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 The arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and assistance to foreign hands should be curtailed, lest Rome fall. Marcus Tullius Cicero 55 BC
By elevating the issue of helping others into the central and primary issue of ethics, altruism has destroyed the concept of any authentic benevolence or good will among men. It has indoctrinated men with the idea that to value another human being is an act of selflessness, thus implying that a man can have no personal interest in others—that to value another means to sacrifice oneself—that any love, respect or admiration a man may feel for others is not and cannot be a source of his own enjoyment, but is a threat to his existence, a sacrificial blank check signed over to his loved ones.Ayn Rand “The Ethics of Emergencies,” The Virtue of Selfishness, 43.
"The fact is, close to five years after 9/11 and fifteen years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the United States still lacks a coherent national security policy. Instead of guiding principles, we have what appear to be a series of ad hoc decisions, with dubious results. Why invade Iraq and not North Korea or Burma? Why intervene in Bosnia and not Darfur?...Are we committed to use force wherever there's a despotic regime that's terrorizing its people—and if so, how long do we stay to ensure democracy takes root?...Perhaps someone inside the White House has clear answers to these questions. But our allies—and for that matter our enemies—certainly don't know what the answers are. More important, neither do the American people. Without a well-articulated strategy that the public supports and the world understands, America will lack the legitimacy—and ultimately the power—it needs to make the world safer than it is today."Barack H. Obama Barack Obama, "The Audacity of Hope", page 302.
"Racing frantically against the clock, the team was still scouting for locations [for the movie Atlas Shrugged, Part I]with only three days left before shooting ended. Some locations were found only the day before they were used; some actors were cast just two days before they went on camera."Brian Doherty "Atlas Shrugged: The Movie Scenes from the 38-year struggle to film Ayn Rand's famous novel", Reason magazine, May 2011
My finely honed political instincts tell me that almost nobody believes that they should be paying higher taxes.President Barack Obama President's April 13, 2011 speech on fiscal policy at George Washington University
The 'America' that I know is a generous one.President Barack Obama President's April 13, 2011 speech on fiscal policy at George Washington University
I said, 'You want to repeal health care? Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?President Barack Obama http://news.yahoo.com/s/yblog_theticket/20110415/ts_yblog_theticket/obama-caught-on-audio-slamming-gop
"The fourth step in our approach is to reduce spending in the tax code. In December, I agreed to extend the tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans because it was the only way I could prevent a tax hike on middle-class Americans. But we cannot afford $1 trillion worth of tax cuts for every millionaire and billionaire in our society. And I refuse to renew them again."Barack H. Obama
It is not the concept of government that is anathema to freedom; it is the concept of government unbound by any principle other than the brute force of numbers that is anathema to freedom. A government limited to defending the principle of free association and enforcing penalties for forced association is not anathema to freedom, it is a necessity for freedom.Fred Bartlett http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1706.shtml#13
People often ask me how I became successful in that six-year period of time while many of the people I knew did not. The answer is simple: The things I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. I found it easy to set the goals that could change my life. They found it easy not to. I found it easy to read the books that could affect my thinking and my ideas. They found that easy not to. I found it easy to attend the classes and the seminars, and to get around other successful people. They said it probably really wouldn't matter. If I had to sum it up, I would say what I found to be easy to do, they found to be easy not to do. Six years later, I'm a millionaire and they are all still blaming the economy, the government and company policies, yet they neglected to do the basic, easy things.Jim Rohn Success Is Easy, but So Is Neglect
... four further theses: that no way of conducting rational enquiry from a standpoint independent of the particularities of any tradition has been discovered and that there is good reason to believe that there is no such way; that the problems of understanding and representing faithfully the concepts and beliefs of some tradition alien to one's own in a way that makes those concepts and beliefs intelligible within one's own tradition confront difficulties which can in certain contingent circumstances be overcome; that rival traditions have rival conceptions of rationality and of progress in understanding, but that this does not entail relativism or perspectivism; and finally that although these theses are themselves advanced from the standpoint of a particular tradition, that of a Thomist Aristotelianism, they involve a substantive and nonrelativizable conception of truth, and that in this respect as in others there is no inconsistency in making universal claims from the standpoint of a tradition.Alasdair MacIntyre http://www.jstor.org/stable/2107828
Or they suggest that we can somehow close our entire deficit by eliminating things like foreign aid, even though foreign aid makes up about 1% of our entire budget. ... So here's the truth. Around two-thirds of our budget is spent on Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, and national security. Programs like unemployment insurance, student loans, veterans' benefits, and tax credits for working families take up another 20%. What's left, after interest on the debt, is just 12 percent for everything else. That's 12 percent for all of our other national priorities like education and clean energy; medical research and transportation; food safety and keeping our air and water clean. ... Up until now, the cuts proposed by a lot of folks in Washington have focused almost exclusively on that 12%. But cuts to that 12% alone won't solve the problem.President Barack Obama http://www.whatisworking.com/2011/04/obama-lets-be-honest-about-whats.html
They want to give people like me [millionaires] a two hundred thousand dollar tax cut that's paid for by asking thirty three seniors to each pay six thousand dollars more in health costs. That's not right, and it's not going to happen as long as I'm President.President Barack Obama http://www.whatisworking.com/2011/04/obama-budget-they-want-to-give.html?amp&
Maybe they'll need a moat. Maybe they want alligators in the moat!President Barack Obama http://nation.foxnews.com/president-obama/2011/05/10/obama-republicans-want-moat-alligators-border
And the truth is there's only one thing in the world that I really, really hate. Does anyone know what that is? Money. But there's only one thing I hate more than money ... and that's the truth.Lady Gaga http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1713.shtml#2
With regard to the idea of whether you have a right to health care, you have realize what that implies. It's not an abstraction. I’m a physician. That means you have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery.Rand Paul http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2011/05/12/sen_rand_paul_right_to_health_care_is_like_believing_in_slavery.html
With the end of McCarthyism, many universities found ... they [could] not discriminate against communists. ... After all, the thinking went, 'Who's to say what's right or wrong?' Such views did not go far in science, business, or engineering, but the requirements at most universities in general education fields meant that the extremely activist and liberal faculty elements ... would reach the most students.Larry Schweikart A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror
...academic philosophers, who ought to have been Rand's allies in helping young people to knowledge, instead proved to be her enemies. Philosophy courses, with some honorable exceptions, seemed designed to leave students with the impression that philosophy means never having to say you are certain.Ron Merrill The Ideas of Ayn Rand
And, once upon a time we had a good group in place - from the founding fathers on through most of our history we had adequate people in place, until the Fabian Socialists got our schools all turned around and we came to find ourselves a dumbed down nation of entitlement whiners and elitist control freaks.Steve Wolfer http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/GeneralForum/1715.shtml#11
Throughout the Bush and Clinton presidencies, Alan Greenspan, a disciple of free-market economist Friedrich Hayek and an avid reader of Ayn Rand, had served as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board. Greenspan had lived through the Ford/Carter inflationary years and had watched with concern the rise of federal deficits in the 1980s. Early in Clinton’s term, while interest rates remained low, the president took an action that dictated the behavior of the Fed and its chairman for the entire decade. In order to show rapid progress against the “Reagan/Bush deficits,” Clinton refinanced large chunks of the national debt at the lowest rates possible, regardless of the length of maturity. Much of this consisted of short-term bonds; but it had the effect of reducing the interest paid by the government on the debt, thus giving the appearance of reducing the deficits. By doing so, Clinton refused to refinance the debt in much longer term securities at a slightly higher rate. As long as inflation, and therefore, interest rates, stayed low, it was a good deal for the country. But the slightest uptick in inflation would add billions to the national debt and raised the specter of a massive refinancing of the debt at much higher prices. Clinton’s action in essence locked the Fed into a permanent antiinflation mode. Any good news in the economy—rising industrial production, higher employment figures, better trade numbers—might cause prices to go up, which would appear on Greenspan’s radar detector as a threat. The chairman found himself raising the prime rate repeatedly, trying to slow down the stock market. It was a perverse situation, to say the least: the most powerful banker in America constantly slapping the nation’s wage-earners and entrepreneurs for their success. Worse, Greenspan’s actions resulted in a constant underfunding of business, a steady deflation affecting long-term investment. Although few spotted it (George Gilder and Jude Wanniski were two exceptions), the nation suffered from a slow-acting capital anemia. Larry Schweikart A Patriot's History of the United States: From Columbus's Great Discovery to the War on Terror
Is there a Constitutional right to self-defense?Judge Sonia Sotomayor http://www.askheritage.org/sotomayors-record-promises-judicial-activism-you-can-believe-in-2/
The being cannot be termed rational or virtuous, who obeys any authority, but that of reason.Mary Wollstonecraft http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/quotes/wollstonecraft.htm
No matter how mad the plan is—Fraternité, the ‘New Soviet Man,’ the Master Race, the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, Building a New Society, ObamaCare—a mob will believe it.Ann Coulter Demonic
"Intellectuals," no doubt, are often tiresome enough, because they are often pseudo-intellectuals--ingenious fools too clever to be wise, though brilliant at inventing the most ingenious reasons for their fatuous beliefs.F.L. Lucas (1884-1967) "Be Reasonable", by Wilcox & George, Prometheus Books, 1994 [quote of Lucas': "The Search for Good Sense"]
Notoriously, disciples tend to narrow their minds, admitting as meaningful questions, legitimate interpretations, and acceptable patterns of thought only those which they regard---rightly or wrongly---as sanctioned by the example of the master within whose 'school' they are working.Stephen Edelston Toulmin Human Understanding: The Collective Use and Evolution of Concepts
Postmodern politics: the characterization of others refusal to agree with your desire to eat them as irrational intransigent dogmatism. Fred Bartlett from this ROR Thread
... the EU has said Greece has wasted funds on extravagant social welfare programs, raising mandatory minimum wages for all employees and allowing union workers to retire early on generous pensions that Europe can no longer subsidize. Many Greeks say they should not be forced to pay for a crisis they believe politicians have caused.Associated Press USA Today, Wednesday, June 29, 2011; p 6A
The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US Government cannot pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our Government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that ‘the buck stops here.' Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.Barack Hussein Obama .... as a Senator, March 2006, he voted against raising the debt ceiling.
Wednesday's rally took up a familiar theme: taxing the state's wealthiest residents to help solve the deficit. One man held a sign that took his frustration a step further--he had changed it from "Tax the Rich" to "Eat the Rich." Organizers also went after specific GOP legislators, reminding Minnesotans of what they think the state will look like if the Republicans succeed with their budget cuts. One sign read "Gazelka Gulch," a reference to Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Brainerd.Minneapolis StarTribune http://www.startribune.com/politics/statelocal/125117154.html
Survival in the market often requires recognizing mistakes and changing course, while survival in politics often requires denying mistakes, continuing the current policies, and blaming the bad policies on others.Thomas Sowell The Housing Boom and Bust, second edition, page 153
The rights to food, water, adequate housing and work under fair and equitable conditions should not be compromised by the implementation of austerity measures.Cephas Lumina, unpaid "Toohey-like" UN expert http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=38901&Cr=austerity&Cr1=
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.Thomas Jefferson United States Declaration of Independence
Earth First: We will pump the oil from the other planets later.Anonymous Bumper sticker on a pick-up truck.
To err is progress. To institutionalize error is progressive.Bernard Levine Comment to Wall Street Journal Article "To Err Is Progress"
Before we ask seniors to pay more for Medicare, we should ask people like me to give up tax breaks that we don't need and weren't even asking for.Barack H. Obama http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/07/obama-opposes-short-term-debt-deal-from-boehner/1?csp=34news
The House legislates, the President talks, and the Senate kills.Charles Krauthammer Fox News Commentary 7/29/2010
They [politicians] don't need to drive us deeper in debt, they choose toJohn Stossel Fox News - John Stossel web site
... mortgage lending to creditworthy homebuyers has been a stable, profitable, and boring business in the United States of America for about a hundred years; so for those who blame “Wall Street greed” for the crisis, I ask you “why now?” Why did greed not appear, not infect the system, not attempt to seize filthy lucre for that hundred years? Why did greed only show up at that particular moment in time? I further ask why did greed not make its way to Canada, where they did not have a housing and/or banking crisis? Is greed only a US and highly time specific phenomenon?Donny Baseball http://sayanythingblog.com/entry/the-one-chart-that-explains-the-entire-financial-crisis/
What does "rational" mean? At its most basic, it means an ability to make a ratio, as with "rational numbers" in mathematics. More broadly, it means an ability to weigh one thing against another.Thomas Sowell Ideals vs. Realities
If something doesn't work in a two-person economy, it's not good economics.Arthur Laffer http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRA71trwgtw (@ minute 3:45)
We ain't got no jobs, no money ... We heard that other people were getting things for free, so why not us?A person rioting http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/44055812/ns/world_news-europe/t/cameron-cuts-short-vacation-amid-uk-riots/?GT1=43001#.TkCrjF3WGfU
So, sir, we find that not alone in these two conventions, but by the common action of the states, there was an important addition made to the Constitution by which it was expressly provided that it should not be construed to be a General Government over all the people, but that it was a Government of States, which delegated powers to the General Government. The language of the ninth and tenth amendments to the Constitution is susceptible of no other construction: 'The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.'Judah P. Benjamin (19th Century US senator) Book: Power Divided is Power Checked (p 77); by Jason Lewis; ISBN: 978-1-935098-50-8
It has been urged and echoed, that the power "to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, to pay the debts, and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States," amounts to an unlimited commission to exercise every power which may be alleged to be necessary for the common defense or general welfare. ... Had no other enumeration or definition of the powers of the Congress been found in the Constitution, than the general expressions just cited, the authors of the objection might have had some color for it; though it would have been difficult to find a reason for so awkward a form of describing an authority to legislate in all possible cases. ... For what purpose could the enumeration of particular powers be inserted, if these and all others were meant to be included in the preceding general power? Nothing is more natural nor common than first to use a general phrase, and then to explain and qualify it by a recital of particulars. But the idea of an enumeration of particulars which neither explain nor qualify the general meaning, and can have no other effect than to confound and mislead, is an absurdity, which, as we are reduced to the dilemma of charging either on the authors of the objection or on the authors of the Constitution, we must take the liberty of supposing, had not its origin with the latter.James Madison Federalist No. 41 ( http://www.constitution.org/fed/federa41.htm )
Global warming has become the defining moral issue of our time. Science has been hijacked by alarmists. And the public are given to believe that they are to blame.Paul Reiter Documentary: "Cool It"; 2010; Bjorn Lomborg
We're capable of empathizing and sympathizing, but only with single individuals, and not with very large numbers of people and collectives. Now, these kinds of limitations have quite striking consequences today. First of all, they result in our 'failure to aid.' In 2008, only five countries (Sweden, Luxembourg, Norway, Denmark, and the Netherlands) had reached the modest goal that the United Nations set decades ago of aid amounting to 0.7% of a country's GNP.Julian Savulescu "Festival of Dangerous Ideas" (Sydney Opera House) video link: http://vimeo.com/7515623 -- at the 19:20 mark
If I claim to have an ideology, the specifics of that ideology are a reflection of who I am. There can be no factor that more accurately speaks to the content of my character. For this reason, we must judge people's beliefs if we are to assess their character. If there is an intolerance that should be tolerated, it is the intolerance of ignorance.Eric Collazo Tolerance of Intolerance
[Obama] probably shouldn't be calling for what I would want, because the public should want what I want, but it doesn't.Paul Krugman http://abcnews.go.com/ThisWeek/video/roundtable-part-ii-plan-jobs-14445346
The Pluralism of Ideas and the prosperity of any land are intertwined. Freedom of minds and skill of intellect to 'think the unthinkable' is how humanity has progressed; when minds are incarcerated nothing endures.Iqbal Latif http://www.globalpolitician.com/print.asp?id=4272
Now is the time to jump-start job creation, restart lending and invest in areas like energy, health care and education that will grow our economy, even as we make hard choices to bring our deficit down...It's an agenda that begins with jobs. (First address to Congress, 2.2009, when unemployment was 8.1%)President Obama http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/analysis-jobs-obama-hopes-save/story?id=14478913&page=2
[answering the question, 'What are we to do when the president behaves in a blatantly unconstitutional fashion?'] The only remedy in the constitution is the impeachment remedy. Unfortunately, the framers never dreamed... that when they separated the powers between legislative, executive and judicial that one branch would give up its constitutional authority, the way Congress has. We now have, increasingly, an elected dictatorship - no matter which party is in the White House.Ralph Nader Freedom Watch TV Interview on 9/15/11
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