Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Justice is always naive and self-confident; believing that it will immediately win once recognized. That is the reason why the forces of Justice are so poorly organized. On the other hand, the Evil is cynic, sly and fantastically organized. It never ever has the illusion of the ability to stand on its own feet and to win in a fair competition. That is why it is ready to use any kind of means without hesitation. And of course it does - under the banners of the most noble ideas.
I should like to underline: no people, no country, in which a Communist dictatorship has been established, ever found its way out of it.
"The dream of socialists, the Maximum Programme, has always been to eliminate the private property, the family and the nation state. With the private property they have not succeeded, but they continue on the path of destruction of the family and the nation.'
This power, this authority, Soviet power: they killed everybody who could make any resistance, who could explain his own way of thinking and who could follow his own way of thinking, of believing.
This dream of absolute, universal equality is amazing, terrifying, and inhuman. And the moment it captures people's minds, the result is mountains of corpses and rivers of blood."
Vladimir Bukovsky

"Whenever I hear that our military is fighting wars in the Middle East 'to protect our freedoms,' I have to shake my head. If the military has been fighting 'to protect our freedoms,' then why are our 
freedoms' being eroded away like a beach in a hurricane? Perhaps it is not Moslem terrorists who are a danger to our 'freedoms,' but our own politicians and unelected bureaucrats.
The U.S. establishment has created a confusion of cause and effect by and through a flag-waving mania in America. 'Patriotism' throughout history has covered a multitude of mischief. We are seeing it now!"
Bob Livingston

"It was only toward the middle of the twentieth century that the inhabitants of many European countries came, in general unpleasantly, to the realization that their fate could be influenced directly by intricate and abstruse books of philosophy. Their bread, their work, their private lives began to depend on this or that decision in disputes on principles to which, until then, they had never paid any attention. In their eyes, the philosopher had always been a sort of dreamer whose divigations had no effect on reality. The average human being, even if he had once been exposed to it, wrote philosophy off as utterly impractical and useless. therefore the great intellectual work of the Marxists could easily pass as just one more variation on a sterile pastime. Only a few individuals understood the causes and probably consequences of this general indifference."
 Czeslaw Milosz

"The argument can be made that the largest criminal entity today is not some Colombian cocaine gang, but the US Government. And they’re far more dangerous. They have a legal monopoly on the force to do anything they want with you. Don’t conflate the government with America; they’re different and separate entities. The US Government has its own interests, as distinct as those of General Motors or the Mafia. In fact, I’d probably rather deal with the Mafia than I would with any agency of the US Government.
Even under the worst circumstances – even if the Mafia controlled the United States – I don’t believe Tony Soprano or Al Capone would try to steal 40% of people’s income every year. They couldn’t get away with it. But – because we’re said to be a democracy – the US Government is able to masquerade as 'We the People,' and pull it off."
Doug Casey

"If a government official spends inordinate sums on vacations and luxuries, or is exposed for being on the take, be assured that the person’s political opponents will be all over the story. Meanwhile, the inherent corruption of the system itself, with its systematic expropriation and redistribution, is ignored. But that is by far the more important story, and it’s the only one that really deserves our attention."
Lew Rockwell

"While it may be disturbing for most to face stark realities, there is a lower order of men among us, and they make up the bulk of society. I do not believe this to be arguable, nor do I use this knowledge as an excuse to discount the importance of the makeup of societies. There are obvious differences in people, and those differences can be subtle or severe, but in the end, few are enlightened. One factor that stands out among the masses is that the most important matters are decided by emotion, with fear as the driving force behind decision-making. This type of behavior breeds dependence, and is a recipe for the acceptance of control. When the majority lives with this attitude, freedom cannot exist.
This gives rise to the concept of popular will, and when the majority is relegated to decisions based on fear, emotion, envy, and safety, society as a whole is left with confusion, apathy, and tyrannical rule. This leads to despair, division, and chaos. This is where we are today in America."
Gary D. Barnett

"If Americans feel that country x is being bullied or threatened by country y, then let them, of their own accord, individually or with the help of other like-minded people, send them military aid. If country x is seeking American aid to help it fight against country y, then let it advertise its desire on television, radio, online, or via direct mail. No American should be forced by his government to give aid to any country. If any American cares which flag will be hoisted on a small piece of land thousands of miles away, then let him put his money where his mouth is. All foreign aid should be private and voluntary, military or otherwise."
Laurence Vance

"If a war is fought, it must be over a concrete set of contentions. If a Democrat enters the White House after the 2020 election and attempts to institute major gun control and gun confiscation measures, then this is a perfectly solid reason to fight. If they try to enforce carbon restrictions that would destroy what's left of our economy and cause suffering among the public, then this is another good reason to fight. If they try to legislate even more socialist programs, usurping constitutional parameters and taxing the populace into perpetual poverty, then yes, we should fight. But Trump? No, Trump is a pied piper, not a leader or a rationale for civil war."
Brandon Smith

"Communism is a human software virus based on greed, envy and a conviction that Darwinian violence is the sole arbiter of how human societies are regulated. Like all such economically illiterate and morally depraved creeds, they fail.
They always fail; hence, it must spread to the next victim-host to be devoured, driven into the stone-age and stack piles of corpses.
Rinse and repeat."
Bill Buppert

“War, is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror. Society has arisen out of the works of peace; the essence of society is peacemaking. Peace and not war is the father of all things. Only economic action has created the wealth around us; labor, not the profession of arms, brings happiness. Peace builds; war destroys."
Ludwig von Mises

"Chaos makes it difficult to either predict the future or explain the past. My mind is strange: it insists upon factual evidence and sound reasoning before coming to conclusions. Even then, these conclusions are subject to change with additional evidence and/or rational explanation. I have a vested interest in my opinions being as consistent as possible with the complicated patterns the universe presents me, and I find that a clearly functioning mind is the best means for accomplishing this. I do not find opinion polls – where people share their ignorance – nor threats of punishment, nor the opinions of a goat-herd who claims predictive powers from squeezing the testicles of one of her goats, sufficient bases for thinking and acting as I do."
Butler Shaffer