“In a democracy dissent is an act of faith. Like medicine, the test of its value is not its taste but its effect, not how it makes people feel at the moment but how it makes them feel and moves them to act in the long run. Criticism may embarrass the country’s leaders in the short run but strengthen their hand in the long run; it may destroy a consensus on policy while expressing a consensus of values. There is, or ought to be, such a thing as being too confident to conform, too strong to be silent in the face of apparent error.
Criticism, in short, is more than a right; it is an act of patriotism, a higher form of patriotism, I believe, than the familiar rituals of national adulation. If nonetheless the critic is charged with a lack of patriotism, he can reply with Camus, 'No, I didn’t love my country, if pointing out what is unjust in what we love amounts to not loving, if insisting that what we love should measure up to the finest image we have of her amounts to not loving.'...
Throughout our history two strands have coexisted uneasily; a dominant strand of democratic humanism and a lesser but durable strand of intolerant Puritanism. There has been a tendency through the years for reason and moderation to prevail as long as things are going tolerably well or as long as our problems seem clear and finite and manageable. But when some event or leader of opinion has aroused the people to a state of high emotion, our Puritan spirit has tended to break through, leading us to look at the world through the distorting prism of a harsh and angry moralism.”
J. William Fulbright, The Arrogance of Power
"Joan [of Arc] was a being so uplifted from the ordinary run of mankind that she finds no equal in a thousand years. She embodied the natural goodness and valour of the human race in unexampled perfection. Unconquerable courage, infinite compassion, the virtue of the simple, the wisdom of the just, shone forth in her. She glorifies as she freed the soil from which she sprang."
Winston Churchill
"I do not know what love or hatred God may have for the English. But I do know that they will all be thrown out of France, except for those who die there.
Even the little children say that people are hung sometimes for speaking the truth to power.
But I do not fear the soldiers, for my road is made open to me. And if the soldiers come, I have God, my Lord, who will know how to clear the road that leads to the Dauphin. It is for this that I was born."
Joan of Arc
Today was the May option expiration for the precious metals on the Comex.
Gold moved decisively higher as silver folloed back into the black for the week.
The Dollar finished largely unchanged.
Stocks were struggling after a failed rally attempt this morning, but managed to bounce out of the red into the close.
Malaysia is proposing a common Asian trading currency backed by gold.
Gold is coiled for a move. Let's see which way it goes.
Have a pleasant evening.
