Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"In sum, if we proceed with the decomposition and decentralization of the modern centralizing and coercive nation-state, deconstructing that state into constituent nationalities and neighborhoods, we shall at one and the same time reduce the scope of government power, the scope and importance of voting and the extent of social conflict. The scope of private contract, and of voluntary consent, will be enhanced, and the brutal and repressive state will be gradually dissolved into a harmonious and increasingly prosperous social order."

Murray Rothbard

"There’s no question that some males are wired to act like females and some females are wired to act like males. It’s certainly a psychological aberration but probably has some basis in biology.

The problem is when these people politicize their psychological peculiarities, try to turn it into law, and force the rest of the society to grant them specially protected status.

Thousands of people every year go to doctors to have themselves mutilated so that they can become something else. Today they can often get the government or insurers to pay for it.

If you want to self-mutilate, that’s fine; that’s your business even if it’s insane. To make other people pay for it is criminal. But it’s now accepted as normal by most of society."

Doug Casey

"No family, no matter their race, income, or zip code, should have to face the violence of government gun bans. Although the irony of government assault rifles facing down children in search of assault rifles speaks for itself, it would be just as immoral if the agents were armed with pistols. Owning an AR-15 in the house does not victimize anyone. Enforcing laws against an AR-15 owning family does."

David Gornoski

"Our strength has always been our adherence to a single principle: INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM. Of us. Of us only. Of our People only, not of everyone in the world. Not of other Peoples elsewhere. They have their own governments. Our government is instituted by us to protect our rights, not theirs. That’s the principle that underlies the Declaration. It is stated in the Constitution too. That is what We the People means. Us, not them.

Our government is limited in principle to securing our individual freedom, not that of other peoples and lands. It’s supposed to be limited in domestic and foreign matters.

Our strength, individual freedom, is undermined with every step taken by government that does not clearly, directly and obviously defend our individual freedom, meaning only maintaining the absence of force initiated against us. Our individual freedom is likewise undermined by every step taken by government that goes abroad with other aims than defending, clearly, directly and obviously, OUR individual freedom."

Michael Rozeff

"According to the Left, private property and the free market are evil, not the sources of prosperity and civilization itself. The family is the ultimate evil, since it is the ultimate source of inequality. That’s why Karl Marx called for its abolition.  The key fact about the human race is our radical inequality, said Mises. Without it, there could be no division of labor, no social cooperation, no market. There could be no liberty, because liberty depends on the ability of people to exercise without hindrance their unequal talents."

Lew Rockwell

"If understanding from work in chaos has demolished the traditional rationale for political systems being able to predict, and thus plan for outcomes in complex systems, then the arrogance of collectivism has suffered a lethal blow. In contrast with coercively mandated agencies of ersatz order, the physical, biological, chemical, and economic realms – each functioning according to their own ineluctable processes of causation – produce regularities that do not depend upon whether men and women acknowledge or accept their influences. Persons driven by the obsession for power over others will not be dissuaded by forces they can neither control nor circumvent, but will reach into their imaginations to invent any subterfuge their intended victims will find plausible that will serve their anti-social ambitions."

Butler Shaffer

"It’s 2019 and most of the country believes that communism and socialism are viable social models for modern human zoo-keeping. Go figure.

When I was much younger, I couldn’t imagine what led to the fearful, informer-based culture in the Eastern Bloc that we were told existed behind the Iron Curtain. I understand now, though. The bigger the government , the more it needs citizens who not only conform but have so swallowed the Kool-Aid they are willing to inform on their neighbors or friends or family. The confidential informant culture is a vital survival and leveling mechanism for government supremacists."

Bill Buppert

"I’m going to take a lot of flak for saying this, but I honestly believe that the impulse to colonize space is one of the more pernicious cultural mind viruses in our society. I mean, think about it: we’ve got a planet right here for which we are perfectly adapted, and we’re burning it to the ground while looking up at a red dot in the sky going 'You know I bet if I nuked that bitch I could build a hermetically sealed house on it someday.' How much more insane could you possibly get?"

Caitlin Johnstone

"Gun violence and gun ownership are not the same thing. Let me remind you that 327 million Americans did not shoot anyone last weekend. But the gun grabbers want to take away our guns anyway."

Bob Livingston

"The demise of the United States is easily seen by the polarization of American politics. The Democrats come in and want to raise taxes and hunt the rich sending jobs and capital overseas. The Republicans come in and want to lower taxes and bring jobs and capital back home. The problem is very clear. Tax rates should NOT be a political yoyo. Corporations must have a budget. They cannot plan long-term because it all depends upon the next election every time. Unless the Supreme Court outlaws Marxism, there is no hope for the United States to survive long-term. Our political system will self-destruct the economy. There is just no consistency which is vital to economic growth."

Martin Armstrong

"We now live in a backward world. We live in a world where political trimmers and murderers are lauded and adored while those who tell the truth and expose state corruption are vilified. While Trump and the conservatives are levying brutal sanctions on much of the planet, driving entire populations of men, women and children to starvation and disease, those heroes like Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning are dying in prison for exposing the truth about power. At the same time, a cadre of liberal politicians are actively advocating total Marxism, while there is violence in the streets, and the common people are at each other’s throats.

It is difficult to define and fully understand the mass transformation that must occur in order for society as a whole to stop thinking. When this happens, the citizenry becomes confused, and extreme apathy gains favor among the general population. This is exactly what the political class seeks, as non-thinking individuals are very easy to manipulate and divide. Once this division is in place, general chaos is the result, and any moral foundation is shattered."

Gary D. Barnett

"We are human beings, not dogs. I can buy a book. I can buy a car. I can buy a house. I can buy a plot of land. I can buy a machine (a capital good) to make my labor more productive. I can let you live in my house (use my car, borrow my machine, etc. ) in exchange for a fee.  That is called rent. It is a voluntary contract, and that is what separates human civilization from the law of club and fang.

A dog doesn’t think in these terms because he cannot understand trade. He is incapable of a voluntary contract. A dog will simply attack a person or an animal to seize that which isn’t his if he wants it.

Commies and dogs both seem to think that if you can pee on it, you can just take it."

Larry L Beane II

"Here are my questions to those who blame racial discrimination for the problems of black people: Is it necessary for us to await some kind of moral rejuvenation among white people before measures can be taken to end or at least reduce the kind of behavior that spells socioeconomic disaster in so many black communities? Is it a requirement that we await moral rejuvenation among white people before we stop permitting some black youngsters from making education impossible for other black youngsters? Blacks were not the only people discriminated against in America. While Jews and Asians were not enslaved, they encountered gross discrimination. Nonetheless, neither Jews nor Asians felt that they had to await the end of discrimination before they took measures to gain upward mobility."

Walter Williams