Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“At the top rung of the system (in reputation, at least) are the Ivy League colleges, which have long been diploma mills producing legions of dumbasses, schemers, and charlatans by the bushel, every graduated brain stuffed with the irrational ravings of select madmen and emptied of any shred of humility. Chock full of an insatiable urge to "plan" and the ignorant arrogance to see it through, they are released upon humanity like a viral plaque to assume their rightful positions of leadership, forever after to blunder the world into one disaster or another.

From Princeton graduate Woodrow Wilson, who gave us World War One, the War on Drugs, and the income tax, to Yale and Harvard product George W. Bush, who gave us Iraq, Afghanistan, the Patriot Act, and turned America into a pervasive surveillance society, the mark of the Ivy League graduate has been nothing but bloodshed and fields filled with skull and bones, corruption of the idea of education, and a vast wasting of wealth and liberty."
C.J. Maloney

“People with varied interests quickly discover the advantages of organizing themselves into groups to lobby the state for these apparent benefits. Ego-boundary identities have proven themselves an effective means of promoting collective ends. Race, religion, ideology, economic interests, ethnicity, lifestyle, age, nationality, provide just a handful of grounds upon which to organize mass movements. Those to be organized into such groupings, as well as those who control the machinery of the state, develop a symbiotic relationship in the perpetuation of the political process.”
Butler Shaffer

“Obama is misreading the election returns. When America voted to cancel the White House lease of Mr. Bush, it did not vote Barack Obama a blank check.”
Patrick J. Buchanan

"You shouldn't always submit to authority. Our country wouldn't exist if everyone submitted to authority."
Tim Masters, after DNA evidence forced the State of Colorado to overturn his conviction for murder and free him after 20 years in prison.

“However laborious or far-fetched, the sheeple prefer to excuse rather than indict their god, the State."
Becky Akers

“While one often hears about shootings in churches, one never hears about shootings at gun shows. I wonder why.”
Jacob Hornberger

“In practically every jurisdiction in this once-free land, it is a ‘criminal offense"’ -- and often a felony -- to disarm a ‘peace officer.’ Why isn't it a crime to disarm a law-abiding citizen?”
Will Grigg

“It is an unfortunate fact that people of faith still seem to be more interested in being like other nations or in having someone fight their battles for them than they are in self-governance. Much like God promised the Israelites, we have taxes taken from us at gun point, we have seen our children conscripted, we have idly watched as government has stolen land in the name of eminent domain. And yet people of faith continue to participate in the very system that goes against the original desire for self-governance established by their own holy book. Made in the image of God, endowed with a free will, and guided by freely chosen principles, we have no need of a king.”
Lane Connelly

“The right to question the government, even from a mistaken point of view, is at the heart of America's proud heritage. When America relinquishes this understanding, it comes to adopt the features of the supposed enemy. In the name of rooting out Communists, America became just a bit more communistic. In an effort to keep an eye on violent extremists, the government resorts to violence and extremism. All the labor agitators, Muslim sympathizers and militia groups put together can never threaten American freedom and security as much as an unleashed police state in a climate of fear.”
Anthony Gregory

“Capitalism is a law established by God, just like gravity. Its foundation is in the 9th Commandment, ‘Thou shalt not covet.’ I am never free to desire to take what is my neighbor's. Not his wife. Not his house. Not his lands. Not his possessions. I can trade him for them if I have something he wants more than what he has. (Except his wife, of course...) I can buy them from him if my offer is right. But I cannot steal (or vote) away his property into my account. That is not wealth creation; it is merely re-distribution. God condemns it, and He will not be mocked by those who think that they can make socialism fly forever.”
Bill Jenkins

“As a kid, I used to fantasize about Monopoly money being real and mine for the taking. As an adult, I find that this fantasy is now a necessary prerequisite for political office.”
Jack Hunter

“How much stranger that for money we’ve chosen an unmeasurable paper standard. We measure anything and everything. People have even tried to figure out if a human soul has weight, but for money, of all things, we’d rather pretend?”
Les Lefave

From the Darkness:

"'Just say no' is the right advice to give your teenagers about drugs. It is not an acceptable response to whatever economic policies are proposed by the other party."
Barry Obama

"The U.S. gun market not only makes gun trafficking in military-style weapons easy, it practically compels that traffic because of the gun market's loose regulations and the gun industry's ruthless design choices over the last several decades."
Tom Diaz, senior policy analyst at the Violence Policy Center

"Our officers will give direct orders or commands to passengers. It is the obligation of the passenger to be compliant with those."
Mike Milne, spokesdrone for the Customs and Border Protection (CPB) agency.

"We have to continue managing our business as a business -- taking account of the cold realities of competition."
AIG chief executive, Edward Liddy, defending the company’s bonuses. [If you were truly accountable to the “cold realties of competition” you would be justifiably bankrupt and out of business!]

"We must find ways to relieve some of this stress."
Gen. Peter W. Chiarelli, vice chief of staff of the Army, in testimony before the Senate Armed Services Military Personnel Subcommittee, addressing the problem of increased military suicides.
[Perhaps this can occur if the state would lose its lust for blood and booty.]

“The depression has ended.”
Dr. Julius Klein, Assistant Secretary of Commerce

"But if President Obama doesn’t lose his nerve, the odds are that a classic counterinsurgency strategy, supported by adequate troop levels, can turn around another failing war effort."
Max Boot, on Obama’s plan to escalate the war in Afghanistan.