as fear of its consequences to us.
 
[Notre repentir n’est pas tant un regret du mal que nous avons fait, qu’une crainte de celui qui nous en peut arriver.]

François VI, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613-1680) French epigrammatist, memoirist, noble
Réflexions ou sentences et maximes morales [Reflections; or Sentences and Moral Maxims], ¶180 (1665-1678) [ed. Gowens (1851), ¶187]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/la-rochefoucauld-fra…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #larochefoucauld #consequences #dread #fear #punishment #regret #remorse #sin #repentance #retribution #selfinterest

A quotation from Molière

My first reaction was to be afraid
This ardor was a snare the Devil had laid;
And I avoided you as a temptation
That might stand in the way of my salvation.
But finally I knew, O gracious beauty,
That passion need not be at odds with duty,
That I can reconcile it with propriety;
And so I yield to it without anxiety.
 
[D’abord j’appréhendai que cette ardeur secrète
Ne fût du noir esprit une surprise adroite;
Et même à fuir vos yeux mon cœur se résolut,
Vous croyant un obstacle à faire mon salut.
Mais enfin je connus, ô beauté tout aimable!
Que cette passion peut n’être point coupable,
Que je puis l’ajuster avecque la pudeur;
Et c’est ce qui m’y fait abandonner mon cœur.]

Molière (1622-1673) French playwright, actor [stage name for Jean-Baptiste Poquelin]
Tartuffe, or the Hypocrite [Le Tartuffe, ou L’Imposteur], Act 3, sc. 3 (1669) [tr. Frame (1967)]

Sourcing, notes, other translations: wist.info/moliere/78379/

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #moliere #tartuffe #ardor #carnality #decency #devil #justification #lust #passion #rationalization #temptation #selfinterest

A quotation from Franklin Roosevelt

I believe that the recent course of our history has demonstrated that, while we may utilize their expert knowledge of certain problems and the special facilities with which they are familiar, we cannot allow our economic life to be controlled by that small group of men whose chief outlook upon the social welfare is tinctured by the fact that they can make huge profits from the lending of money and the marketing of securities — an outlook which deserves the adjectives “selfish” and “opportunist.”

Franklin Delano Roosevelt (1882-1945) American lawyer, politician, statesman, US President (1933-1945)
Speech (1932-05-22), Commencement, Oglethorpe University, Atlanta, Georgia

Sourcing, notes: wist.info/roosevelt-franklin-d…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #franklinroosevelt #franklindroosevelt #fdr #bankers #conflictofinterest #economicplanning #economy #financiers #lending #oligarchy #opportunist #profit #socialwelfare #stockmarket #wealth #selfishness #selfinterest

A quotation from John Maynard Keynes

[Capitalism is] the astonishing belief that the nastiest motives of the nastiest men somehow or other work for the best results in the best of all possible worlds.

John Maynard Keynes (1883-1946) English economist
(Attributed)

Vague sourcing, extensive notes: wist.info/keynes-john-maynard/…

#quote #quotes #quotation #qotd #keynes #avarice #benefits #capitalism #commongood #commonwealth #endsandmeans #evil #greed #idealism #meme #motivation #nastiness #optimum #results #selfinterest #wealth #wickedness

#GiftArticle

Ignore the original #propaganda, ignore the current #spin; this is about one thing:

#GREED

The Narrowing of #MarkZuckerberg & #PriscillaChan’s *Philanthropy*

The #tech titan & his wife once had sprawling ambitions for their #ChanZuckerbergInitiative. Now their efforts in #politics, *#education* & #housing have been cut back to focus on *#science*.

#money #power #USpol #hypocrisy #SelfInterest
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/28/technology/mark-zuckerberg-priscilla-chan-czi.html?unlocked_article_code=1.SU8._Fj6.W4WgNJXXFxF7&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

👨‍💻 #Developers are busy perfecting their #CSS #Zen while sipping on moral espresso shots ☕️, but who knew self-interest 🤔 could be the secret sauce for accessible UIs? Just sprinkle some selfish motives and watch #accessibility skyrocket 🚀—who cares about moral high grounds when there's a deadline to meet? 🙄
https://nolanlawson.com/2025/06/16/selfish-reasons-for-building-accessible-uis/ #SelfInterest #UI #Trends #HackerNews #ngated

“Our great Farmers & people in the Hotel & Leisure business [his capitalizations] have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” #Trump posted social media. [it is happening in every industry not just the ones that outfit his hotels & golf clubs, but again, he’s only ever motivated by #SelfInterest.]

#immigration #law #workplace #raids #HSI #gestapo

#Trump Shifts #Deportation Focus, Pausing Most Raids on #Farms, #Hotels & #Restaurants

The abrupt pivot on an issue at the heart of Trump’s presidency suggested his broad #immigration crackdown was hurting industries & constituencies he does not want to lose. [proving his agenda is, as always, driven by #SelfInterest not #NationalSecurity, & certainly not #PublicService]

#law #USpol
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/13/us/politics/trump-ice-raids-farms-hotels.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare