Once Law was sitting on the bench
And Mercy knelt a-weeping.
“Clear out!” he cried, “disordered wench!
Nor come before me creeping.
Upon you knees if you appear,
‘Tis plain you have no standing here.”
Then Justice came. His Honor cried:
“YOUR states? — Devil seize you!”
“Amica curiae,” she replied —
“Friend of the court, so please you.”
“Begone!” he shouted — “There’s the door —
I never saw your face before!”
Ambrose Bierce
The Devil’s Dictionary
Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place.
Frederic Bastiat
1801-1850
Taking a long view of history, we may say that anyone who lays down his arms deserves whatever he gets.
Col. Jeff Cooper
THE STORY that amused me most in 1998 came out of the Christopher Hitchens’ column in The Nation: “At a glamorous book launch given by Vogue for Katharine Graham, a Nation colleague of mine was introduced to Henry Kissinger. On hearing the name of the magazine, the doctor drew back. “The Nation? So I suppose you think I am a war criminal?” Yielding to that fatal instinct that sometimes urges people to be laid-back and unpredictable, my comrade attempted a pleasantry and observed that in these post-Cold War days, the old mag was just as likely to describe – who knows? – Bill Clinton as a war criminal. Kissinger stared into his cocktail and said slowly and distinctly, `Mr. Clinton does not have the strength of character to be a war criminal.'”
From Paul Smith
January 13, 1999
In Pierce County [Washington] the way the prosecutor decides whether to press charges or not is to print out the arrest records of the people involved and weigh them… Scumbag dead, good guy still upright — good guy walks. Scumbag dead, other scumbag still upright — scumbag gets prosecuted. The guy is an IPSC shooter himself, he figures you are just cleaning out the gene pool when you shoot a scumbag.
Greg Hamilton
Self Defense Instructor
Nov. 19, 1995
No longer is the issue merely that of belittling an immigrant group. Just as there are heroes of free speech in Denmark, there are also heroes – from the Arabian Peninsula to North Africa to Indonesia – who are ready to take to the barricades to defend their prophet’s dignity.
Jürgen Gottschlich
A German journalist based in Istanbul
Quoted on February 7, 2006 in A ‘dangerous moment’ for Europe and Islam
I can imagine no greater misfortune for a cultured people than to see in the hands of the rulers not only the civil, but also the religious power.
Caius Valerius Catullus
[Theocracies have been known to be a bad thing for a long, long time. I wish the Muslim extremists could drag themselves into at least the 19th century.–Joe]
It is unjustifiable under any kind of personal freedoms to allow a person or a group to insult the beliefs of millions of Muslims.
Al-Thawra
Syrian state-run daily newspaper
Quoted in Ireland Online
February 5, 2006
Mrs. Roosevelt’s polemical life was lived right in the heart of liberal mania, with the results that, themselves bereft of their senses, they were incapable of recognizing that Mrs. Roosevelt was bereft of hers.
William F. Buckley, Jr.
Up From Liberalism
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought.
John F. Kennedy (1917 – 1963)
[Think gun control.–Joe]
If I could have one wish fulfilled right now, it would be for someone to get fusion electricity production operational. Cheap electricity would, in a decade or two, make oil irrelevant. The Arab nations would go back to being Bedouins–and we could turn that part of the world into a giant nature preserve, as a reminder of what happens when you get stuck in the twelfth century, and refuse to move forward.
Clayton Cramer
Middle Eastern Oil Dependence
February 01, 2006
[Not entirely true but probably close enough for Mideast politics. Oil is used for lots of things besides energy. Lubricants, solvents, and plastics are just the start of a very long list.–Joe]
The new Conservative government has the federal long gun registry in its crosshairs, which has prompted some defenders of the program to plead with the Tories not to pull the trigger on the much-maligned registry.
But the cries of clemency coming from crime victims and now police chiefs, as compelling as they may be, must not be heeded and the registry must be put out of its misery.
The Brandon Sun
Say goodbye to the gun registry
January 31, 2006
[If this actually comes about it will give freedom lovers everywhere hope.–Joe]
The Council of Peoples’ Commissars has resolved that:
1) All Citizens and all civil organizations should surrender machineguns, rifles, revolvers of all kinds – whether working or defective – as well as cartridges, and all models of sabres.
This decree also applies to all organizations which possess the above-mentioned weapons, and which are not part of regular military detachments approved by the People’s Commissariat of Military Affairs or the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic.
NOTE: All certificates for keeping weapons are therefore invalidated.
Deputy Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, E. Sklyansky
Approved 29/X 1918
Chairman of the Council of People’s Commissars
V. Ulyanov (Lenin)
From Lethal Laws–Gun Control is the Key to Genocide
[Instructions that accompanied the decree specifically exempted members of the Russian Communist Party from the requirement that all firearms be surrendered. From 1929 to 1953 Stalin murdered about 20,000,000 persons. Never register all, if any, of your guns. Registration fails my Jews in the Attic Test.–Joe]
In short, he is a man begging for subjugation. He longs for its promise of equality in helplessness. Because only when that strange, independent alpha breed of male is helpless along with him will he feel adequate. Indeed, his freedom lies in this other man’s containment.
Julia Gorin
The anti-gun male
Jewish World Review
March 8, 2002 / 24 Adar, 5762
http://www.jewishworldreview.com/julia/gorin030802.asp
[Thanks to Zendo Deb for the pointer to this article.–Joe]
… but as records of courts and justice are admissible, it can easily be proved that powerful and malevolent magicians once existed and were a scourge to mankind. The evidence (including confession) upon which certain women were convicted of witchcraft and executed was without a flaw; it is still unimpeachable. The judges’ decisions based on it were sound in logic and in law. Nothing in any existing court was ever more thoroughly proved than the charges of witchcraft and sorcery for which so many suffered death. If there were no witches, human testimony and human reason are alike destitute of value.
Ambrose Bierce
The Devil’s Dictionary
[What do you expect with the legal system infected by Neurotypicals?–Joe]
When the government tries to stop someone from ruining his life with drugs, it converts a personal tragedy into a national disaster.
Harry Browne
March 1998
Libertarian Candidate for President in 1996.
Wherever they burn books they will also, in the end, burn human beings.
Heinrich Heine
(1797-1886)
Almansor: A Tragedy (1823).
[Something to think about in regards to extremists of all flavors.–Joe]
Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
Franz Kafka
1883-1924
He has erected a multitude of New Offices and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people, and eat out their substance.
Thomas Jefferson
The Declaration of Independence
Listing the abuses of King George III
[Sound like any government you know in present day?–Joe]