Sunday, September 19, 2010

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“To make the ‘economy run better’ is to make the individual run better, not to do anything in particular, but to release people from the external threats and constraints that befoul the fertile connections between them. When the state makes the decisions about how to use societal wealth, this does not translate into ‘the people’ making the decisions. That condition exists only in a freed market, absent of force. When government takes the reins, a few oligarchs hold them, steering in a way that solidifies their mastery over us.”
David D'Amato

“Religion might be part of the particular motivation of every major side in the wars and terrorism of today, but it is the secular religion of collectivism, the civic religion of statism, that is most philosophically responsible for all this violence, and that has allowed people to reject their own religious teachings not to kill the innocent for what they have convinced themselves is the pursuit of the greater good. Utilitarianism and materialism and the worship of the worldly, not the spiritual, are the main problem here.”
Anthony Gregory

“The state is a jealous god and will brook no rivals. Its sovereignty must pervade every one, and all feeling must be run into the stereotyped forms of romantic patriotic militarism which is the traditional expression of the state herd-feeling.”
Randolph Bourne

“Patriotism is an abstract notion with no real substance. It means nothing; it's just a façade, a fake, imaginary glue that keeps a people naively devoted to causes, countries, governments, and neighbors who usually bring them harm (the phrase ‘come together’ is similarly ambiguous and empty). National borders mean nothing. They would not exist without government force, and they are usually laid out for reasons of politics and power, not in accordance with the religions, identities, culture, or preferences of individuals.”
Kel Kelly

“We have slid complacently into the notion that not only does the American need their government to both protect them and, more importantly, to create the conditions for all of us to survive, but beyond that, we seem convinced that the rest of the world needs America to fight their own battles too. We oblige with vigor, assiduously turning Blowback into a National Death Cult where war is pronounced over but 50,000 troops remain behind to watch peace erupt out of the blasted newly minted democrats. Somebody once said “War is the Health of the State” but I’d say it’s more like a bloody ten-day drunk of the State.”
D. W. Sabin

“Ballots replace bullets within the democratic state but conflict persists with special interest groups vying for the reins of power so that they can use the perceived legitimacy of the state to impose their will on each other. Beneath the sophisms that grant the state legitimacy there lies the same threat or use of initiatory violence that is present in war. Open war is traded for the illusion of peace.”
Geoffrey Allan Plauché

“The decentralizing nature of organizations finds expression throughout our world. The vertical is collapsing into the horizontal. Plato’s pyramid is being transformed into interconnected networks. The mainstream media — whose function it is to tell us what the established order wants us to know — are being replaced by many autonomous Internet voices — such as LRC — that express a variety of opinions to which tens of thousands of autonomous readers can respond and communicate to one another. It is this decentralization of authority — otherwise known as ‘individual liberty’ — that poses the ‘terrorist threat’ to the vertical power structures. It is the specter of human beings directing their own lives for their own purposes — and not the spectacle of airliners being crashed into skyscrapers — that makes the “war on terror” a permanent feature in our brave new world order!”
Butler Shaffer

“Thus, as civilization advances, does government decay. To the bad it is essential; to the good, not. It is the check which national wickedness makes to itself, and exists only to the same degree. Its continuance is proof of still-existing barbarism. What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man. Restraint is for the savage, the rapacious, the violent; not for the just, the gentle, the benevolent. All necessity for external force implies a morbid state. Dungeons for the felon; a strait jacket for the maniac; crutches for the lame; stays for the weak-backed; for the infirm of purpose a master; for the foolish a guide; but for the sound mind in a sound body none of these. Were there no thieves and murderers, prisons would be unnecessary. It is only because tyranny is yet rife in the world that we have armies. Barristers, judges, juries, all the instruments of law, exist simply because knavery exists. Magisterial force is the sequence of social vice, and the policeman is but the complement of the criminal. Therefore it is that we call government ‘a necessary evil.’”
Herbert Spencer

“There is nothing wrong with ‘tax evasion’ unless it is also wrong to hide money in your shoe so the mugger in the alley won't take it.”
Kent McManigal

“Down with the Constitution. What a socialist, centralizing, utopian mistake. It is time for libertarians to stop glorifying early America, the Founders, the Constitution, etc., as proto-libertarian. All states are illegitimate, including America’s.”
Stephan Kinsella

“To fundamentalist adherents of state power, the control exerted by the state is what holds the world together. It’s administered by people who think it only natural that they happen to be the ones in charge. Anyone who threatens their power, anyone with whom they can’t work out a ‘reasonable solution,’ is seen as a threat to public safety. The tendency to protect power at the expense of individual life translates in reality to harming individuals in the name of safety, tearing lives apart and causing havoc in the name of order.”
Darian Worden

“The state, by its nature, is the instrument by which some ruling class extracts rents from the labor of the productive classes. In every society in history since the rise of the state, the state has been controlled by some class that uses it as an instrument for living at the expense of the productive majority.”
Kevin Carson
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From the Darkness:
“Frankly, Muslim life is cheap, most notably to Muslims. I wonder whether I need honor these people and pretend that they are worthy of the privileges of the First Amendment, which I have in my gut the sense that they will abuse.”
Martin Peretz, The New Republic

“Your voice is your vote, man, Your vote is the currency this town [DC] lives on.”
Janet Napolitano instructing the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute.

“Lately, Israel has been subjected to incessant attacks from people and countries around the world who cast aspersions on its policies and its very right to exist. The Goldstone Report and Turkish flotilla incident illustrate just how vital it is for each and every Israeli citizen to take part in Israel’s public diplomacy.”
Public Diplomacy and Diaspora Affairs Minister Yuli Edelstein, about a new website that aims to help Israelis defend the country’s image abroad.

"Goldline employs several conservative pundits to act as shills for it’s precious metal business, including Glenn Beck, Mike Huckabee, Laura Ingraham, and Fred Thompson. By drumming up public fears during financially uncertain times, conservative pundits are able to drive a false narrative. Glenn Beck for example has dedicated entire segments of his program to explaining why the U.S. money supply is destined for hyperinflation with Barack Obama as president."
From a press release from Rep. Anthony Weiner announcing that a September 23 hearing of the Subcommittee on Commerce, Trade, and Consumer Protection (a subcommittee of Rep. Henry Waxman's Commerce Committee) will focus on "legislation that would regulate gold-selling companies, an industry whose relentless advertising is now staple of cable television."

"We need to have confidence and be able to demonstrate, I would say in four to six months, that we are moving in the right direction; we are moving toward the accomplishment of our goals. I think there is a general feeling that there has been some progress in that area, but it will have to be sustained."
Defense Secretary Robert Gates, sugar coating the continuing Afghanistan quagmire.

“‘Global warming’ is a (dangerous) misnomer. That term implies something …uniform across the planet, mainly about temperature, gradual, quite possibly benign. What’s actually happening is… highly nonuniform, not just about temperature, rapid compared to capacities for adjustment, harmful for most places and times. We should call it ‘global climate disruption.’”
John Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, trying to re-brand, yet again, the global warming scam.

“I would say maybe in a grade, a B- in creating the jobs."
Wendy Greuel, Los Angeles controller, commenting on the city’s spending $5.9 million of stimulus money to create a total of 16 jobs.

"The best thing about the TSA is that though we do deal with the public every day, customer service is not a priority for us and we are told that on a regular basis….

We get briefed before every shift and at least twice a week they remind us that though customer service is good, it is not our priority. We are federal security officers, and if you walk away from dealing with me and you are not happy its not going to hurt my job security at all.”
From a blog written by a TSA screener

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