Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 21:17:01 -0700

Week of August 17, 2008

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 22:37:37 -0700

Week of August 10, 2008

Whenever I speak of Chinese collectivism, given their communist legacy in the 20th century, I often am met with a response like "Oh, China... sure they're ruled by a communist party, but they're not really communists. Look at all of their economic reform and liberalization!" This response seems to miss the mark altogether. The distinctive feature of communism was the view that individual interests could be curtailed for the sake of promoting class interest. Under Mao and his communist successors, collective interests took priority over individual rights and the liberties they secure. This view is precisely the same view held by the current Chinese regime, though they're replaced "class interest" with "national interest." The principle that one can see manifested everywhere throughout contemporary Chinese politics and public policy is the same collectivist principle invoked by the communists: that individuals exist to serve the state, that the interests of the state take priority over the interests of the individual.

It was indeed China's coming out party, and the opening ceremony was supposed to communicate a message of friendship, cooperation, and human unity. It was supposed to show how China was willingness to engage in civilized participation with the rest of the world. It included a performance by 810 figures in Han-dynasty era clothing, who joined together to communicate the question "Isn't it great to have friends coming from afar?" and sent "All men are brothers within the four seas."

Despite the inclusion of elements like this, I couldn't find myself convinced that the opening ceremonies should be viewed positively. Regardless of all the razzle-dazzle, what we witnessed was a calculated attempt by an oppressive government to justify itself through a mesmerizing performance on the world stage. It's a variation on the old Roman "bread and circuses" theme, except, of course for the bread (think how many capital goods $300,000,000 could buy to increase worker productivity and thus help to alleviate the wide-spread poverty in China). The ceremonies were a debut ball for China as a nation, with all this implies for a country ruled by a nationalistic authoritarian regime; they were a thinly-veiled celebration of the state. In this respect, I found the 2008 opening ceremonies eerily similar in tone to the 1936 games in Berlin.

All this is to say, I found China's ceremonial pleas for friendship and cooperation to be disingenuous. To the extent that a person, culture or political system preaches collectivism, its hostility to individual human life makes it necessarily "unfriendly" (to say the least). A friend is someone who shares our values, and one cannot genuinely befriend anyone who advocates the destruction of individual liberty for the sake of the state. A friendly nation is one that does not oppress and censor its citizens. No amount of fireworks or electronic displays could change that.

� Brandon Byrd, "China, Collectivism, and the Opening Ceremonies," NoodleFood, August 13, 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 03 Aug 2008 22:56:32 -0700

Week of August 3, 2008

The only thing I want to know about a man is which side he would like his ancestors to have fought on at Marston Moor.

� Isaac Foot (by way of The Monarchist)

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 27 Jul 2008 23:47:08 -0700

Week of July 27, 2008

Whenever A annoys or injures B on the pretense of saving or improving X, A is a scoundrel.

� H.L. Mencken

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 13 Jul 2008 17:09:21 -0700

Week of July 13, 2008

Let me state this as plainly as possible. The enemy is the state. There are other enemies too, but none so fearsome, destructive, dangerous, or culturally and economically debilitating. No matter what other proximate enemy you can name � big business, unions, victim lobbies, foreign lobbies, medical cartels, religious groups, classes, city dwellers, farmers, left-wing professors, right-wing blue-collar workers, or even bankers and arms merchants � none are as horrible as the hydra known as the leviathan state. If you understand this point � and only this point � you can understand the core of libertarian strategy.

� Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., "The Enemy is Always the State," Mises Institute Daily Article, May 20, 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 06 Jul 2008 20:44:40 -0700

Week of July 6, 2008

The State is, as Catharine MacKinnon says, male in the political sense. But not only because the law views women's civil status through the lens of male supremacy (although it certainly does). It is also because the male-dominated State relates to all of its subjects like a battering husband relates to the "household" of which he has proclaimed himself the "head:" by laying a claim to protect those who did not ask for it, and using whatever violence and intimidation may be necessary to terrorize them into submitting to his "protection." The State, as the abusive head of the whole nation, assaults the innocent, and turns a blind eye to assaults of the innocent, when it suits political interest � renamed "national interest" by the self-proclaimed "representatives" of the nation. It does so not because of the venality or incompetance of a particular ruler, but rather because that is what State power means, and that is what the job of a ruler is: to maintain a monopoly of coercion over its territorial area, as a good German might tell you, and to beat, chain, burn, or kill anyone within or without who might endanger that, whether by defying State rule, or by simply ignoring it and asking to be left alone.

� Charles Johnson, "Quidditative Essence," Rad Geek People's Daily, May 11, 2006.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 29 Jun 2008 23:16:44 -0700

Week of June 29, 2008

There is no reasoning someone out of a position he has not reasoned himself into.

� Clive James, Cultural Amnesia: Necessary Memories from History and The Arts, 2007.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 22 Jun 2008 15:30:06 -0700

Week of June 22, 2008

Love with your heart. Use your head for everything else.

� Captain Disillusion

Freedom Quote of the Week

Mon, 09 Jun 2008 12:55:23 -0700

Week of June 8, 2008

What kind of culture defines "maturity" as the time when young men and women sacrifice principle to prudence, when they pledge allegiance to the boss in the name of self-promotion and "realism"? What kind of culture defines adulthood as the moment when the self goes underground? One answer might be a military one. The problem is that while unthinking loyalty to one�s commanding officer may be necessary in war, it is disastrous outside of it. Why? Because loyalty, by definition, qualifies individualism, discouraging the expression of individual opinion, recasting honesty as a type of betrayal. Because loyalty to power, rather than to what one believes to be true or right, is fatally undemocratic, and can lead to the most horrendous abuses. Powell's excuse�that he did not want to betray the ethic of the loyal soldier�was precisely the one used by the defendants at Nuremberg, and if you say that the analogy is a reckless one, that Colin Powell is no Rudolf Hess but a generally decent man � an A student, a team player, a loyal employee, a good soldier � I'll agree, and say only this: God save us from men and women like him, for they will do almost anything in the name of "loyalty." Something to consider, perhaps, as the nation contemplates electing to the presidency John McCain, a member of our warrior class for whom loyalty constitutes the highest possible virtue.

What we require most in America today are bad soldiers: stubborn, independent-minded men and women, reluctant to give orders and loath to receive them, loyal not to authority, nor to any specific company or team, but to the ideals of open debate, equality, honesty, and fairness.

� Mark Slouka, "Democracy and Deference," Harper's Magazine, June 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 01 Jun 2008 22:59:27 -0700

Week of June 1, 2008

I tend to agree with Ross that the survey of historians that concluded Bush to be the worst President in history cannot be taken very seriously. First of all, it is almost impossible for contemporaries to give a balanced assessment of a President, especially one who has become as unpopular as this one, and as historians we should know that the full effects of Bush's decisions will not be known for decades. Second, most presidential historians are big fans of Presidents who usurped power, waged wars, abused their offices and did Big Things, so it is really unfair to laud all the others who did this and then disregard Bush, whose "accomplishments" in these areas are remarkable.

� Daniel Larison, "Judgements of History," Eunomia, April 7, 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Mon, 26 May 2008 00:21:11 -0700

Week of May 25, 2008

An enduring mystery to me: I do not understand why anyone in this country stacks so much as one brick on top of another. Observe:

"The Bush tax cuts, more than any other policy, are crippling the government financially." [New York Times editorial: "The tax debate that isn't," December 13, 2007]

Sometimes, dear reader, the f nords blow away and you can see right through the clear sky to the naked, evil premise. The Comfy Commissariat is not concerned with you. Take them at their words.

� Billy Beck, "The Peoples' Soviet of Eighth Avenue," Two--Four, December 13, 2007.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 18 May 2008 20:45:28 -0700

Week of May 18, 2008

Whatever the specifics of the case in question, socialism always means overriding the free decisions of individuals and replacing that capacity for decisionmaking with an overarching plan by the state. Taken far enough, this mode of thought won't just spell an end to opulent lunches. It will mean the end of what we all know as civilization itself. It would plunge us back to a primitive state of existence, living off hunting and gathering in a world with little art, music, leisure, or charity. Nor is any form of socialism capable of providing for the needs of the world's six billion people, so the population would shrink dramatically and quickly and in a manner that would make every human horror ever known seem mild by comparison. Nor is it possible to divorce socialism from totalitarianism, because if you are serious about ending private ownership of the means of production, you have to be serious about ending freedom and creativity too. You will have to make the whole of society, or what is left of it, into a prison.

In short, the wish for socialism is a wish for unparalleled human evil. If we really understood this, no one would express casual support for it in polite company. It would be like saying, you know, there is really something to be said for malaria and typhoid and dropping atom bombs on millions of innocents.

� Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr., "Everything You Love You Owe to Capitalism," delivered at the "Mises Circle in Seattle" event, May 17, 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Mon, 12 May 2008 01:38:14 -0700

Week of May 11, 2008

The chief point I wish to make in this introduction � the core of my position � is that there is a crucial difference between the initiation of aggression and all other acts which, while they may displease us, do not involve such aggression. It is only the act of aggressive violence that violates man's rights. Refraining from aggressive violence must be considered a fundamental law of society. The people dealt with in this book ["the pimp, prostitute, scab, slumlord, libeler, moneylender, and other scapegoats in the rogue's gallery of American society"], though reviled by the media and condemned out of hand by almost everyone, do not violate anyone's rights, so they should not be subject to judicial sanctions. It is my belief that they are scapegoats � they are visible, they are available to attack, but they must be defended, if justice is to prevail.

� Walter Block, Defending the Undefendable, 1976, republished 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 04 May 2008 22:39:54 -0700

Week of May 4, 2008

The chief executive of the United States is no longer a mere constitutional officer charged with the faithful execution of the laws. He is a soul nourisher, a hope giver, a living American talisman against hurricanes, terrorism, economic downturns, and spiritual malaise. He � or she � is the one who answers the phone at 3 a.m. to keep our children safe from harm. The modern president is America's shrink, a social worker, our very own national talk show host. He's also the Supreme Warlord of the Earth.

� Gene Healy, The Cult of the Presidency: America's Dangerous Devotion to Presidential Power, 2008.

Freedom Quote of the Week

Sun, 27 Apr 2008 18:45:38 -0700

Week of April 27, 2008

A Christian will consider a tyrannical person bossing a city brutally a lesser evil than a whole city lynching one man. In the first case there is one sinner and thousands of sufferers, in the latter case thousands of sinners and one sufferer. The materialist will look at the problem the other way round. He is never interested in sin, but as a humanitarian only in suffering. His final logical conclusion is euthanasia and the sacrifice of individuals to the whim of the masses.

� Francis Stuart Campbell (Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn), The Menace of the Herd, 1943.

To follow Nock, what traits must a man of the Right have? He must be both fiercely independent and believe in the power of social authority; he must love tradition but hate the state and everything it does; he must believe in radical freedom while never doubting the immutability of human nature and natural laws; he must be antimaterialist in his own life while defending economic freedom without compromise; he must be an elitist and antidemocrat yet despise elites who hold illicit power; and he must be realistic about the dim prospects for change while still retaining a strong sense of hope and enthusiasm for life.

� Jeffrey A. Tucker, "Albert Jay Nock: Forgotten Man of the Old Right," October 10, 2007.

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