Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“I believe our addictive attraction to the power of government to improve our lives is the very thing that has got us into our current predicament, and that government, far from securing our lives, liberty, and property, is the only real threat to them. It actually fosters chaos, and retards the process of mutually beneficial exchange that is the very basis of civilization. Government is the mortal enemy of mankind and civilization.”
John Sampson

“If honor cannot contend with the truth we are learning about our obsession with using force and violence on our enemies, the only way for it to save face is to bow out gracefully, forever. If we as a culture do not learn to honor love, freedom, peace, and truth above all else, then I doubt it will matter very much what we do honor, if we honor anything at all.”
B. R. Merrick

“If anything defines the consensus in which a moral society can flower and thrive, it’s the recognition that theft, murder and other initiations of force place those who commit them outside of said society and in opposition to it. If there’s any basis in fact whatsoever for the idea of a “social contract,” it’s that: You only get to be part of society if you keep your hands out of other people’s pockets and off other people’s throats.
Yet theft and murder constitute the two points on any chart of behaviors which a plot of the state’s operations must inevitably cross. The state sustains itself through acts of theft and enforces its writ through the threat of death. If it doesn’t do those two things, it’s not a state. If it does do those two things, its existence and operations are inimical to the existence of the kind of society we’re frequently told can’t exist without it.”
Thomas L. Knapp

“How do you know if something is genuinely a public service? Is it a public service when you take money from one person and give it to another? The press seems to think so. Is it a public service when you load up the nation with hundreds of billions worth of programs and pet projects?”
Bill Bonner

“There should be no monetary policy, or any other kind of policy, of course. Policy is another name for unjust coercion.”
Lew Rockwell

“'Social fabric’ has but one enemy: coercion. Coercion has but one source: bad people. A large percentage of the worst (and most "effective") of the bad people are ‘public officials.’ The power associated with government attracts thugs like raw meat attracts yellow-jackets.”
Kent McManigal

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From the Darkness:

"I just think it's an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look back at the prior administration."
Dick Cheney, whining about the Justice Department investigating whether CIA interrogators illegally abused terror suspects.

"As long as there is a foreign enemy that is radical, irresponsible and willing to do anything to cause instability and chaos . . . we need to keep them off-balance, to keep them from coming here.”
Marine Lt. Gen. Samuel Helland, speaking of the Taliban in Afghanistan. [Wa-Wha? The Taliban is a “foreign” enemy? So, what is the US military, just some good ol- homeboys?]

"You'll be doing your patriotic duty to get your seasonal flu shot this year."
Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley

"Recovery act dollars are going farther and working harder than we anticipated."
Clueless Joe Biden

"I think we've reached a little bit of the silly season when the president of the United States can't tell kids in school to study hard and stay in school."
Robert Gibbs, presidential spokesman on the furor around King Obama’s plan to deliver a televised back to school speech. [No, what’s silly is the president sticking his nose where it doesn’t belong.]

“Losing wars is a bad thing. It is especially bad if you are a superpower that depends on an aura of invincibility to keep rogue elements at bay. That should go without saying, but those calling for a scuttle from Afghanistan seem to have forgotten this elementary lesson.”
Max Boot