Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"We are oppressed by government and most people are unaware of it because they themselves have assumed government morality from childhood. It is impossible to change what you believe in your heart. If you are taught that democracy means freedom of political choices, you never question it, and the façade of politics serves for reality. Any challenge to this paradigm is written off as nuttery or conspiracy"
Bob Livingston

“Don't equate being passionate about the truth with being psychologically dependent on everyone else agreeing with you. 
If you want to help cure the world of its madness, you have to find a way to maintain your own sanity even when others react to you as if you've gone mad."
T.K. Coleman

“Taking the State wherever found, striking into its history at any point, one sees no way to differentiate the activities of its founders, administrators, and beneficiaries from those of a professional-criminal class.”
Albert J. Nock

“It is not the enemy that is essential to war and that forces war upon us, but the imagination. Imagination is the driving force, especially when imagination has been preconditioned by the media, education, and religion, and fed with aggressive boosterism and pathetic pieties by the state’s need for enemies. The imagined phantom swells and clouds the horizon, we cannot see beyond enmity.  The archetypal idea gains a face.  Once the enemy is imagined, one is already in a state of war.  Once the enemy has been named, war has already been declared and the actual declaration becomes inconsequential, only legalistic.”
James Hillman

“If you are forbidden to do what you have a right to do, you are being enslaved. If someone claims to have a right to tell you where you can live, what you are allowed to put into your bloodstream, how you use you property, can take your property from you against your will, and says they can forbid your right to carry tools, they are trying to enslave you. If they kidnap and cage you for doing what you have a right to do, the slavery has gone from the abstract to the concrete.”
Kent McManigal

“The entire human race, wherever situated, is the ‘enemy’ of the institutionally-structured political establishment. Our make-believe “choice” between being ruled and destroyed by either the Trump or Hillary franchises, is as meaningless to our well-being as choosing between emphysema or lung-cancer!”
Butler Shaffer

“The so-called ‘social contract’ is a crock of shit. There is no contract if I did not choose to sign it. The society does not have a right to impose its will on me, even if it is purported to be for ‘the greater good.’ I must have choice to opt-in to any system. I must have choice where my tax dollars go. I must have choice what I do with my own body, including both sex and drugs. I must have choice in what is public and what is private. I must have choice in everything, not orders from ‘authority figures.’”
Mike Margolies

“The free-market solution to the migrant situation is quite simple. If all the property of a country is privately owned, anyone can come and stay as long as he can pay for his accommodations. When even the streets and parks are privately owned, trespassers, beggars, squatters, migrants, vagrants, and the like have a problem. A country with 100% private property, and zero welfare, would only attract people who like those conditions. And they’d undoubtedly be welcome as individuals. But 'migration' would be impossible.
So, again, I'm all for open borders. Anybody should be able to go anywhere if they can support themselves. In a free market society, however, nobody's going to give you money just for existing. You have to produce goods and services in order to be able to buy food, shelter, and clothing.”
Doug Casey

“What’s the psychology behind America’s support of its government’s evil wars? The scar and shame of 9/11 loom large. That was a defeat. More generally, Americans won’t accept defeat. They fear it. They fear not being numero uno. They fear even a loss of prestige, and politicians even use that as an excuse for maintaining losing commitments and interventions. Americans fear a loss of control, even if such control is counterproductive. Their psychology demands winning and being on top, being the big honcho, the world’s policeman.”
Michael Rozeff

“The entire world has now learned a new lesson about the putrid, cynically corrupt, criminal nature of American ‘democracy’ with its vote rigging, orchestrated acts of violence, censorship, and the creation of a de facto state-run media with its never-ending avalanche of lies in support of the regime, little different from the ‘media’ of the Soviet Union.  No one in the world wants to import this!  Which of course is why the U.S. government is not ‘the world’s policeman’ but the world’s bully that invades, conquers, and instigates revolutions, all in the name of ‘American exceptionalism’ and ‘bringing democracy’ to other part of the world.”
Tom DiLorenzo

“People accuse me of being overly cynical about America. To that I say: Guilty as charged! When some hipster wraps his brand-new McMuscle car around a power pole because his face was buried in a cell phone screen trying to ‘capture’ some Pokémon critter that exists in McLa-La Land, I fail to see how this society can function much longer.”
Jack Perry

“Politicians are like celebrities getting ready to release a new album or film:
When you hate them they win.
When you love them, they win.
When you fear them, they win.
When you praise them, they win.
When you spread lies about them, they win.
When you tell the truth about them, they win.
As long as you believe they are the primary ones worth talking about, they win.”
T.K. Coleman

“The more we exist outside the system, the more creative we are.”
Beatrice Wood

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“If everyone relied less on political celebrities, if everyone stopped waiting for a knight on a white horse, or a feminist icon, a crusade to fight or a social justice mob to join and started determining their own futures; if everyone began looking far more carefully at the people behind the curtain, then perhaps we could finally see a change in humanity not seen in thousands of years.  Not a collectivist change, but an individualist change, which is the only kind of change everlasting or worth a damn.”
Brandon Smith

“As citizens of this nation, it’s important to understand that it was a group of states that came together to form a nation, not the other way around. This freedom is our baby, not the federal government’s. The people gave it life. The people saw it through tough times. We the people decide what options are on the table, and we don’t need permission from the government we created to ensure that it continues to serve us as we see fit.”
Dallas Brooks

“Yet this government never of itself furthered any enterprise, but by the alacrity with which it got out of its way.”
Henry David Thoreau

“The well-being – even the survival – of our species itself, depends on upon the full expression of the life force that is found only within individuals. This importance is best served by social systems in which decision-making is diffused among individuals. Life belongs to the living, not to soulless abstractions to which we have conditioned ourselves to be subservient.”
Butler Shaffer

“If the flag is symbolic of the Constitution, that Constitution died long ago — destroyed by a crony railroad lawyer and mercantilist who made war on a sovereign people to benefit monied interests.
If the flag is symbolic of freedom, that freedom no longer exists — stolen long ago by crony corporations and globalist banksters and unaccountable oligarchical black-robed satanists and idol worshippers who usurped their authority created laws out of thin air under the guise of ‘interpreting the Constitution’ a dictate not granted them under the original document.”
Bob Livingston

“I prefer to think of mankind as having no preconceived fate, but as a species whose varied, individual interests combine with their spontaneous and self-directed characters to respond to nature’s continuing demand for success: to be a changing person in a changing world, for whom peace and the inviolability of individuals prevails.”
Butler Shaffer

“Don't place blind faith in politics. Learn to respect your own power. Your ability to change the world isn't defined by who you vote for. You have a much greater capacity for creating a freer society through innovation and individuality than what mainstream media would have you believe. To hell with sitting around waiting for politicians to save us. Have some vision. Have some creativity. Have some self-respect. Have some self-determination.”
T.K. Coleman

“Only to members of the military are we urged to say, ‘Thank you for your service.’ Toward the great entrepreneurs who extend our lives and make them more fulfilling, we are taught to be envious and resentful. They are most certainly not thanked for their service.”
Lew Rockwell

“The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.”
H.L. Mencken

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“As you may know, Texas’ relationship to the federal government is contractual, and a contract is only as good as the honor of the parties involved. If you were in a marriage where your spouse continually abused you and cheated on you, all while spending the money you had laid aside for your children, it is doubtful that a reasonable person would say to you, ‘Too bad! You have to stay married!’ Certainly the founders didn’t believe this, and the 10th amendment of the Constitution reserves all power not given the federal government for States, including the power the leave the union.”
Ryan Thorson

“Who, we ask, has the right to rule what ideas pass through your mind? Taken further, who has the right to regulate how you use your mind? The proper answer is nobody. Not the DEA. Not Congress. Not anyone. 
Cognitive liberty, we find, is the cornerstone of individual liberty. Because if you’re not free to think for yourself or alter your consciousness on your own terms, how free are you actually? If you do not have autonomy over your own brain chemistry, how can you claim to have any autonomy at all?”
Chris Campbell

“I trust the businessman only when he’s out to make money – because then he’s going to want to do things my way. When he’s out to do me good, he is going to do it his way.”
Dwight Lee

“Where will we be led by the illusion that impels us to believe that the state is a person who has an inexhaustible fortune independent of ours?”
Frederick Bastiat

“Why does the world look to the most stupid, vile, arrogant, corrupt and murderous government on the planet for leadership?
War is the only destination to which Washington can lead.”
Paul Craig Roberts

"While no president is anywhere near as decent as his supporters want you to believe, neither is any president as bad as his opposition claims. Presidents are simply the gunk that floats to the top of the political soup, to be scooped up and held aloft as someone more noble than the rest of humanity.”
Kent McManigal

“Usually, the greater good is based on entirely arbitrary determinations rather than any inherent moral code, making it vaporous and easily changeable.  A ‘greater good’ without principles based in inherent conscience or natural law can be shifted on a whim to suit any evil imaginable.”
Brandon Smith

"The political process (voting) is not a function of government or functional to government. The political process is a façade of government that satisfies the quest for political choices. It is an illusion unrelated to reality and political participation by the people. It is, however, the perfect system for keeping the people focused on empty nonsense year after year. People totally misunderstand the nature of government. Otherwise they would know that there is no such thing as political choices or political freedom."
Bob Livingston

"Are Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, and Donald Trump more fit national leaders than Washington, Adams, Jefferson, and Madison, our first four presidents who we are reminded were elected by a suffrage restricted to white male property holders? Is there any reason to think that by expanding our suffrage we have improved the quality of our leadership? Yes, we have become more egalitarian since the American Founding and some might argue, more just, but our march toward democratic equality looks grimmer and grimmer each passing day."       
Paul Gottfried

“I used to joke that there was nothing wrong with Washington that 10 megatons on the capital couldn’t cure. But I don’t say that anymore. Partially because it’s too dangerous, but mainly because it’s now untrue. What’s now needed is 10 megatons on the capital, and four more bursts in a quadrant 10 miles out.”
Doug Casey

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"Today the law of natural selection is aiding the manmade laws of artificial selection. Under Socialism the unfit would survive. Under Socialism the efficient man would have a price upon his head."
H.L. Mencken

“In short, war is inseparable from propaganda, lies, hatred, impoverishment, cultural degradation, and moral corruption. It is the most horrific outcome of the moral and political legitimacy people are taught to grant the state. Wrapped in the trappings of patriotism, home, songs, and flags, the state deludes people into despising a leader and a country that until that point they had barely even heard of, much less had an informed opinion about, and it teaches its subjects to cheer the maiming and death of fellow human beings who have never done them any harm.”
Lew Rockwell

“The crucial distinction between government and business is not private vs. public. After all, business often serves the public while government often serves private interests. The crucial difference between government and the so-called private sector is impunity – the ability to assault, kill, and defraud without consequence. The more government and business become intermingled, the more the law becomes a tool of privilege for private and public players alike rather than a defensive measure for the equal liberty and dignity of all.”
Joey Clark

“Everyone acts like the fate of Western Civilization hangs upon these elections. If that is the case, then Western Civilization is long past its ‘Best By’ date and needs to be shuffled off to the trash can before it starts to stink even worse.”
Jack Perry

“Populism is the belief in policies that benefit the average person.  The only viable populist platform is liberty and the free market.  Protectionism always was and always will be a policy that favors wealthy elites at the expense of the average American worker. Politics is a rich man’s sport.”
James Ostrowski

“It is a curious notion that if 15 percent is considered enough public support to grant a candidate a national platform in the Presidential debates, then why is an issue like state independence [supported by 25%] relatively ignored by our state and national leaders? Usually, when a quarter of a country’s population supports an issue, it tends to demand attention. In a cynical political sense, one would even expect officials to exploit it in order to achieve higher office, but instead there’s largely silence. I suppose they recognize that an implication of independence being so popular among their constituents might be that their own leadership is seen as dysfunctional.”
Ryan Thorson

“Similar to the past, where we recognized chattel slavery was wrong. In time, we’ll also see free-range slavery as a mistake.”
Jamie Redman

“Progressivism is a cartel. It is breaking down. It wins only by default. Its political leaders no longer inspire confidence. Yet the whole movement has been a massive confidence game for over a century: faith in bureaucracy. That faith is waning. So are new revenue sources to support the existing programs, which are all running deficits.
They promised a new world order. It's the same old order: power grabbing and tax grabbing.”
Gary North

“All world history presents a contest between the economic and the political means. The state is an organization of the political means forced by a victorious group of men on a defeated group, with the sole purpose of regulating the dominion of the victorious group over the vanquished.”
Franz Oppenheimer

“Divisiveness is not a byproduct of politics, it’s a feature. Politics is designed to create hatred and unrest, as a prelude to justifying more and more state power over our lives.
After all, politics is war by other means. And war claims victims. War has winners and losers. Most of all, war has profiteers: namely the political class and its many clients, both in government and the nominally private sector.”
Jeff Deist

“No one can find a safe way out for himself if society is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result. Whether he chooses or not, every man is drawn into the great historical struggle, the decisive battle into which our epoch has plunged us.”
Ludwig von Mises

“Let it be known across the land: Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, no matter who craps in the master bedroom’s bathroom, have about as much power to ‘save’ America than does Vladimir Putin.”
Chris Campbell

Random Rogue Rants

I find it interesting that any information offered by oil and gas companies (gathered by legitimate research performed by real scientists) is considered “suspect.”   Yet, any statement by any greenie weenie, carbon-hating, Luddite, environmental group (just well enough funded to have a web address and fax machine) is considered reliable and reputable.

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I find it disturbing that any shred of remaining freedom in this country is considered a “loophole.”

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I tire of the socialist notion that people are owed a living (and even a comfortable one) due only to the fact they exist.  I also am weary of this unspoken obligation that is thrust upon me to wipe people’s bottoms when they poop in their pants, because some yearned for, benevolent, mystical entity (usually created by “government”) does not yet exist to do it for them.

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A “debtors revolt” is nothing more than a “Degenerate Display of Deadbeats.” They only seem to become aware of the fraudulent, fiat nature of the money they’ve borrowed when they find it difficult to pay it back.

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Working “within the system” to create a government that “serves the people” makes as much sense as feeding a cancerous tumor to help cure its host.

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A religion that believes in the supernatural and that its philosophy should be forced on everyone is no different than any collective, political philosophy that claims obedience to its authority will create heaven on earth.  They both deny the superiority and moral necessity of self-government.

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The state’s edicts and rule is ultimately maintained through violence, not consent. The obedience of the state’s subjects is not encouraged by self-interest but through fear.

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There are people who have good minds and souls, but have not yet broken out of the matrix of state loyalty and obedience. No healthy mind or soul can reject the concept and ideals of liberty when they are properly presented.

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Why must I be burdened with taking all these political actions as required, or “allowed,” or “recommended” by this governing institution to control, alter, or abolish this same institution that I had nothing to do with creating? Why is the onus on me? Why isn’t the burden of seeking consent and legitimacy on this institution? In other words, why must I petition a self-proclaimed king? Why mustn’t he petition me?

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Yes, a private institution also has laws or rules governing how it is to be altered or even abolished.  But unlike political government, that is an organization with a voluntary membership and only claims to govern (or rule) that specific membership. That organization must petition me to join it and it doesn’t claim to rule me if I do not choose to become a member. 
When I’m born into this world this institution called “government” automatically considers me as a subject, obligated to accept their rule, pay tribute to them, and obey them.  And if I wish to initiate even some small change to that rule, tribute, or obedience, I am also the party obligated take all the steps and jump through all these procedural hoops (that I had no say in developing) necessary to initiate change. I am obligated to make changes to a ruling institution that I did not create nor give consent to.

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Jefferson and Madison wrote the Virginia and Kentucky resolutions with the idea that the states would either ignore, or punish the federal government encroachments. I’m  sure such “accountability mechanisms” could be very useful to people who actually created the beast. Particularly, since the beast was still young, immature, and still relatively harmless.  But after a couple hundred years this beast has grown to a huge ugly, overbearing monster that cares little about these age old mechanisms. It takes pleasure in stomping on them with it huge hoofs. 

The solution is people taking personal responsibility for their lives and liberties (including forming militias and working for secession) as a show of force and resolve to keep the beast at bay and eventually starving it.

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Jesus Christ was probably one of the few people of historical significance who was born an anarchist (as we all are)  and remained an anarchist for the rest of his earthly life.

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I’m a voracious reader. I can recall being so from the age of five or six. I grew up in a small town that had a public library housed in a small, very old, wood frame church. As soon as you entered it, you smelled the odor of old books. I’ve always loved that smell. Every time I smell it I experience the same Pavlovian response that a hungry man gets when detecting the smell of a grilling steak. But instead of being encouraged to feed my stomach I’m inspired to feed my head.

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No man can be truly free until he knows the truth. No man can remain free unless he continually seeks the truth.

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If you take the time to study just what went on during the crafting of the US Constitution, you may come to this conclusion: Many of  America’s “Founding Fathers” were “fathers” the same way a rapist is a “father.”

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When a private individual presents an opinion that I vehemently oppose, I see it as merely a point of view I disagree with, not necessarily a threat. However, when people become part of government, their benign, personal opinions and ideology tend to turn into “national policy.” This policy is enforced by violence and therefore becomes a threat.

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The state loves to redefine the language. It labels individuals- citizen, legal, illegal, non-combatant, combatant, militant- as if it was classifying different breeds of cattle. Some breeds are productive for the farmer, some are not. Some breeds are worthy to continue life, some are not.

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Few events are more inspiring to me than when a member of the military resigns after becoming a principled libertarian. It’s always heartwarming to witness a bootlicker morph into a shitkicker.

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“Administrative leave” means sitting around all day looking at kiddie porn.

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“Is Rand Paul better than Lindsey Graham?”
Hell, a cockroach feeding on your still warm dinner is better than Lindsey Graham.

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I’ve watched Lonesome Dove 21 times. I never tire of watching it. I asked myself how I could watch a movie that many times and still enjoy it? I concluded the reason was is because this particular western is more than just a great movie, it is great poetry- the story, the characters, the dialog, the scenery- all are pure poetry. 
And, of course, great poetry never gets old, tiresome, or dated.

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Being judgmental and discriminatory are two necessary and natural human actions. They both are the result of individuals processing information to make important life decisions. Yet, many categorically condemn both actions, no matter the target, no matter the reasoning involved.
  
Why? I think it’s because both actions threaten conformity of thought and obedience to authority. Being judgmental and discriminatory are antithetical to following the herd. Being judgmental and discriminatory means you are actually thinking, not just following.

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There are laws of economics just as there are laws of physics. Violate them and you pay the consequences.
And no amount of god-State rhetoric or mysticism will change that fact.

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"Minority" is a code word for anti-white bigots to designate those who are non-white.
But they can't say "non-white" because they know they'll be called out for the hateful, racist bigots that they are!

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Re: the legalization of gay marriage:
After decades of rightfully demanding that government get out of their bedrooms (by the existence of sodomy laws), they've now created a ringside seat for their previous oppressor. 
The power to license brings with it the power to regulate. 

The only foreseeable “good” is that the potential market for divorce lawyers has increased.

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“Rap” is the guttural emanations of soulless, untalented, lower primate, ghetto monkeys and soulless, untalented, tone deaf, white trash. The true abomination of this phenomenon is not its existence, but that it is claimed to be “music” and an “art form,” worthy of consideration and listened to by civilized folk.

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If anti-gun kooks can claim that guns (inanimate objects) can create crime, how can they claim it’s ridiculous to claim that Gun Free Zones (inanimate constructs) create murder?

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My view on transsexuals, binaries, etc. and other reality optional constructs, in a nutshell:

I can put on a collar and leash and shit in the yard, but that don’t make me a cocker spaniel.

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I believe in the primacy of the individual. The predations of the state, without doubt, is the greatest threat to that primacy.

Some people see this viewpoint as inspiring, some as foolish, and others as downright scary.

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I think you'll find that most statists read little or not at all. They don't have the attention span. Most probably have not read a book since high school, if even then. They prefer sound bites from TV and word bites from social media. They’re easy to digest and no thinking or contemplation is required.

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The cops aren't there to help you.
They're there to control you (for the benefit of the ruling class), put you in a cage (for the profit and benefit of the ruling class), to extract revenue from you (to benefit both the ruling class and the enforcement class), and to KILL you, if necessary (if it benefits the ruling class when they feel they can get away with it).
Lesson: Never, ever, call the cops
Lesson: Never, ever, talk to the cops.

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Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

"There can’t be ‘too much liberty’ because liberty, being the freedom to do anything that doesn’t violate others, is self-regulating. If an act violates someone, it’s not liberty.”
Kent McManigal

“What is the Bill of Rights at heart but a way to impose very high transactions costs on any attempt to erode particular protections against government abuse? What is federalism, but providing a voting-with-your-feet alternative which makes government abuse harder to successfully impose? What is the core issue of ‘activist’ courts but their ability to lower the transaction cost of changing the Constitution through redefinition rather than the high-transaction-cost way Constitutionally specified for such changes? What is the most important goal of separation of powers but to make the transaction costs of government actions higher, in order to restrict government acts to where there is a much higher degree of societal agreement?”
Gary Galles

“The U.S. government has a life of its own. And it only really cares about the U.S. the way a flea cares about a dog. A flea needs the dog; it wants the dog to survive. But not because it cares about the dog itself. The prime directive of every living being, whether it’s an amoeba or a corporation or a government, is SURVIVE. That’s the prime directive; it comes before anything else. The U.S. government is an entity that has a life of its own. Its prime directive is looking out for number one.”
Doug Casey

“In politics, your sensitivities are despised and debated at every turn.
In the free market, your sensitivities are treated as an opportunity for someone somewhere to create wealth for themselves by figuring out a creative way to give you what you want. 
Don't trust in the power of politicians and other agents of the state. Trust in the power of markets, self-interests, and incentives.”
T.K. Coleman

“The bottom line is that attempts to ‘change the world’ whole – to change it in a way that is noticeable and traceable to one action or small set of actions – is the height of arrogance. No such change, no matter how well-intentioned the change-agent, will be for the better. Beneficial efforts to change the world are almost always small, incremental, and performed in the voluntary sector of society – in the market, in families, in civil society. Not in or through the state.”
Donald Boudreaux

“He who frees his own mind first cannot be imprisoned by any government. They can slander him, criticize him, call him a 'bad American', or even un-American and he simply does not care. Why? Because he is no longer attached to any of those concepts. He has no ego-self invested in the State which defines itself as ‘American’ and needs no approval from the State to feel whole or complete. The State has nothing to offer him and, therefore, nothing by which he can be ultimately controlled. If this were not so, the government would not invest vast sums in propaganda and state-sponsored peer pressure efforts to keep the illusion up and running. The State does not fear a revolution. They have enough tanks and men to put one down and enough propaganda to cause the majority to cheer the revolutionaries stood against a wall and shot. What the State fears is being ignored. That is one thing tanks cannot defeat.”
Jack Perry

“The US allied itself with Stalin, then fought Communism. It propped up Saddam Hussein, then murdered him. After bombing Hanoi, it now sells weapons to the same regime. In front of a huge Ho Chi Minh bust, Bush, Clinton, and Obama beamed. Freedom fighters will be redefined as terrorists or vice versa. When it comes to geopolitics, there is no ideological consistency. Only war is constant, and the flow of refugees.”
Linh Dinh

“Americans, and Europeans too, are witnessing the end of the myth of democratic consensus. Democratic voting, so called, doesn’t yield some noble compromise between Left and Right, but only an entrenched political class and its system of patronage.”
Jeff Deist

“Agreement about a common purpose between a group of known people is clearly an idea that cannot be applied to a large society which includes people who do not know one another. The modern society and the modern economy have grown up through the recognition that this idea — which was fundamental to life in a small group — a face-to-face society, is simply inapplicable to large groups.”
Friedrich A. Hayek

“The established order will require bright, creative, and thoughtful minds to design and control the technology upon which the system depends for its life-destructive schemes. But these same brilliant minds may be most motivated to expose the state’s evil practices from within.”
Butler Shaffer

“I don’t affiliate with Republicans, but I am happy to support a Republican that proves he or she has no interest in dictating my principles or my future.  Same with a Democrat. Same with any black or white or brown person. Same with any gay or straight person.  I really don’t care; stay out of my way and I’ll stay out of yours. Get in my way, however, and I will step on you.  If you’re bigger than me, I’ll dislocate your kneecaps and then step on you.  There is no despot so big that they are immune to the heel of a strategically placed boot.
Brandon Smith

“Don’t you think it farfetched that ignorant, corrupt, and cowardly American journalists who lie for money know more than physicists, chemists, 2,700 high-rise architects and structural engineers who have called on the US Congress to launch a real investigation of 9/11, firefighters and first responders who were on the WTC scene, military and civilian pilots and former high government officials, all of whom are on record challenging the unbelievable and physically impossible official story of 9/11? What kind of a dumbshit moron does a person have to be to believe that the United States government and its media whores know better than the laws of physics?”
Paul Craig Roberts

“To those statists who tell libertarians ‘If you hate government so much why don't you move to Somalia’ libertarians can now respond, ‘If you love government so much why don't you move to Venezuela?’”
Garry Reed

Quotes of the Week

Enlightened insights taken from the past week’s reading:

“Americans have redefined ‘steal.’ It now means, ‘Acquiring property from another person yourself rather than waiting for government to acquire it on your behalf.’ So long as the recipient doesn’t wind up in jail, he will eagerly accept anything politicians ‘redistribute’ to him from his family and friends.”
Becky Akers

“Realize you are very much okay with murdering nonviolent neighbors every time you vote for politicians that use armed agents with the option of deadly force to prevent nonviolent behaviors.”
David Gornoski

“Ruling elites have three basic ways to keep the subject population under their thumb: threaten, bribe, and bamboozle. Everything they do is a variant of one of these basic actions. So, if the lush, misleading overgrowth were cut away, all government activities could be undertaken by only three departments: the Department of Cops and Soldiers; the Department of Santa Claus; and the Department of Delusion.”
Robert Higgs

“Throughout the western world, ‘tolerance’ has become remarkably ‘intolerant,’ and ‘diversity’ demands ruthless conformity.”
Mark Steyn

“Why would an intelligent person in any country want to stand for and sing a ‘national anthem?’ How would such an act contribute to the well-being of someone who engaged in it?  Let me state, at the outset, that in all matters relating to my conduct, I am a firm agnostic when it comes to evaluating the conduct others expect me to follow. Consensus-based definitions of reality or propriety do not impress me. My mind will always insist upon  asking my favorite word in the English language – the word that children ask of the adults in their lives until they are forced to abandon its use – ‘why?’  If you would like me to follow a prescribed course of behavior, please inform me how my doing so would benefit me.”
Butler Shaffer

“The truth is we have more in common with people of different ethnicities and religions than we can possibly know in a totalitarian system drenched in the divisive propaganda of identity politics.”
Charles Hugh Smith

"Whenever you have a rebellion focused on the inherent ideals of freedom, totalitarian institutions struggle to intervene. The issue is, freedom is not only moral, but practical. Wherever true freedom exists, people are not only happier, but more productive and prosperous. It’s hard for a tyrant to fight a rebellion based on freedom because the idea is more powerful than any weapon or any form of treachery. No matter how advanced the tyranny is, and no matter how many rebels they imprison or kill, the idea of freedom endures.”
Brandon Smith

“The United States government cannot give what does not belong to it in the first place. Freedom is not the property of the United States government to give. And the only way they can take it away is through force and violence. I ask you, can a country call itself free if its government uses violence to deny freedom? Therefore, if anyone thinks that freedom comes from the United States government, he is mistaken.”
Jack Perry

“The whole military response to 9/11 has been an utter disaster. The costs have been astronomical. They are orders of magnitude in excess of all the lives lost on 9/11. For whom a disaster? For Iraqis. For those of us who treasure peace, justice, human life and rational behavior, George W. Bush chose an utterly senseless course of action. For those who like war, slaughter, creating misery, making war profits and getting military promotions and pensions, Bush did the right thing. And for people who like to lash out in revenge against anyone, even those who had nothing to do with a crime, Bush did the right thing. The lives lost on 9/11 could never be restored by attacking Iraq. Future terrorism acts could not be averted or prevented by attacking Iraq. In fact, in one way or another the consequence has been their augmentation.”
Michael Rozeff

“Privacy is the right to the self. Privacy is what gives you the ability to share with the world who you are, on your own terms. For them to understand what you’re trying to be. And to protect for yourself the parts of you you’re not sure about, that you’re still experimenting with. If we don’t have privacy, what we’re losing is the ability to make mistakes. We’re losing the ability to be ourselves.”
Edward Snowden

“It is in the free market that self-interest finds its finest expression; that is a cardinal point in individualism. If the market is regularly raided, by robbers or the government, and the safety of property is impaired, the individual loses interest in production, and the abundance of things men live by shrinks. Hence, it is for the good of society that self-interest in the economic sphere be allowed to operate without hindrance.”
Frank Chodorov

“The Constitution and Bill of Rights have no role in ‘creating’ rights. The Constitution itself is useful only insofar as it lays out the guidelines, structure, and organization of the government. It has no place dealing with anything else. 
Rights are extremely simple and bills of rights, constitutions, civics classes, etc. only serve to muddy the waters. They lead people into the confused belief that individuals or representatives or majorities can create rights by writing them down on a magical piece of paper.”
Ryan Miller

“When you hear the words ‘failed state,’ you may have noticed that the phrase is never applied to a capitalist society. There are good reasons for this.”

Gary North

“I grew up assuming the Soviet Union was simply part of the status quo. All of us grew up assuming the United Kingdom was part of the furniture. Why do we think the United States of America is etched in stone?”

Sanford Levinson

“My guess is she’s through. She ought to be through. Let her go into a sanitarium and stop killing people.”
Lew Rockwell, on the sickly Queen Killary