Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“Whether we are talking about an autocracy, oligarchy, or democracy we are in the final analysis dealing with a coercive force which will become violent to attain its ends. As the state increases its power base and the demands upon its citizens, it will seek to have a domineering effect upon the human spirit. The result is the destruction of self-reliance, self-determination and self-confidence of free citizens and replacing them with a dutiful, subservient drone totally reliant on the state.”
Tim Case

“The financial authorities are clumsily turning screws and tightening valves. They think they can fix the machine by simply getting more credit into consumers’ hands. But this machine is not that simple. In fact, it’s not a machine at all...but a living, organic thing. It has emotions as well as a brain. It is capable of self-delusion, deceit, corruption, wishful thinking, and extravagance.”
Bill Bonner

“The reality of the state is that it is a looting and killing machine. So why do so many people cheer for its expansion? Indeed, why do we tolerate its existence at all? The very idea of the state is so implausible on its face that the state must wear an ideological garb as means of compelling popular support. Ancient states had one or two: they would protect you from enemies and/or they were ordained by the gods. To greater and lesser extents, all modern states still employ these rationales, but the democratic state in the developed world is more complex. It uses a huge range of ideological rationales – parsed out between left and right-that reflect social and cultural priorities of niche groups, even when many of these rationales are contradictory.”
Lew Rockwell

“When dishonesty is practiced by bureaucrats and politicians for their personal gain, it is regarded as "corruption." But when such conduct is institutionalized (i.e., engaged in for the furtherance of governmental and establishment purposes), it is considered "economic planning" or, modernly, an economic "stimulus." We see the same phenomenon at work elsewhere: if someone goes into a school and kills ten people, it is properly considered an act of "murder," with the assailant hunted down and punished. But when the government employs its weapons to kill Americans, it is referred to as "law enforcement;" when used to kill millions of foreigners, it is called "national defense," with its practitioners often later rewarded with a Nobel Peace Prize. If a power-seeking group uses fear against a population to achieve its ends, it is regarded as a "terrorist" organization. When the United States used super-bombs against the Iraqi people to subdue them with mass-fear under the name of "shock and awe," such practices were characterized as "sound military strategy."
Butler Shaffer

“So fear not the gallows, ye radicals. As much as they probably fear us and would love to be rid of us, the statist ruling class (at least in the West) needs radicals, and not because they truly believe in tolerance and liberal democratic values for their own sake. Instead: (1) they need ideological scapegoats to project blame for their hubris, and (2) tolerating our presence, weathering our harsh criticisms peacefully, and even engaging us allows them an air of legitimacy as far as their current “democratic” system is concerned. In the end, it boils down to image. It’s hard to defend an arrogant and openly ravenous monster, but a smooth-talking serial rapist might manage to dupe you into thinking he’s God’s gift. Who do you think would win the battle of public opinion? The ruling class understands this; they ain’t stupid.”
Marcel Votlucka

“You see, politicians are not competent to judge the proper analysis, much less formulate a credible solution. The use of lobbyists seeking special favors as experts to educate them further corrupts this process. Finally, they have only one tool: the use of force. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Agenda-driven solutions simply look around for someone else to blame and hammer. “
Mark Davis

“The state gets to determine not only who gets protected, but what protection even means. You don’t get to choose to be protected, you don’t get to choose how you are protected, you don’t even get to choose whether or not you want state protection. You are "protected" when you don’t want it in ways you never wanted, and left "unprotected" in ways you don’t want. But you don’t get to choose. The state wages war either nearby or far away (with the same indiscriminately murderous results) and calls this protection and, voilà, you are protected. You don’t get to object, to say "excuse me, but that’s not what I asked for or wanted." You don’t get to say, "well, I don’t feel safer" or "I don’t believe the deaths of hundreds or many thousands makes me any safer."
Charles H. Featherstone

“To believe that the more the state threatens my person, and the more that the state invades my property, the greater my security is to believe the lie central to the state. And to watch fellow countrymen harassed, only to assume that the state must have reason for its harassment is to turn backs on the very same rights expected to protect us in the end.”
Jim Fedako

“Financial interests, the military-security complex, and the Israel Lobby are the powers that rule America. They are buttressed by neoconservatives and Christian Zionists and by the patriotic hubris that America is the main force for good operating in the world. The evils America commits are dismissed as necessary to the service of good.”
Paul Craig Roberts

“Economies are not machines. Instead, they are organic, natural phenomenon in which the principal actor – man – is subject to fits of brutal sanity, interspersed by long periods of hallucination in which he is trying to get something for nothing. Fundamentally, it is a ‘moral’ system, not a mechanical system. When people make mistakes they have to pay for them.”
Bill Bonner

"The ultimate result of shielding man from the effects of folly is to people the world with fools."
Herbert Spencer

From the Darkness:

"I think generations pretty soon are going to start to thank this president for what he's done. This generation will.
When you look at what this president took on in terms of AIDS relief and foreign assistance to the world, when you look at the number of countries ... and the number of people that this president has actually liberated — you know, I really am someone who believes that you don't want to pay too much attention to today's headlines."
Condoleeza Rice

“I can’t wait to get to Washington DC , roll up my sleeves and get to work solving everybody’s problems.”
Alan Grayson, Representative-elect of Florida ’s 8th District [Thanks to Mark Davis]

“Banks, including those in USA and Britain are not now just talking of, but actually implements flexible and pragmatic central bank programs where these are deemed necessary in their national interests.
That is precisely the path that we began only 4 years ago in pursuit of our national interest and have not wavered from that critical path despite the untold misunderstandings, vilification and demonization we have endured from across the political divide.”
Gideon Gono, central banker in Zimbabwe, where inflation is running 230 million percent.

“That's why we need an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan that not only creates jobs in the short-term but spurs economic growth and competitiveness in the long-term. And this plan must be designed in a new way - we cant just fall into the old Washington habit of throwing money at the problem.”
The Emperor-Elect on how he plans to save us all. [I guess wanting to spend at least $1 trillion is not “throwing money at the problem.” Perhaps, heaving or tossing would be more accurate verbs?]

“We must make strategic investments that will serve as a down payment on our long-term economic future. We must demand vigorous oversight and strict accountability for achieving results. And we must restore fiscal responsibility and make the tough choices so that as the economy recovers, the deficit starts to come down. That is how we will achieve the number one goal of my plan - which is to create 3 million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.”
The Economic-Ignoramus-Elect [More of the collectivist “we” crap. All for one and one for all. Unite to save The Fatherland!! This statement brings to mind the words of Mussolini; "Everything within the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."]