no. 455

"It strikes me as sad when something becomes widely disregarded. Piles of unsold Halloween “goods” are shoved into bins, to wait in the shadow of aisles filled with Christmas and Thanksgiving. No, I don’t especially want or care about plastic skulls and pumpkins. It is not about the object, I think, but the inherent humanity present in that object. Somebody made it. This would not exist if not for them, and yet what value does that add to such a thing? There is no passion in the factory, so none ends in the product. It is the way of our world to create in surplus while stripping away significance, one very much costing the other. I know the person who made this stuff didn’t give a shit. I wouldn’t. But when I look at that pumpkin, I see a small bit of someone’s life and can’t help but feel it deserves better than the throwaway bin at Fred Meyer."

Alex Hobbs

no. 395

You cannot call yourself pro-liberty, even including the word in your name, if you are unwilling to recognize that the greatest oppressive force opposing freedom in America is unregulated greed. Libertarianism is a philosophy for the well-off, the privileged, and those who dream someday of being a wealthy boss with power over the peons. When capital is the measure of success, those who have it thrive at the expense of those who don’t; when we don’t have redistribution of wealth, we do not have equality of opportunity.

The US is already a libertarian paradise, and look what it gets us: a widening gap between rich and poor, a rotting infrastructure as the exploiters look for short term gains while neglecting services vital to those who can’t afford a limousine service, a corrupt and decadent privileged class, and thriving new political parties that are simply nuts. To use one of Ayn Rand’s favorite words, this country is infested with looters: only they’re not the poor, they’re not the mythical “welfare queens”, they’re bankers and obscenely overpaid executives and corporations that demand the right to buy elections.

And there stand the libertarians, the useful idiots who cheer them on.

P. Z. Myers, So I Invented a New Law the Other Day

stolen whole cloth from Rational Rant, who knows a thing or two about quotes.

no. 323