A true conservative cherishes prudence and believes in fiscal responsibility, balanced budgets and a self-reliant republic. He believes in saving for retirement and a rainy day, in deferred gratification, in not buying on credit what you cannot afford, in living within your means. –Patrick Buchanan
Quote, On The failure of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac
“Politics, under democracy,” Mencken wrote more than 80 years ago, “resolves itself into impossible alternatives. Whatever the label on the parties, or the war cries issuing from the demagogues who lead them, the practical choice is between the plutocracy on the one side and a rabble of preposterous impossibilists on the other.” And in a declaration even apter now than it was at the time, he concluded that what democracy “needs beyond everything is a party of liberty.”
The trouble is, however, that now, even more than then, the American people have little interest in liberty. Instead, they want the impossible: home ownership for those who cannot afford homes, credit for those who are not creditworthy, old-age pensions for those who have not saved, health care for those who make no attempt to keep themselves healthy, and college educations for those who lack the wit to finish high school. Moreover, they want it now, and they want somebody else to pay for it.
If you think that Fannie and Freddie’s bust is a big deal, just wait until Medicare comes crashing down. Then, the wailing and gnashing of teeth will be truly unbearable. As that day rapidly approaches, however, you’ll notice that the politicians are doing utterly nothing to forestall it.–Robert Higgs
Quote, On Sarah Palin
The apprenticeship of Sarah Palin is an object lesson in how the neocons took over the American Right and saddled the GOP with their agenda of “big government conservatism” and perpetual war. Her brainwashing limns the experience and fate of the larger conservative movement, which has been reduced, these days, to a militaristic cult that remembers nothing of its origins – a movement of neocon pod-people.–Justin Raimondo
Quote, On Iraq War
The perception in the US that the tide has turned in Iraq is in part because of a change in the attitude of the foreign, largely American, media. The war in Iraq has now been going on for five years, longer than the First World War, and the world is bored with it. US television networks maintain expensive bureaux in Baghdad, but little of what they produce gets on the air. When it does, viewers turn off. US newspaper bureaux are being cut in size. The result of all this is that the American voter hears less of violence in Iraq and can suppose that America’s military adventure there is finally coming good.–Patrick Cockburn
Quote, On Palin’s Interview with Charlie Gibson
The London Telegraph reports:
“Comments by the governor of Alaska in her first television interview, in which she said NATO may have to go to war with Russia and took a tough line on Iran’s nuclear program, were the result of two weeks of briefings by neoconservatives.”
“Sources in the McCain camp, the Republican Party, and Washington think tanks say Mrs. Palin was identified as a potential future leader of the neoconservative cause in June 2007. That was when the annual summer cruise organized by the right-of-center Weekly Standard magazine docked in Juneau, the Alaskan state capital, and the pundits on board took tea with Governor Palin.”
Quote, on the McCainiacs
McCain and his top advisors are ideologues who care about one thing and one thing only: war. The glory of it, the utility of it, the necessity of it. It’s the McCain panacea, like “free silver” was to William Jennings Bryan and socialism was to Eugene Debs. It’s his answer to everything: it solves all problems, and, more importantly, stifles all criticism. If you doubt his veracity, question his good intentions, or point out his inconsistencies, you’re attacking a war hero, doubting the divine wisdom suffering is supposed to impart.–Justin Raimondo
Quote, on John McCain
If there’s a good argument for John McCain, it might be that he’s old, has a history of serious illness, and has chosen Sarah Palin as his veep. —Scott McConnell
On Imperialism, Quote
“There was a time, seventy, eighty, a hundred years ago, that we Americans sat here in the western hemisphere, and puzzled over why British imperialists went to places like Iraq and Afghanistan. We viewed that sort of imperial adventurism with disdain. But, it’s really become part of what we do. Unless a President could ask fundamental questions about our posture in the world, it becomes impossible then, for any American President to engage the American people in some sort of a conversation about how and whether or not to change the way we live,” – Andrew Bacevich, on Bill Moyers.
(Thanks to Andrew Sullivan)
Quote, Calvin on adversity
For as all prosperity flows from his goodness, so adversity is either the rod with which he corrects our sins, or the test of our faith and patience.
–John Calvin, commentary on Genesis 32.
Quote, Hayek’s Road to Serfdom
We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish.— F. A. Hayek