Seeing the quote at the top of the list below at Maggie's Farm a couple of days ago made me
look back through their archives to pick over some of the more memorable quotes posted there over the years.
“I can explain it to you, but I can't understand it for you.” - Anon
I don't know how many times I could have used that line over the years because it would have saved me a lot of time.
“Beware the intellectual who seeks power over our decisions and over the persuasion to which we can respond, especially when he seeks this power to prevent us from doing what he thinks we should not desire to do.” - Harold Demsetz
This is an ongoing battle that will never end and one that has caused hundreds of millions of deaths over the past two centuries.
“For every PhD there is an equal and opposite PhD.” - a commenter at Zero Hedge.
Call it the intellectual variant of Newton's laws of physics.
“I have never understood why it is "greed" to want to keep the money you have earned but not greed to want to take somebody else's money.” - Thomas Sowell
That's because the folks who believe it think they know how to spend your hard-earned money better than you do. They are wrong, of course.
“I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.” - Becky Gerritson
Not much I can add to that, so I won't.
“The C student starts a restaurant. The A student writes restaurant reviews.” - P.J. O'Rourke
Those who can't do, criticize. It's been like that forever.
“The safest road to hell is the gradual one - the gentle slope, soft underfoot, without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts.” - C.S. Lewis
Could this be the reason why we see so many Western youth heading off to Syria to take up with the monstrous minions of ISIS? My guess – YES.
“Tyranny is defined as that which is legal for the government but illegal for the citizenry.” - Thomas Jefferson
Amen.
“Everything government touches turns to crap.” - Ringo Starr
If anything Ringo understates the problem. There's very little government does that it can do well, and the higher the level of government the worse it performs. This is not exclusive to democracy as it's even worse for socialist governments, as history has shown us over the past 100+ years.
“In the hands of a skillful indoctrinator, the average student not only thinks what the indoctrinator wants him to think . . . but is altogether positive that he has arrived at his position by independent intellectual exertion. This man is outraged by the suggestion that he is the flesh-and-blood tribute to the success of his indoctrinators.” - William F. Buckley
That is the problem today in our colleges – Indoctrination masquerading as “independent intellectual exertion.” And once indoctrinated, the possibility of logical thought or the ability to “think outside the box” is almost zero. The indoctrinated become nothing but drones, programmed to infect others with the intellectual virus they carry.
“Those who inherited the leadership of the Civil Rights movement looked deep into the content of their character...and decided they'd best be judged by the color of their skin or they were in trouble.” - a Maggie's Farm reader
After all, there was far more money in it for them than if they finished the mission set forth for them by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. If they had, they would have had to get real jobs.
“Never trust anyone who doesn’t eat cheeseburgers.” - Steven Hayward
I have to agree with this one as I have seen it proven out many times over the 7 decades I have been on this Earth.
“Any man who thinks he can be happy and prosperous by letting the government take care of him had better take a closer look at the American Indian.” - Henry Ford
As I have stated to many supporters of cradle to grave care by the government, abundant examples of why this doesn't work exist. All we have to do is look around at the world today and throughout the past to see how well that's worked out, which is to say that it hasn't, ever.
“It is not in the nature of politics that the best men should be elected. The best men do not want to govern their fellowmen.” - George MacDonald
Considering I am a selectman in my little town, I see the wisdom of this. I did not run for office because I wanted to. I had no intention of doing so. When the sitting selectmen asked me to do so to fill the seat of one of them who was retiring, I didn't answer right away. I didn't decide until just before the filing deadline. My 'victory' was a very narrow one, besting my opponent by only 7 votes. I always remember that when I think I'm getting too used to my position in town government. And if the time should come when I think I can do the job better than anyone else it will be a sure sign it's time for me stop serving and step down. I never want to become comfortable in an elective office where I think I know more than the rest of the people in our town. It's a mirage and a dangerous one at that.
“If a foreign country tried to impose upon Americans what the Democrats have done over the past few decades, Americans would fight a war to stop it, and be proud of it.” - a reader comment
Indeed. They keep telling us they want to help the little guy, but what they don't tell you is that they want anyone who isn't them to become little guys and to keep them there, all under the guise of 'help'.
“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
Government is always inefficient when it comes to the needs of the people. That's assuming it really knows what the needs of the people are in the first place, a dangerous assumption.
“All government spending is campaign spending.” - Bird Dog of Maggie's Farm
Truer words were never spoken. Think of it as bribing the people with their own money and it becomes abundantly clear the quote above gets right to the point.
