"Countries threaten to split apart when their people seem hopelessly divided….We’re less united today than we’ve been at any time since the Civil War, divided by politics, religion and culture. In all the ways that matter, save for the naked force of law, we are already divided into two nations just as much as in 1861. The contempt for opponents, the Twitter mobs, online shaming and no-platforming, the growing tolerance of violence—it all suggests we’d be happier in separate countries."
F.H. Buckley
"Despite the popular idea of anarchists as violent men, Anarchism is the one non-violent social philosophy.… The function of the Anarchist is two-fold. By daily courage in non-cooperation with the tyrannical forces of the State and the Church, he helps to tear down present society; the Anarchist by daily cooperation with his fellows in overcoming evil with good-will and solidarity builds toward the anarchistic commonwealth which is formed by voluntary action with the right of secession."
Ammon Hennacy
"Political consent is defined these days as rape was defined a generation or two ago: people consent to anything which they do not forcibly resist. Voters cannot complain about getting screwed after being enticed into a voting booth. Anyone who does not attempt to burn down city hall presumably consented to everything the mayor did. Anyone who does not jump the White House fence and try to storm into the Oval Office consents to all executive orders. Anyone who doesn't firebomb the nearest federal office building consents to the latest edicts in the Federal Register. And if people do attack government facilities, then they are terrorists who can be justifiably killed or imprisoned forever."
James Bovard
"Today we can see with our own eyes, if we open them, that there is no longer any such thing as academic freedom, free speech, freedom of association, privacy, due process. People are fired from their jobs and sentenced to economic peril for merely expressing their opinions or attending the wrong rally or using disapproved pronouns. Those who insist on electoral integrity, the basis of democracy, are demonized as 'enemies of democracy.' Legislation is pending that will be used to define any dissent from controlled Establishment explanations as subversion.
You can add to the list. But a long list is unnecessary to show that no important institution in America any longer believes in the liberties and protections guaranteed by the US Constitution or in democracy itself. Not the universities, the bar associations, the media, the courts, the political parties or the Congress.
It is this destruction of belief that constitutes the First American Revolution. The consequences are yet to be fully felt."
Paul Craig Roberts
"To counter a common media narrative, the conservatives at capitol hill were not merely protesting or rioting because of Trump, or the election.
They are angry over multiple years of leftist criminality that was left mostly untouched by law enforcement, the government and the media. They are angry over the pandemic lockdowns enforced most harshly by Democrats in leftist states. They are angry because their businesses and jobs are being destroyed over a virus that is only a threat to 0.26 percent of the population outside of nursing homes. They are angry because their values and principles are being censored in social media. They are angry that the Democratic Party is adopting hard-left Marxist positions. They are angry because of the 'Great Reset' agenda and the open calls to destroy free-market capitalism and replace it with a socialist 'shared economy' hellscape. They have every reason to be angry
The bottom line is this: The difference between leftists and conservatives is stark. Leftists consistently use violence, fear, intimidation, destruction and censorship to get what they want. Conservatives have not. Leftists and their corporate donors want to oppress and control people. Conservatives just want to be free.
So, when I hear the political left and their screeching about the inhumanity of the Capitol Hill protest, I have to laugh. These people have no concept of what is right and what is wrong; they spit on the very idea of moral compass and conscience. They only seek to win at any cost. Their hypocrisy is unmatched, so why should we care what they think? Let the rebellion continue."
Brandon Smith
"Politics as currently practiced eviscerates the one thing Americans could agree about. This reflects the far-too-little-recognized fact that we have greater agreement on what all of us want to avoid than on what all of us want. None of us wants what John Locke called our 'lives, liberties, and estates' violated. That is, each of us wants rights and property defended against invasion. Respecting all of our property rights reduces the risk from predation for each of us. But creating added rights and privileges for some at the expense of others’ equal rights and privileges makes government the most dangerous predator, even when who is selected to do so is determined by majority vote."
Gary Galles
"The best way to remove the pain of a future political opponent controlling the machine is to shut down the machine. And by this I mean radically decentralize. As it stands, very little done at the level of DC cannot be done, and done better, at the state level. As it stands, most federal spending is little more than collecting taxes from states and sending it back with instructions on how to use it. Nothing needs to be recreated since the state organs manage the day-to-day operation of all the various programs, and there would be an immediate benefit once the federal bureaucracy has been removed from the equation. All they’re doing, after all, is tumbling the money the state could collect directly itself and skimming off the expenses for all the bureaucrats."
Justin Murray
"The first War on Terror ended up being wielded primarily on foreign soil but it has increasingly been imported onto domestic soil against Americans. This New War on Terror — one that is domestic in name from the start and carries the explicit purpose of fighting 'extremists' and 'domestic terrorists' among American citizens on U.S. soil — presents the whole slew of historically familiar dangers when governments, exploiting media-generated fear and dangers, arm themselves with the power to control information, debate, opinion, activism and protests."
Glenn Greenwald
"We lift our pocket Constitution from our breast pocket, where it is permanently stationed — near our heart.
Thus we are informed Article II limits presidential powers to:
Signing or vetoing legislation. Bossing the military and naval forces. Requesting the written opinion of his Cabinet. Convening or adjourning Congress. Granting reprieves and pardons. Receiving ambassadors.
Where does the Constitution authorize the president to mandate wages of federal contractors… suspend oil production on federal lands or offshore waters… to halt construction and funding of a border wall?
Is this not the work of the legislature?
We concede it — we are incapable of the abstruse and nuanced insights of the legal scholar.
The 'penumbras and emanations' glowing from the constitutional text are visible to him. They are invisible to us.
That is, we are incapable of distinguishing Article I from Article II. We are incapable of distinguishing 'shall' from 'shall not.'
Thus we are disqualified from service upon the Supreme Court of the United States.
Yet, we expect fully the president to issue an executive order impeaching himself for usurping the rightful powers of Congress.
For in the president’s words, 'We are a democracy. We require consensus.' He indicts himself of dictatorship.
You say impeachment is the prerogative of Congress — not the executive.
Well, is setting wages the prerogative of the executive? Article, section and clause, please."
Brian Maher
"Protests are still legal and legitimate. People who run them need to articulate what they’re about, over and over, in very clear fashion.
Americans, who’ve lived with more freedom and security than people in other parts of the world, tend to think their government, when it muscles in, signifies The End and Total Defeat.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Freedom never dies.
It is an eternal quality."
Jon Rappoport
"Political liberty is quite simple, but not easy. We all owe our fellow citizens a duty not to aggress against them or their property, and not to commit fraud against them. In the broader societal sense, we all should strive to be kind, open, and generous with everyone we meet, unless and until they give us a reason to be otherwise. But that is all we owe. Being apolitical or even antipolitical is your absolute right. At best, politics is an uneasy and imperfect mechanism for peacefully transferring political power; at worst, it is barely a substitute for war. More commonly, politics is a turf battle waged by rival gangs to control the state apparatus (the turf is us and our money). Politics is not noble, virtuous, or even necessary."
Jeff Deist
"Though the public perception of secession has been radically altered since the Civil War, America’s founding principles respect the right of every state to leave the Union. At this point, the states’ reassertion of that right has been long overdue. Secession is now the only way for the millions of tired and fed-up Americans to protect their interests against federal tyranny. Without it, nothing else can prevent the eventual breakdown of the social order, which is looming in the country’s future."
James Ketler
"There is very little time left to change this course we are on today, as this plot toward the great reset of the world is close at hand. In the past when liberty has been threatened, some fought back and won, but most sat back and waited, hoping others would come to their rescue, and save them from themselves. Every time threats have come and gone, there was less freedom and much more control. Each and every tyrannical event brought an assault against liberty that remained long after any so-called 'return to normal' was expected. 'Normal' has been forever changing, meaning every new normal resulted in less freedom and more authoritarian measures. That is until today, as now we face an end to any freedom, and a life of submission and enslavement. Unless and until the current ruling oligarchy is eliminated or weakened to the point of impotence, and by whatever means necessary, the tyranny will run its course until it has total control or the entire system collapses under its own weight."
Gary D. Barnett
"Still, while the institutions evolve, the ideas and theories about them tend to remain fixed; it is as if people hadn’t noticed. In America, all the restraints, inhibitions, and modesty of the Old Republic have been blown away by the prevailing winds of the new empire. In their place has emerged a vainglorious system of conceit, deceit, debt, and delusion. The United States Constitution is almost exactly the same document with exactly the same words it had when it was written, but the words that used to bind and chaff have been turned into soft elastic.
The government that couldn’t tax, couldn’t spend, and couldn’t regulate, can now do anything it wants. The executive has all the power he needs to do practically anything. Congress goes along, like a simple minded stooge, insisting only that the spoils be spread around. The whole process works so well that a member of Congress has to be found in bed 'with a live boy or a dead girl' before he risks losing public office."
Bill Bonner and Addison Wiggin
