On ABC’s This Week George Will quoted Will Rogers:
The difference between death and taxes is that death doesn’t get worse every time Congress meets.
More than 70 years after his death Rogers remains the best commentator on American politics, which I guess illustrates how resilient, for good or ill, our system is.
Will Roger’s quotes are enduring because they are clear, contained common sense, and were short. He kind of mirrors Mark Twain in that way, in being a voice of experience, rather than intellectual and/or theoretical knowlege. This is what hampers the Obama leadership today. They are all small-minded Paul Krugman’s running the country. Krugman’s only disagreement with the administration is that all we need is ‘more’ of the same. Eventually, if we run the country into the ground faster we will achieve a better economy — come H**l or high water!
WR’s comments don’t endure because of the resiliance of our system, but because human nature doesn’t change all that much. The fact that the system of government has endured (mostly) over that period of time is just an historical accident.