Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:"Don’t fall for it. We’ve all observed for decades what Leftists mean by 'unity.' It means you are smeared, libeled, slandared, called a racist, sexist, homophobe, Nazi, fascist, fired from your job, or worse, for voicing opinions that they disagree with. You lose your job, as some have, for saying all lives matter and not just black lives. As a college student you must remain silent and never question the campus communist orthodoxy, or else your social life will be ruined and your grades will plummet. If a conservative or libertarian is hired by a university, he or she will be like a unicorn at the zoo for the rest of his or her career. If a conservative or libertarian is invited to speak at a university by a student group (never by faculty), there may be riots, setting fire to buildings, and physical assaults of the speaker and his sponsors. Question the 'climate change' agenda of abolishing the oil and gas industries, cars, airplanes, and cows, then you will be called a 'denier,' a nutjob that is the equivalent of a Holocaust denier. Show up at a political event sponsored by a conservative politician, and you may be beaten or even shot dead by the Left’s military wing, Antifa and Only Black Lives Matter.
What the American Left means by 'unity,' in other words, is turning America into a twenty-first century Soviet Union without the smile. Tell anyone who mentions the word 'unity' to you in a political context to go to hell."
Tom DiLorenzo
"The great masquerader, beri beri, has fooled the world once again. It is misdiagnosed as this disease or that disease. In modern medicine a B1-deficiency is seen by cardiologists, neurologists, pulmonologists, psychiatrists, virologists, bacteriologists, ophthalmologists, nephrologists, hepatologists, who are simply not trained that beri beri cannot be anatomically compartmentalized like other diseases.
Because modern medicine is looking in all the wrong places to cure and prevent COVID-19, there will never be a cure. The world will be held in perpetual lockdown. Vaccination will be an exercise in frustration. The cure will be more deadly than the disease."
Bill Sardi
"You could make a case that US defense spending is so high because of inefficiency and enormous profits hidden in 'cost overruns.' If so, then increased real spending should come from strict budetary measures and oversight. We should not be accepting a military spending system that cannot account for trillions of dollars and is so poorly controlled that it cannot be audited. Will patriotic conservatives ever realize that blind support for the Pentagon allows the massive rip-off of taxpayers and the neglect of real needs all for nothing but out-sized profits of arms makers?
The military/security complex makes certain that no moves toward peace can succeed. Its lobbyists have succeeded in undoing all the arms control agreements reached with Russia since the 1960s. Russia’s President Putin has made repeated offers to extend the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty, but Washington has rejected his offer out of hand. The reason is obvious. The corrupt puppet regime of Obama agreed to a trillion dollar increase in nuclear weapons spending, and the military/security complex means to get that money."
Paul Craig Roberts
"This is a common theme throughout history: empires rise and fall, not because of a single individual, but from decades of major trends that gradually cause an inevitable decline.
These same trends keep surfacing over and over again across the centuries.
Economic mismanagement is an obvious one: empires in decline almost invariably hold an arrogant belief that they are exempt from the natural laws of finance.
In other words, they believe they can spend as much as they want, accumulate infinite amounts of debt, and debase their currency without limit, and somehow there won’t be any consequences.
Another trend is that the empire abandons its core values. Integrity, civic-mindedness, and hard work give way to corruption and entitlement.
And perhaps the biggest trend of empires in decline is that society frequently turns on itself. Civility ends, and rage takes over.
It goes without saying that these trends are alive and well in the West today, especially in the Land of the Free."
Simon Black
"We must learn that passively to accept an unjust system is to cooperate with that system, and thereby to become a participant in its evil."
Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
"In order to become wealthy you have to produce more than you consume and save the difference. Saving the difference builds capital. And you need capital to create more wealth.
Countries without capital are poor. Places like Zimbabwe, Cuba, and Mauritania. The only capital they have is sticks and stones.
The US government is in effect training people to consume more than they produce. Now, you can do that in basically two ways. One, by borrowing capital that’s been saved and created in the past, and consuming it. Or, two, you can do it by mortgaging your future.
It’s not a pro-survival policy to consume more than you produce. It’s possible for a while, of course, but will wind up in disaster. The US government is encouraging people to do just that, however, directly and indirectly."
Doug Casey
"Everyone wants to argue. Everyone does. Everyone needs to. While birds can fly, only humans can argue. Argument is the affirmation of our being. It is the principal instrument of human intercourse. Without argument the species would perish. As a subtle suggestion, it is the means by which we aid another. As a warning, it steers us from danger. As exposition, it teaches. As an expression of creativity, it is the gift of ourselves. As a protest, it struggles for justice. As a reasoned dialogue, it resolves disputes. As an assertion of self, it engenders respect. As an entreaty of love, it expresses our devotion. As a plea, it generates mercy. As charismatic oration it moves multitudes and changes history. We must argue — to help, to warn, to lead, to love, to create, to learn, to enjoy justice — to be."
Gerry Spence
"It’s not surprising at all that a 'medieval approach' to disease would also result in the deletion of so many modern advances in social/political understanding and consensus. It was reckless to the point of being evil. It has created a new feudalism of haves and have nots, essentials and unessentials, us and them, the served and the servers, the rulers and the ruled – all defined in the edicts passed by panicked dictators at all levels acting on the advice of bloodless intellectuals who couldn’t resist a chance to rule the world by force."
Jeffrey Tucker
"Politics in America is not a party system any longer. It is instead a repetitive and insulting process of pacifying the national will with the illusion of freedom and political choices.
The elites in the District of Criminals and the money power behind them are so far removed from the people over whom they lord and/or whom they employ, that they may as well be on a distant planet in another solar system. All the thoughts they think and all the things they do are designed to draw more power and more wealth into their control.
Every two years, whether it's in the off-year congressional election or the quadrennial presidential 'election,' the false paradigm is reinforced. The opposing candidates square off, promising change of this or that nature, and the people, hearing catchphrases and buzzwords that tickle their ears, fall in line and cast their votes. But regardless of whether this Republicrat or that Democan gets elected, nothing of consequence ever changes."
Bob Livingston
"'Limited government.' The term is not merely meaningless...
It is duller than dishwater. It inspires as an Alan Greenspan lecture on accounting practices inspires. It excites as drying paint excites.
We hear it and applaud... politely. We nod our heads dutifully. Limited government, yes, of course.
But how dreadful.
There were two great orators of antiquity, the Roman Cicero and the Greek Demosthenes.
When Cicero spoke the people said, 'What a great speech.' But when Demosthenes spoke? 'Let us march,' said the people.
How many march for limited government? Who goes to the barricades for limited government?
Many will march for 'Health Care for All.' 'Save the Planet.' 'Social Justice Now.'
These are the cries that awaken the blood. They summon the hormones.
They are calls to action that inspire us to run off and enlist… and charge into the breach.
Limited government inspires us to… snooze.
'Limited government' is a dismal marketing slogan. Would you wish to sell it for a living? Alas, you might starve.
Here is the cardinal sin of limited government: It is defensive.
The sob mongers and tear-squeezers forever shout about this crisis or that crisis. Only energetic government action can put it down and scotch it.
It may be the environment. Health care. Housing. Racism. Sexism. Income inequality. Bedbugs.
Anything, everything, A through Z.
This bunch is commonly perceived as the angels on our collective shoulder. They stand for social justice… and equality.
And who can come out against social justice and equality?
Certainly not politicians seeking office. And so they must budge.
Limited government therefore finds itself on the back foot, perpetually on the defense. Yet no successful defense can forever remain static.
The enemy ultimately punches through.
Limited government cedes ground year by year, decade by decade. It makes one tactical retreat after another. It gives a little here to gain a little there.
But it loses ground in the aggregate.
Thus limited government is a shifting line in the sand. It is erased and withdrawn as circumstances demand."
Brian Maher
"The rights of man are natural, and all rights stem from the single factor of life itself, for if man has a right to life, all other natural rights are inherent as well. A right to life means that one has a right to defend his life. It means that one has a right to support and sustain his life. This means he has a right to property, the highest form of property being self. It means he has a right to move about freely, to work, to protect others, to speak and congregate in order to protect and defend life. All individual and natural rights are inherent due to humanity, not to any other men or documents drafted by men.
This seems simple enough, but Americans seem to clamor for direction and approval by those that wish to rule over them. Instead of accepting that a right to life is natural, and cannot be bestowed by men, people seek approval by some authoritarian class for clarity concerning the legitimacy of something so obvious. This in and of itself destroys the very core of common rights, because having to put into contract or law the guidelines for what is natural is the acceptance that rights do not exist unless sanctioned by a higher body. This is asinine, and the notion of a constitution to spell out what is inherent weakens any position of strength of the individual."
Gary D. Barnett
"To a group of politicians (including Nancy Pelosi) who seem, through wealth taxes and draconian regulations, determined to take everything away from us.
America barely survived eight years of 'You Didn't Build That'... but can we really survive eight years of 'You Don't Own That'? – I doubt it.
That's why I'm 'opting out.'
And that's why millions of other people are too... including some of the most successful people in America, and even some corporations too.
Never in our country's history have more Americans abandoned their citizenship and given up their passports. What was once the land of the free and the home of the brave is slowly becoming the land of the politically enslaved and the home of the dependent.
Leaving America, for many, many people, has become the only way to safeguard their freedom and their property."
George Gilder
"Right now one blue state after another that supposedly'"followed the science,' is seeing a rise in [Covid] 'cases.' And all their people can do is blame their neighbors. Because, don't you know, the 'science' works! So if the 'science' isn't working, that means someone somewhere must not be sciencing."
Tom Woods
"A man is no less a slave because he is allowed to choose a new master once in a term of years."
Lysander Spooner
"Here’s something that perhaps we can all agree on:
The vaccine should be tested on politicians first.
If they survive, the vaccine is safe.
If they don’t the country is safe."
David Crosby
