Caitlin Johnstone on the Gaza genocide

The Gaza holocaust will be a litmus test for high-profile figures for decades.  Everyone’s comments or lack thereof on Israel’s genocidal atrocities will be looked up and amplified whenever their name rises to public attention.  It will be the first step in determining whether anyone deserves to be listened to, taken seriously, or voted for.  Their comments on Gaza in the mid-2020s will be the first gate through which they must pass to be considered worthy of attention by normal people. 

Someone asked me, “Why do you care so much about Palestine?” 

I told them ultimately it’s not even especially about Palestine.  I care about humanity.  I don’t want my kids and grandkids living in the kind of world that would watch civilians get ripped to shreds in full view of the entire planet with the support of my government and its allies.  I think that’s pretty reasonable.

~ Caitlin Johnstone, "They Seriously Expected Parades and Trophies For Pausing a Genocide," LewRockwell.com, October 14, 2025

 

Murray Rothbard on the Constitution

Overall, it should be evident that the Constitution was a counterrevolutionary reaction to the libertarianism and decentralization embodied in the American Revolution.  The Antifederalists, supporting states’ rights and critical of a strong national government, were decisively beaten by the Federalists, who wanted such a polity under the guise of democracy in order to enhance their own interests and institute a British-style mercantilism over the country.  Most historians have taken the side of the Federalists because they support a strong national government that has the power to tax and regulate, call forth armies and invade other countries, and cripple the power of the states.  The enactment of the Constitution in 1788 drastically changed the course of American history from its natural decentralized and libertarian direction to an omnipresent leviathan that fulfilled all of the Antifederalists’ fears.  With the ratification of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the new government was now a fact and the Antifederalists would never again agitate for another constitutional convention to weaken American national power and return to a more decentralized and restrained polity.  From now on American liberals, relying on the Bill of Rights and the Tenth Amendment, would go forth and do battle for Liberty and against Power within the framework of the American Constitution as states’-righters and Constitutionalists.  Their battle would be a long and gallant one, but ultimately doomed to fail, for by accepting the Constitution, the liberals would only play with dice loaded implacably against them.  The Constitution, with its inherently broad powers and elastic clauses, would increasingly support an ever larger and more powerful central government. In the long run, the liberals, though they could and did run a gallant race, were doomed to lose—and lose indeed they did.

~ Murray Rothbard

(As quoted by Lew Rockwell, "Rothbard on the Constitution," Mises Wire, October 9, 2025.)

 

 

Dan Ferris and Corey McLaughlin: Is Duffy the only bull on China?

Ferris: He [Kevin Duffy], if I'm not mistaken, is the only person who says China is an opportunity...  Everybody else says it's uninvestable, one guy like Kevin says buy.

 McLaughlin: It's funny because a month or two ago when we interviewed Brett Eversole... and we were talking about cheap, hated and in an uptrend, after that episode I got a message from Kevin on Twitter... "Hey, what about China?"

~ Dan Ferris and Corey McLaughlin, "China Isn't the Enemy - It's an Investing Opportunity," Stansberry Investor Hour, October 6, 2025

 

Kevin Duffy on history

Looking at history, it's like this movie that's unfolding.  If we understand history, we get a sense for how this movie, not how it ends, but where it's going.  We don't necessarily know all of the plot twists along the way; those may be a little more difficult to figure out.

~ Kevin Duffy, "China Isn't the Enemy - It's an Investing Opportunity," Stansberry Investor Hour, October 6, 2025

 

Doug Casey on hate speech

Hate speech is unpleasant. I don't like it any more than anybody else does.  But it's important that there be no regulation of what people say.  Not just because the First Amendment guarantees free speech, but because if you do regulate speech, who decides what's hateful?  It's not an objective standard.  It's an opinion.  And in a highly politicized environment like today's, that's asking for trouble. 

I'm all for people being allowed to say things that are hateful, simply because how else can you know who they are and what they believe?  Trying to preclude hate speech is about as stupid as trying to enforce loving speech.

I like to know what's going on in people's minds, as opposed to trying to guess.  Forewarned is forearmed.  Suppressing so-called hate speech is like putting a lid on a pressure cooker.  At some point, it will blow.  The best solution to so-called hate speech is open discussion.

~ Doug Casey, "Doug Casey on Whether Charlie Kirk's Death Could Be America's Franz Ferdinand Moment," International Man, September 24, 2025

 

Thomas Sowell on barbarism and civilization

Guilt has so furtively stolen into many hearts and minds that people feel apologetic about being civilized, educated and productive when others are barbaric, uneducated and parasitic.  When civilization apologizes to barbarism, something has gone very wrong at a fundamental level.

~ Thomas Sowell

  

Ron Paul: Who killed Charlie Kirk?

I do not believe we have anything near the real story about the horrific murder of Charlie Kirk last week.  The narrative presented by the FBI and other government agencies is wildly contradictory, with an ever-changing plotline that makes little sense. 

Some individuals close to Kirk have reported that his foreign policy position was shifting away from the standard neoconservative militarism in favor of a more non-interventionist approach.  Tucker Carlson recently recounted that Kirk had even gone personally to the White House to urge President Trump to refuse to take military action against Iran.  He was rebuffed by President Trump, Carlson informed us.

 Likewise, conservative podcaster Candace Owens, who was a close friend of Charlie Kirk, has stated on her program that Kirk was undergoing a “spiritual crisis” and was turning away from his past embrace of militarism and in favor of America-first non-interventionism, particularly regarding the current unrest in the Middle East.

Was Charlie Kirk murdered – directly or indirectly – by powerful forces who could not tolerate such a shift in views in such an influential leader?  We don’t know.

~ Ron Paul, "Who Killed Charlie Kirk?," Power & Market, September 16, 2025