Ron Shoemaker > Ron's Quotes

“Effectually the unlucky ones are signing their own death warrants whilst the people who have started the conflict sit back in comfort and safety of their bomb-proof hideaway.”
― Bill D'oa, The Ice-cream Man

“But history shows that most human beings would literally rather die than objectively reconsider the belief systems they were brought up in. The average man who reads in the newspaper about war, oppression and injustice will wonder why such pain and suffering exists, and will wish for it to end. However, if it is suggested to him that his own beliefs are contributing to the misery, he will almost certainly dismiss such a suggestion without a second thought, and may even attack the one making the suggestion.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The main reason for moral inconsistencies and betrayals, Ayn Rand believed, is that men have been taught to pursue ideals that are irrational and therefore impractical. Traditional virtues, such as self-sacrifice, faith, and humility, are contrary to the requirements of human life and happiness. They force men into the horrible dilemma of having to choose between virtue and happiness—between morality and life itself.”
― Robert James Bidinotto, Atlas Shrugged: The Novel, the Films, the Philosophy

“The true source of economic security is self-reliance and economic freedom—Social Security is immoral because it subverts both. It sabotages the virtues that enable us to survive, prosper, and enjoy our lives—and the social system that lets us exercise those virtues.”
― Don Watkins, Rooseveltcare: How Social Security is Sabotaging the Land of Self Reliance

“a large, centralized, activist government, no matter what its brave words and noble intentions, leads always to fewer freedoms, more wars, and a less human world in which to raise our children.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“The great explanation of how a disordered, unregulated system with no central control could order and regulate itself with such efficiency and precision that it would far surpass all other systems had not yet been made. That explanation, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, would not come until the seminal year of 1776.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part One: Foundations

“Central banking gives government a way to tap the productive power of the private sector and borrow from the future without the need to rely overmuch on unpopular tax increases. Government gives central banking the extreme profits that derive from immense borrowing to finance wars and other government projects.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part Two: Rupture

“For fear of upsetting Hitler, Roosevelt refused to allow Jewish immigration into America. He turned back a ship called the St. Louis filled with Jewish refugees, guaranteeing death for many of them. Roosevelt also refused to allow 20,000 Jewish orphans into America even though they all had sponsoring families through Jewish, Catholic, and Quaker aid organizations. Virtually all eventually died in Nazi death camps. Roosevelt’s refusal, according to historian Thomas Fleming, was the act that convinced Hitler that the world would not care if he pursued his final solution. And yet all that is easily brushed aside when historians judge Roosevelt to be a great president. Much is forgiven activist, big government war presidents.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part Two: Rupture

“But who would build the roads if there were no government?

You mean to tell me that 300 million people in this country and 7 billion people on the planet would just sit around in their houses and think “Gee, I’d like to go visit Fred, but I can't because there isn’t a flat thing outside for me to drive on, and I don’t know how to build it and the other 300 million or 7 billion people can’t possibly do it because there aren’t any politicians and tax collectors. If they were here then we could do it. If they were here to boss us around and steal our money and really inefficiently build the flat places, then we would be set. Then I would be comfortable and confident that I could get places. But I can’t go to Fred’s house or the market because we can’t possibly build a flat space from A to B. We can make these really small devices that enable us to contact people from all over the word that fits in our pockets; we can make machines that we drive around in, but no, we can’t possibly build a flat space.”
― Larken Rose

“I'm not scared of the Maos and the Stalins and the Hitlers.
I'm scared of the thousands of millions of people that hallucinate them to be "authority", and so do their bidding, and pay for their empires, and carry out their orders.
I don't care if there's one looney with a stupid moustache. He's not a threat if the people do not believe in "authority".”
― Larken Rose

“In recent decades, alternative dispute resolution (ADR), such as arbitration and mediation, have gained popularity as efficient and inexpensive methods for resolving disputes. As the court system has become bogged down with frivolous lawsuits, ADR allows for disputes to be resolved quickly and with less cost. Many contracts now call for ADR as the means for resolving any disputes arising from the contract.”
― Brian Phillips, Individual Rights and Government Wrongs

“Politics: the art of using euphemisms, lies, emotionalism and fear-mongering to dupe average people into accepting--or even demanding--their own enslavement.”
― Larken Rose

“The most important thing a government can do is not what it does but what it doesn't.”
― Mark David Ledbetter, America's Forgotten History, Part Three: A Progressive Empire

“The fewer people go to war, the fewer the casualties. It’s not a good sight. Soon enough you’ll see.”
― James Farner, 1914

“Ford dominated the automobile market, the price of a Model T decreased from $850 in 1908 to $290 in 1924.”
― Brian Phillips, Individual Rights and Government Wrongs

“The social contract known as 'The Constitution' has been null and void since the last person who signed it, died. Even then, it was only ever applicable to the men who signed it. That's how contracts work.”
― Dane Whalen

“It’s a myth that “predatory pricing” exploited American consumers and created business monopolies. ★ Thanks to government subsidies, many of America’s railroads were often laid on inefficient, circuitous routes. ★ Rockefeller, Carnegie, Dow, and other great American businessmen did more for America than all the big-government programs combined.”
― Thomas E. Woods, Politically Incorrect Guide to American History

“Contrary to empiricist doctrine, then, the principle of causality must be taken to be a meaningful synthetic a priori statement. In fact, no empirical science could be undertaken without this basic, non-observable, non-falsifiable, understanding that causes create effects in constant and predictable ways.19”
― Christopher Chase Rachels, A Spontaneous Order: The Capitalist Case For A Stateless Society

“In short, government does not exist.”
― Larken Rose, The Most Dangerous Superstition

“The air was heavy with unspoken knowledge.”
― William Golding, Lord of the Flies

“Remembering the past must be combined with understanding the past to be of any lasting value. Where”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“New Yorkers who had gone to bed on Sunday evening to the sound of rain were startled on Monday morning to find snow sifting in through cracks around their windows and piling up in front of their doors so fast that even those who left home at dawn had to dig their way out.”
― Mary Cable, The Blizzard of 88

“For forms existing in larger numbers will always have a better chance, within any given period, of presenting further favourable variations for natural selection to seize on, than will the rarer forms which exist in lesser numbers.”
― Charles Darwin, On the Origin of Species

“If you personally advocate that I be caged if I don't pay for whatever "government" things YOU want, please don't pretend to be tolerant, or non-violent, or enlightened, or compassionate. Don't pretend you believe in "live and let live," and don't pretend you want peace, freedom or harmony. It's a simple truism that the only people in the world who are willing to "live and let live" are voluntaryists. So you can either PRETEND to care about and respect your fellow man while continuing to advocate widespread authoritarian violence, or you can embrace the concepts of self-ownership and peaceful coexistence, and become an anarchist.”
― Larken Rose

“In war, truth is the first casualty. —AESCHYLUS”
― Harold G. Moore, We Were Soldiers Once . . . and Young: Ia Drang-The Battle That Changed the War in Vietnam

“realize how different the world looks to everyone else. They’re chatting about what to have for dinner, or what happened on some stupid TV show. They’ll never know.”
― Larken Rose, The Iron Web

“Patriotism is the product of successful systematic indoctrination.”
― Dane Whalen

“Europeans and Americans remembered World War I, but their memory of its horrible devastation was not enough to keep them out of the even greater disaster of World War II. For Americans, their memory of the global carnage of World War II was not enough to bar them from the Vietnam War. As we have seen, memory alone of the matchless horrors of war is not enough to obsolete human warfare as a strategy for resolving international disputes.”
― Jay Snelson, Taming the Violence of Faith: Win-Win Solutions for Our World in Crisis

“A report for the Police Foundation, a non-profit organization that provides research and training for law enforcement officers, found:   Since the early 1990s, over the same time period as legal and especially illegal immigration was reaching and surpassing historic highs, crime rates have declined, both nationally and most notably in cities and regions of high immigrant concentration (including cities with large numbers of undocumented immigrants, such as Los Angeles and border cities like San Diego and El Paso, as well as New York, Chicago, and Miami).193”
― Brian Phillips, Individual Rights and Government Wrongs

“Honey,” Bessie’s mamma used to say, “politicians and judges and coppers are money-grubbing thieves. They’ll screw you, and rob you, and win elections for doing it, but there’s no way around them. Smile and pay the sonsabitches off.” The”
― Mary Doria Russell, Doc