Thursday, January 19. 2012
“Political atheism: End justifies the means. This is still the most widespread of all the opinions inimical to liberty.”
Lord Acton
Wednesday, January 18. 2012
Nor do I seek to understand that I may believe, but I believe that I may understand. For this too I believe, that unless I first believe, I shall not understand.
Saint Anselm of Canterbury (c. 1033 – 1109) h/t Anchoress' Believe! And Get Yer Patron Saint!
The way I say it is that you can study the chemistry of water for years, but you can't know what water is until you jump in the pond and take a swim in it.
Monday, January 16. 2012
I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.
Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sunday, January 15. 2012
There are many things the government can't do, many good purposes it must renounce. It must leave them to the enterprise of others. It cannot feed the people. It cannot enrich the people. It cannot teach the people.
Lord Acton
Saturday, January 14. 2012
..the interest of individuals is above the exclusive interest of the state. The power of the whole is not to be set in the balance for a moment with freedom-that is, the conscience of the subject - and those who act on other principle are the worst of criminals.
Lord Acton
Friday, January 13. 2012
The danger is not that a particular class is unfit to govern. Every class is unfit to govern.
Lord Acton
Thursday, January 12. 2012
"If you can't come up with a good answer, maybe it's because you're asking the wrong question."
Everybody says it, but I keep forgetting it: Always look back to the premise
Wednesday, January 11. 2012
"But, by an inference as false as it is unjust, do you know what the economists are now accused of? When we oppose subsidies, we are charged with opposing the very thing that it was proposed to subsidize and of being the enemies of all kinds of activity, because we want these activities to be voluntary and to seek their proper reward in themselves. Thus, if we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in religious matters, we are atheists. If we ask that the state not intervene, by taxation, in education, then we hate enlightenment. If we say that the state should not give, by taxation, an artificial value to land or to some branch of industry, then we are the enemies of property and of labor. If we think that the state should not subsidize artists, we are barbarians who judge the arts useless."
Frederic Bastiat, 1848 (h/t Coyote)
Tuesday, January 10. 2012
“Put first things first and we get second things thrown in: put second things first and we lose both first and second things. We never get, say, even the sensual pleasure of food at its best."
CS Lewis, via The First Things First Principle
Monday, January 9. 2012
"Atheism is like AIDS: it robs you of the ability to repel invading viruses, philosophical or mental, by crippling the spiritual version of your immune system."
John C. Wright, h/t Vanderleun
Friday, December 30. 2011
"Nothing is worth more than this day."
Goethe
Thursday, December 29. 2011
"We get too soon old, and too late smart."
An old German saying
Wednesday, December 28. 2011
"Being that stupid should hurt."
Slightly adapted from a recent observation by Neptunus. It can seem like a shame that ignorance is painless, but maybe it's all for the best...People used to say "No brain, no pain," but I like the way Imus says "That is so dumb it makes my hair hurt."
"There is no substitute for the courage to act."
Ralph Peters
Monday, December 5. 2011
"When taxes are too high, people go hungry. When the government is too intrusive, people lose their spirit. Act for the people's benefit. Trust them; leave them alone."
Lao Tzu
Friday, December 2. 2011
 I love the old phrase: "We have the answer. Now what was the question again?"
It's the corollary to "For a man with a hammer, every problem is a nail."
Re my post yesterday, I still cannot understand why a jelly shop needs to be licensed and regulated. Haven't farmers been selling jams, jellies, and pies to happy customers for hundreds of years?
Lengthy and complex regulations are employment schemes for government employees and lawyers as much as anything else. Forget state regs -there are 86,000 pages in the Fed Register. Nobody knows what is in there, but it you violate one of them, you can be screwed.
Here's the right way to do regulatory relief.
Monday, November 28. 2011
“I will not cede more power to the state. I will not willingly cede more power to anyone, not to the state, not to General Motors, not to the CIO. I will hoard my power like a miser, resisting every effort to drain it away from me. I will then use my power as I see fit. I mean to live my life an obedient man, but obedient to God, subservient to the wisdom of my ancestors; never to the authority of political truths arrived at yesterday at the voting booth."
William F. Buckley Jr, via Samiz
Friday, November 25. 2011
All that we call human history - money, poverty, ambition, war, prostitution, classes, empires, slavery - [is] the long terrible story of man trying to find something other than God which will make him happy.
C.S. Lewis, in Mere Christianity. Fair enough, CS, but being in requited love with a young lady comes close, given our human limits.
Wednesday, November 23. 2011
Tuesday, November 22. 2011
"All government spending is campaign spending."
Our Editor Bird Dog said that, this morning. So, I want to ask McCain and Feingold, "What are the limits on that?"
Monday, November 21. 2011
"Sometimes the first duty of intelligent men is the restatement of the obvious."
George Orwell (h/t, reader)
Thursday, November 17. 2011
"The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods."
H. L. Menchen (h/t, reader)
Tuesday, November 15. 2011
"From shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in three generations."
Lancashire version: “There’s nobbut three generations atween a clog and clog.”
Scottish version: “The father buys, the son builds, the grandchild sells, and his son begs.”
Tuesday, November 8. 2011
"I suppose, indeed, that in public life, a man whose political principles have any decided character and who has energy enough to give them effect must always expect to encounter political hostility from those of adverse principles."
Thomas Jefferson
Friday, October 28. 2011
"Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, first make sure that you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes."
William Gibson
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