THOUGHT FOR THE DAY:

GOVERNMENT...SELECT QUOTATIONS:

*Administration covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened,bent, guided;men are seldom restrained from acting,such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, extinguishes and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to nother better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which government is the shepherd.

-Alexis de Tocqueville in 'Democracy In America' (1835)

*Their question hit home, and I knew that I could never again raise my voice against the violence of the oppressed in the ghettos without having first spoken clearly to the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today- my own government.

-Martin Luther King Jr. Speech at Riverside Church in New York City (http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html )

*People should not be afraid of their government. Governments should be afraid of their people.

-V in 'V for Vendetta' (2006)

*Civil government, insofar as it is instituted for the security of property, is in reality instituted for the defense of the rich against the poor, of those who have some property against those who have none at all.

-Adam Smith

*Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.

-P.J. O'Rourke

*Government is a disease masquerading as its own cure.

-L. Neil Smith

*I heartily accept the motto "That government is best which governs least", and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out it finally amounts to this, which I also believe, :That government is best which governs not at all", and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have.

-Henry David Thoreau

*It is just as difficult and dangerous to try and free a people which wants to remain servile as it is to enslave a people that wants to remain free.

-Machiavelli

*No government, of its own motion, will increase its own weakness, for that would mean to acquiesce in its own destruction...governments, whatever their pretensions otherwise, try to preserve themselves by holding the individual down...Government itself, indeed, may be reasonably defined as a conspiracy against him. Its one permanent aim, whatever its form, is to hobble him sufficiently to maintain itself.

-H.L Menchen

TO BE CONTINUED...

QUOTATIONS FROM THE ANARCHISTS:
PART III: MICHAEL BAKUNIN:

1. "Freedom, morality and the human dignity of the individual consists precisely in this; that he does good not because he is forced to do so, but because he freely conceives it, wants it, and loves it".
2. "People go to church for the same reason they go to a tavern:to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy".
3. "The liberty of man consists solely in this:that he obeys natural laws because he has himself recognized them as such, and not because they have been externally imposed upon him by any extrinsic will whatever, divine or human, collective or individual".
4. "The passion for destruction is also a creative passion".
5. "To revolt is a natural tendency of life. Even a worm turns against the foot that crushes it. In general, the vitality and relative dignity of an animal can be measured by the intensity of its instincts to revolt".
6. "The freedom of all is essential to my freedom".
7. "The first revolt is against the supreme tyranny of theology, of the phantom of God. As long as we have a master in heaven, we will be slaves on earth".
8. "From each according to his faculties;to each according to his needs".
9. "Does it follow that I reject all authority ? Perish the thought. In the matter of boots, I defer to the authority of the boot-maker".
10. "I am truly free only when all human beings, men and women, are equally free. The freedom of other men, far from negating or limiting my freedom, is, on the contrary, its necessary premise and confirmation".
11. "Anyone who makes plans for after the revolution is a reactionary".
12. "If there is a state, then there is domination, and in turn there is slavery".
13. "A boss in Heaven is the best excuse for a boss on earth, therefore if God did exist he would have to be abolished".
14. "Where the state begins, individual liberty ceases, and vise versa".
15. "He who desires to worship God must harbour no childish illusions about the matter but bravely renounce his liberty and humanity".
16. "Idealism is the despot of thought, just as politics is the despot of will".
17. "If there is a human being who is freer than I, then I shall necessarily become his slave. If I am freer than any other, then he will become my slave. Therefore equality is an absolutely necessary condition of freedom".
18. "Powerful states can maintain themselves only by crime, little states are virtuous only by weakness".
19. "From the naturalistic point of view, all men are equal. There are only two exceptions to this rule of naturalistic equality:geniuses and idiots".
20. "Throw a theory into the fire. It only spoils life".

21. "Everything will pass, and the world will perish but the Ninth Symphony will remain".

That's it for now. Just a little Molly Note. I've added the WikiQuote and Think Exist sites to the 'Other Interesting Links' section of this blog. Looking to see who said what. Go there as well as to the Quote Garden.

QUOTATIONS FROM THE ANARCHISTS:
PART II:
"If we cannot by reason, by influence, by example, by strenuous effort, and by personal sacrifice mend the bad places of civilization, we certainly cannot do it by force."
Auberon Herbert
"Is not the very beginning of privilege, monopoly and industrial slavery this erecting of the ballot-box above the individual ?"
Benjamin R. Tucker
"It is sad to me that such a basic thing as the principled opposition to coercion is considered to be extremist, unreasonable, unrealistic. Why do I have to believe in perpetual peace to oppose war ? How is it utopian to denounce force ?"
B. K. Marcus
"Statism is the claim that institutionalized proactive coercion is justified."
B. K. Marcus
"All government in essence, says Emerson, is tyranny. It matters not whether it is government by divine right or majority rule. In every instance its aim is the absolute subordination of the individual."
Emma Goldman

"..." QUOTATIONS FROM THE ANARCHISTS:
PART 1
"The political arena leaves one no alternative; one must be either a dunce or a rogue:"
Emma Goldman
"The Anarchists are simply unterrified Jeffersonian Democrats. They believe that 'the best government is that which governs least' and that which governs least is no government at all."
Benjamin Tucker
"Government is an association of men who do violence to the rest of us."
Leo Tolstoy
"I build no system. I ask an end to privilege, the abolition of slavery, equality of rights and the reign of law. Justice, nothing else. That is the alpha and omega of my argument."
Pierre Joseph Proudhon
"From my point of view the killing of another,except in defense of human life, is archistic, authoritarian, and, therefore, no Anarchist can commit such deeds. It is the very opposite of what Anarchism stands for."
Joseph Labadie
"In existing states a fresh law is looked upon as a remedy for evil. Instead of themselves altering what is bad, people begin by demanding a law to alter it."
Peter Kropotkin
"Law never made man a whit more just; and by means of their respect for it, even the well disposed are daily made agents of injustice."
Henry David Thoreau
"The main question is not what motive inspired the law, but what it will be possible for men of bad motive to do with the law."
Benjamin Tucker
"Governments and the military purport to protect the public from enemies, and if there were no enemies they would have to invent some, for the simple purpose of rationalizing their existence."
Lawrence Labadie(son of Joseph L.)
"Every vote for a governing office is an instrument for enslaving me."
Dr. M.E. Lazarus
"Voting is merely a labour saving device for ascertaining on which side force lies and bowing to the inevitable. It is neither more no less than a paper representative of the bayonet, the bully and the bullet."
Benjamin Tucker

More later,
Molly

American Elections Tomorrow:
The American midterm elections will be held tomorrow, and the Democratic Party is hoping that it will turn out to be a referendum on George Bush's war in Iraq, without, of course, committing their party to any firm policy on the war. Individual Democratic candidates are know for their personal anti-war or pro-war (or most commonly weaseling between the sides) stands, but the party as a whole has no firm policy position one way or the other. So as the voters troop off either in the belief that such a policy exists or in the dwindling numbers of those who support the administration here's a few quotes about elections to chew on after all the fuss is over:
A."During a campaign the air is full of speeches- and vice versa"
Author Unknown
B."The oppressed are allowed every few years to decide which particular representatives of the oppressing class are to represent and repress them."
Karl Marx
C."Politics is the gentle art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other."
Oscar Ameringer
D."The problem with political jokes is they get elected."
Henry Cate VII
E."Democracy is being allowed to vote for the candidate you dislike least."
Robert Bryne
F."Do you ever get the feeling that the only reason we have elections is to find out if the polls were right ?"
Robert Orben
G."Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason."
Author Unknown
And finally, last but not least....
H."Don't vote ! It only encourages them."
Author Unknown

News From the Link Front:
A few more links have been added to this blog. Two are local. One, Info Usurpa Winnipeg, is under the general links section. It's a weekly listing of progressive events here in Winnipeg. The other is a blog called Ecology and Participatory Democracy produced by a local graduate student at the U. of M. . The title explains it all.
Finally, there's the promised "The Quote Garden' mentioned previously. It's a ball of fun. to close with a few flowers from the garden:
"Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river."
Nikita Khrushchev
"Politicians are like diapers. They both need changing regularly and for the same reason"
Author Unknown
And now that my favourite holiday of the year is over....
"I'll bet living in a nudist colony takes all the fun out of Halloween"
Author Unknown
"Bda,bda,bda; that's all folks"
For Now
Porky

New Links and Statistics:
I've added a few new links to this blog. Two of them are anarchist blogs, 'Presto's Ramblings' and 'To the Barricades'. Well worth checking out. Also in the 'Other Interesting Links' section is the 'Institute for Local Self Reliance'. This is an organization that, since 1974, has been promoting technologies,economics and political initiatives around the concept of not just "sustainable" but, more importantly, "local" alternatives to the present system. They have a wealth of publications that are well worth looking at.
As to statistics, here are a few quotes from 'The Quote Garden' (http://www.quotegarden.com ), soon to be added to the links.
"Torture numbers, and they'll confess to anything"
-Gregg Easterbrook
"98% of statistics are made up"
-Author unknown
"Statistics are like bikinis. What they reveal is suggestive, but what they conceal is vital"
-Aaron Levenstein
"Statistics can be made to prove anything, even the truth"
-Author unknown
"Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable"
-Author unknown
"Then there is the man who drowned crossing a stream with an average depth of six inches"
-W.I.E. Gates
"There are two kinds of statistics, the kind you look up and the kind you make up"
-Rex Stout
"The average human being has one breast and one testicle"
-Des McHale
And then the inevitable political clinchers:
"The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic"
-Good Ol' Uncle Joe Stalin to Churchill at Potsdam, 1945
Finally, not from 'The Quote Garden', and said by Churchill at a totally different time,
even though it would have stood as the "great rejoiner of history" if it had been said in reply:
"The only statistics you can trust are those you have falsified yourself"
-Winston Churchill
That's it for now. More fun with quotations later.
Molly.

The quotation from Freud that opens Part 2 of Chapter 1 of 'Breaking the Spell' is as follows:
"Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense; by calling "God" some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves, they pose as deists, as believers, before the world; they may even pride themselves on having attained a higher and purer idea of God, although their God is nothing but an insubstantial shadow and no longer the mighty personality of religious doctrine."
-Sigmund Freud, The Future Of An Illusion