Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"What the ruling political elites and their mainstream media shills fear is a wide-open, chaotic and very Darwinian competition of concepts and ideas.
They fear this so profoundly because they all know, somewhere in their hearts and minds, that their narrative is bankrupt, and that it no longer explains the world around us. It has failed, and this failure is now self-evident.
The mainstream media has faithfully promoted a neoliberal, neoconservative, Keynesian narrative that has failed to produce the expected results. No wonder trust in the mainstream media has declined sharply in the past few years."
Charles Hugh Smith

“'Greed' is ‘reprehensible acquisitiveness’ and the beauty of capitalism is that the market speaks louder than government dictates or ‘greedy capitalists.’ When the government says, ‘I’m here to help you,’ it’s time to hold onto your wallets. With capitalism, it’s your choice. Greed doesn’t work; markets do."
Peter Lorenzi

"Even if America stands for freedom and possesses exceptional power, we have no obligation to free other peoples whom we consider unfree, using force unilaterally or not using it. There is no such moral law that says ‘free other unfree people.’ There is no greatness or honor in trying. Under the Golden Rule, we do not expect or allow others to invade us and our country in attempts to free us as they see fit; therefore, we should not do that to them, even if we think they are unfree."
Michael Rozeff

"Like the trees in forests and the cells in living organisms, humans too are ‘intimately interconnected’ to each other. One such important way is through our markets, the mechanisms we’ve used for millennia to interact and trade our labors, goods, services, capital, technologies, discoveries, cultures, arts, music and rhythms, ideas, compassion. And, we humans also naturally respond to signals and incentives. And, also like those varying tree species, human individuals, and communities possess various skill sets and comparative advantages. Like the forest, trading on our diversification and specialization provides mutual benefit allowing us, individually and communally, to survive and prosper."
Marc Guttman

"You know you’re a statist when you contend that state punishment and threats is the only thing that keeps you from harming your family."
Bll Buppert

"I want to oppose the idea that the school has to teach directly that special knowledge and those accomplishments which one has to use later directly in life. The demands of life are much too manifold to let such a specialized training in school appear possible.
The development of general ability for independent thinking and judgment should always be placed foremost."
Albert Einstein

"A great variety of special interests always understood that if they could capture the powers of government to back their schemes of enrichment and empowerment, they could make themselves better off at the expense of everyone else. So with the spread of ‘democracy,’ the plunder that had previously been confined to a much narrower set of plunderers was made much more comprehensive, giving rise to the real war of all against all. Of course, this ceaseless political war-making wreaks havoc with the creative forces that private individuals and organizations are exerting, and sometimes it overwhelms them completely, as during serious business contractions and great wars."
Robert Higgs

"We now have a political system which is nominally democratic but increasingly authoritarian. The Rule of Law has been defined down to finding a single federal lawyer to write a secret memo vindicating the president’s latest unpublished executive order."
James Bovard

"Democracy is war by other means. Superficially, it is waged with ballots instead of bullets. At the end of the day, those ballots become bullets. Elections load real guns and aim them at real people. If you disobey the commandments handed down by elected officials, beefy men with shaved heads and Ray-Ban sunglasses will come to take you away. If you resist them, hot lead will fly. Elections are scrambles for control over the service weapons that propel those rounds. In such contests, every faction is trying to point the gun barrels at someone else."
Dan Sanchez

"Everywhere you go, everyone is glued to their phones. If all the cell phones in America were suddenly turned off, I wager about 90% of the population would die of thirst and starvation sitting and staring into their cell phones, waiting for them to come back on."
Jack Perry

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“There’s a true measurement of the genuine significance of government for you: in its absence, real civilization flourishes. In its malignant presence, the hopes and dreams of ordinary individuals wither and fade and die. How many civilizations have risen and fallen without learning that simple lesson? How many Dreamkillers have occupied the Oval Office?”
L. Neil Smith

“Real information, subversive information, remains the most potent power of all — and I believe that we must not fall into the trap of believing that the media speaks for the public. That wasn’t true in Stalinist Czechoslovakia and it isn’t true of the United States. In all the years I’ve been a journalist, I’ve never known public consciousness to have risen as fast as it’s rising today…yet this growing critical public awareness is all the more remarkable when you consider the sheer scale of indoctrination, the mythology of a superior way of life, and the current manufactured state of fear.”
John Pilger

“Fake news: A fake concept created by fake authority figures using fake standards to protect you from fake enemies out of a fake concern for the good of humanity.”
T.K. Coleman

“Libertarian theory is thin – it is the non-aggression principle.  Thin leaves the most room in the tent, making room for the most people to join.  When it comes to writing about and defending the libertarian theory, I will put my 'thin' credentials next to anyone. But the libertarian theory is not everything.
Application of libertarian theory in this world requires taking into account human realities.  Achieving and then sustaining a libertarian future (or even moving in that direction) requires the same.”
Bionic Mosquito

“Without liberty, the world would sink into a pit of mutual recrimination and violence. Human beings thrive in the absence of politicization. Discovering that great truth is one way to avoid the mire into which the politics of our time seeks to plunge us.”
Jeffrey Tucker

“Requiring by force of law that one perform some specific government-mandated act in order to demonstrate proper fealty to government or a symbol of government elevates government and that symbol to the status of a god. It creates a phony form of patriotism within the population that becomes strong leverage against independent thinking, keeping people ignorant of the treason by their own government.”
Bob Livingston

“Keep in mind that just as moths are drawn to a flame so power-seekers are drawn to power hierarchies whether they be political, social, economic, theocratic, military or whatever. So the only hope we have for a peaceful society is to remove the legitimacy of coercive power from our institutions. That’s why I advocate voluntary ‘governance’ over compulsory 'governments' as based on the non-aggression principle against coercion, intimidation and fraud. Then hopefully those who crave power, wealth and ego gratification will have to channel those needs into areas that don’t require coercion, like competing in free market businesses, charitable organizations, mutual aid societies, etc where they can gain legitimate mutually-agreed upon leadership, earn legitimate wealth and feel great about themselves.”
Garry Reed

“The mainstream media is dying. It’s flesh is becoming gangrene. It has become an aversive entity. Whatever it promotes (which is usually more centralization of power), the majority of the people run away from pinching their noses in disgust.”
Chris Campbell

“Power and those in control concede nothing ... without a demand. They never have and never will... Each and every one of us must keep demanding, must keep fighting, must keep thundering, must keep plowing, must keep on keeping things struggling, must speak out and speak up until justice is served because where there is no justice there is no peace.” 
Frederick Douglass

“‘Collectivism’ is an idea that is contrary to the individual nature of our lives. We were conceived, with a DNA unique to each one of us, because our sperm was able to outrace the 200,000,000 others just as eager to fertilize our mother’s egg. We live and die; feel pain, joy, happiness, or despair; are able to create and discover; and can mobilize our own energies, only as individuals. Left to the pursuit of our own interests, we would probably never be inclined to demote ourselves to purposes and systems created by others for their self-interested ends. The way in which collectivism wars against our individuality is reflected in the fact that the former interests are mandated and enforced by the coercive machinery of the state.”
Butler Shaffer

“My gosh, all these weenies in their Priuses oppose nuclear power plants, but they’re okay with a nuclear war?! Has there been an environmental impact report filed for Doomsday yet? Have they found a way to have a Green nuclear war? I suppose since it’ll kill everyone equally, we can applaud it as true diversity.”
Jack Perry

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"We live in a world where will people will accept almost anything as true so long as it's endorsed by an authority figure of some kind. Anything except for the idea that they don't need authority figures to save them. We didn't arrive here by mistake, but I should probably stop while I'm ahead. Otherwise, the authority figures will brand me as a conspiracy theorist and all the 'rational' people will hold hands and sing 'banish this crazy man from our sacred circles. He is a witch who dares to teach our children that they are more powerful than what our schools permit them to believe. Away with thee. Away with thine forbidden heresy.'"
T.K. Coleman

"The only way to ban markets is to beat them down with force. And since markets are abstractions, the force is used against people. So the alternative to a market-oriented society in which everyone is required to respect everyone else’s rights is a society in which those in power use force on whomever they can get away with using it on.”
David R. Henderson

“Hierarchical organizations are failing in the response to decision-making challenges. And this is true whether we’re talking about dictatorships, or communism that had very centralized control processes, and for representative democracies today. Representative democracies still focus power in one or few individuals. And that concentration of control and decision-making makes those systems ineffective.”
Yaneer Bar-Yam

"Most libertarians have a hard time remembering: the enemy is the state.  This isn’t about smoking pot or gay marriage or open borders or limited government or more efficient government.  It is about killing the beast known as the state.  It cannot be killed by physical force – they have bigger guns.  It can only be killed by ideas, and since much of the audience doesn’t really grasp (or doesn’t agree with) the ideas, the next best thing is to strip the state of any semblance of legitimacy.
Political decentralization is libertarian theory put into practice.  A great step would be 50 sovereign states; a better step would be 3000 sovereign counties; even better would be 100 million sovereign households, but I don’t want to sound greedy."
Bionic Mosquito

"If California left tomorrow, they would be a third world shithole in 24 months. They are a Federally subsidized funded debt canary that can’t sustain the pensions they promised and fairy dust welfare state they crafted on the backs of workers and the unborn progeny now mired in debt. If other Sovietized America-stans like the Northeastern hellholes and the Moscow analog in Chicago want to secede, please go, you are doing your neighbors a favor."
Bill Buppert

“The leftists who are so dismayed by Trump but who were so lenient and forgiving to Clinton have no political home except the Democratic Party. Their allegiance is to party politics, not to justice across the board. It is to a half-assed version of justice. This is a version that places enormous weight on concerns over prejudices of many kinds but very much lower weight on actual death, destruction, disability, misery, physical violence and injury that’s caused by people like Bush and Clinton. Why be so strongly concerned over prejudices and not over crimes against human beings? When the prejudices are realized in the form of crimes, then they gain some attention from the left. Why not be strongly against these crimes from all sources and especially from governments run by both Republicans and Democrats? Why the attachment to warring against prejudices and not violent crimes of the state? Which is more important, the choice of a bathroom and the feelings of a transgender person or an American bomb dropped in Afghanistan that kills 32 innocent women and children? Why focus on one but not the other?”
Michael Rozeff

“Much of the fear, violence and destruction we see in the media is a result of a parasitical force which thrives on separation, division, ignorance and hate. That parasite… the ego... lives in all of us. The media is very good at manipulating the ego’s fear, pain and anger, reframing it, and twisting it to its advantage. 
The parasitical class doesn’t need to do much more than create a toxic environment and tell a few damning stories about the ‘evil others.’ They know that the ‘blue’ side will always blame it on the ‘red’ side and vice versa. After that, they mostly just kick back and enjoy the show.”
Chris Campbell

“In failure or adversity it’s so easy to hate. Hate defers blame. It makes someone else responsible. It’s a distraction too; we don’t do much else when we’re busy getting revenge or investigating the wrongs that have supposedly been done to us.” 
Ryan Holiday

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“You cannot truly have a compassionate community, without consent and choice.
Socialism cannot build community as long as it is hierarchical. Community must be neighbor to neighbor, peer to peer. Community must be chosen consensually, not coerced.”
Mike Margolies

“What’s a patriot to do? The only godly, rational response is to reject government in its entirety — its bureaucrats and politicians, whether Democrat or Republican, its wars and taxation. Much of the electorate seems to sense this as they embrace Donald Trump, the non-politician.
But Trump — or any fallen, fallible human and the conglomerates of those fallen, fallible humans we call ‘political parties’ and ‘government‘— cannot solve our problems. Only God-given liberty, i.e., freedom from the State with all its coercion and corruption, can. Americans must re-discover their heritage of freedom and autonomy, self-reliance and initiative, as well as their horror of government, even when the ‘right’ party controls it.”
Becky Akers

“Brimming with hubris and self-importance, the ruling Elite and mainstream media cannot believe they have lost the consent of the governed. The disillusioned governed have not fully absorbed this epochal shift of the tides yet, either.
They are aware of their own disillusionment and their own declining financial security, but they have yet to grasp that they have, beneath the surface of everyday life, already withdrawn their consent from a self-serving, predatory, parasitic, greedy and ultimately self-destructive ruling Elite.”
Charles Hugh Smith

“As I see it then, the formula runs something like this: a man must choose a path which will let his ABILITIES function at maximum efficiency toward the gratification of his DESIRES. In doing this, he is fulfilling a need (giving himself identity by functioning in a set pattern toward a set goal), he avoids frustrating his potential (choosing a path which puts no limit on his self-development), and he avoids the terror of seeing his goal wilt or lose its charm as he draws closer to it (rather than bending himself to meet the demands of that which he seeks, he has bent his goal to conform to his own abilities and desires).
In short, he has not dedicated his life to reaching a pre-defined goal, but he has rather chosen a way of life he KNOWS he will enjoy. The goal is absolutely secondary: it is the functioning toward the goal which is important. And it seems almost ridiculous to say that a man MUST function in a pattern of his own choosing; for to let another man define your own goals is to give up one of the most meaningful aspects of life — the definitive act of will which makes a man an individual.”
Hunter S. Thompson

“What concerns me isn't the fact that we mock politicians. It's the fact that we mock any messages that dare to tell us that we're more powerful than politicians.
What scares me isn't that my neighbor might vote for the ‘wrong’ person. What scares me is that my neighbor probably defines ‘power’ in a way that only makes his actions relevant when he's voting for someone other than himself.
The greatest conspiracy isn't some hidden agenda to get a certain crooked person into office. The greatest conspiracy is to have a world where people genuinely and heartily laugh at the idea that they have the permission and power to be the predominant creative forces in their own lives.
The greatest conspiracy isn't that you're being secretly screwed by a shadow government. The greatest conspiracy is that we've been duped into believing that our efforts to be free are a waste of time no matter what we do.
T.K. Coleman

 “From childhood you were taught that it is right and just to delegate your powers to someone else. You never questioned it because everything you are taught in school has one purpose: the glorification of your country. Somehow, though it is your country, you seem to have no part in it until the time comes to surrender your life. Your whole life is spent trying to get a hearing. You’re always on the door-step, never inside.”
Henry Miller

“It used to be a high compliment to tell someone he has a ‘discriminating’ mind; it is now an accusation. Should people learn HOW to discriminate – which used to be a major purpose of schools – we might find ourselves living in a world in which men and women engage in clear, rational, thinking. A world in which people were obsessed with answers to questions formulated by those who have a special interest in collectively-defined conclusions, might be transformed into a world in which individuals ask the kinds of questions it is politically-incorrect to ask; inquiries that the institutional question-keepers want to keep away from those who are to be ruled.”
Butler Shaffer

“Politics is of its very nature is biased in favor of intervention and planning. Even in its ‘minarchist’ or ‘night-watchman’ version, politics is based at root on the idea that some decisions must be made coercively and imposed on unwilling minorities – or even majorities, as the case may be. This is contrary to the principle we observe in private life every day: the consent of both parties is necessary for a transaction to take place.”
Lew Rockwell

“The state apparatus only exacerbates the ideological divisions that exist between people, because it imposes one system on everyone. If this election cycle proves anything, it’s that different folks should be allowed to go their separate ways.
Let the Clintonistas go be governed by Harvard Ph.D.’s.
Let the rest of us figure out what we want, and in general leave each other alone.”
Tom Woods

“The founding fathers of the U.S. designed a government that was supposed to be accountable to the people, so the tragedian fate of it becoming wholly the opposite after only a few centuries is deeply lamentable. However, this only underscores the dire need of Texans to break away from the intractable management of Washington. If we want to see a reversal of America’s self-destructive policies and foolhardy abandonment of the Constitution, sadly, we won’t find it by looking to the largely impotent government in D.C. to provide.
On November 9th we say hello to the new boss, just the ‘same as the old boss,’ understanding that the cycle of futility, this illusion of democracy, will only be broken for Texas when we ourselves break away from that fetid swamp on the Potomac, reviving the castoff idea of ‘government of the people, by the people, for the people,’ long since vanished in Washington. Only through self-determination, with an eye at preserving the best of our founding principles and carefully employing countermeasures to prevent our past mistakes, can Texas salvage a brighter tomorrow. Perhaps then, with discipline, providence, and a bit of luck, we won’t get fooled again.”
Ryan Thorson, Texas Nationalist Movement

“But the scream that overrode all the other screams and seared the air from coast to coast was belted out by the queen vampire, Hillary Clinton, as her bottles of blood ran dry and her dealer’s phone number was suddenly no longer in service, as she lay on the floor of a quiet room with a wooden stake through her heart, as the dawn came up, blinding her, after her final try for the White House exploded in a vaporous cloud of dead leeching insects, as a million lifetimes of inflicting suffering on others culminated in a gross indignity…
O the horror!”
Jon Rappoport

“To be honest with you, I didn’t even know yesterday [11/8/16] was Election Day. So, it was so important to me that I didn’t even know it was happening. We’re focused on other things here. I don’t really make political comments. So, if I say I like one person that means everybody who voted for the other person doesn’t like me. So, why would I do that?”
Lou Saban, Alabama head football coach

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"We are oppressed by government and most people are unaware of it because they themselves have assumed government morality from childhood. It is impossible to change what you believe in your heart. If you are taught that democracy means freedom of political choices, you never question it, and the façade of politics serves for reality. Any challenge to this paradigm is written off as nuttery or conspiracy"
Bob Livingston

“Don't equate being passionate about the truth with being psychologically dependent on everyone else agreeing with you. 
If you want to help cure the world of its madness, you have to find a way to maintain your own sanity even when others react to you as if you've gone mad."
T.K. Coleman

“Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators, and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.”
Albert J. Nock

“It is not the enemy that is essential to war and that forces war upon us, but the imagination. Imagination is the driving force, especially when imagination has been preconditioned by the media, education, and religion, and fed with aggressive boosterism and pathetic pieties by the state’s need for enemies. The imagined phantom swells and clouds the horizon, we cannot see beyond enmity.  The archetypal idea gains a face.  Once the enemy is imagined, one is already in a state of war.  Once the enemy has been named, war has already been declared and the actual declaration becomes inconsequential, only legalistic.”
James Hillman

“If you are forbidden to do what you have a right to do, you are being enslaved. If someone claims to have a right to tell you where you can live, what you are allowed to put into your bloodstream, how you use you property, can take your property from you against your will, and says they can forbid your right to carry tools, they are trying to enslave you. If they kidnap and cage you for doing what you have a right to do, the slavery has gone from the abstract to the concrete.”
Kent McManigal

“The entire human race, wherever situated, is the ‘enemy’ of the institutionally-structured political establishment. Our make-believe “choice” between being ruled and destroyed by either the Trump or Hillary franchises, is as meaningless to our well-being as choosing between emphysema or lung-cancer!”
Butler Shaffer

“The so-called ‘social contract’ is a crock of shit. There is no contract if I did not choose to sign it. The society does not have a right to impose its will on me, even if it is purported to be for ‘the greater good.’ I must have choice to opt-in to any system. I must have choice where my tax dollars go. I must have choice what I do with my own body, including both sex and drugs. I must have choice in what is public and what is private. I must have choice in everything, not orders from ‘authority figures.’”
Mike Margolies

“The free-market solution to the migrant situation is quite simple. If all the property of a country is privately owned, anyone can come and stay as long as he can pay for his accommodations. When even the streets and parks are privately owned, trespassers, beggars, squatters, migrants, vagrants, and the like have a problem. A country with 100% private property, and zero welfare, would only attract people who like those conditions. And they’d undoubtedly be welcome as individuals. But 'migration' would be impossible.
So, again, I'm all for open borders. Anybody should be able to go anywhere if they can support themselves. In a free market society, however, nobody's going to give you money just for existing. You have to produce goods and services in order to be able to buy food, shelter, and clothing.”
Doug Casey

“What’s the psychology behind America’s support of its government’s evil wars? The scar and shame of 9/11 loom large. That was a defeat. More generally, Americans won’t accept defeat. They fear it. They fear not being numero uno. They fear even a loss of prestige, and politicians even use that as an excuse for maintaining losing commitments and interventions. Americans fear a loss of control, even if such control is counterproductive. Their psychology demands winning and being on top, being the big honcho, the world’s policeman.”
Michael Rozeff

“The entire world has now learned a new lesson about the putrid, cynically corrupt, criminal nature of American ‘democracy’ with its vote rigging, orchestrated acts of violence, censorship, and the creation of a de facto state-run media with its never-ending avalanche of lies in support of the regime, little different from the ‘media’ of the Soviet Union.  No one in the world wants to import this!  Which of course is why the U.S. government is not ‘the world’s policeman’ but the world’s bully that invades, conquers, and instigates revolutions, all in the name of ‘American exceptionalism’ and ‘bringing democracy’ to other part of the world.”
Tom DiLorenzo

“People accuse me of being overly cynical about America. To that I say: Guilty as charged! When some hipster wraps his brand-new McMuscle car around a power pole because his face was buried in a cell phone screen trying to ‘capture’ some Pokémon critter that exists in McLa-La Land, I fail to see how this society can function much longer.”
Jack Perry

“Politicians are like celebrities getting ready to release a new album or film:
When you hate them they win.
When you love them, they win.
When you fear them, they win.
When you praise them, they win.
When you spread lies about them, they win.
When you tell the truth about them, they win.
As long as you believe they are the primary ones worth talking about, they win.”
T.K. Coleman

“The more we exist outside the system, the more creative we are.”
Beatrice Wood

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“If everyone relied less on political celebrities, if everyone stopped waiting for a knight on a white horse, or a feminist icon, a crusade to fight or a social justice mob to join and started determining their own futures; if everyone began looking far more carefully at the people behind the curtain, then perhaps we could finally see a change in humanity not seen in thousands of years.  Not a collectivist change, but an individualist change, which is the only kind of change everlasting or worth a damn.”
Brandon Smith

“As citizens of this nation, it’s important to understand that it was a group of states that came together to form a nation, not the other way around. This freedom is our baby, not the federal government’s. The people gave it life. The people saw it through tough times. We the people decide what options are on the table, and we don’t need permission from the government we created to ensure that it continues to serve us as we see fit.”
Dallas Brooks

“Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.”
Henry David Thoreau

“The well-being – even the survival – of our species itself, depends on upon the full expression of the life force that is found only within individuals. This importance is best served by social systems in which decision-making is diffused among individuals. Life belongs to the living, not to soulless abstractions to which we have conditioned ourselves to be subservient.”
Butler Shaffer

“If the flag is symbolic of the Constitution, that Constitution died long ago — destroyed by a crony railroad lawyer and mercantilist who made war on a sovereign people to benefit monied interests.
If the flag is symbolic of freedom, that freedom no longer exists — stolen long ago by crony corporations and globalist banksters and unaccountable oligarchical black-robed satanists and idol worshippers who usurped their authority created laws out of thin air under the guise of ‘interpreting the Constitution’ a dictate not granted them under the original document.”
Bob Livingston

“I prefer to think of mankind as having no preconceived fate, but as a species whose varied, individual interests combine with their spontaneous and self-directed characters to respond to nature’s continuing demand for success: to be a changing person in a changing world, for whom peace and the inviolability of individuals prevails.”
Butler Shaffer

“Don't place blind faith in politics. Learn to respect your own power. Your ability to change the world isn't defined by who you vote for. You have a much greater capacity for creating a freer society through innovation and individuality than what mainstream media would have you believe. To hell with sitting around waiting for politicians to save us. Have some vision. Have some creativity. Have some self-respect. Have some self-determination.”
T.K. Coleman

“Only to members of the military are we urged to say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Toward the great entrepreneurs who extend our lives and make them more fulfilling, we are taught to be envious and resentful. They are most certainly not thanked for their service.”
Lew Rockwell

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
H.L. Mencken

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“As you may know, Texas’ relationship to the federal government is contractual, and a contract is only as good as the honor of the parties involved. If you were in a marriage where your spouse continually abused you and cheated on you, all while spending the money you had laid aside for your children, it is doubtful that a reasonable person would say to you, ‘Too bad! You have to stay married!’ Certainly the founders didn’t believe this, and the 10th amendment of the Constitution reserves all power not given the federal government for States, including the power the leave the union.”
Ryan Thorson

“Who, we ask, has the right to rule what ideas pass through your mind? Taken further, who has the right to regulate how you use your mind? The proper answer is nobody. Not the DEA. Not Congress. Not anyone. 
Cognitive liberty, we find, is the cornerstone of individual liberty. Because if you’re not free to think for yourself or alter your consciousness on your own terms, how free are you actually? If you do not have autonomy over your own brain chemistry, how can you claim to have any autonomy at all?”
Chris Campbell

“I trust the businessman only when he’s out to make money – because then he’s going to want to do things my way. When he’s out to do me good, he is going to do it his way.”
Dwight Lee

“Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?”
Frederick Bastiat

“Why does the world look to the most stupid, vile, arrogant, corrupt and murderous government on the planet for leadership?
War is the only destination to which Washington can lead.”
Paul Craig Roberts

"While no president is anywhere near as decent as his supporters want you to believe, neither is any president as bad as his opposition claims. Presidents are simply the gunk that floats to the top of the political soup, to be scooped up and held aloft as someone more noble than the rest of humanity.”
Kent McManigal

“Usually, the greater good is based on entirely arbitrary determinations rather than any inherent moral code, making it vaporous and easily changeable.  A ‘greater good’ without principles based in inherent conscience or natural law can be shifted on a whim to suit any evil imaginable.”
Brandon Smith

"The political process (voting) is not a function of government or functional to government. The political process is a façade of government that satisfies the quest for political choices. It is an illusion unrelated to reality and political participation by the people. It is, however, the perfect system for keeping the people focused on empty nonsense year after year. People totally misunderstand the nature of government. Otherwise they would know that there is no such thing as political choices or political freedom."
Bob Livingston

"Are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump more fit national leaders than Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, our first four presidents who we are reminded were elected by a suffrage restricted to white male property holders? Is there any reason to think that by expanding our suffrage we have improved the quality of our leadership? Yes, we have become more egalitarian since the American Founding and some might argue, more just, but our march toward democratic equality looks grimmer and grimmer each passing day."       
Paul Gottfried

“I used to joke that there was nothing wrong with Washington that 10 megatons on the capital couldn’t cure. But I don’t say that anymore. Partially because it’s too dangerous, but mainly because it’s now untrue. What’s now needed is 10 megatons on the capital, and four more bursts in a quadrant 10 miles out.”
Doug Casey

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Today the law of natural selection is aiding the manmade laws of artificial selection. Under Socialism the unfit would survive. Under Socialism the efficient man would have a price upon his head."
H.L. Mencken

“In short, war is inseparable from propaganda, lies, hatred, impoverishment, cultural degradation, and moral corruption. It is the most horrific outcome of the moral and political legitimacy people are taught to grant the state. Wrapped in the trappings of patriotism, home, songs, and flags, the state deludes people into despising a leader and a country that until that point they had barely even heard of, much less had an informed opinion about, and it teaches its subjects to cheer the maiming and death of fellow human beings who have never done them any harm.”
Lew Rockwell

“The crucial distinction between government and business is not private vs. public. After all, business often serves the public while government often serves private interests. The crucial difference between government and the so-called private sector is impunity – the ability to assault, kill, and defraud without consequence. The more government and business become intermingled, the more the law becomes a tool of privilege for private and public players alike rather than a defensive measure for the equal liberty and dignity of all.”
Joey Clark

“Everyone acts like the fate of Western Civilization hangs upon these elections. If that is the case, then Western Civilization is long past its ‘Best By’ date and needs to be shuffled off to the trash can before it starts to stink even worse.”
Jack Perry

“Populism is the belief in policies that benefit the average person.  The only viable populist platform is liberty and the free market.  Protectionism always was and always will be a policy that favors wealthy elites at the expense of the average American worker. Politics is a rich man’s sport.”
James Ostrowski

“It is a curious notion that if 15 percent is considered enough public support to grant a candidate a national platform in the Presidential debates, then why is an issue like state independence [supported by 25%] relatively ignored by our state and national leaders? Usually, when a quarter of a country’s population supports an issue, it tends to demand attention. In a cynical political sense, one would even expect officials to exploit it in order to achieve higher office, but instead there’s largely silence. I suppose they recognize that an implication of independence being so popular among their constituents might be that their own leadership is seen as dysfunctional.”
Ryan Thorson

“Similar to the past, where we recognized chattel slavery was wrong. In time, we’ll also see free-range slavery as a mistake.”
Jamie Redman

“Progressivism is a cartel. It is breaking down. It wins only by default. Its political leaders no longer inspire confidence. Yet the whole movement has been a massive confidence game for over a century: faith in bureaucracy. That faith is waning. So are new revenue sources to support the existing programs, which are all running deficits.
They promised a new world order. It's the same old order: power grabbing and tax grabbing.”
Gary North

“All world history presents a contest between the economic and the political means. The state is an organization of the political means forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished.”
Franz Oppenheimer

“Divisiveness is not a byproduct of politics, it’s a feature. Politics is designed to create hatred and unrest, as a prelude to justifying more and more state power over our lives.
After all, politics is war by other means. And war claims victims. War has winners and losers. Most of all, war has profiteers: namely the political class and its many clients, both in government and the nominally private sector.”
Jeff Deist

“No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.”
Ludwig von Mises

“Let it be known across the land: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, no matter who craps in the master bedroom’s bathroom, have about as much power to ‘save’ America than does Vladimir Putin.”
Chris Campbell

Random Rogue Rants

I find it interesting that any information offered by oil and gas companies (gathered by legitimate research performed by real scientists) is considered “suspect.”   Yet, any statement by any greenie weenie, carbon-hating, Luddite, environmental group (just well enough funded to have a web address and fax machine) is considered reliable and reputable.

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I find it disturbing that any shred of remaining freedom in this country is considered a “loophole.”

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I tire of the socialist notion that people are owed a living (and even a comfortable one) due only to the fact they exist.  I also am weary of this unspoken obligation that is thrust upon me to wipe people’s bottoms when they poop in their pants, because some yearned for, benevolent, mystical entity (usually created by “government”) does not yet exist to do it for them.

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A “debtors revolt” is nothing more than a “Degenerate Display of Deadbeats.” They only seem to become aware of the fraudulent, fiat nature of the money they’ve borrowed when they find it difficult to pay it back.

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Working “within the system” to create a government that “serves the people” makes as much sense as feeding a cancerous tumor to help cure its host.

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A religion that believes in the supernatural and that its philosophy should be forced on everyone is no different than any collective, political philosophy that claims obedience to its authority will create heaven on earth.  They both deny the superiority and moral necessity of self-government.

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The state’s edicts and rule is ultimately maintained through violence, not consent. The obedience of the state’s subjects is not encouraged by self-interest but through fear.

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There are people who have good minds and souls, but have not yet broken out of the matrix of state loyalty and obedience. No healthy mind or soul can reject the concept and ideals of liberty when they are properly presented.

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Why must I be burdened with taking all these political actions as required, or “allowed,” or “recommended” by this governing institution to control, alter, or abolish this same institution that I had nothing to do with creating? Why is the onus on me? Why isn’t the burden of seeking consent and legitimacy on this institution? In other words, why must I petition a self-proclaimed king? Why mustn’t he petition me?

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Yes, a private institution also has laws or rules governing how it is to be altered or even abolished.  But unlike political government, that is an organization with a voluntary membership and only claims to govern (or rule) that specific membership. That organization must petition me to join it and it doesn’t claim to rule me if I do not choose to become a member. 
When I’m born into this world this institution called “government” automatically considers me as a subject, obligated to accept their rule, pay tribute to them, and obey them.  And if I wish to initiate even some small change to that rule, tribute, or obedience, I am also the party obligated take all the steps and jump through all these procedural hoops (that I had no say in developing) necessary to initiate change. I am obligated to make changes to a ruling institution that I did not create nor give consent to.

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Jefferson and Madison wrote the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions with the idea that the states would either ignore, or punish the federal government encroachments. I’m  sure such “accountability mechanisms” could be very useful to people who actually created the beast. Particularly, since the beast was still young, immature, and still relatively harmless.  But after a couple hundred years this beast has grown to a huge ugly, overbearing monster that cares little about these age old mechanisms. It takes pleasure in stomping on them with it huge hoofs. 

The solution is people taking personal responsibility for their lives and liberties (including forming militias and working for secession) as a show of force and resolve to keep the beast at bay and eventually starving it.

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Jesus Christ was probably one of the few people of historical significance who was born an anarchist (as we all are)  and remained an anarchist for the rest of his earthly life.

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I’m a voracious reader. I can recall being so from the age of five or six. I grew up in a small town that had a public library housed in a small, very old, wood frame church. As soon as you entered it, you smelled the odor of old books. I’ve always loved that smell. Every time I smell it I experience the same Pavlovian response that a hungry man gets when detecting the smell of a grilling steak. But instead of being encouraged to feed my stomach I’m inspired to feed my head.

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No man can be truly free until he knows the truth. No man can remain free unless he continually seeks the truth.

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If you take the time to study just what went on during the crafting of the US Constitution, you may come to this conclusion: Many of  America’s “Founding Fathers” were “fathers” the same way a rapist is a “father.”

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When a private individual presents an opinion that I vehemently oppose, I see it as merely a point of view I disagree with, not necessarily a threat. However, when people become part of government, their benign, personal opinions and ideology tend to turn into “national policy.” This policy is enforced by violence and therefore becomes a threat.

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The state loves to redefine the language. It labels individuals- citizen, legal, illegal, non-combatant, combatant, militant- as if it was classifying different breeds of cattle. Some breeds are productive for the farmer, some are not. Some breeds are worthy to continue life, some are not.

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Few events are more inspiring to me than when a member of the military resigns after becoming a principled libertarian. It’s always heartwarming to witness a bootlicker morph into a shitkicker.

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“Administrative leave” means sitting around all day looking at kiddie porn.

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“Is Rand Paul better than Lindsey Graham?”
Hell, a cockroach feeding on your still warm dinner is better than Lindsey Graham.

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I’ve watched Lonesome Dove 21 times. I never tire of watching it. I asked myself how I could watch a movie that many times and still enjoy it? I concluded the reason was is because this particular western is more than just a great movie, it is great poetry- the story, the characters, the dialog, the scenery- all are pure poetry. 
And, of course, great poetry never gets old, tiresome, or dated.

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Being judgmental and discriminatory are two necessary and natural human actions. They both are the result of individuals processing information to make important life decisions. Yet, many categorically condemn both actions, no matter the target, no matter the reasoning involved.
  
Why? I think it’s because both actions threaten conformity of thought and obedience to authority. Being judgmental and discriminatory are antithetical to following the herd. Being judgmental and discriminatory means you are actually thinking, not just following.

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There are laws of economics just as there are laws of physics. Violate them and you pay the consequences.
And no amount of god-State rhetoric or mysticism will change that fact.

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"Minority" is a code word for anti-white bigots to designate those who are non-white.
But they can't say "non-white" because they know they'll be called out for the hateful, racist bigots that they are!

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Re: the legalization of gay marriage:
After decades of rightfully demanding that government get out of their bedrooms (by the existence of sodomy laws), they've now created a ringside seat for their previous oppressor. 
The power to license brings with it the power to regulate. 

The only foreseeable “good” is that the potential market for divorce lawyers has increased.

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“Rap” is the guttural emanations of soulless, untalented, lower primate, ghetto monkeys and soulless, untalented, tone deaf, white trash. The true abomination of this phenomenon is not its existence, but that it is claimed to be “music” and an “art form,” worthy of consideration and listened to by civilized folk.

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If anti-gun kooks can claim that guns (inanimate objects) can create crime, how can they claim it’s ridiculous to claim that Gun Free Zones (inanimate constructs) create murder?

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My view on transsexuals, binaries, etc. and other reality optional constructs, in a nutshell:

I can put on a collar and leash and shit in the yard, but that don’t make me a cocker spaniel.

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I believe in the primacy of the individual. The predations of the state, without doubt, is the greatest threat to that primacy.

Some people see this viewpoint as inspiring, some as foolish, and others as downright scary.

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I think you'll find that most statists read little or not at all. They don't have the attention span. Most probably have not read a book since high school, if even then. They prefer sound bites from TV and word bites from social media. They’re easy to digest and no thinking or contemplation is required.

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The cops aren't there to help you.
They're there to control you (for the benefit of the ruling class), put you in a cage (for the profit and benefit of the ruling class), to extract revenue from you (to benefit both the ruling class and the enforcement class), and to KILL you, if necessary (if it benefits the ruling class when they feel they can get away with it).
Lesson: Never, ever, call the cops
Lesson: Never, ever, talk to the cops.

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Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"There can’t be ‘too much liberty’ because liberty, being the freedom to do anything that doesn’t violate others, is self-regulating. If an act violates someone, it’s not liberty.”
Kent McManigal

“What is the Bill of Rights at heart but a way to impose very high transactions costs on any attempt to erode particular protections against government abuse? What is federalism, but providing a voting-with-your-feet alternative which makes government abuse harder to successfully impose? What is the core issue of ‘activist’ courts but their ability to lower the transaction cost of changing the Constitution through redefinition rather than the high-transaction-cost way Constitutionally specified for such changes? What is the most important goal of separation of powers but to make the transaction costs of government actions higher, in order to restrict government acts to where there is a much higher degree of societal agreement?”
Gary Galles

“The U.S. government has a life of its own. And it only really cares about the U.S. the way a flea cares about a dog. A flea needs the dog; it wants the dog to survive. But not because it cares about the dog itself. The prime directive of every living being, whether it’s an amoeba or a corporation or a government, is SURVIVE. That’s the prime directive; it comes before anything else. The U.S. government is an entity that has a life of its own. Its prime directive is looking out for number one.”
Doug Casey

“In politics, your sensitivities are despised and debated at every turn.
In the free market, your sensitivities are treated as an opportunity for someone somewhere to create wealth for themselves by figuring out a creative way to give you what you want. 
Don't trust in the power of politicians and other agents of the state. Trust in the power of markets, self-interests, and incentives.”
T.K. Coleman

“The bottom line is that attempts to ‘change the world’ whole – to change it in a way that is noticeable and traceable to one action or small set of actions – is the height of arrogance. No such change, no matter how well-intentioned the change-agent, will be for the better. Beneficial efforts to change the world are almost always small, incremental, and performed in the voluntary sector of society – in the market, in families, in civil society. Not in or through the state.”
Donald Boudreaux

“He who frees his own mind first cannot be imprisoned by any government. They can slander him, criticize him, call him a 'bad American', or even un-American and he simply does not care. Why? Because he is no longer attached to any of those concepts. He has no ego-self invested in the State which defines itself as ‘American’ and needs no approval from the State to feel whole or complete. The State has nothing to offer him and, therefore, nothing by which he can be ultimately controlled. If this were not so, the government would not invest vast sums in propaganda and state-sponsored peer pressure efforts to keep the illusion up and running. The State does not fear a revolution. They have enough tanks and men to put one down and enough propaganda to cause the majority to cheer the revolutionaries stood against a wall and shot. What the State fears is being ignored. That is one thing tanks cannot defeat.”
Jack Perry

“The US allied itself with Stalin, then fought Communism. It propped up Saddam Hussein, then murdered him. After bombing Hanoi, it now sells weapons to the same regime. In front of a huge Ho Chi Minh bust, Bush, Clinton, and Obama beamed. Freedom fighters will be redefined as terrorists or vice versa. When it comes to geopolitics, there is no ideological consistency. Only war is constant, and the flow of refugees.”
Linh Dinh

“Americans, and Europeans too, are witnessing the end of the myth of democratic consensus. Democratic voting, so called, doesn’t yield some noble compromise between Left and Right, but only an entrenched political class and its system of patronage.”
Jeff Deist

“Agreement about a common purpose between a group of known people is clearly an idea that cannot be applied to a large society which includes people who do not know one another. The modern society and the modern economy have grown up through the recognition that this idea — which was fundamental to life in a small group — a face-to-face society, is simply inapplicable to large groups.”
Friedrich A. Hayek

“The established order will require bright, creative, and thoughtful minds to design and control the technology upon which the system depends for its life-destructive schemes. But these same brilliant minds may be most motivated to expose the state’s evil practices from within.”
Butler Shaffer

“I don’t affiliate with Republicans, but I am happy to support a Republican that proves he or she has no interest in dictating my principles or my future.  Same with a Democrat. Same with any black or white or brown person. Same with any gay or straight person.  I really don’t care; stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Get in my way, however, and I will step on you.  If you’re bigger than me, I’ll dislocate your kneecaps and then step on you.  There is no despot so big that they are immune to the heel of a strategically placed boot.
Brandon Smith

“Don’t you think it farfetched that ignorant, corrupt, and cowardly American journalists who lie for money know more than physicists, chemists, 2,700 high-rise architects and structural engineers who have called on the US Congress to launch a real investigation of 9/11, firefighters and first responders who were on the WTC scene, military and civilian pilots and former high government officials, all of whom are on record challenging the unbelievable and physically impossible official story of 9/11? What kind of a dumbshit moron does a person have to be to believe that the United States government and its media whores know better than the laws of physics?”
Paul Craig Roberts

“To those statists who tell libertarians ‘If you hate government so much why don't you move to Somalia’ libertarians can now respond, ‘If you love government so much why don't you move to Venezuela?’”
Garry Reed

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“Americans have redefined ‘steal.’ It now means, ‘Acquiring property from another person yourself rather than waiting for government to acquire it on your behalf.’ So long as the recipient doesn’t wind up in jail, he will eagerly accept anything politicians ‘redistribute’ to him from his family and friends.”
Becky Akers

“Realize you are very much okay with murdering nonviolent neighbors every time you vote for politicians that use armed agents with the option of deadly force to prevent nonviolent behaviors.”
David Gornoski

“Ruling elites have three basic ways to keep the subject population under their thumb: threaten, bribe, and bamboozle. Everything they do is a variant of one of these basic actions. So, if the lush, misleading overgrowth were cut away, all government activities could be undertaken by only three departments: the Department of Cops and Soldiers; the Department of Santa Claus; and the Department of Delusion.”
Robert Higgs

“Throughout the western world, ‘tolerance’ has become remarkably ‘intolerant,’ and ‘diversity’ demands ruthless conformity.”
Mark Steyn

“Why would an intelligent person in any country want to stand for and sing a ‘national anthem?’ How would such an act contribute to the well-being of someone who engaged in it?  Let me state, at the outset, that in all matters relating to my conduct, I am a firm agnostic when it comes to evaluating the conduct others expect me to follow. Consensus-based definitions of reality or propriety do not impress me. My mind will always insist upon  asking my favorite word in the English language – the word that children ask of the adults in their lives until they are forced to abandon its use – ‘why?’  If you would like me to follow a prescribed course of behavior, please inform me how my doing so would benefit me.”
Butler Shaffer

“The truth is we have more in common with people of different ethnicities and religions than we can possibly know in a totalitarian system drenched in the divisive propaganda of identity politics.”
Charles Hugh Smith

"Whenever you have a rebellion focused on the inherent ideals of freedom, totalitarian institutions struggle to intervene. The issue is, freedom is not only moral, but practical. Wherever true freedom exists, people are not only happier, but more productive and prosperous. It’s hard for a tyrant to fight a rebellion based on freedom because the idea is more powerful than any weapon or any form of treachery. No matter how advanced the tyranny is, and no matter how many rebels they imprison or kill, the idea of freedom endures.”
Brandon Smith

“The United States government cannot give what does not belong to it in the first place. Freedom is not the property of the United States government to give. And the only way they can take it away is through force and violence. I ask you, can a country call itself free if its government uses violence to deny freedom? Therefore, if anyone thinks that freedom comes from the United States government, he is mistaken.”
Jack Perry

“The whole military response to 9/11 has been an utter disaster. The costs have been astronomical. They are orders of magnitude in excess of all the lives lost on 9/11. For whom a disaster? For Iraqis. For those of us who treasure peace, justice, human life and rational behavior, George W. Bush chose an utterly senseless course of action. For those who like war, slaughter, creating misery, making war profits and getting military promotions and pensions, Bush did the right thing. And for people who like to lash out in revenge against anyone, even those who had nothing to do with a crime, Bush did the right thing. The lives lost on 9/11 could never be restored by attacking Iraq. Future terrorism acts could not be averted or prevented by attacking Iraq. In fact, in one way or another the consequence has been their augmentation.”
Michael Rozeff

“Privacy is the right to the self. Privacy is what gives you the ability to share with the world who you are, on your own terms. For them to understand what you’re trying to be. And to protect for yourself the parts of you you’re not sure about, that you’re still experimenting with. If we don’t have privacy, what we’re losing is the ability to make mistakes. We’re losing the ability to be ourselves.”
Edward Snowden

“It is in the free market that self-interest finds its finest expression; that is a cardinal point in individualism. If the market is regularly raided, by robbers or the government, and the safety of property is impaired, the individual loses interest in production, and the abundance of things men live by shrinks. Hence, it is for the good of society that self-interest in the economic sphere be allowed to operate without hindrance.”
Frank Chodorov

“The Constitution and Bill of Rights have no role in ‘creating’ rights. The Constitution itself is useful only insofar as it lays out the guidelines, structure, and organization of the government. It has no place dealing with anything else. 
Rights are extremely simple and bills of rights, constitutions, civics classes, etc. only serve to muddy the waters. They lead people into the confused belief that individuals or representatives or majorities can create rights by writing them down on a magical piece of paper.”
Ryan Miller

“When you hear the words ‘failed state,’ you may have noticed that the phrase is never applied to a capitalist society. There are good reasons for this.”

Gary North

“I grew up assuming the Soviet Union was simply part of the status quo. All of us grew up assuming the United Kingdom was part of the furniture. Why do we think the United States of America is etched in stone?”

Sanford Levinson

“My guess is she’s through. She ought to be through. Let her go into a sanitarium and stop killing people.”
Lew Rockwell, on the sickly Queen Killary

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“If you own your own body, then it follows that you have a right of self defense. If you do no town your own body, and are a slave to the state, then your self defense is at the mercy of the political ruling class and its ‘police’ force.  From the perspective of our rulers, it’s not a good idea to allow the slaves to arm themselves.”
Tom Dilorenzo

“I realize people think the military is ‘us.’ But if you know anything about group dynamics, you realize that they’re loyal first to each other. Then to their employer. And last to the citizens."
Doug Casey

“The army is the only order of men sufficiently united to concur in the same sentiments, and powerful enough to impose them on the rest of their fellow-citizens; but the temper of soldiers, habituated at once to violence and to slavery, renders them very unfit guardians of a legal, or even a civil constitution.”
Edward Gibbon

“History has repeatedly shown us that freedom is the most effective military strategy. Concerns regarding military invasions by foreign state powers in a stateless society are of course valid, but are unsubstantiated when considering the facts. With over 300 million guns owned by 1/3 of households in The United States, the American continent is already a fortress. If we were to have a free market whereby the average person would have at least 3 times more wealth as well as more freedom to own and innovate new military-grade armaments, the prospect of conquest by a foreign state becomes completely unfeasible.”
Matt Ryan

“To be sure, central bankers don’t think of themselves as socialists. But socialism doesn’t just mean nationalization of capital. It can be the nationalization of money and the attempt to plan monetary policy the way the Soviets tried to plan wheat production. This is the pedigree. All government controls stem from the same intellectual root. They all threaten freedom, the market order, and civilization itself.”
Jeffrey Tucker

“Our mother has become a witch. Yes, same symbols, same flag, same pledge of allegiance, but a decadent spirit controlling the perceptions of the American people, keeping them on the animal farm (controlling their perceptions) long enough to impoverish and enslave them.”
Bob Livingston

“And exactly what has the 'settled science' of cataclysmic anthropogenic global warming convinced us to do? Deliver unprecedented power to politicians and bureaucrats. Power to commandeer entire industries. Power to pump billions of taxpayer dollars into half-baked schemes cooked up by crony corporatists. Power to redistribute income on a global scale. And to maintain this power, when cracks begin to show in the narrative, criminalize dissent, much as the Inquisition did to Galileo.”
Bill Frezza

“The definition of terrorism is ‘the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims.’ When you consider that all the state does is use violence for political aims, it shouldn’t be surprising that government operations have a lot in common with terrorist organizations.”
T.J. Brown

“The core of blackness seems to consist of, first, a belief that all of their travails spring from the malignity of whites and, second, that whites owe it to them to solve their problems.”
Fred Reed

“Freedom is a universal inborn psychological construct.  Almost all people have a sense of it and its usefulness.  In fact, most fundamental moral principles including freedom are shared by people regardless of their cultural backgrounds.  The only places in which freedom is not respected are places in which centralizing elites have propagandized and threatened the citizenry.  When those elites and their influence are removed for a time, there is usually a natural wellspring resurgence of respect for liberty within that society.”
Brandon Smith

“Each of us faces a great choice. Shall I quietly accept the system of state control or shall I stand up for self-control? Self-control offers a life of freedom and responsibility. It enables us to realize our dignity in peace and harmony with others. It is a life worthy of a human being. It’s the foundation for prosperity and progress. State control offers a life of obedience, subservience, and fear. It promotes the war of all against all in the struggle for the power to control the lives of others. Self-control is a clear and simple principle applicable to all: every person gets one and only one life to live. State control has no clear and simple principle and invites conflict as individuals and groups struggle to control the state, and thus each other, or to evade control by others.”
Tom G. Palmer

“Good order results spontaneously when things are let alone.”

Chuang-Tzu

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“We see that as soon as we surrender the principle that the state should not interfere in any questions touching on the individual’s mode of life, we end by regulating and restricting the latter down to the smallest detail. The personal freedom of the individual is abrogated. He becomes a slave of the community, bound to obey the dictates of the majority. It is hardly necessary to expatiate on the ways in which such powers could be abused by malevolent persons in authority. The wielding, of powers of this kind even by men imbued with the best of intentions must needs reduce the world to a graveyard of the spirit.”
Ludwig von Mises

"The unending contributions of entrepreneurs — forgoing consumption, exploring the marketplace, investing capital, creating products, building businesses, inventing jobs, accumulating inventories — all long before any return is received, all without any assurance of success, all in response to an imaginative sense of the needs of others, constitute a pattern of giving that dwarfs in extent and essential generosity any socialist scheme of redistribution."
George Gilder

“Whereas markets bring us ever closer together and incentivize us to treat all people with a basic level of respect and decency, political systems and states do the exact opposite. For all the progress that markets have allowed us to gain in terms of equality of natural rights, acceptance of others who are different, etc., the state continuously comes in and highlights people’s differences, stirs up largely imagined divisions—all to exploit for political gains. Things like affirmative action, social security, and welfare all serve to hurt some only by hurting others worse.”
Ryan Miller

“The teapartiers have an interesting genesis. Several years ago some libertarians culled a few disruptive beta members from the conservative and liberal herds and attempted to interbreed them in the hopes of producing a socially liberal / economic conservative brood. Unfortunately the rightwing DNA became dominate and once released into the wild they mated almost exclusively with republicans which produced today’s mongrelized hybrids.”
Garry Reed

“It is not the genius who moves us forward, but the gains from specialization and exchange via the division of labor. Progress is not about great leaps forward, but the consistent small advances that come from more people engaging in ever finer degrees of specialization and making more things available for trade; it’s about having the market institutions necessary to facilitate such trade and the private property it depends on.”
Steve Horwitz

“Laws that turn peaceful activities into victimless crimes don’t magically stop people from doing those activities. And legalizing them won’t magically make everyone start doing it. I’m gonna do what I wanna do regardless. Why? Because I’m an unapologetic freedom loving degenerate. And that’s okay."
T. J. Brown

"The problem at hand is not that too many Millennials are socialists; the problem is that too many Millennials don’t understand that in almost every aspect of their lives, they are capitalists. If Millennials truly want to dedicate themselves to the ideals of socialism, they will have to surrender their iPhones, their Amazon accounts, their Uber accounts, their craft beer, the hipster beard accessories, and pretty much every other aspect of their daily lives."
Brittany Hunter

"The state is not the same as society, but is its worst enemy, with opposing goals and methods. Instead of using the economic means, in which both parties win, the state employs the political means, in which one party wins at the expense of another.
Roadside peddlers use the economic means; muggers use the political means."
Kent McManigal

“The executive state is the state as we know it, all flowing from the White House down. The role of the courts is to enforce the will of the executive. The role of the legislature is to ratify the policy of the executive. This executive is not really about the person who seems to be in charge. The president is only the veneer, and the elections are only the tribal rituals we undergo to confer some legitimacy on the institution. In reality, the nation-state lives and thrives outside any ‘democratic mandate.’ Here we find the power to regulate all aspects of life and the wicked power to create the money necessary to fund this executive rule.”
Lew Rockwell

“My own basic perspective on the history of man...is to place central importance on the great conflict which is eternally waged between Liberty and Power... I see the liberty of the individual not only as a great moral good in itself (or, with Lord Acton, as the highest political good), but also as the necessary condition for the flowering of all the other goods that mankind cherishes: moral virtue, civilization, the arts and sciences, economic prosperity. Out of liberty, then, stem the glories of civilized life.”
Murray Rothbard

“I used to joke that there was nothing wrong with Washington that 10 megatons on the capital couldn’t cure. But I don’t say that anymore. Partially because it’s too dangerous, but mainly because it’s now untrue. What’s now needed is 10 megatons on the capital, and four more bursts in a quadrant 10 miles out.”
Doug Casey

Get Drunk to Honor Dead Hired Killers

Militarists and loyalists, armed with their illogical and slavish view of the state, can be relied upon to create ever more comical ways to glorify their most revered sacrament- human sacrifice. To be specific- human sacrifice as performed in the name of the King. This sacrament is manifested in an action militarists describe as “dying to serve your country.”

A brewer in Washington state has created a new brand of beer called “Legacy Lager” to honor the native, uniformed instigators of US, worldwide aggression.

“Each of the 16-ounce cans include a dog tag graphic with the name, hometown, date of birth, and date of death of the service members.”

To hell with having your name inscribed on some unseen tombstone or dark, creepy looking, wall- now you and your brief, violent life can be memorialized on an aluminum can!

Appreciative militarists can now “give back” not through some somber, boring, memorial ceremony but rather by offering a beer swilling salute to those who died for the for the preservation of murderous military aggression, the police state, widespread spying, and collectivist, economic oppression. Toast the name of the unfortunate soul appearing on the side of the can and drink yourself into mind numbing oblivion!

Throughout history, elaborate ceremonies have been conducted around the act and celebration of human sacrifice. Just add this beer consuming ceremony to the list of rituals used to appease whatever deity was popular at the time. In the present, that would be our DC overlords.

But now that you have emptied scores of cans in your patriotic, hops guzzling, gluttony, a pertinent question comes to mind: Will it be considered sacrilege or disrespectful if these cans are disposed in the trash after they have been emptied? Does militarist etiquette prescribe a mandated, honorable manner of disposition- such as the reverent actions and religious incantations required of US flag disposal? Will improper scrapping of these aluminum memorials be considered an unforgivable sin? Is recycling viewed as an acceptable alternative?

Is anyone else asking these important questions?

But there’s more!

"A Justice Department Inspector General report released [August 17] said inmates at a Beaumont, Tex., prison passed off hack helmets between 2006 and 2009, as part of a $30 million deal between the Department of Defense and Ohio-based manufacturer ArmorSource. Federal Prison Industries also served as a subcontractor.”

It seems that Federal inmates manufactured substandard combat helmets during that span of time. The Regime ultimately recalled 126,000 of them, costing the tax slaves (which includes US militarists) $19 million. No one has proven (at least anyone still alive) that any of these helmets contributed to any battle fatalities. But no one knows for sure.

So now, not only can grateful, US partisans raise their inscribed beer cans to toast the preservation of murderous military aggression, the police state, widespread spying, collectivist, economic oppression, and of course human sacrifice, but can now add corporatist, prison slave labor to the list of blessings!

And don’t forget to mention the faulty equipment that may have assisted the deceased’s sacrifice to appease the DC War Gods.

Honor the fallen by….. falling on your face, drunk.

“(Burp!)….‘Murrica!….(Belch!)”

Hysterical Gun Critics Arm Themselves With Dildos

Concealed carry has been legal on Texas college campuses for about a month now and the Loony Left’s response has certainly been entertaining. The first protest involves openly carrying around dildos on campus.

“Cocks Not Glocks, a protest group formed last fall, is urging students and others to openly carry the sex toys around campus, offering a multicolored counterpoint to the concealed weapons that holders of handgun licenses can now legally carry inside UT classrooms and most buildings.”

When I first saw this news headline, I immediately thought these hoplophobes were throwing out the same, tired canard that people don’t want to be armed to defend themselves but are merely insecure about the size of their penis, and therefore carry a weapon to compensate for that perceived deficiency. However, it turns out I was wrong.

The use of dildos is a to protest the fact that university rules (section 13-201) disallow the display of sex toys in class but now has no prohibition against concealed hand guns carried by permit holders. To the left, such a discrepancy is “obnoxious,” that somehow, the “right” to carry a dildo to class is equivalent to carrying a firearm.

As the left often does, they commit the logical folly of comparing apples with oranges:

1) Comparing permission to openly displaying sex toys to an individual’s ability to protect themselves fails to make any argumentative point. Using such an impractical comparison merely exposes the desperate protest participant as childish, petulant, and intellectually immature.

2) Though based on a vague, poorly worded state law, the sex toy related prohibition is a university created regulation, not a state law. Objectors to this idiotic university rule should spend their time protesting and lobbying the university, not foolishly relating it to a state law protecting individual self defense.

Such an incorrect comparison can best be illustrated by what the university’s response would be to a violation of a university rule and what their response would be to a violation of state law.

Here is a university spokesman responding on how the university would react to the dildo protest where students are openly violating a university profanity regulation:

“UT Austin students are free to express themselves peacefully on all issues. The planned protests around campus carry appear to be examples of protected political speech. We ask that the conversations around this issue remain civil. We encourage students of all opinions to be a part of this and other discussions of public policy.”

So the university is allowing such a violation of a university regulation as “political speech.” Now, what would happen to any individuals protesting the state law prohibiting open carry of long guns (rifles and shotguns) on campus. Present Texas state law allows open carry of such weapons in public with a few exceptions- most notably, at educational institutions.

How would the university react to individuals protesting such an exception by carrying long guns onto campus? Would they allow such a protest to occur, seeing such a display as “protected political speech?” Would they judge such an open carry protest in the same light as this dildo protest? My guess is they wouldn’t. The university’s response would most likely be calling in a large number of highly armed security personnel to neutralize and carry off the defenders to a waiting cage!

Such a response would not only illustrate the hypocrisy inherent in that institution known as “government,” but would also define the profound difference of violation of a rule and violation of a law.

I hereby predict these dildos will cause far more injuries in the months ahead than any improbable injuries by firearms. These hoplophobe pukes don’t seem to realize that guns already have been carried on campus for decades! The only difference is that now the ruling class doesn’t classify it as criminal.

To these protestors I would offer this advice: As you pleasure yourself in your SJW-approved safe space with your new plastic companion, be sure to remember and appreciate the heroic, anonymous gun owners who serve and protect you on campus.