Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:
"Any movement toward secession is a good thing, no matter how ill-conceived. It puts a different idea in minds: defect, decentralize, opt out, strive to become more self-sufficient. This idea can spawn many new strategies, over the long run."
John Rappoport
"Unfortunately, all-too-many self-proclaimed libertarians have neglected or refused to do so and naively embraced the currently reigning – and only 'politically correct' – view that all people and in particular all groups of people are essentially equal as regards their mental and motivational make-up, and that any observable inequalities are either the result of mere accident and circumstance or past injustice and as such can and should be made good by some corrective, 'equalizing' measures. The acceptance of this belief in the empirical equality and hence, the interchangeability, substitutability and replace-ability of all people and all groups of people, has led many libertarians – the now so-called 'left'-libertarians – to endorse and promote the very same agenda pursued presently already more or less vigorously by the ruling elites all across the Western World (are they all secretly libertarians?): of multi-culturalism, unrestricted 'free' immigration, 'non-discrimination,' 'affirmative action' and 'openness' to 'diversity' and “alternative lifestyles."
Hans-Hermann Hoppe
"It is high time, then, for those who cherish freedom, individuality, the division of labor, and economic prosperity and survival, to stop conceding the supposed nobility of the ideal of equality. Too often have 'conservatives' conceded the ideal of equality only to cavil at its 'impracticality.' Philosophically, there can be no divorce between theory and practice. Egalitarian measures do not 'work' because they violate the basic nature of man, of what it means for the individual man to be truly human. The call of 'equality' is a siren song that can only mean the destruction of all that we cherish as being human."
Murray Rothbard
"All government, in its essence, is a conspiracy against the superior man: its one permanent object is to oppress him and cripple him. If it be aristocratic in organization, then it seeks to protect the man who is superior only in law against the man who is superior in fact; if it be democratic, then it seeks to protect the man who is inferior in every way against both. One of its primary functions is to regiment men by force, to make them as much alike as possible and as dependent upon one another as possible, to search out and combat originality among men. All it can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man to any government is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos."
H.L. Mencken
"Romanticism is man's revolt against reason, as well as against the condition under which nature has compelled him to live. The romantic is a daydreamer; he easily manages in imagination to disregard the laws of logic and nature. The thinking and rationally acting man tries to rid himself of the discomfort of unsatisfied wants by economic action and work; he produces in order to improve his position. The romantic … imagines the pleasures of success but he does nothing to achieve them he does not remove the obstacles; he merely removes them in imagination. … He hates work, economy, and reason."
Ludwig von Mises
"Discrimination is a crime in search of a victim. Every real crime needs a tangible victim with measurable damages. Discrimination is not aggression, force, coercion, or threat. It should never be a crime. To outlaw discrimination is to outlaw freedom of thought. To restrict discrimination is to restrict freedom of assembly. To limit discrimination is to limit property rights. To regulate discrimination is to regulate freedom of association.
Discrimination means freedom."
Laurence Vance
"All governments suffer a recurring problem. Power attracts pathological personalities. It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible."
Frank Herbert
"There is a decadent spirit controlling the perceptions of the American people, keeping them on the animal farm (controlling their perceptions) long enough to impoverish and enslave them. Time and gradualism can change a system all the way from human liberty to slavery (the animal farm) over a few generations without anyone being aware except a very few, those who ask questions."
Bob Livingston
"Libertarians are branded utopians because their philosophy can’t work in the real world. What detractors really mean is that it can’t work in their own status-quo concept of the real world."
Gary Reed
"It takes 70 million votes to control the White House, and the (deep) administrative state may be beyond the reach of even an overwhelming political majority. No matter where you sit ideologically, the risk of becoming a marginalized political minority grows as state power grows. It is time to stop trying to capture DC and start talking about realistic breakaway or federalist solutions, even under the umbrella of an ongoing federal state. The elections of 2018 and 2020 won't settle our problems, but only make them worse. At least 50 or 60 million Americans, a group far larger than most countries, will be politically disenfranchised and ruled by a perceived hostile government no matter what candidates or parties prevail.
If breaking up seems unthinkable, so does civil war. Is it written in stone that 330 million people must live under one far-flung federal jurisdiction, no matter what, forever?"
Jeff Deist
"Reason does not work automatically; thinking is not a mechanical process; the connections of logic are not made by instinct. The function of your stomach, lungs, or heart is automatic; the function of your mind is not. In any hour and issue of your life, you are free to escape from your nature, from the fact that reason is your means of survival – so that for you, who are a human being, the question 'to be or not to be is the question 'to think or not to think'."
Ayn Rand
"The goal for the political losers who bemoan division is a form of unity that is based on *their* terms and *their* ideological assumptions. What they want is the political power to dethrone the winners and make others conform to *their* definition of unity. And what better serves as a balancing force to the desire for political power than division? If you feel like you're losing politically, then division is your saving grace. If it weren't for division, the very people you see as evil would simply force the world to conform with their ideals."
T.K. Coleman
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