Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"A conspiracy of US government agencies, tax-exempt think tanks funded by the ruling interests, and media acting in behalf of a war and police state agenda work to shape perceived reality as it is described in George Orwell’s book, '1984,' and in the film, 'The Matrix.' Controlled perception-based reality is only a Facebook 'like' away from killing one person or one million or elevating a liar or the warmonger responsible for the killing to hero status or to the control of the CIA or FBI or the US presidency."
Paul Craig Roberts

"They’ll say if you use bitcoin you’re a money launderer, a drug dealer, a terrorist, or a tax evader. Actually, the morality involved in all those activities is worth a separate discussion… it’s perverse they’re always classed together."
Doug Casey

"In a capitalist society, all human relationships are voluntary. Men are free to cooperate or not, to deal with one another or not, as their own individual judgments, convictions, and interests dictate. They can deal with one another only in terms of and by means of reason, i.e., by means of discussion, persuasion, and contractual agreement, by voluntary choice to mutual benefit. The right to agree with others is not a problem in any society; it is the right to disagree that is crucial. It is the institution of private property that protects and implements the right to disagree — and thus keeps the road open to man’s most valuable attribute (valuable personally, socially, and objectively): the creative mind."
Ayn Rand

"Superficial patriotism is the most attractive form of patriotism for any politician. It encourages spectacle without substance. Bluster without tangible success. Chest-thumping without sacrifice. Any big military parade in the U.S. will be a definitive sign of desperate insecurity and evidence that the American empire is expiring."
Mike Krieger

"Anything that becomes politicized ceases to be about that thing and becomes all about the politics."
Garry Reed

"Do you suppose a 'guaranteed basic income' will give anyone more freedom? It is the ultimate in altruism. The goal of altruism is always to conceal the political agenda, promote ignorance of wealth and finance, create a state of mind of dependence on government and the establishment and quash every form of individualism, independence and creative thinking.
Any form of UBI can only promote ignorance of monetary realism whereby government can perpetually transfer wealth to itself with 'money' that it creates and support the 'morality' of government and the system, not the individual."
Bob Livingston

"Simply asking people to get along isn’t going to work so long as there is a massive power structure in place that is driving the actual fear. If the people are afraid of the Trumps and KKKs of the world, they could demand their politicians dismantle the power structures at the federal level so it cannot be taken over by disfavored groups and reinstall them at a local level where it is far easier to control who hold the reins of power."
Justin Murray

"But if support for the principle of self-determination is to have any meaning whatsoever, it must allow for others to make decisions with which we disagree. Political competition can only benefit all of us. What neither progressives nor conservatives understand — or worse, maybe they do understand — is that secession provides a mechanism for real diversity, a world where we are not all yoked together. It provides a way for people with widely divergent views and interests to live peaceably as neighbors instead of suffering under one commanding central government that pits them against each other."
Jeff Deist

"The incentive system present in the government arrangement is the basic reason why it tends strongly to produce the opposite of what it is supposed to produce and what it claims it is producing. Competition to gain and (mis)use political power does not result in society-wide benefits. It results in an accretion of centralized power and its increasing misuse. Individuals inside the system may seem to be sincerely interested in doing some 'good' things, but it’s always as they see the good. The fact is that they cannot administer power for 'good'. They are too limited even to know what that 'good' is, much less know how to use power to bring it about. And, let’s face it, they are far from selfless servants and neither are their constituencies and donors. Self-interest in the presence of power is toxic, and it will overcome any checks and balances."
Michael Rozeff

"But now, in which direction has latter-day American Liberalism tended? Has it tended towards an expanding régime of voluntary cooperation, or one of enforced cooperation? Have its efforts been directed consistently towards repealing existent measures of State coercion, or towards the devising and promotion of new ones? Has it tended steadily to enlarge or to reduce the margin of existence within which the individual may act as he pleases? Has it contemplated State intervention upon the citizen at an ever-increasing number of points, or at an ever-decreasing number? In short, has it consistently exhibited the philosophy of individualism or the philosophy of Statism?"
Albert Jay Nock