Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"It has been forgotten in this day and age of total fear that our bodies, not governments, are our defense against viral agents. Maybe a few will learn from this fakery that germs are our friends. Unless our bodies are exposed to germs and viruses, natural defenses against sickness disappear, leaving the body vulnerable to every sort of germ and virus. Listening to these political trimmers therefore is detrimental to our  
Coronaviruses are not a threat to healthy humans with strong immune systems. Viruses cannot replicate in that environment, which means symptoms and sickness are rarely present. In addition, sunshine and high vitamin D levels are of great importance, as is diet, exercise, sleep, and relaxing calm. What this means is that government and its idiotic mandates are actually killing many people, and those deaths are due to the very governing body that is lying about how to protect your health. They are in fact causing much death, much more so than this so-called Covid-19."
Gary D. Barnett

"The war that the state is conducting is not against a virus, but against the people who produce and create value in this country, against free men and women, and the very concept of liberty.  Citizens are rounding themselves up, walking in lines, imprisoning themselves, and purchasing their own tracking devices, and so in practicing a national lockdown, in dealing with the enemy (us!), the state has done well in this current round.
The enemy of the state is not a virus.  The government reaction to this particular set of viruses this year and last, in nearly all countries, has been to assume a war footing, complete with state propaganda, martial law, economic disruption, fear and an indefinite suspension of Constitutional protections that free men expect.  So what is this really about?  Practicing for future biowar? Or just maintaining the health of increasingly pathetic, corrupted, unrepresentative, and financially broken government?"
Karen Kwiatkowski

"It becomes obvious that the mega–bailout package will effectively result in an increase in the quantity of money in the economy. Sound economics tells us what the consequences are: the increase in the quantity of money will result in higher goods prices, thereby lowering the purchasing power of money. In other words: the mega–bailout package boils down to 'money printing'—to an inflationary policy. Again, sound economic tells us that inflation is a policy redistributing income and wealth among people: it does not create a win-win situation; it creates winners and losers."
Dr. Thorsten Polleit

"Ok, enough with the 'social distancing" lingo.  It’s antisocial distancing, exactly the opposite of what the 'public health' bureaucratic scammers want you to say.  Don’t fall for their Orwellian mind-control games."
Tom DiLorenzo

"There is a standard distribution of sociopaths across time and space. It’s a function of Pareto’s Law, better known as the 80-20 rule. 20% of the people do 80% of the work. Another 20% are responsible for 80% of the crime. 20% of the population always winds up with 80% of the wealth. And so forth, through all areas of human endeavor.
This observation can be represented by a bell-shaped curve – a 'standard distribution' – with a small minority at each extreme, but the large majority in the middle. The people who will take us to a police state are sociopaths – criminal personalities who don’t respect the liberty or property of others. And sociopaths gravitate towards government, and eventually come to control it.
My view is that 80% of human beings are basically decent, get along, go along types. 20% are what you might call potential trouble sources, that can go either way. But then you take 20% of that 20%, and you’re dealing with the sociopaths.
When social conditions reach a certain stage, these really bad guys come out from under their rocks and take advantage of the situation. We’re seeing that right now in the US, across the political spectrum. Just as we’ve seen in the past in hundreds of places throughout history."
Doug Casey

"Closing the schools and colleges was a mistake because it retarded the spread of viral 'herd immunity' among non–vulnerable young people. But the economy may benefit if online education and home schools relieve millennials 'herd immunity' to reason and common sense and release their creativity on the frontiers of the new economy."
George Gilder

"Through all the important questions about science, we are failing to ask the most salient public policy question: What authority does a governor or county official have to suspend all personal liberty and property rights of even healthy individuals and business owners indefinitely without due process? The answer is, of course, that absolutely no such authority exists.
There is no greater right than the ability to move freely without restriction. We’ve never experienced a time in our 400 years on this continent, even under King George, when the movement of the entire people of a state was restricted this severely for this long, especially without due process. While the people who form a society give up certain powers in order to empower a government to protect public safety, this core freedom has never been ceded.
It’s funny how the legal mistakes made by our governments have merged with the scientific mistakes they continue to make. The reason why there has never been any power to shut down an entire state’s economy and liberties for a public health crisis is because, scientifically, there is no sensible approach to countering a virus by locking down the healthy, without herd immunity."
Daniel Horowitz

"The foundation of civilization is constructed on the basic principle that when we all come together, the synergy that emerges is greater than the sum of the individuals. As long as we all benefit, civilization expands. Once corruption enters and we begin to see the divide pitting one group against another, the cycle of civilization turns down. The social distancing is yet another step toward dividing and destabilizing our civilization. The Trump administration has cut off funding for the WHO and threatens it may be permanent. The WHO should be dissolved for it has been compromised with conflicts of interest and its recommendations have been undermining not just the economy but the very foundation of civilization."
Martin Armstrong

"This plan totally depended on evangelical pastors and churches sheepishly going along with it. This they would not have done had a liberal Democrat been in the White House. Are you kidding? Commanding churches to cancel their services—no communions, no baptisms, no Easter services—a total shutdown of houses of worship nationwide? Are you kidding me? You and I both know that if Hillary Clinton were president and she had said that no more than ten people could assemble in church—or anywhere else, for that matter—pastors and Christians would have protested in the streets and would have defiantly continued their public services en masse. But, because Donald Trump issued the declaration, almost the entire evangelical world bowed the knee to the state without a whimper.
The rest was easy. Restaurant closures, business closures, school closures, travel restrictions, rationed medical care and empty hospitals: Once evangelicals had been neutralized, there was no resistance."
Chuck Baldwin

"There is also already an outcry by people claiming it is idiotic to re-open nail and hair salons while people are dying. None of these people seem to realize or acknowledge that unlike being forced to close, these business are not being forced to reopen. Also unlike the fact people were forcefully prevented from patronizing these businesses, they are not now being forced to patronize them. The only difference is now the businesses are being allowed to be open and people allowed to patronize them. In other words, nothing more sinister than the restoration of individual choice. As usual the horror of horrors for the busybodies and alarmists is that some people may actually choose to act in some way that they personally feel is irresponsible. Isn’t this always the case with statists of any political stripe?"
Greg Privette

"Using victims to create false heroes has now been elevated to an art form by politicians, the corporate media and mega-corporations to push whatever agenda supports their narrative. The propaganda machine is their most useful tool, as decades of dumbing down the public through government school indoctrination has created millions of pliable useful idiots who will believe anything presented by 'experts' on the boob tube. The fear and panic created by politicians and the media about a virus only marginally more dangerous than the common flu is the perfect representation of this power over reality.
Lies, backed by an unceasing stream of propaganda and fear, are being used to panic the masses into willingly abandon their freedoms, liberties and rights for the chains of false safety, security, and state control over every aspect of their lives. It is astonishing to watch in real time as a vast swath of America cowers in their homes, as demanded by their authoritarian elected leaders, while their livelihoods and net worth are purposely destroyed to benefit the .1% ruling class."
Jim Quinn

"In a market economy, every business is essential because every type of industry relies on, stimulates, and necessitates the other industries. And of course, every business is essential to the owner of the business, the family of the owner, the employees who work at the business, and the customers who patronize the business.
Once it is accepted that the government can decide which businesses are essential, then no reasonable or logical argument can be made against the government deciding which products and services offered by businesses are essential.
Just as all lives matter, so all businesses matter."
Laurence Vance

"The people making the decisions are not the ones who will suffer their consequences. Government entities are–by design–not accountable for their actions. And that is the whole problem. What we are facing right now is not the threat of a deadly pandemic. We are facing the threat of a deadly paradigm.
It is a paradigm that tells us that the best way to deal with threats–especially big, scary threats that could impact us all and potentially kill a lot of people–is for a central authority to make decisions that are then imposed by force on everyone else. (The pushers of this paradigm like to leave out the whole lack of accountability thing.)
To a panicked population, this might sound reasonable. 'Freedom and individual rights are all well and good when things are fine,' people may tell themselves, 'but this is an emergency! We need the parental figure of the state to step in and do something'!"
Bretigne Shaffer

"The fear of the virus is an irrational fear.
In just one week, this became an indelible lifelong fear.
A sneeze in a crowded theatre will now send shivers down your spine.  We are now afraid of a sneeze.  And the sneezer feels guilty.
Gone is “God bless you” or 'Gesundheit'."
Bill Sardi

"When someone dies in this country right now they’re not talking about the high blood pressure, the diabetes, the stroke. They say they died from COVID. We’ve been to hundreds of autopsies. You don’t talk about one thing, you talk about comorbidities. COVID was part of it, it is not the reason they died folks. When I’m writing up my death report I’m being pressured to add COVID.
Why is that? Why are we being pressured to add COVID? To maybe increase the numbers, and make it look a little bit worse than it is. We’re being pressured in-house to add COVID to the diagnostic list when we think it has nothing to do with the actual cause of death. The actual cause of death was not COVID, but it’s being reported as one of the disease processes and being added to the death list. COVID didn’t kill them, 25 years of tobacco use killed."
Edward Peter Stringham

"You’ll never hear a governor say 'I can’t let people die. . .' of heart attacks. Or hurricanes. Or diabetes. 
They’ll never order a complete shut down of the economy because of a spike in automobile accidents.
These politicians are perfectly fine for people to die of every other possible way, including pneumonia (as long as it wasn’t caused by Covid).
But death from Covid? Unacceptable! 
It’s truly bizarre. And they’re willing to destroy everything-- the economy, individual liberty-- just so they don’t look flat-footed or get blamed for Covid deaths.
Sorry, but that’s not what leadership is all about. You’re not supposed to factor your personal approval ratings into a decision-making process. 
Leadership is not a popularity contest. And sometimes it demands the heavy responsibility of asking for sacrifice… asking others to take a risk.
But what have we been asked to sacrifice? Nothing. Stay home and watch Netflix. Take your free government money.
That’s not leadership. And that’s not a tough decision."
Simon Black

"Bear that in mind, all ye dissidents: the State cannot legally enforce whims, whether they originate with the governor or the quacks at the public health department. Only duly-enacted legislation is 'law.' (Unfair, unjust, tyrannical, yes: that is the nature of positive law.)"
Becky Akers

"Americans are uniquely privileged, to the point of simply imagining they can stay home for months and months without suffering severe economic hardship as a result. Our unique privilege is delusion, the mentality that America is rich and will remain rich without particular effort on our part. Abundance simply materializes around us, regardless of incentives, and the job of politicians is to rearrange this abundance more equitably."
Jeff Deist

"Some nations are on lockdown, some aren’t. Some order populations to wear masks, some don’t. But honestly, they don’t even know how many people have Covid-19 or have died from it. Don’t fall for the show of confidence; it’s guesswork at this point.
The lockdowns are an obvious sign. Telling entire populations not to go anywhere is not a plan; it’s a lack of one. Think about all the times you’ve screamed 'Don’t move.' Did you shout it because you had a strategy, or because you needed time to come up with one? Every time a lockdown is extended, it’s an admission that the authorities need a little more thinking time. 
That’s why one characteristic of this crisis has been the array of methods used to say 'We don’t know' without actually saying it. Governments deflect to the science, the science relies on the numbers, and journalists try to sound like they know what should be done while blaming the government. And on it goes."
Simon Rite

"Why aren’t the families of veterans protesting the violation of our freedoms by the state governments? Didn’t veterans fight and in some cases die for our freedoms? And what about the current members of the military? Aren’t we always told that they fight for our freedoms? They sure are lax on the job."
Laurence Vance

"As Americans cower in their self-made prisons, as they are ordered to wear harmful masks, are not allowed to gather together, are not allowed to work or do business, are forced in many cases to be physically violated by 'healthcare' goons, are not allowed to travel, are monitored by drones, harassed by pathetic criminal cops, spied upon at every level, or tattled on and 'shamed' by moronic and worthless citizens, do they feel good about the fact that they have a constitution? Do any actually think that they are protected by such fakery?
Until Americans can regain the small amount of brain power necessary to understand basic rights, until they can understand that they have no obligation whatsoever to comply with government mandates, until they look around and see that they have become slaves, then this coronavirus fraud will continue to worsen until breaking away from this totalitarian abuse will be nearly impossible."
Gary D. Barnett

"I admit that I myself am far from having a complete command of every topic I touch on, but my knowledge of my subject is always greater than the interest or the understanding of my auditors. You see, there is one very good thing about mankind; the mediocre masses make very few demands of the mediocrities of a higher order, submitting stupidly and cheerfully to their guidance."
Alfred de Vigny

"The political process is a facade of government that satisfies the quest for political choices. It is an illusion unrelated to reality and political participation by the people. It is, however, the perfect system for keeping the people focused on empty nonsense year after year. People totally misunderstand the nature of government. Otherwise they would know that there is no such thing as political choices or political freedom.
We are oppressed by government and most people are unaware of it because they themselves have assumed government morality from childhood as outlined above. It is impossible to change what you believe in your heart. If you are taught that democracy means freedom of political choices, you never question it, and the facade of politics serves for reality. Any challenge to this paradigm is written off as nuttery or conspiracy.
The political process is a merry-go-round of phony politicians and platforms that can guarantee only one thing to the person; that is, eternal diversion, deception and exhaustion."
Bob Livingston

"Only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the 'treasure hard to attain.' He alone has the claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives some faith and trust…in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means. He has arrived at an inner certainty which makes him capable of self-reliance."
Carl Jung

"If the West is to survive, it has to regain the things that made it successful. That means 90% of the government should be eliminated. There’s very little need for organized coercion in a high tech world. In fact, it greatly compounds dangers in every way.
Society would get on much better if economic regulations ceased to exist. The Federal Reserve is unnecessary; gold should be reinstituted as day-to-day money. The US should withdraw its military from its 800 or so bases around the world. By simply eliminating these things—not by doing more—the US economy and technology would boom. But because the opposite is happening, the US is declining."
Doug Casey

"Power does not feed you; it eats you."
Stefan Molyneux

"If our or any social/political system were working properly, socialism wouldn’t last 10 minutes on a freely-chosen and voluntary basis. At most there would be small communities destined to fail. The only way in which socialism and communism retain any presence whatsoever is because they are forced upon us.
The remarkable fact is that socialism still remains highly visible within our current social and political system. We are not free, because if we were we’d not voluntarily or willingly have such elements. They’d fail and we’d reject them. The socialists have so far successfully infiltrated our governments, which have defects all their own, and we as peoples have supported their programs as well as been unable to stop them.
Democratic republican governments of all sorts have proven highly vulnerable to socialist appeals. It’s an outcome of their makeup, their constitutions, and their powers. Although voluntary socialism fails, coercive socialism has succeeded in gripping our lives. Socialists today are all coercive socialists, just as conservatives are coercive conservatives and liberals are coercive liberals."
Michael Rozeff

"The basic assumption that you have a right to get something from somebody else means you have to endorse the concept of theft."
Rand Paul

"The only system of real freedom under natural law is anarchy. Anarchy simply means without rulers or masters, and therefore without government. Living together without aggression, without force, and in harmony is the only way to be truly free. This requires that individuals take full responsibility for themselves and the reality of life, and instead of bowing to a government master, they bow to no one.
What does all this mean, and what is the solution to the bondage of man? Acceptance of the truth is paramount, and without that acceptance, no progress can be forthcoming. Currently, the human species is going backward, and continues to deteriorate at an accelerating pace. It is not just government or rulers that have caused our slavery; it is all of us allowing it to happen. The government is made up of people, not gods. The only way that government can act as kings is if the people allow it. It is up to each individual to quit lying to himself, and understand that allowing a system where slavery exists is no different than being the slave master. Indifference is a human flaw, and the unbridled apathy that exists today is a direct assault on the soul of man."
Gary D. Barnett

"We say 'never again,' when we visit Holocaust memorials, we condemn the internment of Japanese Americans, and we vow to treat all people as equals, never to hate an entire group of people because of their race or ethnicity or sexual preference.
And all of that is beautiful. But it completely misses the point. The atrocities of the century before ours did not take place because a lot of people hated a lot of other people. Those atrocities were the product of all-powerful states that could do whatever they wanted to the people living under them. Not a single one of the living nightmares of the Nazis or the Soviets, of Pol Pot or Mao or any of the others could ever have happened without total state power. And once a state has that kind of power, there is very little that anyone living under it can do to stop it."
Bretigne Shaffer

"It is amazing how the ruling elites have so far managed to keep the show running. But there can be no doubt that the day of reckoning must eventually come, and when it does I see two likely scenarios of how to escape the danger of civil war. The first one is the strong man variant, an authoritarian regime that tries to hold all things together by means of centralized, dictatorial powers. And the second variant is that of decentralization: of secession, separation, and disaggregation so as to approach the ideal of a natural order. Naturally, the second variant is the one favored by libertarians (and recommended by Mises). Yet to make this variant win, libertarians have to prepare the ground. The public must be educated about the economic and social advantages of small, competing political units, and it is necessary to find and nurture potential charismatic leaders for the various decentralist and secessionist causes."
Hans-Hermann Hoppe

"The two most important lessons I learned from my 40 years in international financial markets, lessons that can also be applied to politics and to life in general, are to never make any decision based on emotion or ideology and to never, ever trust the news. Today’s media are exponentially worse than they were in the 1980s and 1990s. They no longer provide news. What they provide are stories that are around 80 percent ideology and opinion,10 percent lies and spin, and 10 percent fact."
Mitchell Feierstein

"All political action is simply seeking to eliminate cannibals by eating them."
Bill Buppert

"'Western values' are constantly invoked, but what are these values?  They are not the values that made the West what it is, or rather was.  These values are rejected.  Free speech is out if it challenges official explanations whether the government’s or the left’s or uses any words that can be misrepresented as 'hate speech.'  Democracy is out as demonstrated by the anti-democratic formation of the European Union. Truth is out as it is 'offensive.'  Rational inquiry is regarded as denial of emotion-based proclamations.  It goes on and on. Government repression is most significant not against violent acts of rebellion but against Julian Assange for exercising press freedom to convey information to the public."
Paul Craig Roberts

"When individuals are bunched into groups assigned intrinsic qualities—from victimhood to racism—normal human ties of mutual concern, shared purpose, comprehension and compassion are severed. In a grotesque development, new gender identities are invented, whose 'cause' overshadows the real problems of genuinely disadvantaged people. Economic issues are forgotten as groups mobilize solely to police attitudes.  Billionaires prosper more than ever before, while down below people bicker over safe spaces and toilet use."
Diana Johnstone

"The fundamental social phenomenon is the division of labor and its counterpart human cooperation. Experience teaches man that cooperative action is more efficient and productive than isolated action of self-sufficient individuals. The natural conditions determining man’s life and effort are such that the division of labor increases output per unit of labor expended.
We conceive what incentive induced people not to consider themselves simply as rivals in a struggle for the appropriation of the limited supply of means of subsistence made available by nature. We realize what has impelled them and permanently impels them to consort with one another for the sake of cooperation. Every step forward on the way to a more developed mode of the division of labor serves the interests of all participants."
Ludwig von Mises

"Had Wikileaks been available in 2001 and 2002, global awareness of government and corporate lies relating to the Iraq war alone would have saved lives, protected the environment, and slowed or stopped the new Cold Wars that still invigorate Western foreign policy. The truth is owned by all of us; those willing to step up and risk careers, reputations, and even their own lives to speak truth to power are a small, and sadly, expendable number.  Julian Assange and his vision of simple transparency, for the people, with technical protection for witnesses to evil, has saved lives, improved governance, and elevated the concept of honesty everywhere.  He is the very product of the Enlightenment, a shining knight of the best traditions of European and American values."
Karen Kwiakowski

"A lie can travel half-way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes."
Mark Twain

"Now that freedom has been abolished in America you all hereby have my permission to shout 'Bullshit!' at any member of the military, military veteran, or neocon blabbermouth on television who says the military is 'defending our freedoms'."
Tom DiLorenzo