Jim’s Quote of the Day:
“If the moment of truth comes tomorrow, I’ll be free, or by God I’ll be dead.” – Audie Murphy
“If the moment of truth comes tomorrow, I’ll be free, or by God I’ll be dead.” – Audie Murphy
“This, by the way, is a good place to pause and explain to readers who will write in wondering why the United States will tolerate an Israeli nuclear force but not an Iranian one. The answer is simple. Israel will probably not blow up New York. That’s why the United States doesn’t mind Israel having nukes and does mind Iran having them. Is that fair? This is power politics, not sharing time in preschool. End of digression.” – George Friedman
“We don’t raise any corn on the farm but prices for wheat and barley have risen because the corn previously used for livestock feed is being pulled off the market for ethanol. Cattle, sheep, and pigs will eat chopped barley and wheat as well as corn so wheat is now at something like a 30 year high. Ignoring for now the fact that it’s not an all time high, that 30+ years ago wheat sold for more than it does today, we realize that there might be an increase in prosperity of some farmers in the near future. Some people …
“If there were no such thing in this world as becoming surety, if the free lending portrayed in the gospel were the general practice, and if only hard cash or wares on hand were exchanged in trade, then the greatest and most harmful dangers and faults and failings of trade and commerce would be well out of the way. It would then be easy to engage in all sorts of business enterprises, and the other sinful faults of trade could the more readily be prevented. If there were none of this becoming surety and this lending without risk, many a …
“I knew I’d been living in Berkeley too long when I saw a sign that said ‘Free Firewood’ and my first thought was ‘Who was Firewood, and what did he do?’” – John Berger
"Qui desiderat pacem, praeparet bellum." ("Let him who desires peace prepare for war.") Usually more simply quoted as "Si vis pacem, para bellum." – Flavius Vegetius Renatus circa (375 AD), in Epitoma rei Militaris
“Survivalists are cursed with enough intelligence and awareness to deny them the blissful ignorance under which most others live their lives.” – Rourke
"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" – Thomas Jefferson, Works 8:404; P.P.N.S. p. 141.
“Without God, there is no virtue, because there’s no prompting of the conscience. Without God, we’re mired in the material, that flat world that tells us only what the senses perceive. Without God, there is a coarsening of the society. And without God, democracy will not and cannot long endure. If we ever forget that we’re one nation under God, then we will be a nation gone under.” – Ronald Wilson Reagan, speaking at a prayer breakfast.
"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants." – William Penn
"I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just; That his justice cannot sleep forever." – Thomas Jefferson
"Four things come not back – the spoken word, the sped arrow, times past, the neglected opportunity." – Omar ibn al Halif
“The way to have good and safe government, is not to trust it all to one, but to divide it among the many, distributing to every one exactly the functions he is competent to. Let the national government be entrusted with the defense of the nation, and its foreign and federal relations; the State government with the civil rights, law, police, and administration of what concerns the State generally; the counties with the local concerns of the counties, and each ward direct the interests within itself. It is by dividing and subdividing these republics from the great national one down …
"It is certain that free societies will have no easy time of it in a future dark age. The rapid return of universal penury will be accompanied by violence and cruelties of a kind now forgotten. The force of law will be scant or nil, either because of collapse of machinery of state, or because of difficulties in communication and transport. It will be possible only to delegate authority to local powers who will maintain it by force alone. – Roberto Vacca, The Coming Dark Age
"Freedom is not synonymous with an easy life… There are many difficult things about freedom: It does not give you safety, it creates moral dilemmas for you; it requires self-discipline; it imposes great responsibilities; but such is the nature of Man and in such consists his glory and salvation." – Margaret Thatcher