Still More Quotes of the Day

"The U.S. military—whatever it once was—has, for many years, simply been the president’s personal attack force to bomb, invade, occupy, and otherwise bring death and destruction to any country he deems necessary.

Fallen U.S. soldiers died unnecessarily, needlessly, senselessly, in vain, and for a lie. They died a pawn in service to the state. They died for the military/industrial complex. They died for a reckless, belligerent, and meddling U.S. foreign policy that is deeply flawed, and has been for over a hundred years."

Laurence Vance

"But the impulse to conserve for conservation's sake has taken on an unthinking, unsupported, unnecessary urgency. Extinction is the engine of evolution, the mechanism by which natural selection prunes the poorly adapted and allows the most hardy to flourish. Species constantly go extinct, and every species that is alive today will one day follow suit. There is no such thing as an 'endangered species,' except for all species. The only reason we should conserve biodiversity is for ourselves, to create a stable future for human beings. Yes, we have altered the environment and, in doing so, hurt other species. This seems artificial because we, unlike other life forms, use sentience and agriculture and industry. But we are a part of the biosphere just like every other creature, and our actions are just as volitional, their consequences just as natural. Conserving a species we have helped to kill off, but on which we are not directly dependent, serves to discharge our own guilt, but little else."

Alexander Pyron

"When the superiority of voluntary interactions is so patent, so heart-warming, and so overwhelming, why does the State with its soul-crushing compulsion still exist?"

Becky Akers

"The mainstream argument becomes a kabuki theater between the 'ignorantly destructive' populists/nationalists/individualists versus the more 'reasonable' and supposedly forward thinking socialists/globalists/multiculturalists. The truth is, sovereignty champions can be pro-individual liberty and also pro-community or pro-nation, as long as that community is voluntary."

Bob Livingston

"The non-aggression principle, fully extended, allows for managed borders of property.  Property implies discrimination by the property owner; in the case of his property borders, this means the visitor has a right to exit, but not a right to enter.  The property owner may exclude anyone from his property for any reason.

When it comes to 'borders,' the state has made the private property owner impotent in terms of gathering with his neighbors and agreeing to this completely libertarian principle.  The state removes from me my property rights.  The only means I have by which to exercise these rights is via the state – and this is the single argument against state-managed borders, that it is the state acting as the agent."

Bionic Mosquito

"Politics makes society uncivil and demented. In their lust to manipulate and control, the political class is willing to say and do anything to garner power and destroy alternatives. Their goal is not pluralism, tolerance, individual autonomy, or peaceful coexistence—their goal is totalitarian domination. They are reprobate and rabid in their hunger for power. Their methods enthusiastically involve deceiving, confusing, crippling, annoying, insulting, maligning, meddling, molesting, muckraking, impeding, burdening, exhausting, exasperating, extorting, damaging, demoralizing, threatening, frightening, terrorizing, and destroying. It’s complete incivility and depravity.

What should one expect to be the psychological result of such an environment?"

Trenton Fervor

"The fact is that the federal government has become too bloated, corrupt, and incompetent to really be accountable to the people. And sadly, there’s nothing we can do to fix it. However, it is equally true that a government closer to the people tends to be more responsive and responsible. We need to finally acknowledge that Washington has outlived its usefulness and a 'federal government' is a government too many. If Texas were to revoke the sovereignty that it loaned to the Union, then Texas could form a more transparent government, one that is more interested in protecting the freedom of its citizens than it is in stealing their money."

Ryan Thorson

Quote of the Day: Dreaming of Asking a White Girl Out on Christmas?

How long before the song “White Christmas” is banned for being too insensitive to minorities? How long before merely asking a girl on a date is deemed to be sexual harassment? - Laurence M. Vance

Chesterton on Miracles

The historic case against miracles is also rather simple. It consists of calling miracles impossible, then saying that no one but a fool believes impossibilities: then declaring that there is no wise evidence on behalf of the miraculous. The whole trick is done by means of leaning alternately on the philosophical and historical objection. If we say miracles are theoretically possible, they say, “Yes, but there is no evidence for them.” When we take all the records of the human race and say, “Here is your evidence,” they say, “But these people were superstitious, they believed in impossible things."
--G.K. Chesterton

Even More Quotes of the Day

"The lowliest, indigent, white redneck who lives in a rusted-out old school bus down by the river in Tennessee is 'privileged,' by definition, whereas the children of multimillionaire Barack Obama or multimillionaire Tiger Woods are 'not privileged.'  In fact, since they are black they are, by definition, 'oppressed' by the white redneck who lives in the rusted-out old school bus down by the river."
Tom DiLorenzo

"Everyone once took for granted that the goal was to seize the federal apparatus and impose their vision on the country.
How about just abandoning this crazy, inhumane task?
Why not admit the differences are irreconcilable, and simply go our separate ways?
Is this not obviously the most humane solution?
Or is there some expectation that somehow, down the road, we'll all be reconciled?
How?
To the contrary, it's only going to get worse.
Forcing these irreconcilable parties to continue along in this way is what normal people would call 'extremist.'
Radical decentralization and secession, on the other hand, are the obvious and necessary solution.
And you know it's the sensible solution, because no one is allowed to discuss it."
Tom Woods

"If the pro-gun control people want to blame someone besides the man in there pulling the trigger, the man who illegally got a weapon, maybe they should look in the mirror. Maybe they should consider their own complicity in making guns more difficult for law-abiding citizens to carry. Maybe they should look at their part in this war on guns and gun owners. Perhaps their derision played a part in seeing to it that no one in that church had the means to stop that killer."
Daisy Luther

"If the national anthem is of such importance, why do we not perform it in everything we do? Is breakfast, or the start of our workday, or going to a grocery store, or undergoing root-canal work at the dentist’s, to be preceded by this tune? Do we refrain from extending such collective foolishness into our daily lives because the numbers of persons are not sufficient to convert individuals into fungible components of a mob?"
Butler Shaffer

"National borders have never really been about how nations self-identify. They have always been about access to resources and the ability to impose taxes. Politics is about how, and on whom, those revenues are spent. The larger a country, the more people it can tax. The larger a government, the more professional politicians and civil servants it can employ."
Ivo Vegter

"Those who are determined to be ‘offended’ will discover a provocation somewhere. We cannot possibly adjust enough to please the fanatics, and it is degrading to make the attempt."
Christopher Hitchens

"If the flag is symbolic of government and that government lies at every turn, enslaves its people, steals from their labor, passes laws that are an execration to their Christian faith, takes from them their liberty, mandates the murder of 1 million babies a year, imports tens of thousands of immigrants to replace American workers and drive down wages, and that makes war on other countries that have not threatened us, why should any acknowledge its presence with more than a sneer?"
Bob Livingston

"The claim that 'diversity is America’s greatest strength' is the biggest of all lies.  The truth is that diversity is America’s greatest weakness.  We see this not only in America, but in countries like Germany, France, and Belgium, where far-left leaders have destroyed their once proud cultures with immigration policies that ignore the wants and needs of their own citizens.
As is always the case, when I use the term diversity, I am not referring to a person’s skin color, be he white, brown, yellow, or other.  Diversity is about a person’s cultural beliefs and practices.
The hard truth is that tribalism, which has been around since the dawn of civilization, is the underpinning of a civilized and peaceful society.  The reality that those on the Radical Left (and many in the RINO camp) refuse to accept is that people prefer to be around others who are culturally most like them and, the corollary, they have little desire to be in close proximity to those who are culturally different.
When those in power try to force tribes with different cultural values to live together, it tends to engender hatred and violence, which is why the government should remove itself from the social-experimentation business and let tribes live separately and in peace with other tribes."
Robert Ringer

“'Social justice' can only be achieved through voluntary interactions among individuals within a given social unit. Stealing from some and giving to others through a concept of forced redistribution only creates control and therefore injustice; an unjustly created permanent victim group and an unjustly created permanent dependent group.
That’s not social justice, that’s social control."
Garry Reed

"Stalemate in Korea? Perpetual trouble in Korea? Loss in Vietnam? Continual war in the Middle East and Afghanistan? Confrontation with Iran, Russia and China? Turmoil in Libya and Africa? Worldwide American commitments and possibilities for warfare? Where exactly are the just compensations to taxpayers for the vast takings devoted to the U.S. military establishment? Where is this mythical 'national security' that has been the object?"
Michael Rozeff

"To be blunt about it, in 1954 Armistice Day was hijacked by a militaristic US congress and renamed Veterans Day. Today few Americans understand the original purpose of Armistice Day, or even remember it. The message of peace seeking has been all but erased. Worst of all, Veterans Day has devolved into a hyper-nationalistic quasi-religious celebration of war and the putatively valiant warriors who wage it. We no longer have a national day to recognize or reflect upon international peace."
Arnold Oliver

Still More Quotes of the Day

"Any segment of a population who finds that their values and governmental goals are not being pursued in their present country — who are forced to remain under that nation’s regime — are hostages. As humans, it is our inherited right to create governments, create confederacies, create coalitions, and it is our right to abrogate those things as well."
Joe Wolverton

"If ‘society’—whoever that’s supposed to be—were to push for any values, equality shouldn’t be among them. Equality only exists before the law. People are unique, and therefore naturally unequal. We’re not like ants or blades of grass. Equality is not only impossible, it’s not even desirable. A proper goal to strive for is freedom, which is possible and desirable."
Doug Casey

"I am not being facetious when I tell you 'don’t expect to live much longer.' We are ruled by mindless, insane, psychopaths who believe that the US is invulnerable. These dumbshits are likely to get us all blown off the face of the earth. If you are not concerned that the US government is picking a fight with Russia (and China, North Korea, and Iran as well), something is wrong with you."
Paul Craig Roberts

"Remember that Big Government is a masterpiece of corporate cynicism, propaganda perfection and people control. It was not created for the people, by the people nor of the people. It was created, or at least evolved, for the power and benefit of the elite and their politicians and bureaucrats."
Bob Livingston

"Governments have had a long history of claiming, 'If we don’t all stick together, we’ll be doomed.' However, historically, the aggressors, more often than not, have been the empires. The smaller a country, the more likely it is to mind its own business."
Jeff Thomas

"The Radical Left’s argument is that illegal immigrants do not commit any more crimes than legal citizens, which is irrelevant.  Just because some citizens in the United States are criminals is no reason to bring in more criminals."
Robert Ringer

"Without a doubt, the U.S. military establishment is the largest enterprise in the world. It’s also the recipient of the largest single government taking in the world. The language in the 5th Amendment is powerful. If there is to be a government and if it takes (taxes), then there must be just compensation for the force that has been employed in the taking. This is missing in this case, and it’s missing because the government is the judge. No operable check exists to constrain it from extending its takings far, far beyond what it provides in return. The 5th Amendment’s provision on takings by taxes is not enforced by the government, and there is no reason to expect that it would be. The government doesn’t face competition in the supply of defense. The election of nationalists and militarists like Trump certainly can’t rectify this situation. They get their kicks from beautiful weapons, from the power to threaten and browbeat, and from the unleashing of missiles and force. We who want peace are not compensated in the slightest from these aggressions and potential for aggressions."
Michael Rozeff

"If politics was really about the good of the people, it would matter what those people want. Governments make a show of democracy, but all people are really allowed to do is choose who they want to rule them. No national constitution anywhere in the world (except for St. Kitts and Nevis, and Ethiopia) permits secession. It would remove a part of the tax base, which threatens the prosperity of either the government’s corrupt cronies, or the ruling party’s constituents, or both."
Ivo Vegter

"The bottom line is that each of us is grossly ignorant about the world in which we live. Nothing’s wrong with that ignorance, but we are stupid if we believe that a politician can produce a better life than that which is obtained through peaceable, voluntary exchange with our fellow man anywhere on earth."

Walter Williams

Two Quotes On Socialist Idiots

To call yourself a Socialist in the year 2015 is to be an idiot. Socialism fails. Everywhere. Billions of people have been lifted out of poverty, not by Socialism but by the Free Enterprise System.-Dennis Prager

I have long been a strong critic of what I call (adopting Charlotte Twight's coinage) participatory fascism. But when I see young people, often in the company of older people who ought to know better, protesting what they call capitalism and demanding socialism in whole or in part, I must simply shake my head in sadness. Participatory fascism (now often called crony capitalism and long called mercantilism) is a bad form of economic order and an even worse form of political order in many ways, but it is infinitely superior to socialism, which is a perfect recipe for poverty and totalitarianism. Under crony capitalism the masses enjoy a high standard of living in the economically advanced countries and a rising standard of living even in many of the poorer countries. Under socialism, people enjoyed mass starvation in China and the USSR (as nowadays in North Korea) along with political dictatorship by a tiny party elite. Socialism now yields the abominations of Venezuela, a once thriving country turned into one with no toilet paper and scarcely anything else in the stores, growing poorer by the day. Under crony capitalism, the young protesters in the USA and Europe enjoy smart phones and $5.00 cups of the coffee concoction of their choice. The yearning for socialism is truly a poison fruit of deep, deep ignorance not only of economic theory, but also of modern history and current affairs.-Robert Higgs

Quote of the Moment

Burning the American flag is an excellent display of the founding principles of Liberty, as you are showing contempt for State.

Getting mad about someone burning the American flag is an excellent display of being a government worshiping faggot that the Founding politicians shot at in 1775.-Tom Jefferson

Quote of the Day: Gridlock

Gridlock is more or less a myth in regard to the government's "getting something done." Just look at the countless actions the government is currently taking, most if not all of them harmful on balance. Now consider that neither party has used its blocking ability to prevent these policies and actions from becoming a routine part of the government's functioning. Where was the alleged gridlock when it might have done some real good? The myth of gridlock is actually part of the larger myth of a two-party state, when the reality is that in regard to at least 99 percent of what the rulers do, they are in agreement. The news media and politicians' emphasis on gridlock serves to distract the masses from the overwhelming domination the government as a whole exerts over its victims (that is, over most of us).- Robert Higgs

Quote of the Early Morning

For a hundred years or more the world, our world, has been dying. And not one man, in these last hundred years or so, has been crazy enough to put a bomb up the asshole of creation and set it off. The world is rotting away, dying piecemeal. But it needs the coup de grace, it needs to be blown to smithereens.-Henry Miller

Quote of the Day: The Laws of Nature

"We must proceed with a full realization that no statute enacted by man can repeal the inexorable laws of nature." – Warren G. Harding

Quote of the Day: Bad People

...many...have commented...in regard to anarchism: "Getting rid of government doesn't get rid of bad people. Peaceful people would mind their own business while violent aggressive people would organize and force their will on everyone else!"

To which I reply as usual: What you fear would happen under anarchism has already happened under government as we know it. The violent, aggressive people have organized and forced their will on everyone else, while also bamboozling their victims to think that this situation is a good deal. Such is precisely the nature of the government that exists virtually everywhere on earth, the sort of government that anarchists wish to eliminate.-Robert Higgs

Quote of the Day: Dog Heaven

"The dog is a gentleman; I hope to go to his heaven, not man's." - Mark Twain, Letter to W. D. Howells, April 2, 1899

Quote of the Day: Mark Twain - Happiness

"Both marriage and death ought to be welcome: the one promises happiness, doubtless the other assures it."-Mark Twain

Quote of the Day: Thomas Ligotti

“For the rest of the earth’s organisms, existence is relatively uncomplicated. Their lives are about three things: survival, reproduction, death—and nothing else. But we know too much to content ourselves with surviving, reproducing, dying—and nothing else. We know we are alive and know we will die. We also know we will suffer during our lives before suffering—slowly or quickly—as we draw near to death. This is the knowledge we “enjoy” as the most intelligent organisms to gush from the womb of nature. And being so, we feel shortchanged if there is nothing else for us than to survive, reproduce, and die. We want there to be more to it than that, or to think there is. This is the tragedy: Consciousness has forced us into the paradoxical position of striving to be unself-conscious of what we are—hunks of spoiling flesh on disintegrating bones.” -via Efilism/Antinatalism

Quote of the Moment: Who has killed more innocents?

"Here is an uncomfortable pop quiz: Who has killed more children, Adam Lanza or Barack Obama?" - Judge Andrew Napolitano

Quote of the Moment: Barack Obama - Messianic Narcissist

...there is a man whose messianic narcissism and hubristic naivety threaten the immediate safety of the entire world, who enjoys the company of terrorists and bigots, whose foreign policy has already cost the avoidable ending of thousands of innocent lives while he makes excuses for the actual murderers, qualifying their culpability, lying about their motives to make them seem more sympathetic and downplaying the imminent danger they pose, whose idea of gun control is to give thousands of deadly weapons free to Mexican gangsters and then do nothing while they slaughter each other, who spits on his friends and grovels to his enemies, and who is unquestionably the most clueless ass to have ever taken high office in his country's history. I'm not much of an economist, but I understand he's a bit shaky there, too.-Venerable Beads: Binders or Blinders?

Quote of the Day

Nothing is so permanent as a temporary government program. ~Milton Friedman

Quote of the Day: Big Bird

I don't know how people can get so outraged about PBS, and Big Bird, and children's television when we are killing children with drone strikes overseas. I mean, those children will never see Big Bird because we killed them- Penn Jillette

Quote of the Day: Alexis de Tocqueville

The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money. ~Alexis de Tocqueville

Taxes and Civil Disobedience

If a thousand men were not to pay their tax-bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. That is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution. When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned his office, then the revolution is accomplished.

--Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience