Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"The Trump Administration argues that the Australian Assange should be tried and convicted of espionage against a country of which he is not a citizen. At the same time the Trump Administration argues that the First Amendment does not apply to Assange because he is not an American citizen! So Assange is subject to US law when it comes to publishing information embarrassing to the US deep state but he is not subject to the law of the land – the US Constitution – which protects all journalists and is the backbone of our system of government."
Ron Paul

"There can be no higher law in journalism than to tell the truth and to shame the devil."
Walter Lippmann

"There is a better reason why the Supreme Court should reconsider Roe v. Wade: the Constitution, federalism, the Tenth Amendment, and the proper role of the federal government—take your pick. What James Madison—the Father of the Constitution—wrote in Federalist No. 45 is still true, even though hardly anyone in Congress actually believes it: 'The powers delegated by the proposed Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Governments are numerous and indefinite.' There is no power delegated to the federal government by the Constitution that permits it to have anything to do with abortion. As Ron Paul has written: 'The federalization of abortion law is based not on constitutional principles, but rather on a social and political construct created out of thin air by the Roe court'."
Laurence Vance

"The stupidity of modern common man causes me great angst. I have attempted to understand the masses seemingly forever, but I cannot gain any understanding of the behavior of the mob, regardless of all my observance, study and research. Those that rule over this mob are much easier to figure out, because they have an obvious agenda, and benefit greatly from these non-thinking groups of lethargic fools.
The current ruling class, those elite at the top including banking and corporate magnates and others, and their pawns in politics, the mainstream media, the military, and certain other powerful entities, all have the same desires. These desires are power, money, and control over all others in society. This is what is sought, and this is what drives the strong to lord over the weak. This is why the constant deception exists. The point of it all is power. The gain is more power, more money, and more control. This class of people is the benefactor of all the lies and deceit, and they will stop at nothing to achieve total control. The losers are all the rest of us."
Gary D. Barnett

"Foreign progressive intervention has several features that differ from the domestic variety.  First, progressives know even less about foreign lands than they do about their own country where they still make huge policy blunders.  They are particularly unaware of the age-old conflicts among racial, ethnic and religious groups. They bring with them a western-style assumption, rooted in archism, that national borders are rational, just and sacrosanct.  Thus, they are blind to the fact that the state boundaries in most parts of the world are unjust, arbitrary and usually imposed by imperial powers after violent conquest.  Of course, as progressives (and archists), the notion that states need to be broken up into smaller parts that would allow the various warring tribes and groups to run their own nations, is loathsome to them.  Centralization is a primary progressive value.  So, for example, after the U. S. conquest of the artificial state of Iraq, they insisted on its continued integrity.  It was thus predictable that the Shiite majority would control the entire state after elections and impose its will on the minority Sunnis and Kurds, leading to the inevitable civil war.  Hillary Clinton, who voted for the Iraq War, was herself blissfully unaware of this inevitability."
James and Michael Ostrowski

"Once one concedes that a single world government is not necessary, then where does one logically stop at the permissibility of separate states? If Canada and the United States can be separate nations without being denounced as in a state of impermissible 'anarchy', why may not the South secede from the United States? New York State from the Union? New York City from the state? Why may not Manhattan secede? Each neighbourhood? Each block? Each house? Each person?"
Murray N. Rothbard

"I have said that we have an empirical political economy and social science to fit the distortions of our society. The test of empiricism in this matter is the attitude which one takes up toward laissez faire. It no doubt wounds the vanity of a philosopher who is just ready with a new solution of the universe to be told to mind his own business. So he goes on to tell us that if we think that we shall, by being let alone, attain a perfect happiness on earth, we are mistaken. The half-way men — the professional socialists — join him. They solemnly shake their heads, and tell us that he is right — that letting us alone will never secure us perfect happiness. Under all this lies the familiar logical fallacy, never expressed, but really the point of the whole, that we shall get perfect happiness if we put ourselves in the hands of the world-reformer.
We never supposed that laissez faire would give us perfect happiness. We have left perfect happiness entirely out of our account. If the social doctors will mind their own business, we shall have no troubles but what belong to nature."
William Graham Sumner

"A whistleblower is a good thing only when he exposes government corruption. The government is a special case, because it is by nature a coercive organization. It’s intrinsically dangerous and needs to be kept under control any way possible. In this context, a whistleblower is a well-intentioned snitch. A lot like an assassin would normally be a bad thing—but when his objective is a nasty dictator, he’s transformed into a good thing."
Doug Casey

"Indeed, it is a gross materialistic feature of otherwise idealistic writers who believe that some externalities of life are blocking the way to inner growth and the development of inner strength. He who does not know how to safeguard his equilibrium when surrounded by motorcycles and telephones will not find it in the jungle or desert. That is, he will not find the strength to overcome the nonessential with the essential. Man must be able to safeguard himself wherever he lives and whatever the circumstances should be. It is a sickly weakness of nerves that urges one to seek harmonious personality growth in past ages and remote places."
Ludwig von Mises

"Unmasked, democracy is a study of power attained through persuasion instead of physical conquest. Think how many have died for this farce.
The nature of government is to perpetually grow. And the nature of politics and politicians is to seek wealth, power and aggrandizement. They represent government, not you.
Governments and politicians mask their agendas and create illusions to deceive and misrepresent. Governments, bureaucrats and politicians look upon the public as a herd that should be deceived and led for the benefit of government and the elite.
The public has been trained to think in terms of what is legal and what is illegal. The politicians and their elite bosses operate above the law and outside the law. This is contempt for the people."
Bob Livingston

"There can be no denying that the world is indeed a dangerous place, but what the president and his cohorts fail to acknowledge is that it’s the government that poses the gravest threat to our freedoms and way of life, and no amount of politicking, parsing or pandering will change that.
It is easy to be diverted, distracted and amused by the antics of politicians, the pomp and circumstance of awards shows, athletic events, and entertainment news, and the feel-good, wrapped-in-the-flag evangelism that passes for religion today.
What is far more difficult to face up to is the reality of life in America, where unemployment, poverty, inequality, injustice and violence by government agents are increasingly norms, and where 'we the people' are at a distinct disadvantage in the face of the government elite’s power grabs, greed and firepower."
John W. Whitehead

"Not only is the envy-based anger of the left every bit as strong as the MAGA anger that brought Donald Trump to White House, the Radical Left has one big advantage:  To them, Marxism is a religious crusade that demands a willingness to resort to any means necessary to bring about change that is to their liking.  So, even though zombie Democrats are looking quite crazed and moronic right now, it would be wise not to underestimate them.
On the other side of the political coin, when a conservative gets up every morning, he thinks about how to get ahead in the world by providing value in the marketplace.  He may not consciously think about it that way, but it’s instinctive for normal people to strive to better their existence.  The last thing on their minds is trying to figure out ways to gain control of other people’s lives."
Robert Ringer

"Here is the dirty little secret. There is no such thing as limited government. Nowhere in recorded human history has a government been born or deliberately erected that did not expand over time. Expand in a fashion that always odes at the expense of human liberty and freedom and to the advantage of the political elements and their inevitable clients.
We are ultimately left to our own devices to make the world as we wish it be. I envision a world without limits and without slavery. A world where a human volition is never stymied by the cowed and collaborationist spirit that haunts the soul and being of most humans on Earth. We live on a planet where our friends and neighbors would never deign to raise a hand against us nor help themselves to our bank accounts and wallets without our permission, yet they happily hire proxies to do so and in the most obscene fashion. They take comfort in the advocacy and collaboration of one faction over another."
Bill Buppert

"To my mind, ingratitude is one of the worst -- and most irritating -- qualities someone can have.
 We're surrounded by miracles, and most people, frankly, are ingrates.
 People who don't appreciate their benefactors, or what's been given to them, or who take modern miracles for granted, are ingrates."
Tom Woods

"The surveillance apocalypse is not specifically surveillance capitalism, but part and parcel of deep state agriculture, which instead of growing wheat, corn, cattle and chickens, grows compliant and cautious citizens, whose every movement, relationship, thought and action is tracked in near or real time, in order to reduce risk to the state. The data gathering itself, the panopticon effect on a society, along with state-induced rifts, debates, redistributions, and foreign wars –all of these manipulate emotions in predictable and state-manageable ways. The citizen – body and mind – is contained and maintained in the “right” fields. Atomistic and poorly educated, often fighting each other, we never realize we are continually consenting to the deep state, and its often murderous designs and livelihood."
Karen Kwiatkowski

"I remain amazed that out of the 63 million Americans who voted for Trump he couldn’t find a thousand or so to hire for his administration. What a difference he could have made if he hadn’t opted for cocktail conservative retreads."
Michael Shannon

"Arms are the only true badge of liberty. The possession of arms is the distinction of a free man from a slave."
Andrew Fletcher