Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“I’m no conservative, and I’m no liberal. I’m not a Democrat or a Republican. And I’m not a green or a libertarian, or a socialist or an anarchist. I’m not even an independent.
All I am is me, and all I want is to live free.”
Michael Boldin

“If it is generally and historically accepted that self-defense is a right of all individual human beings before the sheer lunacy of government-creation even begins, doesn’t it qualify, rather, as mere common sense (partial apologies to Thomas Paine) rather than something that must be legislated and then endlessly challenged, interpreted, and intersticed with myriads of exceptions and special qualifications?”
Alex R. Knight III

“At some point, those presuming to rule us won't be satisfied merely to fleece their increasingly bedraggled flock. That's when the options for the sheep will be clarified into a stark and unmistakable choice between revolt and slaughter.”
Will Grigg

“As spontaneous order in nature gets studied more, and hopefully understood better, perhaps educated people will begin to understand what wise people have known all along: that left alone, things will generally work themselves out in a beneficial way. And if they don't, imposing control wouldn't have made the situation any better anyway.”
Kent McManigal

“Conservative, n.: A statesman who is enamored of existing evils, as distinguished from the Liberal, who wishes to replace them with others.”
Ambrose Bierce

“A free, orderly, and productive society is held together not by the armed might of the police and military, nor by the dictates of rulers or the edicts of judges, but by a shared sense of the conditions that foster rather than inhibit life. At the core of such thinking is a belief in the innate worthiness and inviolability of each person, an attitude that manifests itself in terms of respect for one another’s property boundaries, within which each of us is free to pursue our respective self-interests. Peace and liberty are the inevitable consequences of living in a society so constituted.”
Butler Shaffer

“The idea that invoking “the rules” against a government will force it to lie down obediently at one’s feet and accept a leash around its neck is beyond superstitious — it’s foolhardy. There are no magic words. There is no secret formula. The relationship between government and governed is inherently adversarial. Even the most determined efforts to make it otherwise have historically failed (usually sooner rather than later). Appealing vainly to those efforts rather than accepting the reality (that it’s them or you) and acting accordingly is a fool’s errand.”
Thomas L. Knapp

“Yesterday we obeyed kings and bent our necks before emperors. But today we kneel only to truth, follow only beauty, and obey only love.”
Khalil Gibran

********************************************************

From the Darkness:

"There is no space between the United States and Israel when it comes to Israel's security."
Joe Biden

“Every Coloradan who buys an item from an online merchant like Amazon.com already, under current law, owes the tax on that item. Our Colorado Retail Council members collect the sales tax for the government and firmly believe that Internet retailers should too. The General Assembly set these tax laws long ago – we are just playing by the rules. It’s a matter of fairness.”
Colorado Retail Council President Christopher Howes

“We all know that (carbon taxes and other fundraising methods) will take time and we don’t have this time. So we need something which looks like an interim solution, which will bridge the gap between now and the time when those carbon taxes will be big enough to solve the problem. And that is exactly what the IMF proposal is dealing with.”
International Monetary Fund head Dominique Strauss-Kahn, calling for a huge global warming slush fund to be established as an interim measure before carbon taxes are implemented.

"It's the nub of solving the immigration dilemma politically speaking."
Sen. Chuck Schumer, describing his plan for a national biometric identification card all American workers would eventually be required to obtain.

“The implication of the lowering of the price is that’s devaluing the black doll. While it’s clear that’s not what was intended, sometimes these things have collateral damage.”
Thelma Dye, the executive director of the Northside Center for Child Development, commenting on Walmart’s decision to cut its price on the black Barbie Doll.

“God knows it’s taken us a long time to even get our toe in the door. … If somebody like Kucinich wants to block that, I find that completely reprehensible. I’m going to hold people like Dennis Kucinich responsible for the 40,000 Americans that die each year from a lack of health care.”
Markos Moulitsas, of the Daily Kos blog, criticizing Congressman Dennis Kucinich for refusing to tow the party line on government run health care.

“Prohibition On Salt; Restaurants. 1. No owner or operator of a restaurant in this state shall use salt in any form in the preparation of any food for consumption by customers of such restaurant, including food prepared to be consumed on the premises of such restaurant or off such premises.”
Text of a salt ban billed introduced in the New York Assembly.

Hanoi’s Revenge?

It seems Sen. John McCain is always looking for new ways to create murder, misery, and mayhem in the world. A look at his life seems to confirm that view. McCain’s latest offering (with fellow gangster Joe Lieberman) is the “Enemy Belligerent, Interrogation, Detention, and Prosecution Act of 2010.” According to the Atlantic Monthly, the act “sets out a comprehensive policy for the detention, interrogation and trial of suspected enemy belligerents who are believed to have engaged in hostilities against the United States by requiring these individuals to be held in military custody, interrogated for their intelligence value and not provided with a Miranda warning.”

At the age when civilized people are going to college, building businesses, and creating and caring for families, Johnny Mac was happily bombing and murdering Vietnamese peasants from the skies. Unfortunately (for him and later for us) McCain was shot down and held as a POW for six years. One of McCain’s partners in crime in Vietnam included Sam Johnson. Both McCain and Johnson were eventually released from their imprisonment and returned home to be rewarded with numerous pieces of scrap metal, national esteem, and election to political office. Both men seemed to have learned a lot from their Communist captors as both have continually supported wars of aggression, torture (despite being tortured themselves), continual increases in the scope and power of the American police state, promotion of neo-Marxist economic policies and an abiding, irrevocable reverence for the nation state. And of course, let’s not forget McCain/Feingold, which was a direct assault on the First Amendment.

I’ve long wondered why the Vietnamese, once they had captured the likes of McCain and Johnson, didn’t retaliate for these pilot’s war crimes by carving them up and tossing their remains into a rice paddy. They certainly would have been justified in doing so. I realize the captured pilots had intelligence value. But it’s not unrealistic to think that thoughts of revenge would overpower the decision to keep them alive for their obvious strategic importance.

I then began to consider another possibility why the North Vietnamese allowed these two to live. Perhaps they somehow understood the havoc these two warriors would create after returning home. They both have certainly done their part, have they not? Perhaps, the Vietnamese perceived the darkness that lived within these two men and realized their enemies in the US would be harmed more by these men returning home, rather than having them killed. If so, how diabolical is that?

I understand that this hypothesis is kind of “out there.” But after witnessing years of these men’s oppressive actions to make our freedoms and lives ever more restricted and miserable, it’s not hard to start believing it must be part of some great plan or conspiracy. After all, if these two men had never been POWs, let alone military pilots, do you think either of these men (both with mediocre intellects) would have wound up being elected to office?

Or is our suffering merely the often seen consequence of leaving unchecked the despicable actions of evil men?

"The evil that men do lives after them; The good is oft interred with their bones."
William Shakespeare

The Census Comes A' Callin’

Today I received a notice from our great protectors at the US Federal Government, warning me that I will soon receive the 2010 US Census form. How wonderful, I thought. These hard working folks in DC must stay so busy managing multiple and growing numbers of wars to feed an ever growing American Empire. They must already be exhausted trying to figure out how to pay back their trillions in ever growing debt. Yet, they still have the time to extend such a useful, timely message to lil’ ol’ me.

The message informed me of the importance of this census form and that I should entirely fill out the form and return it immediately. A number of options come to mind on how I should respond to such an arrogant “request” and I would like to ask any interested readers to respond with your choice of action from the following list:

1) Fill out the form in its entirety and quickly return it like a good, solid, obedient citizen.

2) Only answer those questions deemed appropriate, as authorized by the US Constitution which outlines the purpose of the census.

3) Ignore the form and tear it up and throw it in the trash.

4) Give my creativity a workout and answer all questions with the goofiest, most outrageous answers I can think of.

5) Take a large black Sharpie and etch profane and subversive, anti-state messages and slogans on every square inch available on the census form.

6) Shred the form and return the resulting confetti to the US Census Bureau.

So, pick one. And unlike a government election, your vote counts!

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“To say 'no' in reply to an offer, suggestion, or demand is to assert authority. The same can be said of 'yes,' but only when it is said in particular circumstances. 'Yes' can signify either honorable agreement or craven submission. Saying 'no,' on the other hand, is a way of claiming one's sovereignty and demanding that it be respected.”
Will Grigg

“Imperialism will always be framed by those in power as beneficial to those being ‘civilized.’ The most evil atrocities will be committed in the name of advancement. The human impact of imperialism is madness. The hubristic delusions of emperors, kings, generals and presidents ultimately put average men into morally ambiguous circumstances.”
Jim Quinn

“Peer pressure and social opprobrium are what really hold societies together, not execution squads chasing those who don’t believe in a war.”
Doug Casey

“The State is an inherently illegitimate institution of organized aggression, of organized and regularized crime against the persons and properties of its subjects. Rather than necessary to society, it is a profoundly antisocial institution which lives parasitically off of the productive activities of private citizens.”
Murray Rothbard

“Just as war is the natural consequence of monopoly, peace is the natural consequence of liberty.”
Gustave de Molinari

“The only things that government actually makes are criminals out of innocent people, and corpses out of living human beings.
Will Grigg

“The bottom line is that it is politicians first and their supporters amongst intellectuals who pose the greatest threat to liberty.”
Walter Williams

"It is property that enables one to determine the course of one’s own life. Without it, the right to life is no right at all, but rather a privilege granted by those who own your labor.
A government that has the unlimited power to seize the property of its citizens can afford to be magnanimous when it comes to free speech. Yet, for the citizen who no longer owns the fruits of his own labor, the right to complain makes him no less a slave."
Tom Mullen

**********************************************

From the Darkness:

“This is the first time; once you start doing this, you’ll start breaking down local laws, county and even state laws — unlawful use of a weapon.”
Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, concerned the Supreme Court may overturn his city’s gun ban.

“People go to Starbucks for an escape, just so they can get peace. But people walk in with open-carry guns and it destroys the tranquility.”
Ralph Fascitelli of Washington Ceasefire, an advocacy group that seeks to reduce “gun violence”

"Vice President Gore's career has been marked by visionary leadership, and his work has quite literally changed our planet for the better."
University of Tennessee Chancellor Jimmy G. Cheek, in announcing that The Climate Christ will be awarded an honorary degree from his university.

"President Bush and Laura Bush represent the true spirit and character of a Texan. We appreciate and celebrate their dedication and service."
Bill Jones, president of the Texas State History Museum Foundation, upon awarding The Shrub the "History-Making Texan Award."

“Mao spoke those famous words: ‘women hold up half the sky.’ If the statistics are any indication, communism has been good for women."

From a CNN report.

“He’s the outside man, I’m the inside man. He’s a big thinker.”

Karl Rove, on George W. Bush.

"The conclusion does ask the audience to root for the defeat of American soldiers at the hands of an insurgency. So it is a deep expression of anti-Americanism-kind of."
John Podhoretz, on the movie, Avatar.

Image Review of the Week

Universal behavior - young male curiosity........



......and performing tricks for the master:

Walking into a cold, dark future:

“How does one react to the recognition that life is priceless, but a price should be put upon it for the purpose of deciding whether to make war? It can only be with outrage.”
Sam Bostaph

Ignore the state’s indifference- keep pushing.......

......as its shield of resistance will soon crack:

The Shrub just keeps makin’ “history":

Obama swears in some new cabinet members:

What every responsible state hater should have in his garage:

Despite your conviction for change, ......

......voting ballots backed by bullets......

......will not release you from your cage:

Are pink tights next?




"Art is the most intense mode of individualism that the world has known."

Oscar Wilde

A reminder- shoe throwing is not target specific:




Stick with the real thing. A successful life’s journey requires a sturdy steed:

Italian Welders Get Whacked

Back in November I wrote about the media attack against Italian welders hired to construct a new bridge in Dallas. Well, it seems that reporter Byron Harris, defender of statist truth, mob justice, labor cartels, bigotry, and xenophobia, has succeeded in having these men, in effect, banished from this country by having their visas revoked. What wonderful hospitality!

Of course, the concern expressed is for the fairness to “Texas” welders (a term still not quite defined). "These guys are welders just like our welders in this state. And there's a lot of unemployment in this state, and our guys could be doing this work, too," drooled a spokesman from the local union mob. Apparently, this troglodyte seems to have the idea that “our guys” have some inherent right to be hired and paid whatever wage they demand. “Companies use the cheapest labor they can get,” he complained. Duh.

Hey bonehead, when you hire someone to cut your grass (and it better be a Texan and not a Mexican!) do you not hire the cheapest labor you can? When you take bids to add an addition to your house, do you not seek out the best price? Why do union thugs feel that their occupations are above such discriminating (and sensible) bargain hunting?

The labor cartels whine and whimper, pleading to our sense of nationalism and reminding us of fascist laws (Davis-Bacon) that protect their labor fiefdom with state threatened violence. Meanwhile, the taxpayers get hit with higher costs, construction delays lasting months- and eleven hard working, enterprising, competitive, skilled men get whacked.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"The state does not fear firearms, as such; it is well known that a firearm is nothing more than a tool. What the state fears more than anything is the public’s willingness to use firearms in the defense of their lives, property and traditional values.”
Tim Case

“I choose to not keep looking over my shoulder at ‘big brother’ while he strips my carcass, I choose not to ignore what is going on all around me, I choose not to pretend that business as usual won’t continue; I have just had enough."
Joe Stack

“Government is not established to protect individuals; it is established to protect power. People don’t establish governments to secure themselves; some people establish governments to formalize or strengthen their rule over others.”
Darian Worden

“Life is not safe, nor will it ever be. "Safety" and "living well" have never been compatible.”
Kent McManigal

“If justice be a natural principle, then it is necessarily an immutable one; and can no more be changed — by any power inferior to that which established it — than can the law of gravitation, the laws of light, the principles of mathematics, or any other natural law or principle whatever; and all attempts or assumptions, on the part of any man or body of men — whether calling themselves governments, or by any other name — to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of justice, as a rule of conduct for any human being, are as much an absurdity, an usurpation, and a tyranny, as would be their attempts to set up their own commands, wills, pleasure, or discretion, in the place of any and all the physical, mental, and moral laws of the universe.”
Lysander Spooner

“There is nothing wrong with telling people that taxation is robbery, that regulation is trespass, that drug laws are assault and robbery, that politicians are criminals, and that the state is a monstrous criminal agency.”
Ben O’Neill

“Whether we are considering licensing, the establishment of tariffs, or the opening of the federal treasury for wholesale looting to benefit the friends of those holding the keys to the treasury, it is always governmental force that is called upon to transmit the virus of institutionalism. The nation-state – which has become the "typhoid Mary" in all of this – continues to expose otherwise healthy tissue to the disease-ridden influence that has reduced Western civilization to a terminal state.”
Butler Shaffer

***********************************************

From the Darkness:

“Usually a lack of profits is not considered a good result, but compared to the record loss the industry reported a year ago it represents a significant improvement.”
FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair, commenting on the FDIC’s largest deficit on record.

“The science regarding climate change is settled, and human activity is responsible for global warming.”
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson

"[Ron] Paul isn't a traditional conservative. His obsession with long-decided monetary policy and isolationism are not his only half-baked crusades."
David Harsanyi, Reason Magazine

"It's about jobs. In it's life, it [the health bill] will create 4 million jobs -- 400,000 jobs almost immediately."
Nancy Pelosi

“The very well-off [in Pakistan] do not pay their fair share for the services that are needed, in health and education primarily.”
Queen Hillary, spreading Amerkan Marxism to other countries.