The great crimes of the twentieth century were committed not by money-grubbing capitalists but by dedicated idealists. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler were contemptuous of money. The passage from the nineteenth to the twentieth century has been a passage from considerations of money to considerations of power. How naive the cliche that money is the root of evil!
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Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility read more
Government is like a baby. An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
Bad officials are elected by good citizens who do not vote.
...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are read more
...when we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgement. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom- freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse. Herein undoubtedly lies part of the attractiveness of a mass movement.
The ballot is stronger than bullets. - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
The ballot is stronger than bullets. - Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy.
The right to be heard does not autmatically include the right to be taken seriously.
The right to be heard does not autmatically include the right to be taken seriously.
The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the read more
The college idealists who fill the ranks of the environmental movement seem willing to do absolutely anything to save the biosphere, except take science courses and learn something about it.
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; read more
Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.
...the ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but read more
...the ultimate decision about what is accepted as right and wrong will be made not by individual human wisdom but by the disappearance of the groups that have adhered to the "wrong" beliefs.
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant read more
Even a cursory glance at history should convince one that individual crimes committed for selfish motives play a quite insignificant part in the human tragedy, compared to the numbers massacred in unselfish loyalty to one's tribe, nation, dynasty, church, or political ideology, ad majorem gloriam dei. The emphasis is on unselfish. Excepting a small minority of mercenary or sadistic disposition, wars are not fought for personal gain, but out of loyalty and devotion to king, country or cause. Homicide committed for personal reasons is a statistical rarity in all cultures, including our own. Homicide for unselfish reasons, at the risk of one's own life, is the dominant phenomenon of history.
