Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:
"Advancement within a totalitarian group or party depends largely on a willingness to do immoral things. The principle that the end justifies the means, which in individualist ethics is regarded as the denial of all morals, in collectivist ethics becomes necessarily the supreme rule. There is literally nothing which the consistent collectivist must not be prepared to do if it serves ‘the good of the whole’, because that is to him the only criterion of what ought to be done."
F. A. Hayek
"Hopefully the takeaway for those who relished the idea of 'draining the swamp' is the realization that this can’t be accomplished by simply changing the name of the person who occupies the top office. The Federal government can’t be fixed; it must have its powers taken away.
Political decentralization is the only way to truly make America great again."
Tho Bishop
"The only hope to escape the societal disintegration caused by socialism is to escape the United States. The path Washington has set for itself is very clear, and for it to leave that path would take a something akin to a great-awakening, and there’s no indication that will ever happen. However, if states like Texas were to utilize their right to resign a Union that is dedicated to such destructive propositions, personally dealing with the crises left ignored and exacerbated by Washington, then Texas and like-minded states could probably escape most of the fallout of the impending U.S. economic collapse. If we don’t, however, if we keep a fool’s hope of making America great again, or if we resolve that socialism will work fine despite all available evidence to the contrary, then it doesn’t matter if Washington wears the face of Cortez or Trump. Ultimately, we’d still be chained to a federal government that, to one degree or another, simply cannot/will not stop spending more money than it has, a sinking ship of state that would rather listen to the band one more time than man the lifeboats."
Ryan Thorson
"The CIA should be abolished because it’s dysfunctional, but also because it serves no useful purpose. It’s never ever predicted, through its so-called 'intelligence gathering,' anything of value—ever. The Korean War, the rise of Castro, the fall of the Shah, the rise of Islam, the fact that the Soviet Union was just an empty shell—you know, they thought the Soviet Union was actually competing with the US from an economic point of view. They’re always absolutely wrong on everything. It defies the odds of pure chance. They’re not just useless, but extremely dangerous. All the coups and revolutions they’ve plotted were disasters."
Doug Casey
"Most everyone who has read my screeds know that I hold the Constitution in low odor and consider it one of the greatest human slaver documents ever written; it took the Declaration of Independence, gutted it, reversed course and embraced the worst forms of centralization popular at the time and even borrowed from Roman governance in the past. It took the worst offenses of the Crown in London, localized them and started mimicking those very notions early in its career as the liberty destroyer in America."
Bill Buppert
"The morality of socialism is easily summed up in a few words: envy and sacrifice based on a phony and coerced sense of altruism.
The socialist not only envies and wants a portion of the wealth of others; he desires to see the wealth of others lowered to the level of his own. The socialist wants to use a sense of altruism — couched in terms like 'fairness,' 'equality' and 'fair share' — to coerce those who have into willingly giving a portion of their wealth to others. That failing, the socialist desires that the power and organized violence of the state be used to create a level of conformity and reduce everyone to the same level — even if it is the level of poverty and privation."
Bob Livingston
"Education into liberation politics is a dead end. Producing Red Guards is a dead end. It doesn’t put bread on the table. It does a disservice to youth, and particularly the youth that this group emphasizes, 'low-income youth and youth of color.' It directs their time and energy in fruitless directions. Youth is not going to get ahead by telling themselves that they are disadvantaged, plundered by colonialists of the past, burdened by imperialists, and savaged by oppressors. Discovering racism in every nook and cranny of a word, a glance and a paycheck is not going to cut it. Looking for insults based upon sexual gradations cannot be a way of life or support a civilization. If revolutionary youth or their communist leaders took over, paradise would not burgeon. Bread would not suddenly appear."
Michael Rozeff
"The worship of the state is the worship of force. There is no more dangerous menace to civilization than a government of incompetent, corrupt, or vile men. The worst evils which mankind ever had to endure were inflicted by bad governments."
Ludwig von Mises
"Every day throughout the world, billions of Christians, Jews, and Muslims violate the First Commandment of God’s Holy Laws given to Moses on Mt. Sinai by their craven obeisance and worship of this bloody Moloch, with its graven idols and belligerent flags of war, symbolizing this predatory paganism.
Thus is born a new generation of blind worshipers at the Golden Calf of Statism."
Charles Burris
"There is very little economic inequality in North Korea, Cuba and Venezuela.
Why? Because their citizens are equal in their misery.
Look around the world and you'll find that the poorest countries are the most equal and the least free, while the freest countries are the richest and most unequal.
When someone argues for more economic equality, understand that they are really arguing for less freedom."
Alexander Green