Quote Only Thread

[Stephen Morgan]

The organized lying practiced by totalitarian states is not, as is sometimes claimed, a temporary expedient of the same nature as military deception. It is something integral to totalitarianism, something that would still continue even if concentration camps and secret police forces had ceased to be necessary. Among intelligent Communists there is an underground legend to the effect that although the Russian government is obliged now to deal in lying propaganda, frame-up trials, and so forth, it is secretly recording the true facts and will publish them at some future time. We can, I believe, be quite certain that this is not the case, because the mentality implied by such an action is that of a liberal historian who believes that the past cannot be altered and that a correct knowledge of history is valuable as a matter of course. From the totalitarian point of view history is something to be created rather than learned. A totalitarian state is in effect a theocracy, and its ruling caste, in order to keep its position, has to be thought of as infallible. But since, in practice, no one is infallible, it is frequently necessary to rearrange past events in order to show that this or that mistake was not made, or that this or that imaginary triumph actually happened. Then again, every major change in policy demands a corresponding change of doctrine and a revelation of prominent historical figures. This kind of thing happens everywhere, but is clearly likelier to lead to outright falsification in societies where only one opinion is permissible at any given moment. Totalitarianism demands, in fact, the continuous alteration of the past, and in the long run probably demands a disbelief in the very existence of objective truth. The friends of totalitarianism in this country usually tend to argue that since absolute truth is not attainable, a big lie is no worse than a little lie.

[Stephen Morgan]

Only a 'mental disturbance such as receiving CIA radio transmissions .... can explain the homicidal rampage in Liege.'
--- Belgian prosecutor, Cedric Visart de Bocarme

[MacCruiskeen]

Lord Delamere, Kenya, 1912:

If... every native is to be a landholder of a sufficient area on which to establish himself, then the question of obtaining a satisfactory labour supply will never be settled.

J.L. Sadie in the Economic Journal, 1960:

Economic development of an underdeveloped people by themselves is not compatible with the maintenance of thier traditional customs and mores. A break with the latter is prerequsite to economic progress. What is needed is a revolution in the totality of social, cultural and religious institutions and habits, and thus in their psychological attitude, their philosophy and way of life. What is, therefore, required amounts in reality to social disorganisation. Unhappiness and discontentment in the sense of wanting more than is obtainable at any moment is to be generated. The suffering and dislocation that may be caused in the process may be objectionable, but it appears to be the price that has to be paid for economic development: the condition of economic progress.

via

[Allegro]

.
‘We are the 99 percent’ chosen as year’s top quote

< snip from the top>

The list [from “Yale Book of Quotations” released by Fred Shapiro, associate librarian at Yale Law School]:

1. "We are the 99 percent."
— slogan of Occupy movement.

2. "There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody. You built a factory out there - good for you! But I want to be clear. You moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for. You hired workers the rest of us paid to educate. You were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for."
— U.S. Sen. candidate Elizabeth Warren, speaking in Andover, Mass., in August.

3. "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress."
— Billionaire Warren Buffett, in a New York Times op-ed on Aug. 15.

4. "I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy."
— Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman in an Aug. 18 tweet.

5. "Oops."
— Presidential candidate Rick Perry after unsuccessfully attempting to remember the third federal agency he would eliminate during a Nov. 9 debate.

6. "When they ask me, 'Who is the president of Ubeki-beki-beki-beki-stan-stan?' I'm going to say, 'You know, I don't know. Do you know?'"
— Then-presidential candidate Herman Cain in an interview by Christian Broadcasting Network on Oct. 7.

7. "I am on a drug. It's called 'Charlie Sheen.' It's not available because if you try it once, you will die. Your face will melt off and your children will weep over your exploded body."
— Actor Charlie Sheen in a February interview with ABC News.

8. "Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow."
— Apple co-founder Steve Jobs' last words on Oct. 5, as reported by his sister Mona Simpson in her eulogy.

9. "I can't say with certitude."
— Then-U.S. Rep. Anthony Weiner on June 1 when he was asked whether a lewd photograph was in fact him.

10. "Instead of receiving the help that she had hoped for, Mr. Cain instead decided to provide her with his idea of a stimulus package."
— Lawyer Gloria Allred on Nov. 7 discussing Herman Cain's alleged sexual harassment of her client.

[Laodicean]

Human beings are compelled to live within a lie, but they can be compelled to do so only because they are in fact capable of living in this way. Therefore not only does the system alienate humanity, but at the same time alienated humanity supports this system as its own involuntary master plan, as a degenerate image of its own degeneration, as a record of people's own failure as individuals.

- Vaclav Havel (1936-2011)

[Elihu]

"Money is the barometer of a society's virtue."
– Ayn Rand

[Elihu]

"Gold and silver are just metals. They cannot lie like politicians and bankers." --unidentified zerohedge feedback poster

[Elihu]

"There is no such thing as a mixed economy, a "system" that would stand midway between "capitalism" and "socialism." "(sic, ed.)
– Ludwig von Mises

[Elihu]

"The horrors of revolution and civil war can be avoided if a disliked government can be smoothly dislodged at the next election."
– Ludwig von Mises

[barracuda]

Children want to imagine an object as more than what it is.

-Viktor Schreckengost

[Simulist]

"And now for some insight on this, we turn to 'the sage of Capitol Hill,' Luke Russert. Luke?"

— a morning television newscaster on MSNBC, December 20, 2011

When a newscaster on a major television network can refer to neophyte reporter, and twenty-six year-old son of Tim Russert, as "the sage of Capitol Hill," many things about the collective media and political wisdom in our nation's capitol come starkly into focus rather suddenly.

[Elihu]

“I believe that we should maintain the principles of Social Security, but I think the existing structure is not working. Until we construct a system that creates the savings that are required to build the REAL assets, so that the retirees have REAL goods and services. We don’t have a system that is working. We have one that basically moves cash around and we can guarantee cash benefits as far out and whatever size you like, but we cannot guarantee their purchasing power. Do we have the material goods and services that people will need to consume, not whether or not we pass some hurdle with respect to how legal financing occurs. Financing is a secondary issue and it is a means to create the REAL wealth, not an end into itself.” -Alan Greenspan 2005

[Elihu]

Daniel Webster quotes:
Whatever government is not a government of laws, is a despotism, let it be called what they may.

[Elihu]

As it is written, Behold, I lay in Sion a stumblingstone and rock of offence: and whosoever believeth on him shall not be ashamed.

[Elihu]

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson. History depicts Andrew Jackson as the last truly honorable and incorruptible American president.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happened, you can bet it was planned that way.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education he may steal the whole railroad.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
Here is my principle: Taxes shall be levied according to ability to pay. That is the only American principle.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
I do not believe in communism any more than you do, but there is nothing wrong with the communists in this country. Several of the best friends I have are Communists.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
I hope your committee will not permit doubts as to constitutionality, however reasonable, to block the suggested legislation.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
I am much interested and deeply impressed by what he has accomplished and by his evidenced honest purpose of restoring Italy and seeking to prevent general European trouble.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
[The commerce clause was written] in the horse-and-buggy age ... since that time … we have developed an entirely different philosophy. ... We are interdependent, we are tied in together. And the hope has been that we could, through a period of years, interpret the interstate commerce clause of the Constitution in the light of these new things that have come to the country. It has been our hope that under the interstate commerce clause we could recognize by legislation and by judicial decision that a harmful practice in one section of the country could be prevented on the theory that it was doing harm to another section of the country. That was why the Congress for a good many years, and most lawyers, have had the thought that in drafting legislation we could depend on an interpretation that would enlarge the constitutional meaning of interstate commerce to include not only those matters of direct interstate commerce, but also those matters which indirectly affect interstate commerce.

Franklin D. Roosevelt quotes:
Are we going to take the hands of the federal government completely off any effort to adjust the growing of national crops, and go right straight back to the old principle that every farmer is a lord of his own farm and can do anything he wants, raise anything, any old time, in any quantity, and sell any time he wants?