"Man’s mind is his basic tool of survival. Life is given to him, survival is not. His body is given to him, its content is not. To remain alive, he must act, and before he can act he must know the nature and purpose of his action. He cannot obtain his food without a knowledge of food, and the way to obtain it. He cannot dig a ditch – or build a cyclotron – without a knowledge of his aim and of the means to achieve it. To remain alive, he must think.
But to think is an act of choice . . . Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs, or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival – so that for you, who are a human being, the question ‘to be or not to be’ is the question ‘to think or not to think.'"
Ayn Rand
"Over time 'the system' has evolved as a doctrine of life. It provides comfort and security for the group. Truth and inquiry beyond the system creates guilt, fear, hostility, and distrust. Society has parameters of thought that imprisons the population so that they respond only to suggestions of authority.
The essential thrust of psychological warfare is to build group consciousness that supports 'the system' against individualism and creative survival."
Bob Livingston
"My understanding of history has led me to the view that Western Civilization is in its final stages. The structuring and regulation of life-sustaining processes have proved as fatal to our culture as cutting off a bird’s wings would seal its fate. To forcibly deprive individuals of their self-directed, self-interested nature in order to serve some mythical collective, has brought us to where we are. Beneficiaries of this herd-oriented mindset are institutional interests with a highly-concentrated presence that could not be maintained without the coercive force of the state restraining the development of competitive alternatives that would arise in a free market."
Butler Shaffer
"It’s safe to conjecture, however, that there’s a cadre of activists who make their living by being professional brown or black people, who’ve rounded up some self-hating whites to act as their running dogs. The tactic has worked well for “community organizers” like Al Sharpton and Barack Obama.
People that perceive themselves as being underprivileged, or minorities, or People of Color, or whatever they want to call themselves, have captured the semantic and philosophical high ground. At this point, however, these people (am I being non-PC in using that phrase? Maybe… it’s so hard to stay current) aren’t driven by any rationality for things done to them, or their ancestors. They’re just being driven by hatred, envy, and avarice. A civilization is in trouble when vices have captured the philosophical high ground."
Doug Casey
"Libertarians understand that all information, all ideas, all wisdom, all expertise, all knowledge is diffused throughout humanity, contained in a multitude of individual brains. And the only way to tap into all of that knowledge is to eliminate the mechanisms that squelch open imaginative enquiry – namely governments – and allow all thinkers to think and share their thoughts with one another."
Gary Reed
"Although the classical liberals won some victories for the cause of free trade, their greater philosophy of global liberalism has been mostly ignored. The result is the continued creep of the warfare state and of domestic and international interventionism. Bombs and economic sanctions wreak havoc on foreign peoples and foster both retaliatory violence and sympathy for it among the victims of economic and military warfare. Retaliation also works to the advantages of states, which use it as justification for further encroachments on civil liberties at home, for example, through domestic surveillance programs and controls over movement within and across their borders."
Mathew McCaffrey
"The bad economist sees only what immediately strikes the eye; the good economist also looks beyond. The bad economist sees only the direct consequences of the proposed course; the good economist looks also at the longer and indirect consequences."
Henry Hazlitt
"Leftist politicians and the Democratic Party leadership have placed big focus on courting voters separated from severe mental illness by clinical diagnoses alone. And while the Democrats like to pretend that their focus on fringe elements– the desperate, the sexually confused, the depraved, and the unwilling to accept personal responsibility in any form– is the caring thing to do, it’s simply an exercise in utilizing the useful idiots among us to maximum effect."
Sam Rolley
"Corrupted power has always wielded its monopoly on violence to oppress unjustly wherever possible. That’s nothing new. But neither is human ingenuity, which has always been a master of the art of delivering freedom in all forms to those with the gall to seek it out."
Chris Campbell
"Governments will always oppress their minions if they can. The greater the pressure, the sooner the minions create a solution."
Jeff Thomas
"Let’s just bow down and worship veterans. Without them we would be speaking every language in the world except English, have no freedom of speech, and have no freedom to worship this Sunday."
Laurence Vance
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