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 It is a grave error to suppose that a dictatorship rules a nation by means of strict, rigid laws which are obeyed and enforced with rigorous, military precision. Such a rule would be evil, but almost bearable; men could endure the harshest edicts, provided these edicts were known, specific and stable; it is not the known that breaks men’s spirits, but the unpredictable. A dictatorship has to be capricious; it has to rule by means of the unexpected, the incomprehensible, the wantonly irrational; ... Ayn Rand “Antitrust: The Rule of Unreason,” The Objectivist Newsletter, Feb. 1962, 5
Blacks today are just as racially different from whites of two generations ago as they are from whites today. Yet the data suggest that the number of questions that blacks answer correctly on IQ tests today is very similar to the number answered correctly by past generations of whites. If race A differs from race B in IQ, and two generations of race A differ from each other by the same amount, where is the logic in suggesting that the IQ differences are even partly racial?Thomas Sowell Vol. 28, American Spectator, 02-01-1995, pp 32.
[I]deology signifies a phenomenon intermediate between a simple lie at one pole, and an error, which is the result of a distorted and faulty conceptual apparatus, at the other.Karl Mannheium http://www.goodreads.com/author/quotes/189545.Karl_Mannheim
Occupy Wall Street protesters had just a few hours to celebrate what they saw as their biggest victory so far: the peaceful shutdown of the nation's fifth-busiest port.Associated Press http://www.twincities.com/alllistings/ci_19260639?source=rss
There cannot be any question of abolishing interest by any institutions, laws, and devices of bank manipulation. He who wants to "abolish" interst will have to induce people to value an apple available in a hundred years no less than a present apple. What can be abolished by laws and decrees is merely the right of the capitalists to receive interest. But such laws would bring about capital consumption and would very soon throw mankind back into the original state of natural poverty.Ludwig von Mises Human Action
Overheard: "School children who see the exhibits in the Creation Museum in Kentucky will be confused when they learn in school that the universe is 14 billion years old rather than 6,000."Iqbal Latif http://www.evolutionminute.com/00-galaxiescoll.html
The individual politic tactic of hypothesizing an authority above all of us individually ... and then jarringly speaking for it as individuals and presenting our individual interpretations of what this remote supreme and yet curiously otherwise mute authority demands of us individually... is the oldest carny huckster political trick in the book.Fred Bartlett RoR's Morality Needs No God thread
President Obama’s jobs bill is better than doing nothing in the face of a national crisis, but it won’t have much impact on unemployment.Fareed Zakaria http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/where-obamas-jobs-bill-falls-short/2011/09/28/gIQA5jne5K_story.html
In laissez-faire capitalism, the government has no function to perform with regard to money. There is no central bank. ... This is essentially the monetary system that the United States had between the Civil War and the establishment of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Under that system, the United states had an average annual rate of economic growth (over 5 percent a year) higher than any country has ever had over a similar period of time in the history of the world.M. Northrup Buechner Buechner, N. M. (2011), Objective Economics: How Ayn Rand's philosophy changes everything about economics, Lanham: University Press of America, p 19-20
Let's start calling spade the spade, whenever, tolerance has been overtaken by bigotry, blinkeredness and singularity; nations and empires have just withered away. At heart of hatred, viciousness and venomous intensity lies intolerance, bigotry and inability to ever find the enemy within. Fanaticism is an evil of a society that corrodes the elegance of any culture.Iqbal Latif http://www.globalpolitician.com/print.asp?id=3999'Nation of Islam' and Denial of Its Killing Fields!
[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
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
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
[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
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
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
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
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 )
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
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
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)
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
... 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/
They [politicians] don't need to drive us deeper in debt, they choose toJohn Stossel Fox News - John Stossel web site
The House legislates, the President talks, and the Senate kills.Charles Krauthammer Fox News Commentary 7/29/2010
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
To err is progress. To institutionalize error is progressive.Bernard Levine Comment to Wall Street Journal Article "To Err Is Progress"
Earth First: We will pump the oil from the other planets later.Anonymous Bumper sticker on a pick-up truck.
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
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=
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
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
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.
... 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
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
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
"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"]
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
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
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/
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
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
...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
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
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
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
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
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&
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
... 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
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