Sunday, October 31, 2010

Authority

When you vote, you are exercising political authority, you're using force. And force my friends is violence. The supreme authority from which all other authorities are derived.
Jean Rasczak (1991, Starship Troopers based on a novel by Robert Heinlein published 1959)

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Pirates in the Sky

We plan to use some kind of balloon and try to keep it up in the air for as long as possible, Hopefully irritating the crap out of authorities in as many countries as possible.
Erik Lönroth (Oct 19th 2010, A Swedish Engineer, Interviewed discussions for a high altitude balloon that would host a file sharing site)

Friday, October 29, 2010

Competition

The competitor, like the monopolist, seeks the highest price which will yield the highest net profit.  But, because he is unable to control supply, and thus induce a scarcity, his highest price is what competition will allow him to charge, which is always lower than what he would like. ... Only in a monopoly business is there a "little extra"
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Thursday, October 28, 2010

Waterloo and Richmand

I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy.
... and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.
Lord John Acton (1866, In a Letter to Robert E Lee)

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

Broken

Democracy broke down, not when the Union ceased to be agreeable to all it's constituent states, but when it was upheld, like any other Empire, by force of arms.
London Times (September 13, 1862)

Tuesday, October 26, 2010

Change of Money Supply

An increase in the quantity of money can no more increase the welfare of the members of a community, than a diminution of it can decrease their welfare.
Ludwig Von Mises (The Theory of Money and Credit, 1912)

Monday, October 25, 2010

Definition: Democracy

When one looks for a definition of [democracy], one finds that it is not a form of government but rather the rule by "social attitudes."  But what is a "social attitude"? ...[It] turns out to be in practice good old majoritarianism; what 51 percent of the people deem right is right, and the minority is perforce wrong.... There is no place in this concept for the doctrine of inherent rights; the only right left to the minority, particularly the minority of one, is conformity with the dominate "social attitude."
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Sunday, October 24, 2010

Price Controls

He provided the finest description of price controls that I have ever heard. He said that price controls are the equivalent of using adhesive tape to control diarrhea.
Gary North's paraphrase of a statement by US Senator Wallace Bennett (Stated sometime between 1950-1970)

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Trade and a question

...it makes no sense to attack a good customer, one who buys as much of our products as he can use and pays his bills regularly.  Perhaps the removal of trade restrictions throughout the world would do more for the cause of universal peace than can any political union of peoples separated by trade barriers; indeed, an there be a viable political union while these barriers exist?  And, if freedom of trade were the universal practice, would a political union be necessary?
 Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Friday, October 22, 2010

Inflation

I read today in the paper that Congress is thinking of replacing the dollar bill with a coin. They’ve already done it. It’s called a nickel.
Jay Leno

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Soul and Body

You don't have a soul. You are a Soul. You have a body. 
CS Lewis (1952, Mere Christianity)

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Taking a Stand

My course is clear. It is to stand for, and fight for liberty. For the liberation of man from a lawless state.
Karl Hess (The Lawless State, 1969)

Tuesday, October 19, 2010

Intervention

If you want government to intervene domestically, you’re a liberal. If you want government to intervene overseas, you’re a conservative. If you want government to intervene everywhere, you’re a moderate. If you don’t want government to intervene anywhere, you’re an extremist.
Joe Sobran (1946–2010)

Monday, October 18, 2010

Recess

Beware of all politicians everywhere. They excelled at recess when they were in school but have excelled at little since.
Jim Rogers (A Gift to my Children, 2009)

Sunday, October 17, 2010

Long Live the King

If these restraints on [Man's] aspirations are regularized, so that his "way of life" achieves a semblance of stability, he soon loses consciousness of restraint; what he may have resented at the beginning is not only accepted but also defended. ... This is the secret ally of the State - the inclination of the human to adore the conditions which have been imposed on him and under which he has found a comfortable adjustment. ... Only the theoretician, the economist and the historian, concerns himself with the long-term consequences of the State's interventions. In the meantime one must live, and in the meantime "long live the king."
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Saturday, October 16, 2010

Monderman and responsibility

The greater the number of prescriptions, the more people’s sense of personal responsibility dwindles.
Hans Monderman (11/16/2006 in Spiegel Online, german news agency)

Friday, October 15, 2010

Social and Political Power

This is a truism culled from the ages, that social power and political power are always in conflict, that the poverty of the one is the opulence of the other, that one thrives on predation, the other on production.  The relationship is like that of the scales of a balance, which no parliamentary device can alter.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Effort

For it is written in the book of life that the cost of every "good" is that undesirable thing called effort.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Voting

If you vote and you elect dishonest incompetent people and they get into office and screw everything up well you are responsible for everything they have done.  You caused the problem, you voted them in, you have no right to complain.
Comedian George Carlin

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Freedom

Freedom is not the highest in man's hierarchy of values.  He may talk of it in the most laudatory terms, but his behavior belies his protestations.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Monday, October 11, 2010

Inflationary Effects

The net effect of inflation, of cheapening the value of money, is to retard man's pursuit of happiness.
Frank Chodorov (1959, The Rise & Fall of Society)

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Origins of Politicians

Everybody complains about politicians.  Everybody says they suck.  But where do people think these politicians come from?  They don't fall out of the sky, they don't pass through a membrane from another reality.  They come from American parents, American families, American homes, American schools, American churches, American businesses, American Universities and are elected by American citizens.
Comedian George Carlin

Saturday, October 9, 2010

The Quest

There is nothing in the long history of men yearning to be free that indicates the quest or even the goal is comfortable. There is everything to indicate that it is exciting and creative and, depending upon your view of man, rewarding in the only values that are meaningful, self-respect for instance.
Karl Hess (The Lawless State, 1969)

Friday, October 8, 2010

The Law is a Fortress

The Law is a fortress on a hill that armies cannot take or floods wash away. 
The Prophet Muhammed

Thursday, October 7, 2010

Indistinguishable from Evil

As soon as men decide that all means are permitted to fight an evil, then their good becomes indistinguishable from the evil that they set out to destroy

Christopher Dawson (1942, The Judgment of the Nations)

Wednesday, October 6, 2010

Human Affiars

Not mythical 'material forces', but reason and ideas determine the course of human affairs. What is needed to stop the trend towards socialism and despotism is common sense and moral courage.
Ludwig von Mises (1932, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis 2nd Edition)

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Monster ATM

These monsters [Fannie and Freddie Mac] are fiercely resistant to any change affecting their ability to tap Uncle Sam's ATM at will while privatizing profits and socializing losses.
Steve Forbes (8/11/2008, Forbes Magazine)

Monday, October 4, 2010

Vices v Crimes

Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another. Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons.
Lysander Spooner (A Vindication Of Moral Liberty, 1875)

Sunday, October 3, 2010

Idiots and Idiots

When you treat people like idiots, they’ll behave like idiots.
Hans Monderman (11/16/2006 in Spiegel Online, german news agency)

Saturday, October 2, 2010

Land of "Liberty"

It must be recognized that there now exists in this land of liberty virtually every institution of state power necessary to totalitarianism with the possible exception of a national police force.
Karl Hess (The Lawless State, 1969)

Friday, October 1, 2010

Well Done

How I want to hear well done
When you look upon my life 
Sherri Youngward (2004, the light of your face)