Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Those who seek to control our lives must first gain control of our minds. If one of your neighbors went through the neighborhood with a gun, informing you that he was the sovereign authority therein, and that you were required to obey his orders, how would you respond? When, as a child, I visited my aunt and uncle on their farm, there was a retarded man in the neighborhood who informed us that he was the local sheriff and we had to do as he directed. Since he was completely harmless and pleasant, the neighbors tended to humor him and treat him with respect. But when you listen to the gaggle of Democratic Party presidential candidates with essentially the same baseless claim to run your life with policies that would be far more disruptive of your interests, you become aware that you are not hearing the voices of good-natured chuckleheads; but of men and women who fully intend to make their delusions enforceable through the coercive powers of the state."
Butler Shaffer (1935-Dec. 29, 2019)

"All States are governed by a ruling class that is a minority of the population, and which subsists as a parasitic and exploitative burden upon the rest of society. Since its rule is exploitative and parasitic, the State must purchase the alliance of a group of 'Court Intellectuals,' whose task is to bamboozle the public into accepting and celebrating the rule of its particular State. The Court Intellectuals have their work cut out for them. In exchange for their continuing work of apologetics and bamboozlement, the Court Intellectuals win their place as junior partners in the power, prestige, and loot extracted by the State apparatus from the deluded public. The noble task of Revisionism is to de-bamboozle: to penetrate the fog of lies and deception of the State and its Court Intellectuals, and to present to the public the true history of the motivation, the nature, and the consequences of State activity. By working past the fog of State deception to penetrate to the truth, to the reality behind the false appearances, the Revisionist works to delegitimize, to desanctify, the State in the eyes of the previously deceived public."
Murray Rothbard

"In order for the powerful to control the masses, a compliant populace is required. Those who hold the real power over the political class and media have been successful in their efforts to gain this control. This has always been, and given the human condition, will most likely always be. If only it were not so easy to fool the crowd, all could be different. But then, any crowd is easy to please, and easy to fool, that is the nature of the beast that is the mob.
Common people, generally speaking, believe what they want to believe, and most often choose the most comfortable path. Personal conflict due to the shattering of accepted norms is avoided at all costs, and any truth that can cause doubt is quickly rejected. So long as the lies fed to the crowd fit their belief system, and so long as the public can avoid emotional discomfort, they will accept most anything and forget almost everything. It all comes down to those in power knowingly taking advantage of the mental imperfections so obvious among the mob by stoking their ego and alleviating their fears. This manipulative coddling is all that is normally necessary to calm any question or stifle dissent by the people."
Gary D. Barnett

"'Court Historians' are the intellectual bodyguards of the State. They shape and defend the 'official line' or interpretation on the State’s wars, its presidential regimes, or other key historical events and public policies. As a result they enjoy high esteem and recognition in the mainstream media and academia. As defenders of the status quo they frequently attack and label their critics as 'conspiracy theorists,' 'revisionists,' 'isolationists,' 'appeasers,' 'anti-intellectuals,' or other boogie men, rather than engage in civil discourse or discussion."
Charles Burris

"In the end, we can question authority as an academic exercise as often as you wish but it does not amount to much. The only way to weaponize questioning authority is to question obedience and act on it.
Your obedience to injustice and the leviathan state is a measure of your own moral cowardice and all of us have enough of that to contend with much less the enormous compliance pressures on us every day. My moral cowardice is my own shame.
There is only one reason your children will be no better off than you, more indebted (regardless of lack of consent, go figure), more highly taxed and grossly regulated. That reason is the fault of every generation that does nothing to include the one that looks back at you in the mirror every day.
Question authority. That’s nice.
Question obedience and act, that is where the real revolution begins."
Bill Buppert

"In view of the latest trick of the Left to turn the old liberal tradition of human rights in the sense of limits to the powers both of government and of other persons over the individual into positive claims for particular benefits (like the 'freedom from want' invented by the greatest of modern demagogues) it should be stressed here that in a society of free men the goals of collective action can always only aim to provide opportunities for unknown people, means of which anyone can avail himself for his purposes, but no concrete national goals which anyone is obliged to serve. The aim of policy should be to give all a better chance to find a position which in turn gives each a good chance of achieving his ends than they would otherwise have."
Friedrich Hayek

"The creation of the mass mind and/or mass consciousness is the secret weapon of the ruling elite. The more one’s mind is immersed into the crowd, of course, the more one loses his individuality and independence of thought. The more we become a part of the crowd, the more dependent we become on authority. And the more dependent we become, the more defensive we are when presented with new information contrary to 'conventional wisdom.' Simply stated, the crowd syndrome inoculates us against reality. Yes, I believe that the psychological phenomenon of group consciousness is a created strategy for population control. It certainly appears to be an ironclad protection system for the elite, who by all definitions are the natural enemies of the people.
What exactly is group consciousness? Group consciousness is all the teachings of 'brotherhood' in all of its forms and expressions. When our dominant thoughts center on the group rather than our own ego or individuality, we have been psychologically integrated into the mass mind. Therefore, we are necessarily dependent on the system. This is a subtle and sophisticated people-control strategy that allows unseen authority to manipulate the masses at will. It is, on the other hand, hyper-individualism that escapes the mental system along with authoritarian control."
Bob Livingston

"Jordan Peterson once said, 'I have figured out how to monetize the
Social Justice Warriors.'
I think that's the best thing he's ever said.
The more they attack him, the richer he gets. And the richer he gets the more they attack him, because left-egalitarians hate nothing more than other people's success and happiness.
People like this are, without fail, miserable in their personal lives. They want to spread their misery to you. When you just laugh at them, or you ridicule them, they become more and more deranged.
I insist that you bear this in mind in your own life. Anyone who acts the way these people do is never happy. Not ever, not once. They are envious, they are bitter at their own lack of accomplishment, and they hate to see someone enjoying his life -- as I most certainly do.
The very last thing they are is crusaders for justice. They are anything in the world but that."
Tom Woods

"Climate science has been turned from a legitimate branch of knowledge into a new age religion, where heretics are persecuted. It’s become a means to centralize even more power in the State. After all, the fate of the Earth is at stake!
So, it’s very advantageous to join the crowd if you’re a scientist, or at least not fight against it. It’s evidence of the corruption of science itself, which is really serious.
That’s another argument for getting the U.S. government 100% out of science of all types. The will, and the capital, to fund scientific projects will still exist. It just shouldn’t be allocated by the political process of government."
Doug Casey

"Let me tell you what the most dangerous policy action in the world is.
It is to decide that a phenomenon such as climate change is our No. 1 problem, that we need urgent action on it before understanding who is going to control the policy discussion and implement the solutions. Build a consensus that man-made climate change is our No. 1 problem and I assure you that our mystery governance system will use it to achieve a global taxation system and more centralized control."
Catherine Austin Fitts

"We proceed from the position that there are no insoluble conflicts of interest within the private-property order, even to the recognition that warlike behavior becomes rarer as the scope and intensity of social association grows. Wars, foreign and domestic (revolutions, civil wars), are more likely to be avoided the closer the division of labor binds men. The belligerent creature, man, becomes industrial, the 'hero' becomes a 'trader.' The democratic institutions serve to eliminate violent action within the state, as they seek to maintain or achieve agreement between the wills of those who govern and those who are governed."
Ludwig von Mises

"The purpose of government is for those who run it to plunder those who do not."
Thomas DiLorenzo

"I have often wondered why the sounds of the beating drums do not make the marching soldiers shoot their officers and go home."
Albert J. Nock