Video Quotes
When I was a boy I used to uh... I used to read all about Edison and the Wright brothers, Mr. Ford, they were my heroes. Rags to riches, that's not just the name of a book, that's what this country was all about. We invented the free enterprise system where anybody, no matter who he was, where he came from, what class he belonged to, if he came up with a better idea about anything, there's no limit to how far he could go. I grew up a generation too late, I guess, because now the way the system works, the loner, the dreamer, the crackpot who comes up with some crazy idea that everybody laughs at, that later turns out to revolutionize the world, he's squashed from above before he even gets his head out of the water, because the bureaucrats they would rather kill a new idea than let it rock the boat. If Benjamin Franklin were alive today he would be thrown in jail for sailing a kite without a license. It's true. We're all puffed up with ourselves now 'cause we invented the bomb. Dropped the... Beat the daylights out of the Japanese, the Nazis. But if big business closes the door on the little guy with a new idea, we're not only closing the door on progress but we're sabotaging everything we fought for, everything the country stands for. And one day we're going to find ourselves at the bottom of the heap, instead of king of the hill having no idea how we got there, buying our radios and our cars from our former enemies. I don't believe that's going to happen. I can't believe it because if I ever stop believing in the plain ol' common horse sense of the American people there'd be no way I could get out of bed in the morning.
President Dedmon: Well, Jack, I haven't heard anything positive back yet. And I think I've done everything I can. Maybe we need more time. I don't know.
Jack Lengyel: Time's the only thing we don't have, Don. I mean, hell, it's already April. Time is not our friend. Let me ask you a question. Now, are you married?
President Dedmon: Yes, I am. 25 years in May.
Jack Lengyel: Twenty-five years. I am willing to bet that you didn't propose over the phone.
President Dedmon: No, I didn't.
Jack Lengyel: Okay. And I know damn well that she didn't say yes in a letter. Huh?
President Dedmon: Jack?
Jack Lengyel: Doc?
President Dedmon: No, Jack. I know...
Jack Lengyel: Yes. Doc? You can do it. You're an outlaw. Pioneer. Gunslinger. This is a whole new game, doc. (whstles). You. There's a first time for everything, Don. And if we're gonna survive, this has to be one of those first times. And you're the only man who can do it.
I have a human right. The beautiful thing about the Constitution and the bill of rights is, this was just codified human rights. It doesn't grant any government any type of power. The framers of this place just said, these are human natural rights that you are born with and we as a nation are going to recognize it. So me personally, I don't care if people want to say they want to repeal the second amendment. You know, it's always very interesting to me the people saying they want to appeal it, and they have the process of doing it. They could get two-thirds of congress to ratify it. It's out there. The issue to me is these are the same people that if you ask them, if you say "Ok. Cool. Your security detail and law enforcement which are American citizens, are you ok with those people being subject to those same rules and restrictions as well? Then you'll get a resounding well, well, well, it's gotta be different. It's gotta be different. The police have to have a firearm because there's bad guys out there. Well, that's the same reason why I carry a firearm. And again, these are codified human and natural rights, and I don't care what the unconstitutional statute would attempt to tell me. These things are a list of checks on government, not the other way around. So there will never be a time in American history when the American people will not own firearms. How are you going to get them from us?
Interviewer: Your dad said said to you, you must never look startled.
John Cleese: That's right because he had been in India, mixing with the upper-middle classes. And he noticed how they behaved. It's really baboon behavior. If you want to see how to behave as an upper-class person, go and watch the baboons. They're not startled. They move very slowly all the time.
Interviewer: The number one rule is not to be embarrassing or to be embarrassed.
John Cleese: Yes. So if you look at the royals, what they do is they keep these cheek muscles completely rigid all the time. It enables them to move their mouths around like this, rather in a sort of humorous way. And all the emotion is you, completely, uh, you know, superfluous, and unnecessary. It's a straight-jacket. That's upper class behavior.
But our sun is only one of a billion-trillion stars within the observable universe. And those countless suns all obey natural laws some of which are already known to us. How did we discover that there are such laws? If we lived on a planet where nothing ever changed, there wouldn't be much to do, there'd be nothing to figure out. There'd be no impetus for science. And if we lived in an unpredictable world where things changed in random or very complex ways, we wouldn't be able to figure things out. And again, there'd be no such thing as science. But we live in an in between universe where things change alright, but according to patterns, rules, or as we call them, laws of nature. If I throw a stick up in the air, it always falls down. If the sun sets in the west, it always rises again the next morning in the east. And so it's possible to figure things out. We can do science. And with it we can improve our lives.
Don Lemon: Democrats don't do a good job of speaking to working class people. What do you say to that? You are supposed to be fixing that.
Andrew Yang: I had that experience countless times on the trail Don. Where I would say 'Hey I'm running for President' to a truck driver, retail worker, a waitress in a diner. And they would say 'What party?' and I would say Democrat. And they would flinch like I had said something really negative or like I had turned another color or something like that. And there is something deeply wrong when working class Americans have that response to a major party that theoretically is supposed to be fighting for them. So you have to ask yourself what has the Democratic party been standing for in their minds. And in their minds the Democratic party unfortunately has taken on this role of the coastal, urban elites who are more concerned about policing various cultural issues than improving their way of life that has been declining for years. And so, if you're in that situation, this to me is a fundamental problem for the Democratic party, because if they don't figure this out then this polarization and division will get worse not better.
Don Lemon: Is that real, or messaging, or both?
Andrew Yang: It's real. I mean Debbie just said they just lost a plant that had 1500 workers. And so if you are a laid off worker from that plant and you look up and say 'What is the Democratic party doing for me?', it's unclear. And we can talk about a unifying message from Joe Biden, he's a naturally very unifying figure, but then there's the reality on the ground where their way of life has been disintegrating for years, and if we don't address that then you're going to see a continued acceleration toward the institutional mistrust that animated the Trump vote and will continue to do so.
