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 "And when we’re experiencing depression economics ... this is a situation in which virtue becomes vice and prudence is folly; what we need above all is for someone to spend more, even if the spending isn’t particularly wise ... public spending on the scale needed never seems to happen ... and what actually ended up doing the trick [for ending the Great Depression] was spending that was beyond pointless, it was actually destructive – a sort of cruel joke on the part of the gods of economics. The point is that it would have been much better if the Depression had been ended with massive spending on useful things, on roads and railroads and schools and parks. But the political consensus for spending on a sufficient scale never materialized; we needed Hitler and Hirohito instead." Paul Krugman "Economics is Not a Morality Play" from the oxymoronically named column "The Conscience of a Liberal"
So I came to my Christian faith later in life, and it was because the precepts of Jesus Christ spoke to me in terms of the kind of life that I would want to lead - being my brothers' and sisters' keeper ... . And I think also understanding that Jesus Christ dying for my sins spoke to the humility we all have to have as human beings, that we're sinful and we're flawed and we make mistakes, and that we achieve salvation through the grace of God.President Barack Obama http://www.startribune.com/politics/national/103938653.html?elr=KArks8c7PaP3iUMEaPc:E7_ec7PaP3iUiacyKUnciaec8O7EyUr
Some conservative legal thinkers like Justice Scalia and Justice Thomas think that the Constitution means what it originally meant. That means we should understand the document by going into a kind of ‘Time Machine’ and capturing the public understanding of the public that ratified the document a century or more than a century ago.Cass Sunstein http://notalemming.wordpress.com/2010/09/26/cass-sunstein-most-conservatives-view-of-the-constitution-requires-a-time-machine/
I'd rather vote for a witch than a MarxistBill O'Reilly Spoken on the O'Reilly Factor TV show 9-20-2010
... the shared values that we all hold so dear. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed with certain inalienable rights, life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That's what makes us unique. That's what makes us strong. The ability to recognize our common humanity.President Barack Obama http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd7ZQZxDhjk
"I too am not holding my breath on 50.1%+ of the "representatives", effectively elected by a little as a single-digit percentage of the people residing in their district or state, voluntarily relinquishing their grasp on power and giving back to me the natural rights I own simply by existing. One can not expect slaveowners to voluntarily release their slaves from bondage -- and let's not kid ourselves, the slaveholder-slave relationship is literally and precisely the relationship that exists between virtually every elected official and their "constituents". That the slavery is not 100%, but perhaps 50% or so, does not change that fact in the slightest. So, the only recourse, other than meek acceptance of that servitude, is for us serfs to quietly revolt and refuse to cooperate with the state as much as possible without provoking their retaliatory use of their monopoly of force. They will not give us our freedom. We must seize it every day, in every way we can. We must either acquiesce to their illegitimate rule, or non-violently refuse to cooperate whenever and however we can."Jim Henshaw private email, Libertarian Party of Hawaii discussion group
Fathom the odd hypocrisy that Obama wants every citizen to prove they are insured, but they don't have to prove they are citizens.Ben Stein
"Attorney Brittney Horstman was not packing heat. She was wearing an underwire bra. And when the metal detector went off on a visit to the Miami Federal Detention Center, security guards wouldn't let Horstman in to see her client. The attorney reminded guards of a detention center ``memo'' allowing female attorneys wearing an underwire bra to enter. But the guards would not relent. Horstman stepped into a bathroom and removed her bra. In blouse and jacket, she returned, and cleared the walk-through detector. Again, guards refused to let her pass -- now, because she was braless, which is against prison dress code guidelines."Jay Weaver "Wrong bra, no bra: Jail bars lawyer ", MiamiHerald.com
"'How will we pay for the tax cut?' I laugh when I hear that question because it’s so obviously illogical. If the government were to cut taxes, say, by lowering rates or outright repeal, people would simply be free to hold on to money they otherwise would have sent to the IRS under threat of punishment. Allowing them to keep that money requires no expenditure ... In the most basic sense, a tax cut costs nothing. What people who ask that question really mean is: How will the revenue forgone be made up? Why do they care? Because they don’t want the government to have to cut spending. Tax cuts don’t cost money; government programs do. The demand that tax cuts be paid for rests on the claim that government distribution of other people’s resources – euphemistically called “spending” – is sacrosanct ... This is important because when we talk the language of paying for tax cuts we adopt an outlook to which statists implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) subscribe, namely, the view that all income belongs to the State and that any measure that lets us keep some is just another form of spending."Sheldon Richman " Paying for Tax Cuts? Whose money is it?", The Freeman Online
"Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."Ayn Rand LibertyTree.ca
“There are times where you can afford to redecorate your house, and there are times where you need to focus on rebuilding the foundation.” President Barack Obama Barack Obama, February 2009
Charitably speaking, this means leading by persuasion and example, always going the last mile for peace, giving others (or, "the other") the benefit of the doubt and so on. The real-world benefits are supposed to flow naturally from there, but if they don't, so what? Doing right is its own reward. [break] Uncharitably speaking, this is what might be called the Paula Abdul theory of foreign policy, after the famously forgiving former judge on American Idol. Never mind that you can't sing, or that you're letting yourself be played for a sucker: What counts is that you feel good about yourself, presumably because you're doing something good. Another name for this kind of thinking is moral narcissism.Bret Stephens http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703369704575461283206035848.html
" ‘From almost any page of Atlas Shrugged,” Whittaker Chambers wrote here 53 years ago, “a voice can be heard, from painful necessity, commanding: ‘To a gas chamber — go!’” What he did not write is that Ayn Rand throws in a gas chamber. It’s about two-thirds through, in a chapter called “The Moratorium on Brains,” than which I reread no farther. (Our president seems to have inspired — which is not quite the word — half the country to read Miss Rand, and I wanted to remind myself what she was teaching them.)"Jason L. Steorts National Review Online, "The Great Ghastly Rand"
Any exercise carried on beyond the least amount required to stimulate an optimal increase is not merely a waste of effort, it is actually highly counterproductive.Mike Mentzer High-Intensity Training the Mike Mentzer Way by John Little
"North Korean doctors are expected to serve the people selflessly. Because of a shortage of X-ray machines, they often must use crude fluoroscopy machines that expose them to high levels of radiation; many older North Korean doctors now suffer from cataracts as a result. They not only donate their own blood, but also small bits of skin to provide grafts for burn victims ... with anesthesia in short supply, acupuncture would be used for simpler surgeries ... patients would be strapped to the operating table to prevent them from flailing about ... the right to 'universal free medical service ... to improve working people's health' was in fact written into the North Korean constitution."Barbara Demick "Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea", pages 106-107
"It is a feeling to be hunted. They come in uniforms . . . "Marta Jaworski reason.com, "Sorry, But Our Zoning Regulations Forbid You From Celebrating Your Freedom"
“I have been led to the conclusion that as long as a philosopher does not carry out his analysis of measurable objects to the point where the mathematician can find unities, measures, and dimensions he must surely still be hanging on to some confusion, or at least the predicates of his propositions do not apply uniformly to the subjects.” —J.H. Lambert to Kant (Feb. 3, 1766)Lambert
Tonight, we gather to affirm the greatness of our nation - not because of the height of our skyscrapers, or the power of our military, or the size of our economy. Our pride is based on a very simple premise, summed up in a declaration made over two hundred years ago.President Barack Obama http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama_3.html
What I worry about would be that you essentially have two chambers, the House and the Senate, but you have simply, majoritarian, absolute power on either side. And that's just not what the founders intended.President Barack Obama http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/b/barack_obama_4.html
Her [Ayn Rand's] absolutism is a reasoned position that contrasts with altruistic or low self-esteem positions that value or use large doses of uncertainty or humility.Steve Wolfer http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/Quotes/1708.shtml#3
"... there’s also a streak in Ayn Rand that is very right-wing and explains in part why, despite her atheism and despite the obviously anti-conservative elements of her thought, nonetheless there are deeper elements that are very appealing to the conservative mind. Those are, firstly, her absolutism and secondly, her attempt to ground the case for liberty in nature."Brink Lindsey Reason.com, "Brink Lindsey on the Classics of Conservatism--Traditional and Liberal Varieties"
"Newcomen drove 12,238 miles across 30 U.S. states to pen a message using GPS tracking that can only be read using Google Earth. The message? 'Read Ayn Rand.'"Peter Suderman Gizmodo.com via Reason.com, "This Country Has Ayn Rand Written All Over It"
"The [Republican] party's Senate candidate in Nevada wants to privatize Medicare and Social Security ... I could go on, but you get the point. Democrats may be facing a tough fight this fall, but Republicans are giving them plenty of material to work with. The big political story of the year may turn out to be the consequences of the GOP's foray into extremism and wackiness." Eugene Robinson "With Friends Like These", RealClearPolitics.com
"This means that the government may not refuse a zoning permit to a group because it’s Muslim, or Tea Party, or Socialist, or anti-gay-rights. It may not try to use landmarking law to bar the group from reconstructing a building, if the law is being used because of the group’s message.... These are basic principles of American free speech law, and of American religious freedom law. They help protect all of us, liberal or conservative, Christian, Jewish, Muslim, or atheist."Eugene Volokh Volokh.com via Reason.com re: Ground Zero mosque
Nancy Pelosi keeps talking about how she was going to "drain the swamp." This is unfair to swamps.Daniel Henninger WSJ, 5 August: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703545604575407632023079038.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
"We don't need to make a movie out of [Atlas Shrugged] ... We are living it right now."David Kelley "Atlas Shrugged: From Fiction to Fact in 52 years"
Elites may have more brilliance, but those who make decisions for society as a whole cannot possibly have as much experience as the millions of people whose decisions they pre-empt. Thomas Sowell http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/100729-sowell-smart-sacrifice.php
"permission [to build a mosque near Ground Zero] should be refused, and if they go ahead and build it, the government should bomb it out of existence, evacuating it first, with no compensation to any of the property owners involved in this monstrosity."Leonard Peikoff "Forced to be Free", Reason.com, via link at Peikoff.com
"We are sort of a mongrel people ... I mean we're all kinds of mixed up. That's actually true of white people as well, but we just know more about it."Barack H. Obama The Hill.com
[Ayn Rand] made a, I believe, an unneccessary polarity between selfishness -- or self-interest -- and altruism. She saw those as opposites. She saw that, or believed, altruism was fundamentally evil. ... I always felt like that was just inaccurate to human nature: That fundamentally human beings are both self-interested and capable of love, and that you can't understand human beings unless you see that we are both of them -- and so I reject the polarity.John Mackey http://www.booktv.org/search.aspx?For=freedomfest
"Those who survived the San Francisco earthquake said, 'Thank God, I'm still alive.' But, of course, those who died, their lives will never be the same again."Barbara Boxer Brainyquote.com
“What saved the economy and the New Deal [during the Great Depression] was the enormous public-works project known as World War II, which finally provided a fiscal stimulus adequate to the economy’s needs.” Paul Krugman
... the long-running debate between big government and small government misses the point; it isn’t relevant to today’s challenges.President Barack Obama http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2010/07/13/president-obama-announces-a-new-omb-director-jacob-lew
Economic debate is simply a projection of political debate; it is not scientific debate. It is political debate between two irreconcilable points of view. That isn't demonstrable science, it is simply wrestling.Fred Bartlett The Third Depression thread
"No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent."Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln, October 16, 1854, title page of Book IV of Nancy Kress's "Beggars in Spain"
"To say 'I love you' one must first be able to say the 'I.' "Ayn Rand jittery.com
"Men are the only animals that devote themselves, day in and day out, to making one another unhappy. It is an art like any other. Its virtuosi are called altruists."H. L. Mencken LewRockwell.com
"I would not wish death upon Paul Krugman or Nancy Pelosi. However, if I outlive either of them and one day read their obituary, that particular day will almost certainly be a bit happier and more enjoyable than it otherwise would be. If that makes me a bad human being, so be it."Jim Henshaw Reason.com , "David Weigel Resigns From the Washington Post", 6.26.10 @ 9:29PM
You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealth out of prosperity.anonymous (email from a friend)
"Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. "Aristotle
One of the methods used by statists to destroy capitalism consists in establishing controls that tie a given industry hand and foot, making it unable to solve its problems, then declaring that freedom has failed and stronger controls are necessary.Ayn Rand Voice of Reason
A gaffe in Washington is when someone inadvertently blurts out the truth.Arnaud de Borchgrave Washington Times
Rather than fight the same tired battles that have dominated Washington for decades, it’s time to try something new. Let’s invest in our people without leaving them a mountain of debt. Let’s meet our responsibility to the citizens who sent us here. Let’s try common sense.President Barack Obama http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/
'Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!' cries she with silent lips. 'Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!'Emma Lazarus http://rebirthofreason.com/Forum/ArticleDiscussions/2217_2.shtml#55
....today there is little economic freedom in America. And almost from our first day as a Nation, there was little monetary freedom; now, there is none.Henry Mark Holzer Gold and Monetary Reform
"Also invariably critics on the left accuse libertarians of being "selfish" and "greedy" and being for rich people and against ordinary people. This charge is so far off the mark and beside the point it is almost impossible to respond to. It’s like accusing a computer of being short. It has nothing to do with what a computer is."Doug Carkuff "Neither Left Nor Right" at LewRockwell.com
"While Friedman’s theoretical work is universally admired by professional economists, there’s much more ambivalence about his policy pronouncements and especially his popularizing. And it must be said that there were some serious questions about his intellectual honesty when he was speaking to the mass public."Paul Krugman Reason.com, article about Krugman, threaded comments starting at 11:51pm on 5.7.10
"I maintain, however, that the effectiveness of government versus that of private arrangements to produce goods and services is irrelevant to the issue of the desirability of government in a libertarian society. Governments are not created to produce goods and services for citizens. Rather, they are created and imposed on people by force, most often for the purpose of transferring resources from the control of those outside government to the control of those within it. Without government—or even with a weak government—predatory groups will impose themselves on people by force and create a government to extract income and wealth from these subjects."Randall G. Holcombe Government: Unnecessary but Inevitable
I do think, at a certain point you've made enough moneyBarack Hussein Obama
"[Slavery consists of being] "subject to the incessant, uncertain, arbitrary will of another man. "John Locke Second Treatise of Civil Government
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