Interesting quotes

[AlanM]

From H. L. Mencken:

All [that government] can see in an original idea is potential change, and hence an invasion of its prerogatives. The most dangerous man, to any government, is the man who is able to think things out for himself, without regard to the prevailing superstitions and taboos. Almost inevitably he comes to the conclusion that the government he lives under is dishonest, insane and intolerable, and so, if he is romantic, he tries to change it. And even if he is not romantic personally he is very apt to spread discontent among those who are.

[polyanarch]

Good one Alan.

Dangerous men abound in this place.

[AlanM]

Good one Alan.

Dangerous men abound in this place.

The most dangerous are what we call, "The Shamblers" 

[polyanarch]

Zombie undergrounders

[AlanM]

Poly, being a tall man yourself, I bet you are a Shambler. 

[polyanarch]

I'm not tall.  My dad is tall though.  He is 6'2"  I'm almost a half-foot shorter...   It's all my mom's fault!

But I can shamble pretty good before I have my chocolate covered expresso-bean fix in the morning.

[Lloyd Danforth]

" It is inaccurate to say I hate everything.  I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency.  This make me forever ineligible for public office "
H.L. Mencken

[Kat Kanning]

Zombie undergrounders

See Liberty Zombies:

http://forum.soulawakenings.com/index.php?topic=275.0

[Kat Kanning]

" It is inaccurate to say I hate everything.  I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency.  This make me forever ineligible for public office "
H.L. Mencken

  I like that one.

[polyanarch]

I am a freedom zombie...

[AlanM]

" It is inaccurate to say I hate everything.? I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency.? This make me forever ineligible for public office "
H.L. Mencken

But why, if they are common, are they so uncommon?

[AlanM]

Quote from Lysander Spooner:
  "The highwayman takes solely upon himself the responsibility, danger, and crime of his own act. He does not pretend that he has any rightful claim to your money, or that he intends to use it for your own benefit. He does not pretend to be anything but a robber. He has not acquired impudence enough to profess to be merely a "protector," and that he takes men's money against their will, merely to enable him to "protect" those infatuated travellers, who feel perfectly able to protect themselves, or do not appreciate his peculiar system of protection. He is too sensible a man to make such professions as these. Furthermore, having taken your money, he leaves you, as you wish him to do. He does not persist in following you on the road, against your will; assuming to be your rightful "sovereign," on account of the "protection" he affords you. He does not keep "protecting" you, by commanding you to bow down and serve him; by requiring you to do this, and forbidding you to do that; by robbing you of more money as often as he finds it for his interest or pleasure to do so; and by branding you as a rebel, a traitor, and an enemy to your country, and shooting you down without mercy, if you dispute his authority, or resist his demands. He is too much of a gentleman to be guilty of such impostures, and insults, and villainies as these. In short, he does not, in addition to robbing you, attempt to make you either his dupe or his slave."

[AlanM]

Few, comparatively, as they are, the agents and employees of the government constitute that portion of the community who are the exclusive recipients of the proceeds of the taxes. Whatever amount is taken from the community in the form of taxes, if not lost, goes to them in the shape of expenditures or disbursements. The two?disbursement and taxation?constitute the fiscal action of the government. They are correlatives. What the one takes from the community under the name of taxes is transferred to the portion of the community who are the recipients under that of disbursements. But as the recipients constitute only a portion of the community, it follows, taking the two parts of the fiscal process together, that its action must be unequal between the payers of the taxes and the recipients of their proceeds. Nor can it be otherwise; unless what is collected from each individual in the shape of taxes shall be returned to him in that of disbursements, which would make the process nugatory and absurd . . . .

The necessary result, then, of the unequal fiscal action of the government is to divide the community into two great classes: one consisting of those who, in reality, pay the taxes and, of course, bear exclusively the burden of supporting the government; and the other, of those who are the recipients of their proceeds through disbursements, and who are, in fact, supported by the government; or, in fewer words, to divide it into tax-payers and tax-consumers.

But the effect of this is to place them in antagonistic relations in reference to the fiscal action of the government?and the entire course of policy therewith connected. For the greater the taxes and disbursements, the greater the gain of the one and the loss of the other, and vice versa . . . . The effect, then, of every increase is to enrich and strengthen the one, and impoverish and weaken the other.6


  John Calhoun, Disquisition on Government, pp. 16-18.

[AlanM]

      If states have everywhere been run by an oligarchic group of predators, how have they been able to maintain their rule over the mass of the population? The answer, as the philosopher David Hume pointed out over two centuries ago, is that in the long run every government, no matter how dictatorial, rests on the support of the majority of its subjects. Now this does not of course render these governments "voluntary,"  since the very existence of the tax and other coercive powers shows how much compulsion the State must exercise. Nor does the majority support have to be eager and enthusiastic approval; it could well be mere passive acquiescence and resignation. The conjunction in the famous phrase "death and taxes" implies a passive and resigned acceptance to the assumed inevitability of the State and its taxation.

      The tax-consumers, the groups that benefit from the operations of the State, will of course be eager rather than passive followers of the State mechanism. But these are only a minority. How is the compliance and acquiescence of the mass of the population to be secured? Here we come to the central problem of political philosophy?that branch of philosophy that deals with politics, the exercise of regularized violence: the mystery of civil obedience. Why do people obey the edicts and depredations of the ruling elite? Conservative writer James Burnham, who is the reverse of libertarian, put the problem very clearly, admitting that there is no rational justification for civil obedience: "Neither the source nor the justification of government can be put in wholly rational terms . . . why should I accept the hereditary or democratic or any other principle of legitimacy? Why should a principle justify the rule of that man over me?" His own answer is hardly calculated to convince many others: "I accept the principle, well . . . because I do, because that is the way it is and has been."7 But suppose that one does not accept the principle; what will the "way" be then? And why have the bulk of subjects agreed to accept it?



  James Burnham, Congress and the American Tradition (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1959), pp. 6-8.

[AlanM]

Murray Rothbard, "For a New Liberty":

   The intellectual arguments used by the State throughout history to "engineer consent" by the public can be classified into two parts: (i) that rule by the existing government is inevitable, absolutely necessary, and far better than the indescribable evils that would ensue upon its downfall; and (2) that the State rulers are especially great, wise, and altruistic men?far greater, wiser, and better than their simple subjects. In former times, the latter argument took the form of rule by "divine right" or by the "divine ruler" himself, or by an "aristocracy" of men. In modern times, as we indicated earlier, this argument stresses not so much divine approval as rule by a wise guild of "scientific experts" especially endowed in knowledge of statesmanship and the arcane facts of the world. The increasing use of scientific jargon, especially in the social sciences, has permitted intellectuals to weave apologia for State rule which rival the ancient priestcraft in obscurantism. For example, a thief who presumed to justify his theft by saying that he was really helping his victims by his spending, thus giving retail trade a needed boost, would be hooted down without delay. But when this same theory is clothed in Keynesian mathematical equations and impressive references to the "multiplier effect," it carries far more conviction with a bamboozled public.