The word "sacrifice" is in issue this week, so let's look at 14 examples of the use of the word "sacrifice," mined from 186 posts with the tag "sacrifice" in the 12-year archive of this blog.

1. Back in November 2013, President Obama said this (in the context of staying in Washington until Sasha finishes high school):

"Cause she's, you know, obviously they-and Michelle-have made a lot of sacrifices on behalf of my cockamamie ideas, the running for office and things."

2. From a 2006 NYT article  about couples who choose not to live together:

Carolyne Roehm, the New York socialite and author, is similarly unwilling to sacrifice control of her space. Ms. Roehm, 54, said she is perfectly happy with her extreme version of the L.A.T. relationship, with Simon Pinniger, 53, a businessman who lives 1,700 miles away in Aspen, Colo. 

3. "Sacrifices have to be made," said a father who sold his motorcycle and got a minivan.

4. But another father put out a book in 2012 about the selfish reasons to have children:

Children cost far less than most parents pay, because parents overcharge themselves. You can have an independent life and still be an admirable parent. Before you decide against another child, then, you owe it to yourself to reconsider. If your sacrifice is only a fraction of what you originally thought, the kid might be a good deal after all.

5. The NYT reported something Iran President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in the U.N. in September 2009:

“The engine of unbridled capitalism, with its unfair system of thought, has reached the end of the road and is unable to move... Selfishiness [sic] and insatiable greed have taken the place of such human concepts as love, sacrifice, dignity and justice. The belief in the one god has been replaced with self-belief.”

6. Here's Obama in April 2011:

"To meet our fiscal challenge, we will need to make reforms. We will all need to make sacrifices. But we do not have to sacrifice the America we believe in. And as long as I’m president, we won’t.” 

7. An Orwellian banner hanging at the Wisconsin protests of 2011:

"All shared sacrifice is equal, but some must share the sacrifice more than others."

8. From a 2006 USA Today column:

"For someone rallying the planet to pursue a path of extreme personal sacrifice, [Al] Gore requires little from himself."

9. In 2012, Frank Bruni had a whole column in the NYT about the failure of the presidential candidates to use the word "sacrifice."

It’s odd. We revere the Americans who lived through World War II and call them the “greatest generation” precisely because of the sacrifices they made.... [T]he last president to make a truly robust call for sacrifice was ridiculed for it. That president, Jimmy Carter, suggested only that we turn down our thermostats a tad and guzzle a bit less gas, and in July 1979 observed, “Too many of us now tend to worship self-indulgence and consumption.”

Then came Ronald Reagan, whose many great contributions to America were coupled with less great ones, including the idea, which has dominated our political discourse ever since, that we should speak only of morning in America and that optimism, like virtue, is its own reward....

Conditions, all in all, are ripe for a serious conversation about sacrifice. But this presidential campaign has been noteworthy for its nonsensical insinuations or assurances that although we’re in a jam, we can emerge from it with discrete, minimal inconvenience.... We live in a sacrifice-free bubble of volitional delusion.

Obama has lately taken to speaking of “economic patriotism,” which is in some sense his euphemism for sacrifice....

10. From a speech President G.W. Bush made in December 2005:

It is also important for every American to understand the consequences of pulling out of Iraq before our work is done. We would abandon our Iraqi friends and signal to the world that America cannot be trusted to keep its word. We would undermine the morale of our troops by betraying the cause for which they have sacrificed. We would cause the tyrants in the Middle East to laugh at our failed resolve, and tighten their repressive grip. We would hand Iraq over to enemies who have pledged to attack us and the global terrorist movement would be emboldened and more dangerous than ever before. To retreat before victory would be an act of recklessness and dishonor, and I will not allow it.

11. From the Democratic candidates debate, April 27, 2007:

SEN. CLINTON: This is not America's war to win or lose. We have given the Iraqi people the chance to have freedom, to have their own country. It is up to them to decide whether or not they're going to take that chance. And it is past time for them to demonstrate that they are willing to make the sacrifice, the compromise that is necessary to put together a unified government and provide security and stability without our young men and women in the middle of their sectarian war....

12. In 2006, the NYT "public editor" said this when Supreme Court journalist Linda Greenhouse revealed some of her political opinions:

[J]ournalism [is] a calling ... that requires sacrifices and special obligations. Keeping personal opinions out of the public realm is simply one of the obligations for those who remain committed to the importance of impartial news coverage.

Which made me say:

Greenhouse's speech didn't seem that out of line to me, because I am so used to hearing law professors express all kinds of personal and political opinions about the Supreme Court, and, obviously, I do it all the time myself. I'm trying to imagine a law school where the professors felt they needed to make sacrifices and suppress and submerge their opinions. Actually, it's a scary place! Do you really want us to become more devious?

13. From a 2006 review of a book about how religion works:

[Daniel C.] Dennett, anticipating the outrage his comparison will make, suggests that this how religion works. People will sacrifice their interests, their health, their reason, their family, all in service to an idea "that has lodged in their brains." That idea, he argues, is like a virus or a worm, and it inspires bizarre forms of behavior in order to propagate itself. Islam, he points out, means "submission," and submission is what religious believers practice. In Mr. Dennett's view, they do so despite all evidence, and in thrall to biological and social forces they barely comprehend.

14. When we first encountered Edward Snowden in 2013, he spoke of himself in terms of "sacrifice":

He has had "a very comfortable life" that included a salary of roughly $200,000, a girlfriend with whom he shared a home in Hawaii, a stable career, and a family he loves. "I'm willing to sacrifice all of that because I can't in good conscience allow the US government to destroy privacy, internet freedom and basic liberties for people around the world with this massive surveillance machine they're secretly building."