Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:
"John McCain's legacy lives on in every politician and journalist who jumps on every propaganda report to justify another round of bombing and destruction.
It lives on in every politician who, 15 years after another idiotic military intervention, finally admits it was a 'mistake,' never apologizing to the people he smeared at the time who tried telling him it was a mistake and who predicted every obvious consequence that any damn fool should have known.
It lives on in a media that craves bipartisanship -- but bipartisanship in the service of the state, and bipartisanship in which the left gets what it wants and the right gets a nice photo-op.
It lives on in the families who are missing children because of a war that McCain finally admitted had been a hideous mistake and a ludicrous expenditure of scarce resources.
McCain was a man of the state, in every fiber of his being. That is why they cheer him.
And that is why we must tell unpopular truths -- about McCain, and the corrupt empire he served."
Tom Woods
"If you want to see a world with more and more John McCains, with more and more US wars of aggression and regime change interventionism, then by all means play right along with his public beatification. If you want to see a world where neoconservative war whores are treated with the revulsion, disdain and rejection they deserve, then now is your chance to help create that world. Refuse to be shamed and guilted into polite silence and move in the exact opposite direction from where the establishment shepherds are herding you."
Caitlin Johnstone
"If we want to avoid the destruction of Western civilization and the relapse into primitive wretchedness, we must change the mentality of our fellow citizens. We must make them realize what they owe to the much vilified 'economic freedom,' the system of free enterprise and capitalism. The intellectuals and those who call themselves educated must use their superior cognitive faculties and power of reasoning for the refutation of erroneous ideas about social, political and economic problems and for the dissemination of a correct grasp of the operation of the market economy. They must start by familiarizing themselves with all the issues involved in order to teach those who are blinded by ignorance and emotions. They must learn in order to acquire the ability to enlighten the misguided many."
Ludwig von Mises
"Although it’s unpleasant, and may be in bad taste, there’s nothing wrong with so-called hate speech. Why? It allows you to judge the character, intentions, and intelligence of the speaker. It gives you the data you need to judge who you’re dealing with—good or bad, rational or irrational. Further, suppressing speech is comparable to tightening the lid on a pressure cooker.
All speech, and all words, should be allowed. Sometimes it will be in bad taste, or stupid. But so what? It’s not something a busybody or bureaucrat should decide for you."
Doug Casey
"Democracy is a political word that is embraced by all political parties and all politicians under many labels in every country of the modern world. It is a cover and a facade for communism, socialism, fascism, class warfare, the exploitation and manipulation of minorities against stability, cultural heritage and private property.
When politicians utter the word democracy, they are using a code word that signifies their total allegiance to the state. They are using mass hypnosis to manipulate the people against human liberty and private property."
Bob Livingston
"Even when repressed, inequality grows; only the man who is below the average in economic ability desires equality; those who are conscious of superior ability desire freedom; and in the end superior ability has its way."
Will Durant
"When conservatives hyper-focus on leadership, they unwittingly centralize and become easily controlled. Globalists can either co-opt the leader or they can destroy the leader and thus the hopes of all the people that were invested in him. They can use the leader as a placebo, making conservatives sit idle waiting around for things to change when they should be taking action themselves.
Globalists can also tie all the perceived or real blunders of that leader around the necks of his political base; meaning, conservatives can be conned into rallying around a false prophet and then when he falls from grace, all conservative thought falls from grace as well."
Brandon Smith
"To believe in liberty is not to believe in any particular social and economic outcome. It is to trust in the spontaneous order that emerges when the state does not intervene in human volition and human cooperation. It permits people to work out their problems for themselves, build lives for themselves, take risks and accept responsibility for the results, and make their own decisions."
Ron Paul
"Why do we equate patriotism — which the dictionary defines as 'devoted love, support and defense of one’s country'; national loyalty 'with “respect' for the bloodsuckers who lord it over us in office? Shouldn’t our affections belong to the country, i.e., the land with its inhabitants and private institutions that nurture our homes and families? Ergo, 'country' is completely distinct from the officials ruining it. And isn’t it really the quality of life in that country, the liberty it affords us to pursue prosperity, vocations, dreams, etc., that should determine whether we 'love, support and defend' it? The Venezuelans fleeing their socialist hellhole are sensible, not unpatriotic. Ditto the Cubans who escaped Castro.
In other words, our dose of patriotism should match the measure of liberty a country offers. Our loyalty and love properly go to freedom, never to the politicians fighting to wrest our God-given, inalienable rights from us."
Becky Akers
"Since the young, ignorant 'protesting' Bolshevik punks are all typically some variety of communist hiding behind euphemisms like 'social justice warriors,' I suspect their real complaint is that there are too many honest, hard-working, educated, successful white people in America — the root cause of all that dreaded 'inequality' ('white supremacy' in commie punk lingo). There is no secret as to why there are so many apparently successful white people (or any other kind) in America. They tend to keep out of trouble, educate themselves, learn a skill, become employed or start a business and stick with it, save for the future, don’t live beyond their means, get married and stay married, believe in God, and work hard. That’s what makes them 'supreme' compared to all those who fail to live like this.
What must really terrify the 'protesting' commie punks and their adult string pullers is the prospect of millions of non-white immigrants coming to America and deciding that they, too, would like to live 'superior' lives by keeping out of trouble, educating themselves and their families, working hard, etc., etc. 'Acting white,' in other words, to use a little 'urban' rhetoric."
Tom DiLorenzo
