If all men are created equal, that is final. If they are endowed with inalienable rights, that is final. If governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, that is final. No advance, no progress can be made beyond these propositions.
President Calvin Coolidge, on 150th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
When we see children in elementary schools out carrying signs in demonstrations, we are seeing the kind of mindless groupthink that causes adults to sign petitions they don’t understand or—worse yet—follow leaders they don’t understand, whether to the White House, the Kremlin or Jonestown.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.236
Our society has come to adopt many of the draconian measures Orwell tried to warn us about. Cameras monitor citizens from nearly every street corner in the United Kingdom, and there are a steadily growing number of them mounted traffic lights in America. The fact that Orwell’s 1984 remains a part of the required reading in many high schools across the country is laughably ironic. What is truly sad is how many readers acknowledge the brilliant foresight of Orwell yet fail to grasp how closely present-day America (and England) resemble Winston Smith’s Oceania.
Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-up in American Politics, pg.337
Sometimes Christians are criticized as intolerant busybodies who make rules about other people’s business. However, intolerance works both ways. Those who become angry at restrictions on which gender of person they may marry are often delighted to support policies requiring employers to provide contraception and abortion services to their employees.
Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg.227
A fire broke out backstage in a theatre. The clown came out to warn the public; they thought it was a joke and applauded. He repeated it; the acclaim was even greater. I think that’s just how the world will come to an end: to general applause from wits who believe it’s a joke.
Soren Kierkegaard, Either/Or.
People are all born ignorant but they are not born stupid. Much of the stupidity we see today is induced by our educational system, from elementary schools to the universities. In a high-tech age that has seen the creation of artificial intelligence by computers, we are also seeing the creation of artificial stupidity by people who call themselves educators.
Educational institutions created to pass on to the next generation the knowledge, experience and culture of the generations that went before them have instead been turned into indoctrination centers to promote whatever notions, fashions or ideologies happen to be in vogue among today’s intelligentsia.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.234-235
Those who want more power have known for centuries that giving people somebody to hate and fear is the key.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.226
Calling an unborn human a “fetus” or “product of conception” but not a “baby” or “person” changes people’s perceptions of unborn human’s value and makes abortion more permissible.
Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg.210
The “Fed” in Federal Reserve is purposefully misleading; the Federal Reserve is a private corporation, not a government agency. Of course, most people don’t even know that, let alone understand the concept of fractional banking, which is legal counterfeiting. How many people in the course of history have been sentenced to prison for doing what every bank does routinely? When you hear the candidates, and their mouthpieces in the mainstream media, bemoaning the “debt” we must pay, remember how our system really works. That debt is not the responsibility of the taxpayers; why should the public assume the incomprehensible loans that bankers brokered from Communist China, for instance? In reality, we need to repudiate the interest on the national debt and force the banks to manage their own faulty business transactions.
Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-up in American Politics, pg.319
Under fractional lending, banks are only required to have 10 percent in reserve, which means they can “lend” out $100 for every $10 they actually posses. This is why all economic debates between Republicans and Democrats are meaningless; they don’t address the core issue, which is that 90 percent of all principal in circulation from various loans is counterfeit and was created out of thin air. Obviously, as such, it can never be retrieved, and every penny of the usurious interest rates on every loan is imaginary, again conjured up out of nothing.
Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-up in American Politics, pg.318-319
The truly dangerous period in life is the time when the child has learned the limits of his parents’ control, and how to circumvent their control, but has not yet understood or accepted the underlying reasons for doing and not doing things. This adolescent period is one that some people—intellectuals especially—never outgrow.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.222
The problem is not that particular people do particular things to get attention. The problem is that the society at large no longer has standards by which to deny or rebuke attention-seekers who have nothing to contribute to society. Do not expect sound judgements in a society where being “non-judgmental” is an exalted value. As someone has said, if you don’t stand for something, you will fall for anything.
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.203
If God does not exist, theology is a waste of time. If God does exist, though, everything else is a waste of time if it does not take theology into account.
Jeff Myers & David A. Noebel, Understanding the Times: A Survey of Competing Worldviews, pg.174
People can get attention either from their accomplishments or from their deliberate attempts to get attention. Today, almost everywhere you look, people seem to be putting their efforts into getting attention. Wild hairdos, huge tattoos, pierced body parts, outlandish clothing, weird statements—all of these have become substitutes for achievements.
Some parents give their children off-the-wall names, as if that is the way to give them some kind of individuality. On the contrary, it means joining a stampede toward showiness,
Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg. 201
Ethanol is hailed as an environmentally friendly fuel because it supposedly generates less carbon during combustion. Ask any mechanic which fuel provides more engine power: ethanol or gasoline. And let’s not forget the inconvenient truth: producing ethanol requires massive amounts of water, land, and energy. Some experts argue that when you factor in the entire production process, ethanol may actually consume more natural resources than petroleum. But who cares about the details when we’re saving the planet? …
But wait, there’s more! Ethanol is being touted as the answer to our energy prayers, overshadowing hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (FCEVs). It’s a breakthrough, they say. Yet despite all the hype, ethanol still faces the same old criticism. It’s a resource hog. It diverts crops from food production, sending food prices sky-high. So what good is it to have an “efficient” car when you can't afford to drive it to the grocery store since you can’t afford a $10 loaf of bread?
Gerald McGlothlin, Did the world's largest car company just make the world's biggest blunder?
There will be in the next generation or so a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak. Producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda, or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution.
Aldous Huxley, U.S. State Department sponsored speech to the Tavistock Group in 1961.
