Bill Buppert
"Always there is a disgruntled minority that opposes a war for a multitude of reasons such as reluctance to make necessary sacrifices, fear of personal loss or suffering, philosophical and ethical objection to warfare as a method of settling disputes, lack of confidence in the ability of the leadership, resentment at being called upon to play a subordinate role, pessimistic belief that victory is far from certain and defeat very possible, egoistic satisfaction of refusing to run with the herd, psychological opposition to being yelled at on any and every petty pretext, a thousand and one other reasons.
No political or military dictatorship ever has been one hundred percent successful in identifying and suppressing the malcontents who, typically, conceal themselves behind a veil of silence and bide their time."
Eric Frank Russell
"It is commonly believed that an unconscious person is comatose. This is the extreme, but the unconscious person is anyone under automatic guidance from external authorities. This refers to the vast majority of Americans. Quite obviously, political and some religious authorities want to keep this state of unconscious collective mind. When we understand this, we see that all governments strive to keep the mass mind unconscious and dependent upon authority."
Bob Livingston
"The dehumanizing and destructive nature of collective systems – wherein the individuality of human beings is squeezed out in order to serve a mythical abstraction – is in a terminal state. Voluntary forms of cooperation, with their interconnected networks containing neither 'tops' nor 'bottoms,' and with no one enjoying coercive authority over others, are becoming increasingly attractive to men and women. The contrast between the pyramidal and spherical models is best illustrated in the differences between politically-structured systems of economic planning, and the marketplace. The specter of such liberating changes are terrifying to the statists, who want nothing more – nor less – than to enjoy the exercise of power over others, and who are arrogant enough to believe that they are entitled to enjoy such authority regardless of the costs to the rest of humanity."
Butler Shaffer
"There is a huge structure of purely domestic powers being exercised by our government that are usurpations. Manufacturing and commerce are not accomplished by free markets within this country. The provision of health services is not through free markets. One industry after another is subject to usurped government powers. Can you run any business or develop any piece of land or real estate without running headlong into a panoply of labor laws and environmental laws? Trade is restricted in countless ways that have removed your rights. Government usurpations are the order of the day. They are called 'laws' and 'regulations'."
Michael Rozeff
"It’s not surprising that everyone wants their own state: The system we’ve designed makes that desirable. Statehood brings power, significance, recognition and a voice on the world stage. We act as though that status is as God-given as the rights of kings were once thought to be, when, in fact, it has been shaped by a complicated history of warfare, expulsion, colonialism and foreign powers drawing lines on a poorly understood map. Meanwhile, individuals and groups that don’t quite fit into that system are left without protections, scrabbling for rights and autonomy."
Malka Older
"American citizens carrying their own arms are the militia of the various states and, along with their firearms, carry the responsibility to defend their fellow citizens. As soon as big-government toadies convince you 1) that it is NOT your responsibility to be armed so as to be prepared to defend your fellow townsmen, and 2) that it is only the government’s responsibility to protect you and your community, you have ceased being a CITIZEN and have become a SLAVE."
Chuck Baldwin
"The revelations coming to light about Hollywood Oligarch Harvey Weinstein perfectly capture the true nature of our status quo: a rotten-to-the-core, predatory, exploitive oligarchy of dirty secrets and dirty lies protected by an army of self-serving sycophants, servile toadies on the make and well-paid legal mercenaries. Predators aren't an aberration of the Establishment; they are the perfection of the Establishment, which protects abusive, exploitive predator-oligarchs lest the feudal injustices of life in America be revealed for all to see."
Charles Hugh Smith
"All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among them. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are."
H. L. Mencken
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