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Aldous Huxley | the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach
"That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons that history has to teach."
Aldous Huxley
Jon Rappoport | Socialism is
"Socialism is: The taking of money (taxes) from some people who work for it and giving it to others who don't work for it. On a grand scale. The vast expansion of freebies doled out by central government. In order to create and sustain dependence. The government protection of favored persons and corporations, permitting them and aiding them to expand their fortunes without limit, regardless of what crimes they commit in the process. (Monsanto would be a fine example.) The squeezing out of those who would compete with the favored persons and corporations. The dictatorship by and for the very wealthy, pretending to be the servant of the masses. The lie that the dictatorship is being run by the masses. The gradual lowering of the standard of living for the overwhelming number of people. The propaganda claiming socialism is the path to a better world for all. In other words, socialism is a protection racket and a long con and a heartless system of elite control, posing as the greatest good. It is just another form of top-down tyranny---as old as the hills."
Jon Rappoport
Albert Jay Nock | The State, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social
"The State, both in its genesis and by its primary intention, is purely anti-social. It is not based on the idea of natural rights, but on the idea that the individual has no rights except those that the State may provisionally grant him. It has always made justice costly and difficult of access, and has invariably held itself above justice and common morality whenever it could advantage itself by so doing."
Albert Jay Nock
Thomas Jefferson | A government big enough to give you everything you want
"A government big enough to give you everything you want, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have."
Thomas Jefferson
Ludwig von Mises | The champions of socialism
"The champions of socialism call themselves progressives, but they recommend a system which is characterized by rigid observance of routine and by a resistance to every kind of improvement. They call themselves liberals, but they are intent upon abolishing liberty. They call themselves democrats, but they yearn for dictatorship. They call themselves revolutionaries, but they want to make the government omnipotent. They promise the blessings of the Garden of Eden, but they plan to transform the world into a gigantic post office. Every man but one a subordinate clerk in a bureau."
Ludwig von Mises, Bureaucracy
Milan Kundera | The first step in liquidating a people
"The first step in liquidating a people, is to erase its memory. Destroy its books, its culture, its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster."
Milan Kundera
Edmund Burke | Their passions forge their fetters
"Until you could make out practically that great work, a combination of opposing forces, "a work of labour long, and endless praise," the utmost caution ought to have been used in the reduction of the royal power, which alone was capable of holding together the comparatively heterogeneous mass of your states. But at this day, all these considerations are unreasonable. To what end should we discuss the limitations of royal power? Your king is in prison. Why speculate on the measure and standard of liberty? I doubt much, very much indeed, whether France is at all ripe for liberty on any standard. Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites, — in proportion as their love to justice is above their rapacity, — in proportion as their soundness and sobriety of understanding is above their vanity and presumption, — in proportion as they are more disposed to listen to the counsels of the wise and good, in preference to the flattery of knaves. Society cannot exist, unless a controlling power upon will and appetite be placed somewhere; and the less of it there is within, the more there must be without. It is ordained in the eternal constitution of things, that men of intemperate minds cannot be free. Their passions forge their fetters."
Edmund Burke
Fjodor Dostojewski | The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping
"The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison."
Fjodor Dostojewski
Barack Obama | Ordinary men and women are too small-minded
"Ordinary men and women are too small-minded to govern their own affairs, that order and progress can only come when individuals surrender their rights to an all-powerful sovereign."
Barack Obama
Napoleon Bonaparte | A higher power is pushing me to a goal
"A higher power is pushing me to a goal i don’t know. Until it is reached, i will be invulnerable, unshakeable. As soon as i’m no longer needed, one fly will be enough to knock me down."
Napoleon Bonaparte
Tom Clancy | What the government is good at is collecting taxes
"What the government is good at is collecting taxes, taking away your freedoms and killing people. It's not good at much else."
Tom Clancy
Klaus Kinski | If the government was replaced by the mafia
"If the government was replaced by the mafia we'd probably have half as much corruption and twice as much fun."
Klaus Kinski
Benjamin Constant | When you pay the representatives of the people
"When you pay the representatives of the people, you do not arouse in them an interest in performing their functions conscientiously; rather, you interest them only in continuing to secure for themselves the exercise of those functions."
Benjamin Constant
John Edgar Hoover | a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists
"The individual is handicapped by coming face-to-face with a conspiracy so monstrous he cannot believe it exists. The American mind simply has not come to a realization of the evil which has been introduced into our midst. It rejects even the assumption that human creatures could espouse a philosophy which must ultimately destroy all that is good and decent."
John Edgar Hoover
Ayn Rand | He is free to evade reality
"He is free to evade reality, he is free to unfocus his mind and stumble blindly down any road he pleases, but not free to avoid the abyss he refuses to see."
Ayn Rand
Friedrich Nietzsche | We live in a system
"We live in a system in which one must either be a wheel or get crushed by the wheels."
Friedrich Nietzsche
Karl Jaspers | Where is the Federal Republic headed?
"Every four years it elects the Bundestag. The lists or persons submitted to it by the parties are already elected beforehand by the parties. The process of this hidden preliminary election, which is the actual election, is convoluted; the names for the constituency lists and the state lists are not drawn up in the same way. But it is always the party committees, never the people, who would be involved in this decisive beginning. One must be a party member in order to participate somewhere in this election and to be able to be set up. Even those who are party members, as such, have little effect in the nominations. The decisive factor is the party hierarchy and bureaucracy.[...] Even the elections are not really elections, but acclamations to the party oligarchy. [....] The parties, which should by no means be the state, make themselves, withdrawn from the life of the people, the state [....] The governance of the state is in the hands of the party oligarchy [....] Their position, not limited by any tension to other power, seduces [....] the parties to want to occupy the seats by their own people. This is the reward for party work, the spoils of victory after the electoral battle [....]"
Karl Jaspers
Caitlin Johnstone | The empire still fears the public
"The empire still fears the public. If it didn't it wouldn't bother rolling out so much propaganda ahead of all its depraved actions—it would just act. They work so hard to manufacture our consent because they're still afraid of what we'll do to them if we decide we don't consent."
Caitlin Johnstone
Woody Harrelson | Of course, we live in a completely corrupted world
"Of course, we live in a completely corrupted world where every government is just a bunch of businessmen working for a bunch of bigger businessmen and none of them give a shit about the people. The sad fact is no one knows how to change it, because no one knows how to take on the corporations. So I guess we’re stuck with this system until the oil runs out."
Woody Harrelson
Thomas Jefferson | When government fears the people
"When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny."
Thomas Jefferson
Georg Orwell | What counts is that we don’t betray each other
"It’s not so much staying alive, it’s staying human that’s important. What counts is that we don’t betray each other."
Georg Orwell
Rose Wilder Lane | No state, no government exists
"The picture of the economic revolution as the final step to freedom was false as soon as I asked myself that question. For, in actual fact, The State, The Government, cannot exist. They are abstract concepts, useful enough in their place, as the theory of minus numbers is useful in mathematics. In actual living experience, however, it is impossible to subtract anything from nothing; when a purse is empty, it is empty, it cannot contain a minus ten dollars. On this same plane of actuality, no State, no Government, exists. What does in fact exist is a man, or a few men, in power over many men."
Rose Wilder Lane
Noam Chomsky | Therefore it’s important to distract them
"The bewildered herd is a problem. We’ve got to prevent their roar and trampling. We’ve got to distract them. They should be watching the Superbowl or sitcoms or violent movies. Every once in a while you call on them to chant meaningless slogans like "Support our troops." You’ve got to keep them pretty scared, because unless they’re properly scared and frightened of all kinds of devils that are going to destroy them from outside or inside or somewhere, they may start to think, which is very dangerous, because they’re not competent to think. Therefore it’s important to distract them and marginalize them."
Noam Chomsky
Georges Bernanos | violence in the service of the totalitarian state
"It is not the use of violence that seems to me condemnable, but its mysticism, the religion of violence in the service of the totalitarian state, in the service of the dictatorship of the general welfare, considered not as a means but as an end."
Georges Bernanos
Yuval Noah Harari | to gain control over the world
I mean science, as an institution, is interested in gaining the power — to gain control over the world
Yuval Noah Harari
Gore Vidal | The modern dictatorship doesn’t come with brown or black uniforms
"What is a president, then? He is the mouthpiece of the corporations - and nothing else. [....] We are no longer a democracy. We gave up our constitution long ago. [....] The modern dictatorship doesn't come with brown or black uniforms. We do it with entertainment, with television, with fun, fun. And an education that dumbs down."
Gore Vidal
Clarence Darrow | You can only be free if I am free
"You can only protect your liberties in this world by protecting the other man's freedom. You can only be free if I am free. "
Clarence Darrow
General Aladeen | Why are you guys so anti-dictators?
"Why are you guys so anti-dictators? Imagine if America was a dictatorship. You could let 1% of the people have all the nation's wealth. You could help your rich friends get richer by cutting their taxes. And bailing them out when they gamble and lose. You could ignore the needs of the poor for health care and education. Your media would appear free, but would secretly be controlled by one person and his family. You could wiretap phones. You could torture foreign prisoners. You could have rigged elections. You could lie about why you go to war. You could fill your prisons with one particular racial group, and no one would complain. You could use the media to scare the people into supporting policies that are against their interests."
General Aladeen
George Orwell | These people don’t see that
"These people don’t see that if you encourage totalitarian methods, the time may come when they will be used against you instead of for you."
George Orwell
