Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“When society serves human beings, there is liberty. When human beings serve society, there is tyranny.”
Russell Longcore

“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”
William Pitt the Younger

“A statesman is merely a politician who keeps his gun well hidden and does not discuss it in mixed company.
In the end, politics is about the savaging of human beings through violence, misdirection and the glorification of the physical boundaries of tax jurisdictions. Nothing less and nothing more. It is about the wholesale forced appropriation of wealth, time and resources from vast swaths of humanity through either chicanery or implied and explicit use of violence. It is involuntary surrender to thuggery on a mass scale.”
Bill Buppert

“The essential act of war is destruction, not necessarily of human lives, but of the products of human labor. War is a way of shattering to pieces, or pouring into the stratosphere, or sinking in the depths of the sea, materials which might otherwise be used to make the masses too comfortable, and hence, in the long run, too intelligent.”
George Orwell

“The illusion that government protects us, that it is designed and structured in a way to do so, is everywhere. Liberals believe that it shields us from economic inequality and dangerous consumer products, despite all evidence to the contrary. Conservatives believe it upholds moral virtue, the absurdity of politicians being moral role models notwithstanding. Everyone believes it protects us from violent crime, regardless of its horrific record in doing so, and the greats costs to our liberties inflicted by the criminal justice system. But probably no myth is more pervasive than the myth that U.S. national security policy keeps us safer than we otherwise would be, that even when it fails in particulars, its general composition is aimed toward achieving this goal effectively. It is a bunch of hogwash. The wars and homeland security state do nothing to diminish the terrorist threat and indeed in many ways enhance it, and the politicians in both parties are either to dense to notice or they do notice but are too wicked to change approaches.”
Anthony Gregory

“It should come as no surprise to us that, when systematic violence is introduced into the economic sphere, it is the rich and powerful rather than the poor and powerless who ultimately profit. Although concern for the impoverished and for the worker are today associated with advocacy for an omnipotent, total state, the state has never truly been the ally of the disadvantaged and victimized.
The state is rather an organ of the power elite, of a grouping of economic interests that aspire to close off options outside of the statist economy. Whatever the state does that seems facially to aid the poor is done only to keep the labor engines of the economy running so that the oligopolistic corporate economy doesn’t destroy itself.”
David S. D'Amato

“In theory, the Left focuses on compassion; the Right on limited government – on ‘restrained aggression,’ in other words, rather than on non-aggression. But, even aside from the aggression involved, neither Left nor Right can ever be a healthy whole by itself, because both love and freedom are equally necessary. Like a deprived child who grows into an adult who can never get enough,* the public is constantly dissatisfied with the results of political action and so always wants more. This is partly because government policies and programs do the opposite of their stated aims and partly because any action that leads to over-emphasis of one side of the Duality while under-serving the other must create imbalance and lead to discontent.”
Glen Allport

“Truthfully, real criminals aren't back alley types, but rather the policymakers who spread fear and paranoia in the name of justice. They cloak their crimes in good deeds while building a brainwashed class of future Thought Police.”
Simon Black

“Fundamentally, without governments’ propaganda and distortions, most of us love peace and liberty, except those who benefit from war and those who adore power. As long as fear exists in our minds, we will put up with war and coercion out of fear and hatred. Peace and Liberty will be only realized when we have no fear other than the fear of not having them.”
NguyenKhaPham Thanh Chuong
“Those who value liberty should keep on seceding until the only political formations that exist are voluntary and get all powers from the consent of self-governing individuals.”
Darian Worden

“Scratch a military man and you will often find a zombie. Or you’ll get punched in the mouth.”
Bill Bonner

**************************************************************************

From the Darkness:
“I do not understand what I think is the maligning and maliciousness [directed at] this president [Obama]. Why is he different? And in my community, that is the question that we raise. In the minority community, that is the question that is being raised. Why is this president being treated so disrespectfully?”

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee

“I’m not ready to tell you that I’m ready to announce that I’m in. But I’m getting more and more comfortable every day that this is what I’ve been called to do. This is what America needs.”
Gov. Rick Perry, discussing his presidential plans [“Called?” Oh, God, here we go again.]

"You can say it's extreme to start medications in pregnancy, but what gives you the most bang for your buck—educating kids later or changing something in the womb for a short period of time that will have an effect for years and years?"
Brian Iriye, on a study, sponsored by the U.K. government, aiming to use medication to change the environment in the uterus of pregnant women in order to improve the child's health later in life, a concept known as fetal programming.

"No big financial institution in any country [should] be allowed to fail."
Larry Summers

"The [UN] security council should join the general assembly in recognising climate change as a threat to international peace and security. It is a threat as great as nuclear proliferation or global terrorism."
Marcus Stephen, the president of Nauru

“Rather than subsidizing the production of unhealthful foods, we should turn the tables and tax things like soda, French fries, doughnuts and hyperprocessed snacks. The resulting income should be earmarked for a program that encourages a sound diet for Americans by making healthy food more affordable and widely available.

Simply put: taxes would reduce consumption of unhealthful foods and generate billions of dollars annually. That money could be used to subsidize the purchase of staple foods like seasonal greens, vegetables, whole grains, dried legumes and fruit.”
Mark Bittman, NY Times