Daniel Moss > Daniel's Quotes

“The State has a legal monopoly on the right to use aggression against others in the form of taxation and compulsory edicts (legislation). Not only must “customers” pay into its operation without regard to their consent, but they must surrender to the rules its internal processes determine at all times. Additionally, the State has a monopoly on the provision of security, and has anointed itself as the ultimate arbiter in all conflicts, including those conflicts which involve its own agents. It”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“Socialism, like the ancient ideas from which it springs, confuses the distinction between government and society. As a result of this, every time we object to a thing being done by government, the socialists conclude that we object to its being done at all. We disapprove of state education. Then the socialists say that we are opposed to any education. We object to a state religion. Then the socialists say that we want no religion at all. We object to a state-enforced equality. Then they say that we are against equality. And so on, and so on. It is as if the socialists were to accuse us of not wanting persons to eat because we do not want the state to raise grain.”
― Frederic Bastiat, The Law

“Need' now means wanting someone else's money. 'Greed' means wanting to keep your own. 'Compassion' is when a politician arranges the transfer.”
― Joseph Sobran

“Anyone who says that economic security is a human right, has been to much babied. While he babbles, other men are risking and losing their lives to protect him. They are fighting the sea, fighting the land, fighting disease and insects and weather and space and time, for him, while he chatters that all men have a right to security and that some pagan god—Society, The State, The Government, The Commune—must give it to them. Let the fighting men stop fighting this inhuman earth for one hour, and he will learn how much security there is.”
― Rose Wilder Lane

“How does one man assert his power over another, Winston?“

Winston thought. “By making him suffer”, he said.

“Exactly. By making him suffer. Obedience is not enough. Unless he is suffering, how can you be sure that he is obeying your will and not his own? Power is in inflicting pain and humiliation. Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing. Do you begin to see, then, what kind of world we are creating? It is the exact opposite of the stupid hedonistic Utopias that the old reformers imagined. A world of fear and treachery is torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. The old civilizations claimed that they were founded on love or justice. Ours is founded upon hatred. In our world there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph, and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy – everything. Already we are breaking down the habits of thought which have survived from before the Revolution. We have cut the links between child and parent, and between man and man, and between man and woman. No one dares trust a wife or a child or a friend any longer. But in the future there will be no wives and no friends. Children will be taken from their mothers at birth, as one takes eggs from a hen. The sex instinct will be eradicated. Procreation will be an annual formality like the renewal of a ration card. We shall abolish the orgasm. Our neurologists are at work upon it now. There will be no loyalty, except loyalty towards the Party. There will be no love, except the love of Big Brother. There will be no laughter, except the laugh of triumph over a defeated enemy. There will be no art, no literature, no science. When we are omnipotent we shall have no more need of science. There will be no distinction between beauty and ugliness. There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed.”
― George Orwell, 1984

“believe ideas can be dangerous, even popular ideas held by millions, and I furthermore believe we ought to be able to discuss such ideas freely. Unfortunately, there is a growing mob mentality even in the United States that allows unpopular ideas to be shouted down and the people voicing them to be accused of closed-mindedness and bigotry.”
― Nabeel Qureshi, Answering Jihad: A Better Way Forward

“This difference between Eastern and Western education can be traced to the disparity that divides Muslim immigrants from their children. Islamic cultures tend to establish people of high status as authorities whereas the authority in Western culture is reason itself. These alternative seats of authority permeate the mind, determining the moral outlook of whole societies. When authority is derived from position rather than reason, the act of questioning leadership is dangerous because it has the potential to upset the system. Dissention is reprimanded and obedience in rewarded. Correct and incorrect courses of action are assessed socially, not individually. A person’s virtue is thus determined by how well he meets social expectations, not by an individual determination of right and wrong. Thus positional authority yields a society that determines right and wrong based on honor and shame. On the other hand, when authority is derived from reason, questions are welcome because critical examination sharpens the very basis of authority. Each person is expected to criticially examine his own course of action. Correct and incorrect courses of action are assessed individually. A person’s virtue is determined by whether he does what he knows to be right and wrong. Rational authority creates a society which determines right and wrong based on innocence and guilt. Much of the West’s inability to understand the East stems from the paradigmatic schism between honor/ shame cultures and innocence/ guilt cultures. Of course, the matter is quite complex, and elements of both paradigms are present in both the East and the West. But the honor/ shame spectrum is the operative paradigm that drives the East and it is hard for Westerners to understand.”
― Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus: A Devout Muslim Encounters Christianity

“Well before the collapse of the Soviet bloc, Ludwig von Mises showed that far from representing the only rational economic system that could remedy the “anarchy” of the market, the socialist planned economy is utterly irrational. Its irrationality is due to the elimination of the essential indices for determining rational production and distribution – namely, prices.”
― Michael Rectenwald, Springtime for Snowflakes: Social Justice and Its Postmodern Parentage

“We are told that rising CO2 levels will cause a “sixth mass extinction”—a species extinction so devastating that we literally won’t be able to live. Given that previous mass extinctions involved phenomena that blocked out massive amounts of light and warmth, like the giant asteroid that left a ninety-three-mile wide, twelve-mile-deep crater 66 million years ago in what is now Mexico, there is an incredibly high bar to claim that an increase in a warming and fertilizing gas will cause mass extinction.”
― Alex Epstein, Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less

“It's not that I feel that school is a good idea gone wrong, but a wrong idea from the word go. It's a nutty notion that we can have a place where nothing but learning happens, cut off from the rest of life.”
― John Holt