Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
“That human beings will actually kill in the name of defending the entirely false and fictitious precepts upon which governments rest is a grim and frightening indication of how deep into the psyche repeated conditioning and propaganda can reach.”
Alex R. Knight III

“Governments, like guns, don't kill people; government-using people kill people.”
Garry Reed

“There is no ‘Right’ or ‘Left,’ there is only respect for liberty for all, or support of tyranny for at least some — liberty or authoritarianism — and this transcends the false political spectrum that we are told exists.”
Kent McManigal

“To the state, power comes first, and justice comes somewhere afterward. The state must keep its power intact and the criminal justice system, an obscene farce of revenue gathering and career building, is there to do it. Much has been invested in prisons and police, and the investors are using their position to ensure the profits keep coming. Politicians need muscle to push forth their ambition, and they want a system that keeps the muscle strong.”
Darian Worden

“Democratic politics relies on deception. Without deception of the voters on a comprehensive scale, there could be no politics above the local level, where people know the deceivers personally and are therefore less easy to fool.”
Gary North

“The fostering of fear through the recasting of political opposition as the frothing ravings of madmen is deceitful and little more than the typical use of tragedy as a pretext for tyranny through the promise of safety.”
Joe Wolverton II

“[T]he ‘driver's’ licenses almost all of us carry today are nothing more than the equivalent of the yellow tags you see stapled into the left ears of cows. And serve the same purpose.”
Eric Peters

“….The prime feature of political decision-making is that it's a zero-sum game. One person's gain is of necessity another person's loss. As such, political allocation of resources is conflict-enhancing, while market allocation is conflict-reducing. The greater the number of decisions made in the political arena, the greater the potential for conflict.”
Walter Williams

“Mass man is not a thinker. He is a reactor. He reacts to the weather...to prices...to the economy...to demagogues...and even to ideas. He accepted the system of modern social welfare economies because he was comfortable. But what will he do when the system is unable to make good on its promises? Our guess is that 'the system' in the advanced countries is approaching its final stage... Why? It just can't pay.”
Bill Bonner

“Of course I believe North Korea is an evil police state, but that is not the business of the evil U.S. police state.”
Laurence Vance

“Americans still like to think of themselves as ‘leaders of the free world,’ but in the eyes of many, it's exactly the ‘free world’ to which American policies are so antithetical and threatening.”
Glenn Greenwald

“…..Remember that every single 'law'is backed up, at some point, with the threat that if you do not submit, somewhere along the line, to those who are enforcing that 'law', they will use deadly force to either capture and punish you, or kill you in the attempt. With every 'law', no matter how seemingly trivial, the penalty for violating it is always death.Those who advocate and enforce 'laws' are willing to kill you to see their will imposed on you.”
Kent McManigal
"I couldn’t care less about so-called civility in politics. It’s like being concerned about civility between the Gambinos and the Bonnanos, only those families are of far more social use than politicians. What I want is civility by the politicians toward the people. Start by not threatening us with Devil’s Island in every encounter"
Lew Rockwell

“In preferring to remain in the dark, conservatives substitute patriotic slogans and jingoism for trenchant national security analysis. In this state of willful ignorance, our foreign policy becomes sacrosanct and militarism becomes orthodoxy-giving the Department of Defense carte blanche and with it, unchallenged and unparalleled government power.”
Jack Hunter

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From the Darkness:

"I think the nation's spirits would be lifted if the Congress acted quickly with the president and reinstated the assault weapons ban which also had the ban on these large magazines, these clips that carried 30-plus bullets."

Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell

"There is no place for violence in our political discourse.”
Keith Olbermann [That’s like saying there’s no place for violence in a slaughter house.]

"I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation's military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack."
J. C. Johnson, Department of Defense general counsel, claiming that Dr. Martin Luther King would have supported the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“He became an echo chamber for stray ideas, amplifying, for example, certain grandiose tenets of a number of extremist right-wing groups — including the need for a new money system and the government’s mind-manipulation of the masses through language.”
New York Times editorial, about the Tucson gunmen

“About one-third [of the improvement in child survival] is by increasing income. The majority has been through vaccines. Vaccines will be the key. If you could register every birth on a cell phone– get fingerprints, get a location — then you could [set up] systems to make sure the immunizations happen.”
Bill Gates, promoting a plan to use wireless technology to register every newborn on the planet in a vaccine database

“Free speech is a Hobbesian jungle. It requires a marketplace where the trade in information, ideas and opinion has a framework of rules, including rules that maintain fair and open competition. Most will be voluntary, but others need enforcement.
Free speech cannot exist without chains.”
Simon Jenkins

“Those lawmakers who advocate ‘Ending the Fed’ might better turn their considerable talents toward ending the fiscal debacle that has for too long run amuck within their own house. The Fed does not create government debt; fiscal authorities do.”
Richard Fisher, president of the Dallas Federal Reserve Bank

“They’re being treated pretty darned well.”
U.S. Rep. Bobby Schilling, R-Ill., after visiting the U.S. military detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

"Anybody here today who has not accepted Jesus Christ as their savior, I'm telling you, you're not my brother and you're not my sister, and I want to be your brother."
Alabama Gov. Robert Bentley

“I thought that his [Obama’s] speech in Tucson was very effective. It’s what a president should do in a moment like that.”
Newt Gingrich, heaping praise on the Messiah’s heal-the-nation Tucson speech.

“….Throughout our history, one of the reasons the free market has worked is that we have sought the proper balance. We have preserved freedom of commerce while applying those rules and regulations necessary to protect the public against threats to our health and safety and to safeguard people and businesses from abuse.
From child labor laws to the Clean Air Act to our most recent strictures against hidden fees and penalties by credit card companies, we have, from time to time, embraced common sense rules of the road that strengthen our country without unduly interfering with the pursuit of progress and the growth of our economy.”
B. Obama

Super Safe or Super Subjugated?

The federal security arsenal will be on full display in Arlington, Texas for the upcoming Super Bowl. Agents are foaming at the mouth in anticipation of the opportunity to show off and play with their latest technological toys: four mine resistant, armored personnel carriers (got to watch out for those parking lot mines), sniper rifles with scopes, the ubiquitous, obnoxious police canines (to help herd the human sheep and set a good example of obediently serving your master while sniffing the grounds and fans for contraband), a roving robot camera called a "throwbot" (because it's so small it can be tossed through a window), and hundreds of extra agents who will be locked and loaded with shock-and-awe caliber weaponry.

The local thugs with badges may even display a few toys of their own: “Arlington police might even break out their newest surveillance gadgets, including two small remote controlled helicopters. One is designed for outdoor use, but the other is so tiny and light that it could be maneuvered inside the stadium if necessary.”

Cool! Maybe a fleet of these gizmos could pull one of those giant Yankee War Flags across the breadth of the dome’s interior or fly abreast the trained bald eagle while it flies amongst the fawning, starry eyed spectators

I’m getting a lump in my throat just thinking about it. Or maybe that’s just bile.

It’s rumored that the TSA will make a surprise, guest appearance to sexually molest randomly picked trophy wives accompanying the wealthier clientele. Well, that’s what I heard.

Heaven help us if the Chicago Bears earn a trip to Cryboy’s Stadium. If so, we have been promised to be blessed with the presence of the Messiah, himself, in all his sporting glory. I’m sure aircraft controllers will clear the busy DFW skyways as not to hinder or threaten the successful landing of the Emperor’s lavish 747-200B. Roadways for miles around will undoubtedly be cleared of serf traffic to assure the safe arrival of the Anointed One's lengthy, ostentatious motorcade.

The US police state will be sickeningly omnipresent and its cousin, the US militarist state, will be religiously recognized and glorified at this goofy event. Outside, people will be harassed, searched, prodded, questioned, threatened and herded along like the enslaved livestock they are. Once inside, they will cheer, chant, pray and celebrate how wonderful it is to be "free."

How pathetic.

Urban Renewal- USG Style

Take a close look at these two “before and after” photos. Here you see what the USG ultimately resorts to when it cannot successfully achieve desired objectives through persuasion or even limited violence. It turns to the option of total destruction.

According to the report from Wired (the link courtesy of the indispensable Antiwar.com), “An American-led military unit pulverized an Afghan village in Kandahar’s Arghandab River Valley in October, after it became overrun with Taliban insurgents.”

Apparently, the Taliban Gang occupied and controlled this particular village which was also coveted by the USG Gang. Despite overwhelming firepower and the blessings of the "Christian" god, the skilled, brave, USG warriors were getting their butts kicked and failed trying to overtake this village . Therefore, a nut job by the name of Lt. Col. David Flynn pulled the old “save the village by destroying it” trick out of the Vietnam-era bag of tricks, unleashed 25 tons of bombs and turned the village to dust. Problem solved. No more Taliban and tough cookies for any innocent civilians who may have been present.

Nut Job Flynn defends his actions, in part, with this statement: “As of today, more of the local population talks to us and the government than talk to the Taliban.” Well, why wouldn’t they? What choice do they have? The resident bullies (the Taliban) have all been killed or scattered. Now that the new bully on the block has arrived (the USG) and the local’s homes and businesses have been turned to gravel, who else is there to talk to- Allah?

For the locals, it might just be easier to deal with the Taliban. Their motives are consistent and easy to understand. The USG, however, offers constantly changing directions and policies. If I were an Afghan, I would still be trying to figure out why the hell the USG was even there in the first place.

Not to worry, if your American bred conscience is experiencing even slight pangs of guilt and regret. The USG will counter their obscene destructiveness with the usual ploy- throw around other people’s money in a grand rebuilding program. Nut Job Flynn has received approval to spend up to one million dollars in this case. No offense to the (still living) people of Tarok Kolache, but does it look like the rebuilding of this village would cost this much?

Of course, 99% of Americans will never hear of this incident. And of those who do, only a minute percentage will understand the obvious, obscene absurdity of it all. To most, Tarok Kolache is/was just some random collection of mud huts occupied by strange brown people on the other side of the world. No NFL football games were cancelled, American Idol wasn’t delayed, an ample supply of sugary foods still line the shelves of our grocery stores, the TV cable still works, and most important of all no Congress Critters were shot.

So why bother being concerned?

Banned in Birdville!

I recently had an experience that the contributors and readers of the Libertarian Standard might get a kick from. I was doing some photography work in a high school in North Richland Hills, TX when I found myself with a long break between customers. I booted up my laptop to catch up on some reading. The school was kind enough to allow me to use their WiFi system, so I thought I’d do some blog reading. I clicked on the “Standard’s” bookmark and this message appeared on my monitor:

“libertarianstandard.com is categorized as violence, weapons.
The requested page has been blocked by the content filter because it is in violation of the internet acceptable usage policy set by the administration.”

I thought how hilarious, considering the site’s masthead reads, “Property, Prosperity, Peace” and the material usually concerns matters such as intellectual property and rarely anything about guns- and never violence. That’s the state’s job! I would safely bet that the word “gun” has never even appeared in any entry on this young blog. I didn’t think of it at the time, but I later wondered if the Birdville School District blocks any military sites.

It’s comical to observe the hysteria the state displays at the prospect that its school captives may be exposed to ideas contrary to state gospel. Their paranoia always seems to find still new ways to expose itself. Their desperation in preventing the spread of superior ideas becomes ever more obvious.

Your Government Cares About ‘Customer Service’

Recently, I purchased a new desktop computer. The machine came with some RSS feeds already programmed from a couple sources, including USA.gov.

Immediately, I decided to delete such a useless source but then changed my mind. Here, I thought, is a possible humorous and ongoing source of blog material. I didn’t have to wait long to find out I was correct.

I received a message directed at government employees about the importance of “customer service in government.” When following the link I found this gem:

“Great customer service happens when you exceed expectations – and expectations are higher than ever. People want to interact with government on their own terms. They want instant, accurate, easy-to-understand information, delivered via their channel of choice.

To deliver great customer service, government agencies must understand the needs of their customers, and adapt to improve the way those needs are met.”

This is a laughable concept, of course, since the government does not have customers, but instead has subjects. “Customer service” is directed toward those who voluntarily interact with an enterprise to purchase a needed product or service. A subject is coerced to interact with the government to locate a needed product or service that the government has a self-made monopoly on providing. The subject has no choice as there are no other legal alternatives to locate his needed product or service.

And just what “service” will the government’s subject be seeking? Apparently, it’s information. The government has loads of information to offer the individual subject. The possible fact that there may be little or no need for this “information” seems a moot point.

“Often, the government is the single source for certain information – so the public has no other option if agencies don’t provide satisfactory service. Some might say this lack of competition results in lackluster service, when in fact, it should engender exactly the opposite reaction. Agencies have a responsibility to the public to deliver great service, especially when there is no other option for help.”

Have you ever seen an enterprise with a monopoly provide “great service” when the “customer” has no other option?

And just what information would the individual subject be seeking? More than likely it would be related to proper procedures to follow in paying tribute (taxes and fees) to your state masters, as well as proper methods to follow when seeking permission for any of the myriad of personal activities the state claims to regulate and control.  In other words, information necessary to prevent thugs with guns from caging you, killing you, or appropriating your property because you didn't obediently follow state directives.

Yes, you are oppressed, spied on, abused, taxed to death, harassed, and suffer state micromanagement of every facet of your retched life. But it’s comforting to know your masters aim to provide good “customer service” while tightening your chains, stifling your freedom, plundering your property, and stealing your soul.

Quotes of the Week

From the Light:
"The state and the playground bully operate from the same modus operandi: the capacity to enforce obedience to its inconstant temperaments through violence. Regardless of the venue, the state continues to escalate its indecencies to ordinary men, women, and children in order to forcefully remind us of our subservience to its arbitrariness; to refresh our memory that the state is entitled to do to us anything that it chooses."
Butler Shaffer

“Next time you see a tiny, encircled ‘c’ or a patent number, reflect on how these things actually operate. Are ideas something that — even if we could — we would want to say that some people own? In practice, conveniently for the state’s ruling class, the ownership of ideas means the ownership of people and their personal effects, an Information Age slavery that’s hard to justify within the terms of ‘free enterprise.’”
David D'Amato

“Economic liberty is the utopia that they keep promising to bring us, pending the higher priority of blowing up foreign peoples, jailing political dissidents, crushing the left wing on campus, and routing the Democrats. Once all of this is done, they say, then they will get to the instituting of a free-market economic system. Of course, that day never arrives, and it is not supposed to. Capitalism serves the Republicans the way Communism served Stalin: a symbolic distraction to keep you hoping, voting, and coughing up money.”
Lew Rockwell

“What WikiLeaks is really exposing is the extent to which the western democratic system has been hollowed out. … And when, finally, the veil of secrecy is lifted, their reflex reaction is to kill the messenger."
British columnist John Naughton

“The reality to which increasing numbers of people are becoming aware, is that politics is a violent and corrupt racket that functions on generating fears among those to be ruled. Politicians and other government officials are attracted to political careers not because they want to serve others, but because they have their own visions of what would be ‘good’ for such others, and desire the power to enforce by violence – which is the essence of every government – their expectations. Such people easily find – usually within business organizations and labor unions – people who, unable to prosper in a free market grounded in voluntary transactions, are eager to resort to state violence. ‘Invisible hands’ must be replaced by the ‘iron fist.'”
Butler Shaffer

“With all the sober talk about year-end reviews in Afghanistan, about planning and ‘progress’ (a word used nine times in the relatively brief, vetted ‘overview’ of that review recently released by the White House), about future dates for drawdowns and present tactics, it’s easy to forget that war is a drug. When you’re high on it, your decisions undoubtedly look as rational, even practical, as the public language you tend to use to describe them. But don’t believe it for a second.”
Tom Engelhardt

“Don't assume that just because the government has the legal authority to do something that it will actually succeed. So be careful what you ask for.”
Harry Browne

“A gang is a group of men under the command of a leader, bound by a compact of association, in which the plunder is divided according to an agreed convention. If this villainy wins so many recruits from the ranks of the demoralized that it acquires territory, establishes a base, captures cities and subdues peoples, it then openly arrogates to itself the title of kingdom, which is conferred on it in the eyes of the world, not by the renunciation of aggression, but by the attainment of impunity.”
St. Augustine

“There is nothing moral or peaceful about using government as a vehicle by which to shape the world in your image at the expense of someone else’s liberty. To suggest otherwise is a pathetic sham, and flagrant dishonesty – to say nothing of intellectual bankruptcy.”
Alex R. Knight III

“Note that China has that perfect government, an intelligent dictatorship concerned with advancing the country. The American government consists of self-interested lobbies and Wall Street looters. China is run by engineers, America by lawyers.”
Fred Reed

“The violence of government is all around us, 24/7. From taxation to regulations to military adventurism, the federal government has become a role model for individuals prone to violence. If the government can use violence to achieve its goals, then violence becomes acceptable in the minds of the unstable. If the government can perpetuate Ponzi schemes, then some in the financial community will try to create their own fraudulent investment programs to enrich themselves at the expense of their fellow citizens.
The role model for violence is not heated political rhetoric, but the actions of government officials who assert they are doing ‘good’ by taxing, spending, regulating, borrowing, debasing the currency and invading other nations.”
Murray Sabrin

“The confusion between politics and economics has never been greater. We are no longer citizens but shareholders. This is precisely how American politics works for some time. Instead of buying shares, politicians buy votes. Money and efficiency now define a system never intended to deal with such things."
Cristian Gherasim

“When people are creating wealth they have little reason to get mad at one another. Sure, someone takes a shot at a Congressman from time to time, but it tends to be a personal matter. And the politico probably has it coming.”
Bill Bonner
 
“I love the smell of gunpowder [from fireworks] on Christmas; it's the smell of a free country.”
Doug Casey

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From the Darkness:

“When you look at unbalanced people, how they respond to the vitriol that comes out of certain mouths about tearing down the government. The anger, the hatred, the bigotry that goes on this country is getting to be outrageous and unfortunately Arizona has become sort of the capital. We have become the Mecca for prejudice and bigotry.”
Pima County, Arizona Sheriff Clarence Dupnik

“The United States, if the Afghan people want it, are prepared and we are not leaving in 2014. Hopefully, we will have totally turned over to the Afghan security forces the ability to maintain the security of the country, but we are not leaving if you don’t want us to leave.”
Joe Biden [Translated: If you want us to stay, we will stay.  If you want us to go, we will stay.]

“What I’d like to see is if we could all get together on both sides of the aisle, Democrats and Republicans, and really talk about what we can do to cool down the country. Part of that has to be what they’re hearing over the airwaves.”
Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.)

"You have to ratchet up the pressure and ... I don't think that this pressure will be sufficient to have this [Iran] regime change course without a credible military option that is put before them by the international community led by the United States."
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, still encouraging war on Iran

"We face a common threat posed by the terrorists and al Qa'eda, but our partnership goes beyond counterterrorism. We are focused not just on short-term threats but long-term challenges. We support an inclusive political process that will in turn support a unified, prosperous, stable, democratic Yemen."
Queen Hillary

"We all have to take responsibility for our remarks. I do, the Tea Party does, every elected official, every talk show person. These words have consequences and they especially have consequences on unstable people, like apparently this shooter was."
Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), despite offering NO proof that the Tuscon shooter had any connection to the Tea Party or listened to any talk radio.

"At a time when our discourse has become so sharply polarized — at a time when we are far too eager to lay the blame for all that ails the world at the feet of those who think differently than we do — it's important for us to pause for a moment and make sure that we are talking with each other in a way that heals, not a way that wound.”
B. Obama [This from a man that is responsible for the deaths of thousands and claims the power to assassinate those who disagree with or disobey his policies.]

“To foster its imperialistic goals, China for the past two decades has funded an unprecedented military expansion program.”
Retired Navy Admiral James A. Lyons [So? You clowns have been doing this for over six decades.]

"I'm fighting the criminalization of politics.”
Former House Republican leader Tom DeLay, after being sentenced to three years in prison for conspiracy and 10 years probation for money laundering. [Hey, goofball.  Politics is criminal.]

Suck It Up, Marine

It seems that one of the state’s empire warriors is miffed that his sacred costume was damaged by Delta Airlines during his flight to the Homeland from Japan. It’s hard not to chuckle thinking about one of “the few, the proud” calling a local television station to whine about such an unbearable hardship. The well constructed image of the hard nosed Marine, able to withstand any challenge or hardship, definitely takes a beating while reading his complaint.


Tough luck, soldier boy. This is the work of your comrades-in-arms at the TSA. I'm sure they had a good reason for the destruction of your property just as all Uncle Sam's warriors have good reasons for killing other people, destroying their property, spying on them, torturing them and generally making their lives miserable. I'm sure this act was done "for your own safety and security." At least, that's what your comrades always tell us mundane civilians who foot the bill and suffer the abuse. This is SOP for how state agents treat those (and their property) they may encounter during their daily duties.

So, suck it up, shut up, and serve your "country."