Sunday, March 22, 2020

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"America is said to be facing a coronavirus that is not as virulent or deadly than the seasonal influenza virus this flu season, yet the nation is being placed in quarantine and the national guard is said to be readying for 'urban lockdown.' All this onerous social and economic control over a worst-case scenario that predicts millions of coronavirus deaths in the U.S., which is not likely to ever happen, that is, unless the sun doesn’t shine come spring.
Placement of sun lamps in elder-care facilities would remedy a lot of excess disease in winter months, not just coronavirus.  The idea of allowing disease to infectious disease to occur, albeit only to result in mortal consequences in a small segment of the population, and then enforce quarantines to halt the spread of what amounts to 'sun deprivation disease' is a total misdirection in health care.
At the moment political leaders around the world are willing to destroy whole economies to prolong the life of 80-year-olds by a few months."
Bill Sardi

"It’s extraordinary that the Fed cut rates to zero... and the recession hasn't actually even started yet. 
How low will we see rates go in the coming months once the real economic damage surfaces? How much money are they going to print? 
But nothing the Fed does is going to matter. There is no interest rate cut, no amount of money they can print, which will defeat a global pandemic.
It would be just as silly if the headline had read: Federal Reserve cuts rates to zero to fight California wildfire
Printing money won’t put out a fire, and printing money won’t stop a viral pandemic."
Simon Black

"It is ironic to see the same Democrats who tried to impeach President Trump last month for abuse of power demanding that the administration grab more power and authority in the name of fighting a virus that thus far has killed less than 100 Americans."
Ron Paul

"The pandemic is not an excuse for tyranny, and I for one will not comply. I and many I know will self-quarantine for a time with the expectation that we will eventually contract the virus, and hopefully our immune systems are strong enough to fight it. In the meantime, I will not be allowing any government officials to confiscate my supplies or my firearms. I will not sit idle while checkpoints are set up in my county to enforce travel restrictions or demand people test for symptoms. I will not be signing up for government rations in exchange for my biometric data. I will not be visiting the local FEMA center for government aid. And I will fight anyone that tries to assert martial law tactics in my area.
A message to the government: I know you won't, but I suggest you leave people alone and let them self-isolate in peace. Most of us don't need your help. You and the financial elites that reside over you created this mess, and we do not trust you to clean it up. At bottom, this disaster should result in your removal from power. You should be fired and replaced."
Brandon Smith

"We now see Trump’s mug on the television every day telling people it will be okay and if we just stick to the fifteen day play, the world will be better.
This is the natural result of executive government, and Americans have clearly decided they want more president and less Congress and the States. 
But it hasn’t always been that way, and the framers and ratifiers of the Constitution certainly didn’t think it should be that way.
The president takes an oath to 'preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States.'
Shelling out $2000 checks and running the economy into the ground is not one of his delegated powers.
We’ve went into this black hole in 1933 and have never returned."
Brion McClanahan

"Economic rationale is not what is driving policy; apocalyptic doom-mongering is. Provoked by the media, governments have been forced into a macabre competition of being seen to be acting. The 'do something… anything' approach has resulted in new performative displays aimed at placating the doom mongers, rather than address the health problem rationally. Many governments have been driven less by a reasoned, evidence-based strategy of limiting both the spread of the disease and the disorganisation of economic life, than by an urge to be seen to be taking action.
The real problem is that governments have politicised a health crisis and transformed it into a social and economic crisis. A more measured approach, especially after understanding China’s experience, would have been to treat this as a medical emergency for the people most vulnerable, and to have taken appropriate measures to isolate and protect these groups. This would have disrupted things, for sure. But it would not have caused the global market meltdown and disastrous recession we now face."
Norman Lewis

"I continue to believe that this virus has blown to diabolical proportion in order to cover for the financial system that was going to collapse in any case: the system isn’t collapsing because of the virus; the virus is the pretext invented to deflect blame for the collapse.
Events daily only reinforce this view.  Will people die?  Of course, just as they do from the flu.  Will the numbers be accurate, with an accurate analysis of the factors causing death?  No chance, as this will destroy the narrative.
Whatever happens, the state will use it for its aggrandizement.  If relatively few deaths are attributed to this virus, it will be because the state took draconian measures – and these measures must be permanent and permanently available.  If many deaths are attributed to the virus, it will be because the state did not have enough power, and evermore power will be stolen from us.
Almost hourly, more cities, counties and states are suggesting, advising, or requiring us to shelter in place.  In a land that had some understanding of the world, we would know this as martial law."
Bionic Mosquito

"The newest pandemic to strike America, and the rest of the world as well, is a disease with many strains of the gene called 'stupidity.' I have not in my lifetime seen this much ignorance displayed by so many all at the same time. Something so normal as a minor flu has stilled the earth, and has caused almost all of humanity to be consumed by fear and a total lack of logical thought. It is even worse than I present here, as people are going against each other, monitoring their neighbors for the state, hiding in their homes as ordered, closing their businesses, voluntarily leaving their jobs, and cowering to the false authority of a government that is pretending to be God on high."
Gary D. Barnett

"In 1845 Texans decided that they wanted to live under the American form of government as it existed at the time. The United States government has now admitted that they are no longer following the documents which Texas agreed to follow upon joining. Texas needs to be free to pursue those American, in fact now Texan ideals. We should be permitted to live the American system and the only way to do that is to once again be a free and independent Republic of Texas."
Daniel Rice

"The State's criminality is nothing new and nothing to be wondered at. It began when the first predatory group of men clustered together and formed the State, and it will continue as long as the State exists in the world, because the State is fundamentally an anti-social institution, fundamentally criminal. The idea that the State originated to serve any kind of social purpose is completely unhistorical. It originated in conquest and confiscation—that is to say, in crime….No State known to history originated in any other manner, or for any other purpose. Like all predatory or parasitic institutions, its first instinct is that of self-preservation. All its enterprises are directed first towards preserving its own life, and, second, towards increasing its own power and enlarging the scope of its own activity. For the sake of this it will, and regularly does, commit any crime which circumstances make expedient."
Albert Jay Nock

"Freedom is an open-ended concept. It’s dynamic. There’s no telling what comes of it. It opens out to an infinity of possibilities that cannot be predicted. Striving never ceases. Man is a finite being who moves toward the infinity of God unceasingly and freely. Man answers the call of God freely, and that is what the myth of the Garden tells us. The answer can be for good or evil. Freedom can entail movement away from the divine or toward it. Each of us decides freely and that’s the way God wants it, we are told. Otherwise, without such a freedom, we are automatons and our creation lacks meaning and drama.
In contrast, the communist idea is closed-ended. It’s static. It hopes to achieve a perfect society and that’s the end of history. It’s a heaven-on-earth orientation. It aims to make goodness happen unfreely. However, using force to make goodness and good people is not what God asks of us in a biblical orientation. That’s the direction of evil. This is one reason why communism is a godless philosophy."
Michael Rozeff

"In times past, the disposition was to look upon the State as something one had to reckon with, but as a complete outsider. One got along with the State as best one could, feared or admired it, hoped to be taken in by it and to enjoy its perquisites, or held it at arm's length as an untouchable thing; one hardly thought of the State as the integral of Society. One had to support the State—there was no way of avoiding taxes—and one tolerated its interventions as interventions, not as the warp and woof of life. And the State itself was proud of its position apart from, and above, Society. The present disposition is to liquidate any distinction between State and Society, conceptually or institutionally….The idea that this power apparatus is indeed the enemy of Society, that the interests of these institutions are in opposition, is simply unthinkable….[U]ntil the modern era, it was an axiom that the State bears constant watching, that pernicious proclivities are built into it."
Frank Chodorov

"The Constitution in general has been interpreted out of existence—except for meaningless administrative niceties like who gets to cast a tie-breaking vote in the Senate or the order of succession if the president dies. The Bill of Rights is basically a dead letter.
When talking about guns, however, it’s a mistake to reference the Constitution. It means nothing to the 96% of the world outside the US. And it is just a document, which can be—and probably will be—changed or abandoned entirely. The essential issue here about guns is that it differentiates a free man from a slave. Historically a free man has the right to be armed and defend himself. A slave does not.
Sam Colt made it possible for a 90-pound woman to be equal to a 200-pound man who was attacking her. Sam Colt did more to protect the rights of the weak than every legislature since Day One."
Doug Casey

"The reason people never use the power of their superior numbers to force real change, even though they’re being exploited and oppressed in myriad ways by the ruling class, is because they’ve been propagandized into accepting the status quo as desirable (or at least normal). The propaganda of the political/media class is therefore the establishment’s front line of defense. Its most powerful, and essential, weapon."
Caitlin Johnstone

"In order to face betrayal in life, acceptance of the truth of that betrayal is necessary. Until the general population accepts the truth, and decides to fight back against the ruling class and its government pawns, the risk of losing everything will remain in place. None should ever accept the ridiculous notion that a few chosen from a crowd of fools should rule over the rest under the guise of 'representative' government. The mere idea of this is one that can only marginalize the individual in favor of the collective, and therefore destroy all sovereignty of the people at large."
Gary D. Barnett

"A military draft violates the principle that individuals have inalienable rights that no government should violate. A draft also puts all of our rights at risk. If we accept that the government has the legitimate authority to force individuals to fight, kill and die in a war, then how can we argue that the government cannot force citizens to pay high taxes, purchase health insurance or submit to TSA screenings? How can we argue against the government forbidding people from smoking marijuana or owning 'assault' weapons'?"
Ron Paul

"It’s a universal truth that governmental power always expands during periods of perceived crisis. It also is a universal truth that politicians and bureaucrats seize opportunities to expand their missions and power. We must keep those dynamics in mind when evaluating government actions with respect to the coronavirus threat…
It’s not too soon for sober reflection and debate about such matters. Unfortunately, the current atmosphere increasingly exhibits the characteristics of a collective panic — and that is always a poor basis for intelligent policy decisions. Americans must not passively accept government edicts and restrictions without raising pertinent questions, and, when necessary, voicing objections."
Ted Galen Carpenter

"We the people are the natural enemy of the empire.  The intellectual murder of Julian Assange and his physical murder to come, by our government, is a public message to all of us, direct from the soulless powers that be, our criminal Congress and the perfect parasite of the IC and the military industrial complex that we are owned, we are enslaved, we are worth only what the state says we are worth, and we must comply."
Karen Kwiatkowski

"A certain type of person strives to become a master over all, and to extend his force, his will to power, and to subdue all that resists it. But he encounters the power of others, and comes to an arrangement, a union, with those that are like him: thus they work together to serve the will to power. And the process goes on."
Friedrich Nietzsche

"In the American South relations between whites and blacks were put on the wrong foot by Reconstruction (1865-1877).  For Northern fanatics who hated the South, Reconstruction was not about restoring infrastructure and food production. It was about reconstructing white people who had been demonized and reconstructing their demonized society. The history of Reconstruction was written by the victors and hides the abuse of Southern people that led to the rise of the KKK as a resistance movement. The North was so intent on punishing the South that the North neglected the harm Reconstruction did to race relations in the South. The Jim Crow laws that segregated the races were passed in the immediate aftermath of Reconstruction and reflected the South’s bitterness from Reconstruction.  For 12 years southerners had experienced life under black rule supported by the Union Army and had experienced humiliations encouraged by vindictive Union officers.  Jim Crow laws were the unintended consequences of Reconstruction.
As time passed, whites and blacks began building workable relationships, white bitterness had faded, and the races were more or less getting along until the holier-than-thou northern liberals arrived preaching hatred in the 1950s and early 1960s and bringing another Reconstruction."
Paul Craig Roberts

"The biggest myth in politics is that political parties are in business simply to win elections. These criminal cartels are in business to maintain their networks of crony corruption, patronage, and payoff which are their reasons for being. The National Security State, driven by the imperial presidency, an acquiescent congress and a complacent federal judiciary, has destroyed the American Republic. Their egregious welfare-warfare state, enabled by the Fed, fosters and promotes the profligacy and dependency which is at the root of this destructive process.
One of the great lies about American politics is that Republicans genuinely subscribe to a set of core convictions that make Republicans different from Democrats while America’s cities are devolving into open sewers of disease, squalor, criminality, and despair.
Banal empty cliches fail to address the perpetually underclass homeless and illegal immigrants fostering a parasitic lumpenproletariat and the destruction of bourgeois middle class society."
Charles Burris

"Now you'd think secession would be a question we could discuss rationally, the way we discuss anything else. The American Union is obviously just a utilitarian arrangement, to be judged by how well it works, rather than sacred and unchangeable. (Why on Earth would it be? Does the Union exist for the people, or the people for the Union?)
Of course, we're not allowed to have this conversation. Why, neither Mitt Romney nor Barack Obama thinks it's a reasonable question, so that does it, citizen!
You should instead discuss whether the top marginal income tax rate should be cut by three-tenths of a percentage point, or which strategy is best to export feminism to Afghanistan.
But wondering if perhaps the American body politic has grown so large as to become dysfunctional and unmanageable -- an empirical question that isn't obviously insane? Why, it's heretical even to utter such a thought, citizen!"
Tom Woods

"The people who caused the great world wars and all wars that have brought death and suffering to millions of people were the central bankers in other countries and the Federal Reserve Bank in the United States.
Central banks create paper money and credit for government and politicians to spend for war and their socialist agenda. All of the money and credit now crushing the American people was created by the U.S. central bank, the Federal Reserve (which is neither Federal, nor does it hold reserves). It is owned, as it has been since its beginning, by a few bankster families in the United States and Europe."
Bob Livingston

"Assault-weapons laws resemble hate-speech laws. Hate-speech laws usually begin by targeting a few words that almost no one approves of. Once the system for controlling and punishing 'hate speech' is put into place, there is little or nothing to stop it from expanding to punish more and more types of everyday speech. Similarly, once an assault-weapons law is on the books, there is little to prevent politicians from vastly increasing the number of weapons banned under the law."
James Bovard

"It’s not MAGA.
It’s MAGGOT: Make American Government Obese Again Taxpayer."
Bill Buppert

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