Quotes of the Week

From the Light:

“Nothing is so dangerous as an army in the midst of an unwarlike nation; the excessive love of the whole community for quiet continually puts the constitution at the mercy of the soldiery.
It may therefore be asserted, generally speaking, that if democratic nations are naturally prone to peace from their interests and their propensities, they are constantly drawn to war and revolutions by their armies. Military revolutions, which are scarcely ever to be apprehended in aristocracies, are always to be dreaded among democratic nations.”
Alexis de Tocqueville

“Civil government is the mortal enemy of humanity and civilization. It cannot be otherwise. The very institution of civil government violates the very principles that civil government is instituted to protect. It is a contradiction and an affront to mankind.”
John Sampson

“The only way to effectively bring about a revolution for the betterment of mankind is to reach the individual. The message is simple: You are freedom. You are peace. You are love. You are truth. You mustn’t wait for anyone else. You mustn’t be afraid. You mustn’t worry that mass murderers are continually lauded as bringers of peace. It will continue.”
B. R. Merrick

“There is effectively no difference in principle between the actions of the Nazis, or communists, or the American government. It’s hardly even a matter of degree anymore; the gap is closing. All governments everywhere and throughout history are essentially the same. Thousands of years of experience have proven they can never be 'reformed.' Their basic nature denies any possibility of such outright. They can only be abolished altogether. The survival and the advance of free humanity depends upon it.”
Alex R. Knight III

“What could be more wrongful, more immoral than that — the intentional killing of human beings in order to achieve a political-welfare goal?”
Jacob Hornberger

“Decision-making by those who risk their own property not only localizes the impact of wrong choices, but allows people everywhere the freedom to copy those who succeed.”
Butler Shaffer

“Money should never be forced on someone. No one should dictate what you 'should' use as your money, nor should they limit you to one type of money. Let the market choose the money that people trust and want. Even if that means some would choose to accept printed paper IOUs backed but nothing but a promise from a group of thieves that the money is 'good', that is their choice. In this case, ‘seller beware!’”
Kent McManigal

“Chaos is but unperceived order; it is a word indicating the limitations of the human mind and the paucity of observational facts. The words ‘chaos,’ ‘accidental,’ ‘chance,’ ‘unpredictable,’ are conveniences behind which we hide our ignorance.”
Harlow Shapley

"The existing nuclear threat isn’t the threat of 'private nukes.' It’s the threat of stolen 'public nukes.'"
Thomas L. Knapp

"There is no way a psychiatrist [Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan] - basically an intellectual desk jockey - shot off hundreds of rounds with two pistols and hit about 40 people without being subdued by someone [at Ft Hood]. Come on! He wasn't a trained assassin or a special ops commando shooting up a mall. He would have had to reload and that means putting one of the pistols down and reloading the other with seasoned combat vets in that deployment center. It only takes seconds to reload, but it only takes a second to subdue him."
Anonymous retired army Capt. who served 7 years in the 173rd Airborne

“We are a society of people who have gone down the rabbit hole with the Mad Hatter and March Hare and believe that somehow contrary to basic mathematical laws like one plus one equals two the economy can be improved by taking money from one person and giving it to another or by dropping it from a helicopter. Given their drunken social state, it makes perfect sense to them.”
Don Cooper

“New American nations, formed from the seceding United States, would be little pinpoints of light and liberty. If their only guiding principle was to not make the same mistakes that the US government made over the last 150 years, they would be destined for success.”
Russell D. Longcore

“Totalitarianism is therefore not specifically a system of government, but a way of organizing society by means of a powerful, centralized modern state. It requires a mass media, education, and political culture in which the state—that is to say a class of bureaucrats and officials governing a large geographic area—takes over every aspect of civil society. “
Michael Kleen

"Men, it has been well said, think in herds; it will be seen that they go mad in herds, while they only recover their senses slowly, and one by one."
Charles Mackay

“The military is the state's apparatus of murder and property destruction. The welfare state is an instrument of social demolition. They really are complimentary sides of the same debased coin.”
Will Grigg

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From the Darkness:

"The most important thing, when attempting to overcome barriers, is: Are the nation states ready and willing to give competencies over to multilateral organizations, no matter what it costs?
This world will not be a peaceful one if we do not work for more global order and more multilateral cooperation.”
German Chancellor, Angela Merkel

"It's not that we're celebrating Obama. We're celebrating America living up to it's creed that all men are created equal”
Albert Turner Jr, Perry County, AL commissioner, commenting on proclaiming Monday, November 9 as an official holiday celebrating the election of the nation's first black president. [......well, half-black, anyway.]

“There are tens of thousands of [Nidal Malik] Hasans all over the Western world -- from Brussels to Berlin and from Burgos, Spain, to Birmingham, U.K. For them, Sept. 11, 2001, was a conspiracy cooked up by the CIA and Mossad, Israel's external intelligence service.”
Arnaud De Borchgrave

"Only a president can offer the condolences of a nation. In a moment of crisis and sorrow and anger, only a president can soothe raw emotions, allay fears, elevate a senseless act into a call to action, and offer the assurance that — as his aides put it Monday — no stone will be left unturned.
This is by far the biggest test of Obama's ability to fulfill the role of consoler in chief."
Todd J. Gillman, Dallas Morning News

“Their life's work is our security, and the freedom that we all too often take for granted. Every evening that the sun sets on a tranquil town; every dawn that a flag is unfurled; every moment that an American enjoys life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness -- that is their legacy.”
B. Obama, “honoring” those murdered at Ft Hood.

“The Army is a growth industry.”
Col. Stephen Carney, head of ROTC at Norwich University, Northfield, CT.

"Unfortunately, America loves Guns. We love guns to a point where that, uh, we see devastation on a daily basis. You don't blame a group."
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley

"The Army is basically paying the Taliban not to shoot at them. It is Department of Defense money."
Anonymous American executive, explaining how trucks supplying US troops in Afghanistan are protected.

"Our national security in the year 2030 is absolutely dependent upon what is going on in pre-kindergarten today."
Rear Admiral James Barnett, U.S. Navy (Ret.)