Every word that comes from Hitler’s mouth is a lie. When he says peace, he means war, and when he blasphemously uses the name of the Almighty, he means the power of evil, the fallen angel, Satan. His mouth is the foul-smelling maw of Hell, and his might is at bottom accursed. True, we must conduct a struggle against the National Socialist terrorist state with rational means; but whoever today still doubts the reality, the existence of demonic powers, has failed by a wide margin to understand the metaphysical background of this war.
“We’re not going to throw out capitalism,” declared Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former New York City mayor now seeking the Democratic Party’s nomination for president.
“Other countries tried that. It was called communism and it just didn’t work.”
Bloomberg was responding to a question by MSNBC’s Hallie Jackson at Wednesday night’s Las Vegas debate regarding his thoughts on Sen. Bernie Sanders’ proposal to “require all large companies to turn over up to 20 percent of their ownership to employees over time.”
“Let’s talk about democratic socialism, Mr. Bloomberg,” countered Sanders. “Not communism — that’s a cheap shot!”
But is it?
The Vermont Senator has a long history of offering effusive praise for repressive socialist and communist regimes, including the Soviet Union, Cuba, and Nicaragua. After lauding the late Fidel Castro for providing healthcare and education and “totally transform[ing] the society” — while ignoring Castro’s complete disregard for human rights — Bernie judiciously added, “Not to say that Fidel Castro or Cuba are perfect, they are certainly not.”
Sanders has also called for “public ownership of the major means of production.” Unlike Karl Marx, I guess Bernie doesn’t sweat the small stuff.
“What a wonderful country we have. The best-known socialist in the country,” offered Bloomberg, referring to Sanders, “happens to be a millionaire with three houses!
“What did I miss?”
Asserting a need for a second residence, the Vermont senator replied, “Well, you missed that I work in Washington.”
“That’s the first problem,” Bloomberg interjected.
Those who know that the consensus of many centuries has sanctioned the conception that the earth remains at rest in the middle of the heavens as its center, would, I reflected, regard it as an insane pronouncement if I made the opposite assertion that the earth moves.
On Feb. 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto.
On Feb. 21, 1916, the Battle of Verdun began with German bombardment of the city of Verdun, France. For ten months, the longest single engagement of the First World War, German forces attacked the French along a 20-kilometer front crossing the Meuse River. When the battle ended, with no change in the strategic position of either army, the combined death toll was over 300,000 (out of over 700,000 casualties).
On Feb. 21, 1965, Malcolm X was gunned down by rival Black Muslims while addressing his Organization of Afro-American Unity in New York City.
The problem with making my own decisions? I might make a mistake.
That’s not good for me, is it?
So what you government boys ought to do is make me scrape and bow and beg for permission. Make me fill out more forms, struggle with invasive new privacy-invading requirements. Make it super-hard to comply — so I give up before I do anything . . . ill-considered.
That way, you prevent me from taking actions that might just possibly go badly — like investing my own hard-earned money the way I want to.
But let me clarify. By “me” I mean every small independent investor. By “give it to me” I mean “don’t give it to me.”
Don’t do what Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Jay Clayton and other SEC commissioners are considering: imposing a regulation to “effectively ban many middle-class investors from buying mutual funds and exchange-traded funds.”
Don’t make it lots harder to use the Robinhood app to make certain low-fee or no-fee purchases. Don’t prevent investors from buying funds through discount brokerages and apps like Robinhood unless they first fill out an intrusive questionnaire about their personal finances and pray for permission.
Don’t make us beg to invest.
Don’t.
Stop mulling whether to further harass Americans who want to be free to make their own choices and live their own lives.
Don’t enslave.
Liberate. Laissez nous faire, you condescending thugs.
Do not go gentle into that good night, Old age should burn and rave at close of day; Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at their end know dark is right, Because their words had forked no lightning they Do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright Their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way, Do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that good night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Dylan Thomas, who arrived in New York City for his first reading tour of the U.S. on Feb. 20, 1950.
On February 20, 1991,in the Albanian capital Tirana, a gigantic statue of Albania’s long-time leader, Enver Hoxha, is brought down by mobs of angry protesters.
If I’m ever Back on the Chain Gang, I want to be shackled right next to Chrissie Hynde, the lead singer of The Pretenders, who sang that 1980s song.
Actually, I’m generally a little Middle of the Road on their music. But I enjoy hearing The Pretenders’ hit My City Was Gone used as intro music on Rush Limbaugh’s radio program.
With permission.
Some time back, Hynde gave the okay because her late father was a big Rush fan.
Wait — there’s more!
“Liberal rock star Chrissie Hynde,” the UK’s Daily Mailreports, “has shocked her fans by praising Donald Trump for honoring conservative radio icon Rush Limbaugh, saying her father ‘would have been so delighted.’”
In an open letter to President Trump via a series of tweets, Hynde noted the awarding of the Medal of Freedom to Mr. Limbaugh as one reason that her dad, had he lived to see it, “would have enjoyed your Presidency.”
Hynde explained that she and her father “didn’t always see eye-to-eye. We argued a lot.”
“But isn’t that the American way?” she asked. “The right to disagree without having your head chopped off?”*
Of course, when Rush Limbaugh announced his cancer diagnosis, it did not stop some “progressive” political opponents from mocking him and celebrating his misfortune. Hynde faced plenty of nasty backlash, too.
Still, her obvious caring for humans with whom she happens to politically disagree sparked more support . . . and cogent observations.
“Ohh. Careful ma’am,” Otto replied to @ChrissieHynde and @realDonaldTrump. “If we stop hating each other we might start noticing how corrupt and self serving the political class is.”
It is eminently observable.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
* The rock star also lobbied the president, calling Wikileaks’ founder Julian Assange “a man who sought to defend Freedom” and arguing that he “should now be set free. Please consider my plea.” I hope Mr. Trump will.
February 19, 1942, was a sad day for constitutional rights, with President Franklin D. Roosevelt signing Executive Order 9066, authorizing the Secretary of War to prescribe certain areas of the country as military zones. These zones were used to incarcerate Japanese Americans in internment camps.
[T]hrift is never popular. . . . If parliaments have historically been the guardians of thrift, they now have turned much rather into its sworn enemies. Nowadays, the political and national parties — maybe not exclusively in our own country, but certainly also here — tend to develop a certain covetousness, almost considered to be dutiful, for all kinds of benefits for their own electorate at the expense of the general public.
Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk, as quoted by Ludwig von Mises, “The Economist Eugen von Böhm-Bawerk” (Neue Freie Presse, Vienna, August 27, 1924) — described by Mises as “the last words that Böhm-Bawerk addressed to Austria’s financial authorities.”
