Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Most human beings still think like slaves.  Instead of asking questions or using critical thinking skills to ask if something is right before doing it, they simply obey perceived 'authority'.  The truth is, this lockdown is the fault of everyone who complied and everyone who used forced to exact revenge on those who disobeyed.  It was the same in all tyrannical takeovers in history.The mainstream media keeps blaming the economic devastation on the coronavirus, but it wasn’t the fault of a virus.  It was the fault of the government and the slave mentality of the police and the public willingly obeying their commands."
Mac Slavo

"Now with politicians wearing masks, they are embracing the bandits they really are."
David Mueller

"If there’s going to be a public health bureau, then there should be civilian control of the public health bureaucrats. Doctors shouldn’t be in control. They shouldn’t be making the strategic decisions. In cities, counties and states, public health personnel should not be making the strategic decisions. Their advice is one thing, their capacity to supply information is another thing, and their ability to carry out orders is a third thing, but the overall decisions should not be in their hands.
The natural next step is to realize that politicians are also prone to be strongly biased in their decisions and prone to extend their power into every nook and cranny of our lives. The current outbreak of government directives, rules and orders shows this clearly."
Michael Rozeff

"This is not Armageddon – the end of the world. This is just the end of the political system, and unfortunately, this Virus-Climate Change nonsense is deliberately trying to destroy the economy. They have no idea how to create the world they think needs to be created. They are ending Capitalism to be replaced with tyranny. They will not succeed, but this will come at the cost of blood in the streets which will vary depending upon where you are. The Midwest and the South will stand against California and New England – the stronghold of the Marxist believers."
Martin Armstrong

"Keep in mind, socialists are very clever operators. They will use any crisis, including the lockdown which is closer to socialist central planning than anything else, to promote their very shallow understanding of economics and societal organization.
They do, however, understand organizing to gain power, because power-seeking and the desire to rule over others is what they are all about."
Robert Wenzel

"Real laws are passed by Congress and state legislatures and are signed by chief executives.  NONE of the 'stay-at-home' orders are laws; they are the mere words of politicians and bureaucrats.  Nor are they based on “science.” In the true spirit of Abraham Lincoln, who arbitrarily redefined 'treason' from its Article 3, Section 3 definition of 'levying war upon' the free and independent states (which he was guilty of) to criticizing himself and his policies, the political class has not amended but simply redefined the Constitution to mean whatever words come out of either sides of their mouths."
Tom DiLorenzo

"We are definitely facing a horrible pandemic, but it is not due to any virus. The real pandemic is that the United States government and the enforcers for the controlling ruling class, are waging war on American citizens, and will not relent until the people themselves stop it. This totalitarian takeover will never cease by using the political system, as that corrupt system is why we are in this mess in the first place. A belief in nation instead of self led to nationalistic pride where none was deserved, and has brought complacency, weakness, and dependence on government, and left the people without the will to self rule. The result is obvious, but more than that, it is now fatally dangerous.
Freedom and independence can only be achieved and held by non-obedient, non-conforming individuals. Therefore, we must in order to defeat this criminal government force, become a nation of dissenters by not complying with any government order concerning this government created fake crisis."
Gary D. Barnett

"Fauci be not proud, though some have called thee
Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so;
For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow."
Bill Bonner

"It is cage life – behind bars, in a fake nature – that the experts now offer. They will protect us from the virus by ordering us to stay home. And they will feed us with their fake money… like giving sawdust soup to prisoners of war.
Human life is necessarily a risky undertaking. From cradle to grave, we are always in danger – of losing the ones we love… losing our honor… losing our liberty… losing our money… losing our nerve… losing our dignity… and losing our place in Heaven. Losing our lives is inevitable… and the least of our worries.
Life always ends the same way: in death. The important thing is not to avoid it; that is impossible. Instead, the important thing is to accept the risks of real life… and to try to make the best of it…
…and when our time comes, not to whine and cower, but to die with grace and dignity. That is why pneumonia is called 'the old man’s friend.' It helps him into the grave, before he needs tubes and bedpans. That is also – at least, it appears to be – the charm of the C-virus. It is a friend to the old and infirm, not an enemy."
Bill Bonner

"Globally, about 400,000 people die from the common seasonal flu each year. And I doubt that the virus will even get that high – it’s just over 300,000 globally now, even though the numbers are being inflated for political reasons. It's a manufactured hysteria. The biggest one since the witch hysteria of the 17th century.
It's a convenient excuse for the collapse of the economy. The economy would have collapsed anyway, because of all the distortions caused by the State. But now, they can blame it on the virus. Now they can say it's really nobody's fault. It's not the fault of the government. It's not the fault of the Federal Reserve. It's just an act of God that came out of nowhere.
So this is perfect for the government. If I was them, I would look at this thing as manna from heaven. It's the best thing that's ever happened to them. Not to mention an excuse for a vast increase in State power. It’s better than 9/11, global warming, and the 2008 financial crisis combined."
Doug Casey

"The economic devastation from this unnecessary virus insanity has so structurally altered the economy that the Climate Changed advocates are throwing wild parties cheering the end of so many jobs. What they fail to understand is that these are people with families. The $1200 check will do nothing and the Democrats are only concerned about bailing out government worker pensions at the state and local levels. The rest of society is just collateral damage of no importance to get to ZERO CO2 for they are just the unwashed irrelevant people who have no human rights at stake in this monopoly game of power."
Martin Armstrong

"Americans should pause and reflect on the lies they are being sold. Masks are just a form of psychological manipulation. Many reputable physicians and scientists have said they are worthless and potentially harmful. Lockdowns are meant to condition people to obey without question. A nation of people who just do what they are told by the 'experts' without question is a nation ripe for a descent into total tyranny. This is no empty warning – it’s backed up by history. Time to stand up to all the petty tyrants from our hometowns to Washington DC. It is time to reclaim our freedom."
Ron Paul

"The lockdown is an attack on capitalism and freedom unprecedented in the world’s leading capitalist nation. It must stop and now or world economic and technological leadership will inexorably shift to communist China. And power in the US will shift toward socialism.
That’s not a computer model. That is the product of direct observation during six weeks of trips to China over the last year. People who imagine that the US can douse its economy for months on end without dire consequences need to look up from their computer screens and contemplate reality."
George Gilder

"Faced with a 17th-century plague, we are left to fall back mainly on the 17th-century response of quarantine and closing the theaters."
Matt Ridley

"I’m not going to have a 'Warp Speed'-rushed vaccine injected into my veins. 
Even if it’s called 'mandatory.'
It’s not a stretch to say nobody will truly know the long-term unintended consequences of the vaccine. 
Furthermore, I believe in the 'traditional' ethos of medicine: Right medicine, right person, right time. 
There’s no such thing, and never will be, a 'one-size-fits-all' solution to any crisis.
And the COVID-19 'pandemic' is certainly no exception to the rule. 
The line has been drawn: 
I’m not taking the vaccine…
I do not consent."
Chris Campbell

"At this point there are realistically two groups-- the human beings, and the house cats.
The human beings are sick and tired of these lockdowns. They understand that the world is a scary place, that there are risks. 
But they’re still willing to live their lives. 
It’s not about taking unnecessary risks or being reckless; they just want to be treated like human beings who are free to make their own decisions without insane government overreach
The other group just wants to be house cats. 
House Cats love being locked down and want more of it. They like government intervention. They love endless money printing and free benefits. They love being taken care of and suckling from the maternal teet of government. 
They love cowering in fear in their homes and being told what they can/cannot do. 
The biggest difference, though, is that Team House Cat thinks everyone else should live by their rules... and their hysteria.
Team Human thinks that everyone should be free to make their own decisions. Anyone who wants to stay home can stay home, nothing wrong with that. Anyone who wants to go out and take a risk should be able to go out and take a risk. 
But most governments are on the side of Team House Cat. And it’s probably going to stay that way for the foreseeable future."
Simon Black

"Seriously folks, if the panic mongers and coffin chasers had not held their daily public potlatch and caterwaul, no one would even have noticed a few hundred thousand line-jumping fogies in the global queue of life. And if they had not been locked in to their nursing homes and apartments, they would have done much better."
George Gilder

"Do not be fooled by the reopening. It is not real because it is not meant to last. It is a steam valve to calm public outrage and to condition us to periodic tyranny. The elites believe that we will eventually acclimate to lockdowns as long as we have a reopening to look forward to a couple of months down the road. They believe that our tendency to rebel will be suppressed by false hopes that the next reopening will be a permanent reopening. They believe that after 18 months or more of the wave model we will be so desperate for normalcy that we will do anything to get it, including willingly giving up every last ounce of freedom we have left. This is the true purpose of the pandemic."
Brandon Smith

"The Democratic states are refusing to open up when there is no real justification to keep their economies closed. What is really going on behind the curtain is a clever trick. The $1 trillion that Pelosi was stuffing in the Democratic Bill is money to bail out state and municipal governments which have been going broke because of their unfunded pensions.
The scheme is to crash their economies and then blame everything on the virus and then blame Trump for not bailing them out for the 2020 election. This is a very clever scheme being relayed in whispers from behind the curtain. They are using this virus as cover to bail out 70 years of fiscal mismanagement."
Martin Armstrong

"Propagandists know that a one-two punch of fear and then assurance works. Scare them with the virus, comfort them with togetherness.
But still, it’s a tough sell. It has legs for a while, but then the natives become restless, especially in the hinterlands. People who aren’t jammed together in big cities, who live in open spaces, tend to develop immunity to lies. Coiffed press hookers on television dispensing so-called news carry less punch. Farmers know if they can’t plant their crops on time, with workers side by side, they’ll go broke.
Generally speaking, people who don’t see other people who are sick, and don’t hear ambulance sirens, start wondering what’s happening.
Protests begin. Protests expand.
The fake night of obedience turns into the real day of rebellion.
It turns out that a story about an invisible virus isn’t quite the same as a line of enemy tanks approaching. All promoted wars are not equal.
Fauci knows this. Birx knows this. Bill Gates knows this. Mayors and governors know this. The CDC and WHO know this. They don’t really care whether you survive, but they know you care. So, for them, it’s a race against time. How long can they keep the lid on? How long can their preposterous messaging work?"
Jon Rappoport

"If you can influence the leaders, either with or without their conscious cooperation, you automatically influence the group which they sway. But men do not need to be actually gathered together in a public meeting or in a street riot, to be subject to the influences of mass psychology. Because man is by nature gregarious he feels himself to be member of a herd, even when he is alone in his room with the curtains drawn. His mind retains the patterns which have been stamped on it by the group influences."
Edward Bernays

"Although the coronavirus is indeed a pandemic, it is not different from any other scenario in which an individual must act. The individual must decide based on their own calculation of their cost versus benefit. Only each individual can know for themselves what decision is optimal for their risk preference and personal situation, not the government."
Edmund Shieh

"'Need' has long been a rhetorical garnish to justify the coercion of those who disagree about the extent of those needs. 'Essential' is just the latest version, with similar disabilities. And we must remember that the only way we can ultimately help individuals meet their needs and accomplish what they find essential, without infringing on others’ rights, is freeing them from the power others have to dictate to them, so they can make whatever voluntary arrangements satisfy them better. Government solutions that override voluntary arrangements cannot provide that as well, however many times we invoke the words 'need' and 'essential' as a smokescreen."
Gary Galles

"Rather than teach people to be more obedient to government in the future, this episode will turn out to be a great victory for all who value liberty. The ruling class of politicians and bureaucrats has overstepped its proper bounds, and this has reminded people that they have rights. A new energy of liberty will emerge. An entire old class of politicians is going to be dismissed from office. People have seen who they are and what they are, and they’re not going to want them around much longer. Even if they get re-elected, they are going to be targets for a long time to come.
This has been a case study in unsound government. This has been a loud alarm warning of the totalitarians in our midst and of the weaknesses in our system that allow a totalitarian order to be introduced."
Michael Rozeff

"Those who created this country chose freedom. With all of its dangers. And do you know the riskiest part of that choice they made? They actually believed that we could be trusted to make up our own minds in the whirl of differing ideas. That we could be trusted to remain free, even when there were very, very seductive voices—taking advantage of our freedom of speech—who were trying to turn this country into the kind of place where the government could tell you what you can and cannot do."
Nat Hentoff

"The elimination of government and tyranny, a stop to all the wars of aggression, of all the murders due to those heinous wars, and an end to the slavery by the state that exists in the United States today seem impossible, but is it? The ensuing freedom that would result from an end to this governing system is almost beyond imagination, and does appear to be elusive, but what if there were a way, a way that had been tried before and had been successful? That way is secession, and is exactly what the people did in order to form this country in the first place."
Gary D. Barnett

"The problem as I see it is that we’ve allowed ourselves to be persuaded that we need someone else to think and speak for us. And we’ve allowed ourselves to become so timid in the face of offensive words and ideas that we’ve bought into the idea that we need the government to shield us from that which is ugly or upsetting or mean.
The result is a society in which we’ve stopped debating among ourselves, stopped thinking for ourselves, and stopped believing that we can fix our own problems and resolve our own differences.
In short, we have reduced ourselves to a largely silent, passive, polarized populace incapable of working through our own problems and reliant on the government to protect us from our fears.
In this way, we have become our worst enemy."
John W. Whitehead

"Limited government is a quaint but lethal legal fiction, a chimera and a cruel and tempting illusion.  It is the same as a belief in unicorns.  Unless I fasten a narwhal tusk to a most displeased horse’s forehead, they have never existed nor ever will (barring genetic engineering advances).  Judging from the behavior of the Grand Old Politburo in the unholy corridors of power of DC, they should ditch the Gadsden and hoist a unicorn bedecked flag.
Political action will never reduce the size of government. The same as eradicating cannibals by eating them."
Bill Buppert

"The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power of our country."
Edward L. Bernays

"Economists have long recognized division of labor, specialization, and complementary factors of production. They have recognized different groups with different tastes for goods. They have recognized people with different skills. None of this is what 'diversity' means today and what the coercive socialist slogan 'diversity is our strength' means. Today these are schemes to share wealth, redistribute wealth, gain positions without having the merit to occupy them, and create well-paid 'jobs' that are unproductive."
Michael Rozeff

"We have seen that if a government is not in a position to negotiate loans and does not dare levy additional taxation for fear that the financial and general economic effects will be revealed too clearly too soon so that it will lose support for its programme, it always considers it necessary to undertake inflationary measures. Thus inflation becomes one of the most important psychological aids to an economic policy that tries to camouflage its effects. In this sense, it may be described as a tool of anti-democratic policy. By deceiving public opinion, it permits a system of government to continue, which would have no hope of receiving the approval of the people if conditions were frankly explained to them."
Ludwig von Mises

"Party politics today is a race to the boxcars; first team there gets to make the other team ride."
Tamara Keel

"Demo-publicans tell Republi-crats to tear up their relief checks because it’s socialism. Republi-crats tell Demo-publicans they must tear up their relief check because Trump isn’t their president. There is one thing you can count on, when it comes to the issues, Pelosi and Trump stand together when it means destruction of the nation."
John Meyers

"Davos people see the common man as the real problem. And perversely, the common man believes what he’s told in the media—namely, that he is the problem. Pseudo science has become a new religion. It’s become a moral crusade against carbon, the one element that’s basic to all life; it’s now more hated than uranium, plutonium, or gold. Carbon is being pursued by a lynch mob of angry chimpanzees.
And leading the charge is Davos attendee Greta Thunberg. She’s emblematic of how thoroughly degraded this has become. Greta is a manufactured celebrity. She came out of nowhere last year; massive but completely undeserved media attention made her into one of the planet’s most famous people. It’s not just laughable, but amazing, that a high school sophomore—with no knowledge or experience—has become a world opinion leader."
Doug Casey

"A problem is that the poor ask, why do the financial classes get bailed out but main street gets pennies in comparison?  That sore point flushes out what America has become – – a fascist big-corporation, big banker run country.  The Federal Reserve, that has exclusive distributorship for money, offers 0% interest money to financial institutions now.  The financial classes can fail and just get government to bail them out – no risk, big gain.  So, the financial classes are just as much anti-American/ anti-competitive as the poor are willing to exchange freedom for security."
Bill Sardi

"The last for the state to conquer and force into the system is man. Man as a natural being must be transferred without his knowledge into a legal entity. This automatically cancels his natural rights and the human liberty we cherish.
The very first step is to change the natural word 'man' to the legal term 'person.' Man must cease to think of himself as man, a natural individual with inalienable rights. He must become a person, a legal fiction, an individual corporation. He then becomes a legal cog in the legal wheel. Natural rights give way to privilege granted by the state. What the state giveth, the state taketh and the state controls. Gradually, we are changed and transferred to nonpeople who automatically respond to the system."
Bob Livingston

"Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators, and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class."
Albert J. Nock

"The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest…. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war."
Ludwig von Mises

"It is curious that people tend to regard government as a quasi-divine, selfless, Santa Claus organization. Government was constructed neither for ability nor for the exercise of loving care; government was built for the use of force and for necessarily demagogic appeals for votes."
Murray Rothbard

"The truth can’t be told, It must be found. It must be discovered for yourself. That’s how you KNOW it. That’s what KNOWING is- you’ve experienced it and so you know if firsthand.
We’re training your brain right now. Getting new neural pathways to connect. Don’t just believe what others say (including me!); do your own research. Come to your OWN conclusions. Don’t listen to the mainstream narrative, write your own narrative. Use Discernment. Ask 'WHY?' Ask 'WHO benefits.' You are sovereign. You’re not a robot born to absorb whatever people tell you!"
Iamanna Wood

"Teddy Roosevelt said, 'Speak softly and carry a big stick.' but men who carry big sticks cannot speak softly. They always want to use the stick."
Fred Reed

"Noo Yawkers are repellent under the best of circumstances, but they’re absolutely intolerable now. Ah, Progressives! What a town of fatuous cowards, haters, and snitches you’ve spawned!"
Becky Akers

"This is all a big stage and God wants to see some people dance."
Alex Jones