Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“It is not nations that find the use of force necessary and morally justified; it is governments — make that hack politicians — who then proceed to hoodwink their populations into believing them.”
Sheldon Richman

“Deterrence and revenge are high on the list of fables that only serve to make the world a perpetually fallen place. State-sponsored execution was reinstated decades ago, and yet many of us live in cities which have not seen falling murder rates but rather quite the opposite. Ronald Reagan’s sacred myths about the death penalty win elections but they don’t save the souls of our cities.”
Michael E. Lawrence

“So, the government that foolishly limited BP's maximum liability, the government that claimed it knew where best to drill, the government that actually stopped locals from protecting their own shoreline — that would be that same government that bankrupted Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the Post Office, Amtrak and virtually everything it has managed — now wants to decide who gets BP's cash.”
Judge Andrew Napolitano

“There is nothing good that can’t be done by free individuals cooperating and competing as they choose. Authority will only disrupt and subjugate, attempting to control cooperation and competition on terms favorable to those in charge.”
Darian Worden

“Simplicity and truth of character are not produced by the constraint of laws, nor by the authority of the state, and absolutely no one can be forced or legislated into a state of blessedness; the means required are faithful and brotherly admonition, sound education, and, above all, free use of the individual judgment.”
Benedict de Spinoza

“There is no real debate between conservatives and liberals, just an argument over how to distribute the spoils of the system. Welfare or warfare.”
Mark Davis

“There is no economic reason why 100% of the expenditures on education should not be paid for by the parents of students or by the students themselves, when they reach college or graduate school level. There is also nothing that says that a government has the moral authority to coerce parents who hold to one view of education, or one view of how the world works, to subsidize the educations of other families, whose children attend schools that teach a view of the world closer to that approved by the subsidized parents.”
Gary North

“The world is becoming increasingly decentralized; the horizontal is replacing the vertical. Such changes are not being occasioned by ideological thinking, but by the pragmatic necessities of sustaining life. Just as a tree does not grow from the top down, the lives of individuals and of societies cannot be directed by external authorities, no matter how long they have been revered. It is becoming more evident to more people that there is nothing that anyone in power can do to resolve the problems created by political thinking. More and more of us are discovering just how weak is any system that must rely on threats and violence to achieve its ends.”
Butler Shaffer

"After a long life, and thirty years in the public school trenches, I've concluded that genius is as common as dirt. We suppress our genius only because we haven't yet figured out how to manage a population of educated men and women. The solution, I think, is simple and glorious. Let them manage themselves.”
John Taylor Gatto

“A cynic once said that while a petty thief will find himself behind bars or dangling from the end of a rope, the most powerful criminals are those who run the jails and operate the gallows. The corporatist plutocracy controlling our country is determined to make a prophet of that anonymous cynic."
Will Grigg

“Indeed, there is nothing out of the ordinary about politicians calling for mass murder, torture, preemptive war and other acts of barbarism, while their careers remain intact. Meanwhile, a comment that can be construed as racist, or offensive to certain groups, can ruin a mere plebeian. We have elevated name-calling to a higher offense than advocating (state-sanctioned) mass murder and wars of aggression. That the hypocrisy of this is not evident to everyone is an indication of our collective blindness to acts of evil when they are committed by those in authority.”
Bretigne Shaffer

“There is no middle ground between coercion and non-aggression. Trying to dismantle systems of coercion by gaining the ability to use coercion is not only inconsistent with the ends of voluntaryism and a free society but our participation in electoral democracy signals our consent to be governed by democracy.”
Ross Kenyon

“Most economic, political and military events are just business as usual for financial elites and the industries beholden to them. They take advantage of real or contrived economic crises, military operations and foreign conflicts the way stockbrokers churn stocks to generate commissions. The collateral damage, causalities, wealth transfers, confiscation and mass hardship are just tricks of the trade.”
Ron Holland

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From the Darkness:

“If you read it and you have a problem, you’re misreading it.”
John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy and President Barack Obama’s top science adviser, refusing to discuss his past, controversial work.

“……Ron Paul is one of the many elected representatives who we have that doesn't even have a basic understanding of fundamental economics, let alone more complex issues and better ways to hedge against inflation than buying gold. Gold is a complex instrument. You know, it speaks to a bigger point. He doesn't even know what he's doing.”
Ron Insana, CNBC analyst, who knows so much about economics that his hedge fund went broke.

“When people don’t show up when we ask them to ... all it does is increases our interest in what they’re doing and why they didn’t show up. It was a stupid mistake for them not to show up, and I say shame on them.”
Sen. John Rockefeller, upset that Apple and Google didn’t participate in an April hearing on children’s online privacy in an April hearing on children’s online privacy.

“Turkey is responsible for the nine deaths aboard that ship. It is not Israel that’s responsible. If Israel is at fault in any way, it’s by falling into the trap that was set for them by Turkey.”

Rep. Shelley Berkley, on the Gaza aid flotilla massacre.

“We begin to have to do stupid things if the supplemental is not passed by July 4."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates threatening senators if Congress doesn’t approve a $33 billion supplemental spending request by July 4.

"I think frankly that the narrative ... has been too negative. I think that we are regaining the initiative. I think that we are making headway."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, on the US getting its butt kicked in Afghanistan.

"I deeply apologize to the families of the honored fallen resting in that hallowed ground who may now question the care afforded to their loved ones.”
Army Secretary John McHugh, apologizing after an investigation revealed that potentially hundreds of the 300,000 graves at Arlington National Cemetery have been misidentified or misplaced. [Yes, you cared for them so well up to now. That's why they were killed.]

“Christians have an obligation to all persecuted people, but especially the Jews.”
Chuck Colson

“BP notes the fall in its share price in US trading last night. The company is not aware of any reason which justifies this share price movement.”
From a BP press release, June 10, 2010

"I have the utmost respect for Judge Garza. It's just unfortunate this was happening."
La Joya, TX city administrator Mike Alaniz, commenting on the arrest of La Joya Municipal Court Judge Joe Henry Garza for allegedly using traffic fines paid by those who appeared before him to pay his personal credit card. [State thieves always seem to “respect" one another and consider it “unfortunate” when they are caught.]

“Well, when every other state around us is passing dramatic legislation to get rid of their illegal aliens I've got to say yes.”.
Texas State Representative Leo Berman, on a bill to bring an Arizona-type immigration law to Texas.

“We -- the government and the people of the United States -- need to stand up for the Iranian people. We need to make their goals our goals, their interests our interests, their work our work.”
John McCain [That’s why we need to bomb them- right, Johnny?]

“The First Amendment protects radical opinions, but we need the legal tools to do things like monitor the recruitment of terrorists via the Internet.
We can significantly advance security without having a deleterious impact on individual rights in most instances. At the same time, there are situations where trade-offs are inevitable."
Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano