"In 1789 the Federalists adopted Alien and Sedition Acts in a shabby political effort to isolate the Republic from the world and to punish political criticism as seditious libel. In the 1920's the Attorney General of the United States degraded his office by hunting political radicals as if they were Salem witches. The Nation's only gain from his efforts were the classic dissents of Holmes and Brandeis in Olmstead v. United States.
The architects of fear have converted a wholesome law against conspiracy into an instrument for making association a crime. Pretending to fear government they have asked government to outlaw private protest. They glorify 'togetherness' when it is theirs, and call it conspiracy when it is that of others.
In listing these abuses I do not mean to condemn our central effort to protect the Nation's security. The dangers that surround us have been very great, and many of our measures of vigilance have ample justification. Yet there are few among us who do not share a portion of the blame for not recognizing soon enough the dark tendency towards an excess of caution.”
John F. Kennedy, Speech, New York, September 14, 1960
"Decency, security and liberty alike demand that government officials shall be subjected to the same rules of conduct that are commands to the citizen. In a government of laws, existence of the government will be imperiled if it fails to observe the law scrupulously. Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.
Crime is contagious. If the Government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself; it invites anarchy. To declare that in the administration of the criminal law the end justifies the means — to declare that the Government may commit crimes in order to secure the conviction of a private criminal — would bring terrible retribution. Against that pernicious doctrine this Court should resolutely set its face."
Louis Brandeis, dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 1928
"Many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are
beneath his dignity — that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you
becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the
Dictatorship of Pride — just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was
allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility
of love, or contentment, or even common sense."
C.S. Lewis, The Great Sin, Mere Christianity, 1943
"Successful totalitarian rule is precisely that because it allows little variation in its subjects’ intentions—and the Nazi regime was a totalitarian regime par excellence. When Hitler spoke of the German ‘Volk’ he did not make a suggestion, but a demand: 'if a German, you are a Nazi or a traitor'.
It is crudely general to suggest collective responsibility for the German populace. It is, however, fair to suggest that those who continued to defend the idea of Germanhood publicly as the war went on — when this had become synonymous with barbarity — were in fact renouncing their humanity for the sake of individual survival and peace of mind."
Panayiotis Demopoulos, Götterdämmerung: Suicide Music and the National Self, May 2014
Because of the Memorial Day Holiday on the 25th this will be a three day weekend.
Stocks continued their rally despite the unsatisfactory economic and corporate news.
They fell back into the close.
Trump canceled his golf outing and will not be going to his son's wedding this weekend, staying in Washington instead for the holiday.
Israeli media is saying that the course of the Israel-Iran conflict will be decided soon.
It's hard to tell with this crew, as they are given to bluffing, bluster, and lying about even ordinary things.
This could also just be a prelude to an assault on Cuba, to serve as a distraction to the failing strategy with Iran. The words about Iran may just be the usual fruitless, sociopathic jawboning.
Tulsi Gabbard has resigned today as the US Director of National Intelligence. One of her highly placed deputies and relative of RFK Jr. has also resigned, in addition to the headline resignation of Joe Kent.
I am only surprised that she waited so long to resign, given the differences in assessments between US intelligence and the Trump Administration and neocons in the deep state.
Gold and silver were hit, and then recovered.
These markets are now less than capital allocation with risk and price discovery, and more like a street game of three card monte.
We have fallen into the moral hazard of lawlessness, where financial crimes are overlooked and pardoned, and even murder can be committed by those in power without regard to justice.
US consumer confidence has fallen to the lowest level since I was in third grade. And that's a long time.
Monday is Memorial Day. I can remember when it was called 'Decoration Day.'
It started shortly after the Civil War in 1868. It was expanded after WW I to include all those who died in military service.
It was formalized as the federal holiday we have today in 1968.
As we remember those who sacrificed so much for the freedom that we have had in this country, it is a fitting time to remember who we are, the oaths we have taken, and how we have been called to serve, not ourselves, not any man or class, but the loving commandments of He who has laid the foundations of the world.
Need little, want less, love more. For those who abide in love abide in God, and God in them.
He died for us, so we can live with Him.
¡Viva Cristo Rey!
Have a pleasant weekend.
