Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:
"Another fact that works to undermine the credibility of 'refugees' and their separated children is geography. If I were a battered woman or a lawn care specialist targeted for extinction, I would apply for asylum at the nearest U.S. consulate. There are four located between the southern border of Mexico and the border of Texas.
Why wait days to apply if you’re in real danger? That’s easy. They aren’t in danger and if an applicant is turned down in the interior of Mexico he’s on his own. But if he can make it to the U.S. border Uncle Sam will leave the light on and take care of food and lodging while the process grinds to a conclusion."
Michael Shannon
"The tradition of the West is embodied in the Great Conversation that began in the dawn of history and that continues to the present day. Whatever the merits of other civilizations in other respects, no civilization is like that of the West in this respect. No other civilization can claim that its defining characteristic is a dialogue of this sort. No dialogue in any other civilization can compare with that of the West in the number of great works of the mind that have contributed to this dialogue. The goal toward which Western society moves is the Civilization of the Dialogue. The spirit of Western civilization is the spirit of inquiry. Its dominant element is the Logos. Nothing is to remain undiscussed. Everybody is to speak his mind. No proposition is to be left unexamined. The exchange of ideas is held to be the path to the realization of the potentialities of the race."
Robert M. Hutchins
"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."
Ayn Rand
"Socialism is dead. It lasted about 200 years. It still is a feature of the world’s governments, because it takes time for such movements to die. It takes time for old and wrong ideas to die out and for new and right ideas to replace them. But socialism has no moral, no intellectual and no practical grounding. It’s a failure on all counts. Libertarians have every right to be proud that such giants as Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and Hans-Hermann Hoppe have killed off any possible avenues of respect or validity for socialism."
Michael Rozeff
"You aren't going to 'fix' America by denying our past. The lot of women and minorities will not improve by embracing the destruction of history. You're not going to get rid of racism by tearing down confederate monuments and statues, nor are you going to wipe out past injustices by scrubbing the past clean of white males.
It is simple minded to believe that you can cover your eyes and make racism and injustice disappear."
Rick Moran
"I don't want to be unified at all costs. I want to be free at all costs. And freedom has always been divisive.
Most of the people who spend their time talking about the plight of division are the 'political losers.' That is, the ones who feel as if the division leaves them at the mercy of an unfriendly upper hand. When they complain about division, what they're really upset about is being on the losing side of a division that already existed long before they were angry about it."
T.K. Coleman
"It is futile to look for the harmoniously developed man at the outset of economic evolution. The almost self-sufficient economic subject as we know him in the solitary peasant of remote valleys shows none of that noble, harmonious development of body, mind, and feeling which the romantics ascribe to him. Civilization is a product of leisure and the peace of mind that only the division of labor can make possible. Nothing is more false than to assume that man first appeared in history with an independent individuality and that only during the evolution [of society] … did he lose … his spiritual independence. All history, evidence and observation of the lives of primitive peoples is directly contrary to this view. Primitive man lacks all individuality in our sense. Two South Sea Islanders resemble each other far more closely than two twentieth-century Londoners. Personality was not bestowed upon man at the outset. It has been acquired in the course of evolution of society."
Ludwig von Mises
"We can’t select the truth based on offensiveness. First of all, the world is an offensive place naturally, and secondly, most anything can be construed as offensive. Offense is subjective by nature and largely determined by individual temperament. A claim of subjective emotion can hardly be invalidated. This means that scientific hypotheses are being rejected on claims of subjective emotion instead of meticulous checking."
Tyler Brandt
"Men by nature are followers. Therefore, when authority appears, they follow. When absolute authority emerges the people follow without question and even to the point of self-sacrifice. Millions will give their own lives and those of their sons and daughters in war and never question or consider what they are doing. The mystique of government authority holds in its hands life and death — ours."
Bob Livingston
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