Tom DiLorenzo on how Lincoln rationalized the suspension of constitutional liberties

Having suspended habeas corpus, Lincoln ordered the arrest and imprisonment of virtually anyone who disagreed with his views - views that were new, radical, and not yet subject to any debate by the people's representatives in Congress or by the judiciary...  Lincoln rationalized this suspension of constitutional liberties - at least in his own mind - with the rhetorical tool of falsely equating the Constitution with the Union... [even though secession] was certainly the belief of most Americans at the time.  In the end, it was Lincoln's willingness to use brute military force, not his legal reasoning or his rhetorical talents, that allowed him to get away with such a radical assault on constitutional liberties.

~ Tom DiLorenzo, The Real Lincoln, pp. 132-133

Marching in Step to the Music of the Union

Benjamin Franklin on democracy and liberty

Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch.  Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote.

~ Benjamin Franklin

Kevin Duffy on Social Security

The boomers didn't have enough kids to keep the Ponzi going.

~ Kevin Duffy, September 30, 2018

America's Light Leads Her
Generations Onward

Marc Faber on freedom of speech and press

If you have to live in a society where you cannot express your views and your views are immediately condemned without further analysis and analysis of the context in which [they’re written] — if you can’t live with that, then it is a sad state of where freedom of the press and freedom of expression have come.

~ Marc Faber, quoted in "Faber says U.S. wouldn’t have made as much ‘progress’ if colonized by blacks," MarketWatch.com, October 18, 2017

G. K. Chesterton on public schooling

The purpose of Compulsory Education is to deprive the common people of their commonsense.

~ G. K. Chesterton

H.L. Mencken on democracy

I do not believe in democracy, but I am perfectly willing to admit that it provides the only really amusing form of government ever endured by mankind.

~ H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy

Mark Twain on American imperialism in the Pacific

I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go screaming into the Pacific ...Why not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked myself? ... I said to myself, Here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American Constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves. But I have thought some more, since then, and I have read carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem. It should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to make those people free, and let them deal with their own domestic questions in their own way. And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land.

~ Mark Twain, New York Herald (1900)

Kevin Duffy: "Most Americans wouldn’t know freedom if it hit them in the head"

Most Americans wouldn’t know freedom if it hit them in the head. They think if the majority votes for something they can legitimately steal it from the minority who were opposed. They think preemptively toppling dictators is consistent with our heritage. They think government has the right to subsidize our housing, regulate our health care, brainwash our children, and mandate our savings. And as long as the majority who is willing to cast a ballot goes along with this, they call it “freedom” and “democracy”.

This is a sad state of affairs.

“We are endowed, by our creator, with these inalienable rights, the rights to life, liberty, and property.” This is what freedom used to mean. This was the foundation of the American Revolution and the American experiment a bit over 200 years ago. The Founders were human and their constitution wasn’t perfect (e.g. slavery). But they were on to something. And they knew that public schooling, income taxation, and a military that went “in search of monsters to destroy” were inconsistent with freedom.

Americans today, sadly, don’t have a clue. How did we get from there to here, the omnipotent state? There were several critical episodes. The major ones began with Lincoln. His war was not motivated by abolishing slavery, but by his desire to “preserve the union” for the purpose of subjugating the minority in the South. Not even a century earlier, the Founders established the idea of states’ rights and secession as the ultimate check on federal power. Lincoln smashed this concept with brute force. Then there was Woodrow Wilson who brought us a central bank, income taxation, and our first major foray into foreign entanglements, ignoring the wisdom of the Founders. Less than 80 years later, the Fed has destroyed over 95% of the value of the dollar, government steals around 35% from its citizens (up from roughly 3-5% in 1913), and the American military is the most powerful, expansive, and dangerous on earth. Next comes FDR who lied about raising taxes and getting us into WWII. Using the Fed-induced Great Depression as an excuse, he expanded the role of the federal government on a massive scale, giving us nightmares such as the SEC and social security (both passed in 1934) that are with us today. Sure, he created plenty of make-work jobs, but income taxes had to explode in order to pay for it.

That leaves us with good ‘ole Ronny Reagan, truly an endearing figure, especially compared to the motley cast of characters who preceeded him. Government was failing during the late 1970s thanks to an overwhelming regulatory apparatus and the Fed’s printing press, no longer tethered to gold in any way (the final tie severed at Bretton Woods in 1971), which ignited a wave of inflation. Reagan was given a clear mandate to roll back the state. Yet not one federal department was shuttered. Top income tax rates were lowered, but payroll taxes were raised. Spending continued to grow, as did government’s share of our wealth through taxation. For all the hoopla, the Reagan Revolution was a dud. Despite the Great Orator’s fiery rhetoric, the momentum for greater freedom and limited government was lost.

~ Kevin Duffy, Bearing Asset Management, November 4, 2004

William Penn on democracy

Let the people think they govern, and they will be governed.

~ William Penn, Some Fruits of Solitude, 1693