We shall have lost something vital and beyond price on the day when the state denies us the right to resort to force…
Louis D. Brandeis quoted by Alfred Lief in The Brandeis Guide to the Modern World (1941), p. 212
Found at The Volokh Conspiracy
Tag: QotD
Quote of the Day – The Scum Also Rises Edition
Every combination of two or more human beings has both a useful aspect and a political aspect. These tend to conflict with each other. As the political aspect becomes more and more influential, the organization ceases to be useful to its members and starts using them.Why does this happen? Because the better an organization is at fulfilling its purpose, the more it attracts people who see the organization as an opportunity to advance themselves.The ability to get ahead in an organization is simply another talent, like the ability to play chess, paint pictures, do coronary bypass operations or pick pockets. There are some people who are extraordinarily good at manipulating organizations to serve their own ends. The Russians, who have suffered under such people for centuries, have a name for them — apparatchiks. It was an observer of apparatchiks who coined the maxim, “The scum rises to the top.”Empire of the Rising Scum, Robert Shea
Found in a link in a comment to a post at Roberta’s that’s quite good in its own right. That’s just a taste. Read the whole thing.
Quote of the Day II – Blindingly Obvious Edition
The elite live in a different country than the rest of Americans. It is not possible to understand the System and its actions without understanding this fact. The elite see its own ascendancy as just, and cannot understand the anger below. Yet the rules for success used by the elite are often very different from the rules observed by ordinary people. This leads the elite to believe that those below ‘cannot be told’ the real reason for decisions that are made. The question becomes what should the people be told, not what the facts are. The perplexity of the voter who tries first one party and then the other, winding up always with the same elite, shows how democracy has given way to rule by the System’s managers. Shared knowledge leads to shared assumptions, which are even more crucial than knowledge in making it possible for the elite managers to work together without ‘conspiracy.’ These invisible shared assumptions are the real Constitution, the real fundamental law, which guides the System.Charles A. Reich, Opposing the System
I somehow doubt I share much in common with Mr. Reich from a socio-political standpoint, but our viewpoints certainly coincide on this position.
Quote of the Day
Another one by Salim Mansur, via Glenn:
As Martin Walker, then the Moscow correspondent for the Guardian, reported in August 1992, Arbatov said to him: “We are going to do the worst thing we possibly can to America — we are going to take away their enemy.” Arbatov, you might recall, was a member of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, responsible for keeping track of Soviet-American relations.
Arbatov — now looking back nearly twenty years later in deconstructing his words — seemed to possess a piercing understanding, as student of history, of the American scene, and how it could likely unfold over time in the post-Soviet and post-Communist era. His words to Walker were more insightful than any offered by just about all the left-leaning talking heads and commentators, in the U.S., Canada, and Europe put together. Arbatov understood, given his experience sitting in the privileged seat of the party in Moscow during the Brezhnev period, how the existence of Communist Russia checked the forces of the left in the West, keeping them from gaining influence and power. Now, as Arbatov reflected, since the Soviet Union as a military superpower had collapsed and the threat of Soviet Communism was discarded in the so-called dustbin of history, the spoiled children and beneficiaries of the West’s longest and strongest economic expansion and technological achievements, unparalleled in history, would set forth to do what the Soviet Union could not do — to advance the aim of Communism to wreck liberal capitalism from the inside.
RTWT
Quote of the Day – Seventh Circuit Edition
In keeping with the post below:
There is a constitutional right not to be murdered by a state officer, for the state violates the Fourteenth Amendment when its officer, acting under color of state law, deprives a person of life without due process of law. Brazier v. Cherry, 293 F.2d 401, 404-05 (5th Cir. 1961). But there is no constitutional right to be protected by the state against being murdered by criminals or madmen. It is monstrous if the state fails to protect its residents against such predators but it does not violate the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment or, we suppose, any other provision of the Constitution. The Constitution is a charter of negative liberties; it tells the state to let people alone
Found initially at Another Gun Blog, where Mike W. has some important things to say on the topic.
Quote of the Day – History Doesn’t Repeat Itself
…But It Does Rhyme Edition:
I am more convinced now … that the West has gone over the tipping point in its terminal decline. That intelligent people, or people who claim to be intelligent, (I have in mind the talking heads in the U.S. media such as Chris Matthews or Fareed Zakaria) cannot make the difference between the sham of the Muslim Brotherhood talking about freedom and democracy and the generic thirst in man to be free. These are the people who have like the Bourbons learned nothing and forgotten nothing. They are glibly about to put the Lenins of our time into trains heading for Moscows of our time….Salim Mansur as related by Claire Berlinski
(h/t: Instapundit)
RTWT. There’s still hope, but it’s fading fast. Billy Beck’s Endarkenment comes ever nearer.
Quote of the Day – Education Edition
Americans have an instinctive understanding of the economic contradictions of collective farming on the Soviet or Maoist models. We understand why socialist enterprises such as Venezuela’s state-run petroleum companies are destined to failure. But we fail to recognize that many of our own systems — using central planning to implement the public provision of non-public goods — are organized along precisely the same lines. The outstanding local example of this is the American public-school system.—The aim of public education is, and has always been, to make members of the public more standardized and thus better suited for incorporation into The Plan. It is unsurprising that socialists have taken up the cause with verve.
Kevin D. Williamson, Socialism is Back, National Review Online
Quote of the Day – Been There, Done That Edition
In a comment to yesterday’s What We’re Up Against, reader Thorspapa left this gem:
…as an immigrant from a communist country, I remember similar discussions aired at social gatherings (this is WAY before anybody even conceived of a personal computer or internet) in the beginning of the Communist dictatorship takeover.Though most of those involved have now passed away (it was a long time ago), I had the satisfaction of seeing some of these deluded souls come to the realization that theory, well wishes, and reality are often not close to each other.Their realization that the world works different than they thought was sad to watch. The common denominator (at first) was denial: they often stated over and over that things were going badly because some outside force (Imperialists) were working against the brave and well meaning “Government of the People”.Later on, they would insist that fairness and plenty were just around the corner, and all it would take was a few more years of sacrifice, a search for those that “had too much and were hoarding their wealth”, and more trust in that benevolent group of people known as “the Government”Eventually, when everybody was equally miserable, hungry and destitute (except for those “Benevolent Government” officials), reality did set in.I’m an old man now, and can’t help but bristle when I see the same denial of reality grow in my beloved adopted country. I though living through this stupidity once in a lifetime was too much, now I must live it twice. From previous experience, its an uphill battle against these people, when they own the sources of propaganda and “Higher Learning”. The battle can be won, but it requires involvement. Those sitting on the sidelines ignoring current events because they’re busy, will eventually see the error of their ways…….too late.
Quote of the Day – Constitution Edition
From ViolentIndifference:
Congress: None of you, even the few that I like, are half as smart as the writers of our bill of rights. You cannot change our rights. Don’t change or amend the document that exists to let you know what our rights are.
Please take note that the Constitution is not yours. You are not babysitters that make up rules for us. The Constitution belongs to us. It is a set of rules that you need to follow.
Read the whole post. It even has a quote from Serenity.
Quote of the Day – UK Edition
Reader Bob Beagle pointed to an article in the UK Telegraph about how the Giffords shooting is just more evidence that the US needs to adopt strict gun laws. I found this comment to that piece worthy of being QotD in its entirety:
If I may suggest, the repeated acts of treason by sitting prime ministers of the UK, the forced participation in the anti-democratic EU, the end of habeas corpus, the loss of protest rights, the loss of free expression rights ….. all serve to make many in the UK acutely aware that a weak populace will be treated with contempt.
In the UK we were disarmed by the state, and now that state thinks nothing of signing our national sovereignty away against a manifesto pledge.
Gordon Brown shoulld(sic) be executed for his treason against the british people. The treason is continuing under cameron(sic).
If these traitors, protected by a corrupt judicial system at least feared getting a righteous bullet between the eyes, perhaps they would think twice before betraying the people.
We have already witnessed the end of democracy in the UK. That would not have happened if the people had the right to carry firearms.
So, if we sound like NRA stooges, it is simply because we now understand what we have lost and why.