Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“Savagery is associated with a cluster of other ideas and beliefs that have a grip on American thought. They include collectivism, which is against a person having property in his own mind, body, and life, that is, having control over his own mind, body, and life. For once one owns and controls others, even via a collective sense of ownership, the sense of restraint that governs behavior when each of us has property in ourselves disappears. We are free to act as we will, and that allows a broader scope for our more evil and selfish impulses”
“Once we abandon the idea that each of us is a person who makes decisions for himself over his life, and replace that with the idea that a person’s essence arises by virtue of belonging to some collective group, and the idea that everyone within a group is the same, the way is open to mistreating vast numbers of persons by labeling them and treating them all in government-specified ways.”
Michael Rozeff

“Are we now to be ruled by a depraved schoolchild obsessed with sharing the toys, granted the ability to carry forward that Ding-Dong School philosophy with powers reminiscent of the kid in the old "Twilight Zone" episode who could "wish people into the cornfield"?
Vin Suprynowicz, describing the Emperor-Elect.

“No governmental activity can negate market forces or nullify the cardinal rule of caveat emptor. Government can however, use our fears against us and promise unrealistic outcomes as a means to consolidate power and erode our liberties. Liberty comes with risk. This is a fact of life. But life without liberty is not much of a life at all.”
Ron Paul

"We could retain our federal ties if the federal government can scale back appropriately from the bloated, feckless enterprise it has become. Otherwise, it might only get in the way and make matters worse, and the public in one region or another of North America might reach a decision that they are better off without it. That would be what’s called a revolution."
James Howard Kunstler, The Daily Reckoning

“Christian, are you one of Herod’s henchmen? Would you commit infanticide if the government told you to do so? Then why did you vote for a man whose motto was "Country First"? Why do you incessantly recite your "obey the powers that be" (Romans 13:1) mantra? Why do you make excuses for the genocide that the United States has unleashed in Iraq? Why do you dismiss bombed Afghan wedding parties as collateral damage? Why do you defend an imperialistic and interventionist U.S. foreign policy? Why do you encourage us to pray for the troops as they mete out death and destruction to Iraqis in a war that has nothing to do with defense of the country? Why do you continue to support the Republican Party in light of that Party’s profligate spending, massive increase in government, mockery of the Constitution, destruction of civil liberties, and open-ended wars? Why do you applaud U.S. soldiers as heroes and defenders of our freedoms when they are neither?”
Laurence Vance

From the Darkness:
"He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world has never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody. He doesn't have to call the Congress; he doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It's unfortunate, but I think we're perfectly appropriate to take the steps we have."
Dick Cheney, discussing his perverted view of the Presidency.


We've lent some of it. We've not lent some of it. We've not given any accounting of, 'Here's how we're doing it. We have not disclosed that to the public. We're declining to."
Thomas Kelly, a spokesman for JPMorgan Chase, which received $25 billion in emergency bailout money.

"This season of giving should also be a time to renew a sense of common purpose and shared citizenship. Now, more than ever, we must rededicate ourselves to the notion that we share a common destiny as Americans."
The Man With Melanin, implying that Christmas has something to do with national collectivism.

Image Review of the Week

Image Review of the Week, by Roger Young.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“I only hope that you have been spiritually visited as I have, and that you understand where freedom comes from. It doesn’t come from that hallowed piece of paper signed by the ruling elite of yore. It doesn’t come from the gun in the hand of the soldier featured on every recruitment poster. It sure as hell doesn’t come from multi-culti Obama. It comes from the simple recognition that you were born free, and you are free right now.”
B.R. Merrick

“For decades Washington has prevailed because the US dollar is the reserve currency. It is the world’s money. This advantage allows Washington to purchase almost every other government. There are governments all over the world, from Europe to Egypt, from Ukraine to South Korea to Japan, that are owned by Washington. When Washington speaks of spreading freedom and democracy, Washington means it has purchased more governments to do its will.’
Paul Craig Roberts

“To be free, the slave must first refuse the master’s gruel.”
Vin Suprynowicz

“The desire for security, while in itself natural and legitimate, can become an obsession which ultimately must be paid for by the loss of freedom and human dignity- whether people realize it or not. In the end, it is clear that whoever is prepared to pay this price is left neither with freedom and dignity nor with security, for there can be no security without freedom and protection from arbitrary power.”
William Roepke

“What’s wrong with America’s journalists, we wonder. Have they no shoes?”
Bill Bonner

“If Obama wants to keep the masses at home watching TV rather than marching on the White House, he should offer a real stimulus:
Give people back their tax money. Declare a Tax Jubilee. No taxes in ’09. No income taxes. No capital gains taxes. No federal taxes of any sort...not even any inheritance taxes. If we had our druthers, you could die in ’09 and rest in peace...with no tax consequences...leaving your money to whomever you wanted.
But we know what you’re thinking...how could the federal government operate without tax revenue? Ah...that’s the other part of the plan. We would shut it down. Take a holiday from government. Send everyone home for a year. Tell them to make do with what they’ve got.”
Bill Bonner

“I was disgusted to be associated through citizenship with the most dangerous gang of criminals in the world, the United States government. Renouncing my citizenship is a means of achieving a political divorce with that vile institution,” Gogulski said. “American politicians extol their state in terms of liberty, human rights, free markets and the rule of law. Examination of the country’s history and present actions reveals nothing but lies and hypocrisy.”
Michael Gogulski, explaining why he renounced his US citizenship.

“We should have learned from the Soviet experience that no one can plan an economy. The knowledge required to redesign something as complex as an economy is not available to anyone. An economic system is not a machine but a dynamic process resulting from countless micro decisions made by billions of producers and consumers worldwide. Much of the knowledge they act on is never written down or even discovered until they improvise in the face of unexpected market alternatives. How could a planner hope to succeed?”
Sheldon Richman

"All varieties of interference with the market phenomena not only fail to achieve the ends aimed at by their authors and supporters, but bring about a state of affairs which – from the point of view of their authors’ and advocates’ valuations – is less desirable than the previous state of affairs which they were designed to alter. If one wants to correct their manifest unsuitableness and preposterousness by supplementing the first acts of intervention with more and more of such acts, one must go farther and farther until the market economy has been entirely destroyed and socialism has been substituted for it."
Ludwig Von Mises, Human Action

From the Darkness:

"The American people are feeling frustrated that there's not a lot of adult supervision out there. We've been asleep at the switch."
Emperor-elect Obama, confirming that the American people want more nanny government.

“In the midst of a financial crisis and a recession, allowing the U.S. auto industry to collapse is not a responsible course of action.”
"If we were to allow the free market to take its course now, it would almost certainly lead to disorderly bankruptcy and liquidation for the automakers. Under ordinary economic circumstances, I would say this is the price that failed companies must pay -- and I would not favor intervening to prevent automakers from going out of business."
GW Bush, economic ignoramus.

“What we've seen, in terms of the evaluation of economists from across the political spectrum, is that we're going to have to be bold when it comes to our economic recovery package."
The Man With Melanin, Economic- Ignoramus- In -Waiting.

“Barney Frank has been called the "smartest guy in Congress," which is lucky for us since he works on some of the thorniest issues around”
Lesley Stahl, 60 Minutes.

"Yeah, I'm for welfare. You're not? Are you for letting people starve?"
Barney Frank, Smartest Guy in Congress.

Image Review of the Week

Image Review of the Week, by Roger Young

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

"The lies the government and media tell are amplifications of the lies we tell ourselves. To stop being conned, stop conning yourself."
James Wolcott

“The vain effort to purify the world through force is always self-defeating. Those who insist that the world can be molded into their vision are the most susceptible to violence as antidote. The more uncertainty, fear and reality impinge on this utopian vision, the more strident, absolutist and aggressive are those who call for the eradication of “the enemy.”
Chris Hedges

“Until men are willing to cut off the political funding of the established church of America, they will see the educational crisis escalate. The visible sign of sovereignty is the ability to pay for a service and the willingness to do so. Nothing short of this will suffice to solve the crisis in the schools, for the educational crisis is ultimately a conflict over sovereignty. He who pays with his own funds will win; he who continues to pay by voting cannot possibly win.”
Gary North, 1976

“Our American ancestors were easily able to avoid conflating the federal government and the private sector. They had learned an important lesson from history and from personal experience, a lesson that unfortunately has been lost on many modern-day Americans: the greatest threat to the freedom and well-being of a citizenry lies not with foreigners but rather with their own government, especially a government with a large standing military force.”
Jacob Hornberger

“There is no crueler from of tyranny that that which is perpetuated under the shield of law and in the name of justice.”
Montesquieu

From the Darkness:

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. Things that we had postponed for too long, that were long-term, are now immediate and must be dealt with. This crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.”
Rahm Emanuel, President-elect Obama’s chief of staff-designate.

"We've already stepped forward and made enormous concessions said Friday at a news conference. But as we made it clear ... , we were prepared to make further sacrifices. But we could not accept the effort by the Senate GOP caucus to single out workers and retirees for different treatment and to make them shoulder the entire burden of any restructuring."
UAW President Ron Gettelfinger, who apparently isn’t concerned about the “burden” shouldered by the lowly taxpayer.

“As far as I’m concerned, the automotive industry is the arsenal of democracy.”
Donald J. Andrews, a lawyer in the Detroit area.

“Saving workers’ jobs is every American’s duty; it’s what the government should have done.”
Dan Keros, restaurant manager in Detroit.

"The political systems of the developed world have become sclerotic. We have to overcome the paralysis that has prevented us from acting and focus clearly and unblinkingly on this crisis rather than spending so much time on O.J. Simpson, Paris Hilton and Anna Nicole Smith."
Al Gore, The Climate Christ, upset that the celebrity worship cult is competing with his anti-carbon cult.

Image Review of the Week

Image Review of the Week, by Roger Young

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

"If you made this presentation to get a bank loan, I suspect any sensible banker would systematically reject your request." Sen. Richard Shelby, R-Ala, in response to the most recent begging of the Big 3 dinosaurs. [Proof that even corrupt politi-gangsters can have brief bouts of clear thinking.]

“For those who reside within the bunkers and gated communities of the Power Elite, the rest of us are useful only as something to be consumed: We are producers whose earnings can be taxed, whose properties can be seized, whose children can be conscripted.”

Will Grigg

“And then there’s this business of having a black president. It seemed like a good idea. We’ve had white ones forever and it hasn’t worked, so a black one made sense. We have now established that a black president is exactly like a white one. Next time, maybe a Melanesian or Lao. I hoped O’Bama would stand in the Rose Garden and holler, “You blue-eyed muhfuhs done got it all wrong, and I’m gonna unscrew things.” No. Smart guy, decent guy, guy you could heist a brew with and tell dirty stories, but it’s business as usual. Same tired hacks.”

“I don’t get it. This is the country that produced Peggy Lee and Tampa Red and the ’fitty-sedden Chevy, the country that spits techno-whizz golf carts onto Mars just like it was even possible, that brought the hamburger to gorgeous bejuiced perfection and invented most of the modern world. It’s the home of sand-lot baseball and Little Peggy March and BB guns and Tasty Freeze. It is, in a phrase, one fine place.
How did it sink to being a proto-Soviet surveillance state that builds vast awful Visitor Centers in the style of a Hitlerian mauseoleum? You can’t go to the john without a photo ID anymore. Something ain’t right.”
Fred Reed

“Virtue is not advanced by written laws but by the habits of everyday life; for the majority of men tend to assimilate the manners and morals amid which they have been reared. Furthermore, where there is a multitude of specific laws, it is a sign that the state is badly governed.”
Isocrates

From the Darkness:

"So what we have tried to do, in contrast, is be aggressive as possible, to use all the tools we have to try to stabilize the financial system, to try and prevent the system from - from breaking down."
Ben Bernanke

"I may make my own mistakes, but I don't want to make somebody else's mistakes. And I've tried to learn that from the historical experience."

Ben Bernanke, who’s “historical experience” must not go back very far.

“We're here today because we made mistakes, which we're learning from; because forces beyond our control have pushed us to the brink. Most importantly we're here because saving General Motors, and all this company represents, is a job worth doing."
GM CEO Rick Wagoner

"We won't just throw money at the problem, We'll measure progress by the reforms we make and the results we achieve — by the jobs we create, by the energy we save, by whether America is more competitive in the world."
The Man With Melanin promoting his Soviet style economic central planning.

Image Review of the Week

Image Review of the Week, by Roger Young