Monday, February 28, 2011

Pathway to Peace

War should be made a crime, and those who instigate it should be punished as criminals. 
Charles Evans Hughes (1923, Pathway to Peace)

Sunday, February 27, 2011

Laws and Corruption

... laws were most numerous when the commonwealth was most corrupt.
Publius Tacitus (AD 56 – AD 117)

Saturday, February 26, 2011

Inequality

According to Ed Wolff, an N.Y.U. economist who tracks wealth, the very rich have improved their lot in life by getting richer. Half a million U.S. households (one-half of 1% of the population) now own 39.3% of all assets (stocks, bonds, cash, life-insurance policies, paintings, jewelry, etc.). This makes the U.S. No. 1 among prosperous nations in the inequality of income.
Time Magazine (Jan 30th 1995)
Found in Gerald Celente's Trends 2000, published 1998

Friday, February 25, 2011

No-Eat List

Until TSA agents start treating us with the respect and dignity that we deserve, then things will change for them in the private sector,
An un-named employee of a Seattle area Restaurant (The Consumerist, 2/22/2011)

Thursday, February 24, 2011

For the good of its victims

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised "for the good of its victims" may be the most oppressive. 
C. S. Lewis (1948, God in the Dock)

Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Spending and Spent.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. 
Dwight D. Eisenhower (April 16th, 1953, From a speech before the American Society of Newspaper Editors)
Quote found in Gerald Celente's Trends 2000, published 1998

Tuesday, February 22, 2011

Freedom and Sin

The catholic novelist believes that you destroy your freedom by sin; the modern reader believes, I think, that you gain it in that way.  There is not much possibility of understanding between the two.
Flannery O'Conner (1969, Mystery and Manners: Occasional Prose)

Monday, February 21, 2011

Example of Waste during WWI

One very versatile patriot sold Uncle Sam twelve dozen 48-inch wrenches.  Oh, they were very nice wrenches.  The only trouble was that there was only one nut ever made that was large enough for these wrenches.  That is the one that holds the turbines at Niagara Falls!
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler (1935, War is a Racket)

This quote was taken from a larger section describing the large amount of money that was transferred from the people, to the government, to the war profiteering corporations.  This particular example is one of the smaller, but more "silly" ones.

Saturday, February 19, 2011

Half Slave, Half Master <> Free

But living half of one's life as a slave and half as the master is not the same as being free.
Jan Iwanik  (2/18/2011)

Friday, February 18, 2011

Men have forgotten

Over a half century ago, while I was still a child, I recall hearing a number of old people offer the following explanation for the great disasters that had befallen Russia: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened." Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: "Men have forgotten God; that's why all this has happened."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (1985)
 Edward E. Ericson, Jr., "Solzhenitsyn – Voice from the Gulag," Eternity, October 1985, pp. 23, 24.

Thursday, February 17, 2011

A Peaceful Rally Cry

So ... I say, "TO HELL WITH WAR!"
Brigadier General Smedley D. Butler (1935, War is a Racket)

This was the closing statement to War is a Racket

Wednesday, February 16, 2011

Grace Abuse

You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?
Philip Yancy (1997, What's So Amazing About Grace)

Sunday, February 13, 2011

Religion Tyranny

It was a great relief to be in a country where salacious sex literature cannot be sold; where putrid motion pictures and gangster films cannot be shown. The new Germany has burned great masses of corrupting books and magazines along with its bonfires of Jewish and communistic libraries
Baptist World Alliance Congress reports about Hitler's regime (Watchman-Examiner XXII 37 September 13, 1934)

Saturday, February 12, 2011

Loving the Most

I really only love God as much as I love the person I love the least
Dorothy Day (unsourced)

Friday, February 11, 2011

Campaign for Collapse

History is replete with examples of empires mounting impressive military campaigns on the cusp of their impending economic collapse. 
Eric Alterman (1993, Sound and Fury)

Thursday, February 10, 2011

Police Brutality

Considering the data, one might conclude that the police are a greater danger to the public than are criminals. 
Paul Craig Roberts (2/5/2011 "Americans are Oppressed, Too")
On discussing how it's probable, when looking at the numbers, that the Police in America commit more assaults on the public than criminals.

Wednesday, February 9, 2011

Methods

Before we can even ask how things might go wrong, we must first explain how they could ever go right.
F.A. Hayek (unsourced, Taken from a 2010 lecture at the Mises Instittue)

Tuesday, February 8, 2011

A chicken in every pot, a wiretap on every phone.

I'm reminded of Herbert Hoover's 1928 winning presidential campaign slogan, "A chicken in every pot, a car in every garage." Perhaps the modern analogy is "a government agent on every corner, a wiretap on every phone." It is, after all, for our security.
Simon Black (1/25/2011, Notes from the Field)
Simon Black is a pseudonym for an unknown entrepreneur and international investor.

Monday, February 7, 2011

Power and Wisdom

Today the real test of America's power and wisdom is not our capacity to make war but our capacity to prevent it.
Reverend Dale Turner  (1/11/2003, The Seattle Times)

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Light and Dark

Indeed, just as light defines itself and darkness, so truth sets the standard for itself and falsity
A translated dictum of Spinoza (1632-1677)
Original Latin:  "Sane sicut lux se ipsam et tenebras manifestat, sic veritas norma sui et falsi est,"

Saturday, February 5, 2011

Force

The direct use of force is such a poor solution to any problem, it is generally employed only by small children and large nations. 
David Friedman (Actor, unsourced)

Friday, February 4, 2011

Empty Hands

St. Augustine says 'God gives where He finds empty hands.' A man whose hands are full of parcels can't receive a gift.
C.S. Lewis (1958, Your's Jack, Letter to Mary Willis Shelburne)

Thursday, February 3, 2011

Futurists

To futurists, advances in technology are equated with advances in civilization.  Intellectually sophisticated, philosophically naïve, the futurists live in a world where new equals better.
Gerald Celente (1998, Trends 2000, pg 19)

Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Why a State Department?

After all, why would Americans need a State Department if everyone already loved America?
Mencius Moldbug (1/28//11 Author of Unqualified Reservations Blog)

Tuesday, February 1, 2011

Grace Abuse

...forgiveness needs to be accepted as well as offered if it is to be complete: and a man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness.
Philip Yancy (1997, What's So Amazing About Grace)