Let us be clear, if you carry a knife our objective and determination is that you will be caught; you will be prosecuted; you will be punished. 
But we want to do all in our power also to prevent anyone carrying a knife in the first place.

- Gordon Brown, 2008; Prime Minister of (formerly) Great Britain.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

- Robert J. Hanlon

We have all heard the old saying that giving a man a fish feeds him only for a day, while teaching him to fish feeds him for a lifetime. Redistributionists give him a fish and leave him dependent on the government for more fish in the future.
If the redistributionists were serious, what they would want to distribute is the ability to fish, or to be productive in other ways. Knowledge is one of the few things that can be distributed to people without reducing the amount held by others.
That would better serve the interests of the poor, but it would not serve the interests of politicians who want to exercise power, and to get the votes of people who are dependent on them.

- Thomas Sowell, The Fallacy...

We live in a society that David McCullough Jr. describes as rewarding mediocrity because everything fairness and equality. Everyone is special, so nobody is. Everyone should get a prize for participating. And even though Johnny didn't win, we're going to give him a trophy for trying because he is special, too. Competition is bad because there is a winner and loser, and that's not fair. This fundamentally wrong notion breeds false equality and ultimately false fairness and entitlement. We do no one a favor by preaching this. We are lazy parents if we can't find a constructive way to celebrate the winner and help our children be happy for him. Instead, we have chosen an easier road: to make all things fair and equal. If nothing can rise above, be more important, or be first, then all must be mediocre. If all must be fair and equal, all will assume the position of being just as important and just as entitled as everyone else despite the real emergency or the real need.

- Michael E. Jacobson

RTWT.

Outwardly, we hated communist Russia; inwardly, it's what 95 per cent of the country wants.

 Jeremy Clarkson

If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

George Orwell.

Politically popular speech has always been protected: even the Jews were free to say Heil Hitler.

- Isaac Asimov

Most people are under the illusion that the 10mm Auto round was developed by Jeff Cooper and introduced with the Bren Ten pistol back in 1983. This is, like many things we take for gospel, an urban myth. The reality is that the 10mm was actually a failed scientific experiment to see if they could develop a semi-automatic cartridge that could get Chuck Norris to flinch. They couldn’t, but the 10mm did get him to smile.

:)
RTWT. Delta Elite apžvalga by Robb Allen.

Kartais taip gaila, kad ta mūsų Lietuva toks kaimas...

Preach It, Sister

Well, as P.J. O'Rourke so aptly phrased it "There's no such thing as 'we'; there's only you and me. And sometimes I'm not too sure about me." It's important to not confuse the first person plural pronoun with an actual physical entity.

"We" are not a wealthy "society". You and I live in a place that has some rich people and some poor people and some in-between people. "We" don't "just have to" do anything. There may be things you need to do or things I want to do, but we aren't part of some borg-like collective with collective responsibilities, wants and needs.

If you want to be compassionate, go be compassionate. I know that's usually what I do when I'm feeling compassionate, not expect some entity called "the government" to go be compassionate for me. Mailing a check to the government to help the poor because you're feeling compassionate is like handing the local crackhead a twenty to fetch you a pizza because you're feeling hungry.

If you think something needs to be done, you should do it. You should not assume everybody else thinks the same way or that somebody else will take care of it for you. You and I are not sticks in a fasces or cells in a jellyfish; we are individuals with the right to live our own individual lives without someone else telling us what we have to do.

- Tamara (view from the porch)

Scars are just tattoos with better stories.

- James Yeager

Jei tikėjai valdžios pažadais prieš rinkimus, o valdžia apgavo, reikia save kaltinti, o ne valdžią.

- A.Užkalnis

...the great lesson of the Yugoslav wars, a lesson the Serbs demonstrated in the days of their military supremacy: that in the post-Cold-War world there is no collective security, no international will to protect the weak against the strong; the lesson that to win freedom and security for one's people requires neither a sound argument nor a good cause but a big army.

- L.Silber & A.Little 'Yugoslavia: Death of a Nation'

Можно доставить лекарство непосредственно в проблемную точку, а можно глушить ядом весь организм, вместе с болезнью постепенно ослабляя и всего человека. Легальное оружие – лекарство, которое оказывается в нужный момент в нужном месте – в точке совершения преступления в момент его совершения. А полиция работает «по площадям».

- Александр Никонов

(Ir šiaip visas straipsnelis neblogas ir vertas perskaitymo - emocingas, tačiau teisingas.)

The object isn’t to live as long as you can, but as well as you can.

- Mike Celizic

In societies where they tried to impose their will on the free market, or push it aside, the free market became known as the “Black Market.” The market is like water…it’ll seep in, despite your best efforts.

You can’t rally people around doing nothing. Something beats nothing.
<...>
It’s hard to motivate people to join together in not spending tax money and not building big government programs. It’s often true that the best thing the government can do is nothing, but people expect the government to do something.

- Les Jones

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

- C.S. Lewis

Who goes Nazi?

Article is from 1941... but the ideas are timeless. RTWT.

It is an interesting and somewhat macabre parlor game to play at a large gathering of one’s acquaintances: to speculate who in a showdown would go Nazi. By now, I think I know. I have gone through the experience many times–in Germany, in Austria, and in France. I have come to know the types: the born Nazis, the Nazis whom democracy itself has created, the certain-to-be fellow-travelers. And I also know those who never, under any conceivable circumstances, would become Nazis.

It is preposterous to think that they are divided by any racial characteristics. Germans may be more susceptible to Nazism than most people, but I doubt it. Jews are barred out, but it is an arbitrary ruling. I know lots of Jews who are born Nazis and many others who would heil Hitler tomorrow morning if given a chance. There are Jews who have repudiated their own ancestors in order to become “Honorary Aryans and Nazis”; there are full-blooded Jews who have enthusiastically entered Hitler’s secret service. Nazism has nothing to do with race and nationality. It appeals to a certain type of mind.

There is a level of cowardice lower than that of the conformist; the fashionable non-conformist.

- Ayn Rand

Prohibition works... obviously

Kansas was dry, it stayed dry for years, and you had to go out to a bootlegger, a guy that sold whiskey illegally, to get a bottle of whiskey. That was known throughout Kansas. The bootleggers, they used to put out a sticker that said “Keep Kansas dry for Kansas youth.” The bootleggers put that sign out, and all the church people pasted it on their bumpers.

- Ed Buffaloes's uncle