Fooled

There are two ways to be fooled: One is to believe what isn’t so; the other is to refuse to believe what is so. 

Source: Søren Kierkegaard (unsourced)
Taken From: LRC Blog, Jan 14th 2011

The Essence of the Market Economy

The surest way to accomplish your business goals is making service to others your primary goal. The key to success is adding value to others' lives.

Source:  Kekich Credo #87
Taken From: Internet Independence, June 27th

Even the Bankers Know

[Because of the 1 per cent interest rate in 2003/04] the United States and the world began an extended credit expansion and housing boom. From July 2003 to July 2006, the monetary base in the United States increased at an average annual rate of 4.9 percent, credit increased at an annual rate of 9 percent, and housing prices increased at an annual rate of about 14 percent. The long-term consequences of that policy are now well known. The United States and the world have just suffered one of the worst recessions in decades.

Source:  Thomas Hoenig, President of the Kansas City Federal Reserve, Speech March 2011 – London School of Economics
Taken From:  Speech Notes by Frank Trotter: The Prospects for Fiat Currencies (Everbank Executive VP)

Political Hypocrisy

Every politician in the world is all for revolution, reason, and disarmament--but only in enemy countries, not in his own. 

Source:  Hermann Hesse (Unsourced)
Taken From:  Antiwar.com

Hesse (1877-1962) was a philosophical writer, best known for his work "Siddartha."

On Government

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. 

Source:  George Washington (Disputed, see Wikiquote)
Taken From: Wikiquote

Guardian of Freedom

...don't regard yourself as a guardian of freedom unless you respect and preserve the rights of people you disagree with...

Source:  Gerard K. O'Neill, 2081 (written 1981)

The Attraction of Power

All governments suffer a recurring problem: Power attracts pathological personalities.

Source:  Frank Herbert, Chapterhouse: Dune, Missionaria Protectiva, Text QIV (decto) (1985)
Taken From: Wikiquote

Imperialistic Arrogance

I’ve spent my entire adult life with the United States as a superpower, and one that had no compunction about spending what it took to sustain that position, ... It didn’t have to look over its shoulder because our economy was so strong. This is a different time.  To tell you the truth, that’s one of the many reasons it’s time for me to retire, because frankly I can’t imagine being part of a nation, part of a government … that’s being forced to dramatically scale back our engagement with the rest of the world.

 Source:  Robert Gates (US Secretary of Defense 2006-2011), in an Interview with Newsweek, 6/19/2011
 Taken From:  Sovereign Man Blog, US Defense Secretary to take his ball and go home, 6/22/2011

On the Nature of Money

So you think that money is the root of all evil? 
Have you ever asked what is the root of money?

Money is a tool of exchange, which can't exist unless there are goods produced and men able to produce them. Money is the material shape of the principle that men who wish to deal with one another must deal by trade and give value for value. Money is not the tool of the moochers, who claim your product by tears, or of the looters, who take it from you by force. Money is made possible only by the men who produce. Is this what you consider evil?

Source:  Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia (Fictional Character)
Taken From:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

On the Nature of Money and Corruption

But you look on and you cry that money corrupted him. Did it? Or did he corrupt his money?

Source:  Francisco Domingo Carlos Andres Sebastian d'Anconia (Fictional Character)
Taken From:  Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged (1957)

On the Conquest of the US by Spain

this scheme of a republic which our fathers formed was a glorious dream which demands more than a word of respect and affection before it passes away.

Source:  William Graham Sumner (Yale professor of Sociology)
Taken From:  The Conquest of the US by Spain by Ralph Raico

Paul's Legacy

Liberty built civilization.  It can rebuild civilization.  And when the tides turn and the culture again celebrates what it means to be free, our battle will be won.  It could happen in our time.  It might happen after we are gone from this earth. But it will happen.  Our job in this generation is to prepare the way.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 49) section on Civil Disobedience, 2011

Liberty and Prosperity

In a society that honors individual liberty, the use of force to make people better off or an economy fairer is rejected.  The great irony is that, when the goal is liberty, prosperity flourishes and is well distributed.  When economic equality is the goal, poverty results.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 49) section on Unions, 2011

Torture

We tortured people unmercifully.  We probably murdered dozens of them during a course of that, both by the armed forces and CIA.

Source: General Barry McCaffrey, DailyKos Transcript of MSBC Interview, April 20th 2009
Taken From:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 49) section on Civil Disobedience, 2011

Religion and the State

Instead of religious beliefs being the cause of war, it is more likely that those who want war co-opt religion and falsely claim the enemy is attacking their religious values.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 243) section on Religion and Liberty, 2011

Making War Acceptable

[Goering] Why, of course, the people don't want war, why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece. Naturally, the common people don't want war; neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship.

[Gilbert] There is one difference, in a democracy the people have some say in the matter through their elected representatives, and in the United States only Congress can declare wars.

[Goering] Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.

Source:  Hermann Goering on 18 April 1946 as recorded by Gustave Gilbert
Taken From: Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 213) section on Noble Lie, 2011

Morality In Government

What moral system should government follow?  The same one individuals follow.  Do not steal. Do not murder. Do not bear false witness. Do not covet. Do not foster vice.  If governments would merely follow the moral law that all religions recognize, we would live in a world of peace, prosperity, and freedom.  The system is called classical liberalism.  Liberty is not complicated.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 211) section on Morality in Government, 2011

Arms Merchants

The military culture has made us the largest arms merchant of the world, and of all history.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 49) section on Keynesianism, 2011

Foreign Aid

Foreign aid can best be described as taking money from the poor in a rich country and giving it to the rich and powerful in a poor country.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 122) section on Foreign Aid, 2011

Religion and Law

it does me no injury for my neighbour to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.

Source: Thomas Jefferson, Notes on the State of Virginia, 1781
Taken From:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 107) section on Evolution Versus Creation, 2011

Democratic Majoritarianism

American political culture, unfortunately, has come to worship at the altar of democratic majoritarianism.  This has made the concept of rights arbitrary and capricious, and individual and natural rights are no longer cherished or understood.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 67) section on Democracy, 2011

Rights and Voting

People should not be able to vote to take away the rights of others.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 63) section on Democracy, 2011

On Violence

People must understand that we can't use violence to have our own way over others-nor should the agents of our government have that power. Even a majority vote should never be accepted as legitimatizing government's use of violence against the people.

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 49) section on Civil Disobedience, 2011

Patriotism is

....patriotism is the act of standing up to the government when the government is wrong, and at great risk stand[ing] firmly on principles that protect the freedoms of all people. 

Source:  Ron Paul, Liberty Defined (pg 47) section on Civil Disobedience, 2011

Peace

Human history teaches us that peace means the forcible submission of the conquered to domination once the invader has consolidated his victory, the loss of everything the vanquished hold dear, and the end of their enjoyment of the fruits of their labour and their conquests. ... Such conditions may mark the end of actual combat, but they certainly cannot be called peace.

Source: Maria Montessori, Education And Peace, 1932
Taken From: Stephan Kinsella: Montessori, Peace and Libertarianism

Lazy Liberty

It is the common fate of the indolent to see their rights become a prey to the active. The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance.

Source: John Philpot Curran (1790)
Taken From:  Does Secession Without a State Militia Make Sense?

In Defense of Liberty

God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it.

Source:  Daniel Webster (June 3rd, 1834)
Taken From:  Does Secession Without a State Militia Make Sense?

Truth

When war is declared, truth is the first casualty.

Source: Arthur Ponsonby, Falsehood in Wartime: Propaganda Lies of the First World War (1928)
Taken From: Antiwar.com & Wikiquote

Run John Run

Run, John, run the law commands,
But gives me neither feet nor hands;
Far better news the gospel brings:
It bids me fly; it gives me wings.

Source: John Bunyan, Unsourced

Freedom

I freed thousands of slaves. I could have freed thousands more, if they had known they were slaves.

Source: Harriet Tubman
Taken From: Wikquote, Africana: The Encyclopedia of the African and African American Experience (2003)